HIFF Screens 'Kinsey' at Bay Street Thursday
The Hamptons International Film Festival is continuing their 25 Years: 25 Films series with 2004 HIFF selection Kinsey at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor on Thursday, April 20. Written and directed by Academy Award-winner Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters), the film stars Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Chris O’Donnell, Peter Sarsgaard, Timothy Hutton, John Lithgow, Tim Curry, Oliver Platt, and Dylan Baker.
Kinsey is a biopic about its titular real-life subject, sexologist Dr. Alfred Kinsey (played by Neeson), who in 1948 irrevocably changed American culture and created a media sensation with his book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. The drama is at once a portrait of a man driven to uncover the most private secrets of the nation, and a journey into the mystery of human behavior.
Asking thousands of people about the most intimate aspects of their lives, Kinsey lifted the weight of doubt and shame from a society in which sex was hidden and knowledge was dangerous. His work sparked one of the most intense cultural debates of the past century—a debate that rages on today. The controversial scientist is responsible for his eponymous Kinsey Scale, which argues all people land on various points between heterosexual and homosexual, rather than simply being 100 percent straight or 100 percent gay.
Neeson and Linney, who plays Kinsey’s wife, earned Golden Globes nominations for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress for their performances, and Linney earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The film was also nominated for a Best Picture Golden Globe. According to IMDB, Kinsey won a total of 11 awards and picked up 27 more nominations.
The Hamptons International Film Festival started the 25 Years: 25 Films screenings to celebrate the festival’s 25th anniversary. HIFF films from 1993 to 2016 are being shown almost weekly, since February, in venues across the Hamptons, as well as some outside New York. The series concludes and will conclude with the 25th Annual Hamptons Film Film Festival taking place over Columbus Day weekend, October 5–9.
The next film in the series is the 2011 HIFF selection No Man’s Land, which will be shown at Bay Street on Thursday, April 27 at 6 p.m.
Kinsey (118 minutes) starts at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 20 at Bay Street Theater (1 Bay Street) in Sag Harbor. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased here.
To learn more about the 25 Years: 25 Films Screening Series, visit the HIFF website here.