Notes & Nonsense from the HIFF Red Carpets & Cocktails

Jerry Seinfeld’s daughter is funny. Donna Karan and Dan Gasby both believe in the afterlife. E. Jean Carroll is a good hugger. And yes, Sydney Sweeney was walking in East Hampton hand in hand with Scooter Braun. Get over it.

In all, it was a very good year for films at the 33rd Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF). It’s only the second time they’ve gone 11 days. That length is just right. And the star power shined through good and bad weather.

Co-chairman Randy Mastro had an ear-to-ear grin whenever I saw him. By the last day of the fest, he was humble-bragging about all the big names. “You saw Ethan Hawke, Elizabeth Olsen, Jodie Foster, Sydney Sweeney and then people who came as fans like Keith Richards and Ansel Elgort. People are just drawn here. The audiences, the stars, their friends. This was a stellar year.”

I’ll second that. It really did seem to be one of the best for films, long and short. With a lot of them made on Long Island. Here’s some of what I saw and the talented people who made and worked hard to get them here.

Ari Selinger wrote and directed On The End, a quintessential Hamptons movie. “The ‘End’ is Montauk” he said. He talked Tim Blake Nelson into playing a real-life mechanic who worked out of his house on the beach. Uh-oh. A mean real estate broker is trying to force him out. This can’t be true?! I liked it quite a bit. There’s lots of local color. At the Governor’s Reception Sunday Jill Bodian, a former Douglas-Elliman marketing exec told me the film has a “lot of buzz” in the real estate community because “they’re all wondering who the agent is!” If she had a theory, she wasn’t talking.

Raina Yang made Siren about a mysterious man she kept running into in Puerto Rico. Except with Hollywood and Montauk magic, she shot it out here. “Our film is in the ‘Views from Long Island’ section. We made Montauk into the Caribbean and built our own restaurant on the beach of Camp Hero State Park.” She fed the crew “The best lobster rolls from the Wavecrest Resort hotel.” So, she already wins for best craft service table.

Doug Gallo told me his mother was part of the reason he made West Landing about a group of 60ish open water swimmers in Hampton Bays. “My mom is in the group. I put a GoPro on a swimmer’s head. They all swim to a big rock. And I swam with them with my phone in one hand and paddling with the other.” What, and give up show business? And get this, he tells me, “I bought a waterproof case at Walmart that morning.” The whole film cost “no more than $500.”

That’s inspiring, but for real career chutzpah, you can’t beat Jacqueline Christy’s Magic Hour. The “based on a true story” comedy is about a 40ish woman who, fresh from a divorce, goes to NYU film school. Christy did that very thing. She was also everywhere this week. A fixture at her two screenings, a “Morning Talks” panel and roundtables. She was working it. Her advice for others who want to break into pictures? “You have to face the demons that make you doubt yourself. You get through to the other side.”

Sophie Chahinian shot a short doc about an Iranian artist who had a big show at the Parrish last summer. The film is called Shirin Neshat: Voice of a Woman. Chahinian says, “Her work deals with how women’s bodies are being used for political and religious exploitation.” She has another doc in preproduction and that’s one of the reasons she’s here. Working the rooms.

Actress, writer and director Jessie Komitor brought her short Chasing the Party about a lost New York City party scene in the mid-2000s. “One of the spaces is a karaoke bar. But it was a scene. It started with the Warhol era that fed into the club kids who went to Limelight. And that all trickled down into my movie. There was no social media. You had to hear about these parties.”

Jerry and Jessica’s daughter Sascha Seinfeld brought a short about a meeting with God, played by Henry Winkler. “And God is a Bel-Air filmmaker trying to make it in the business,” she tells me. The Final Cut has been to an Aspen fest earlier this year. Hamptonite Ali Wentworth plays God’s editor. Seinfeld is here with her producing partners Kerry Mack and Lily Hamilton. They are charming. I’m very careful not to ask the one millionth question about her famous parents. But I do coyly wonder, “who’s coming to the premiere on Saturday?” She smiles and shoots back, “No one you know.” Mic drop!

Warren Elgort made a doc about some guy named Arthur Elgort, a famous fashion photographer. “I had unlimited access to my subject because he’s my dad,” he said proudly. His brother, the actor Ansel Elgort dropped in for the premiere of Arthur Elgort: Models and Muses. Family friend Keith Richards (yes that one) clowned around on the red carpet. “We interviewed Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, the late Andre Leon Talley and Grace Coddington, the young director tells me. “With that momentum, we also got Anna Wintour. It’s been a dream.”

Speaking of dreams, No Experience Necessary is a short doc about old folks who take up ballroom dancing. “It’s Dancing with the Stars but normal people from New Jersey,” Director Emily Everhard says. She giggles when I reveal her film title has been my life’s mantra. It’s all about me! (For the record I don’t dance.)

Sag Harbor’s Joe Lauro produced Newport and the Great Folk Dream, a doc about the change in folk music from 1963 to 1966. “The arrival of The Beatles and Bob Dylan plugged in.” He loved Timothee Chalamet’s Dylan movie last year but says this project was in development “years before that movie.”

Wait, I’m off to another filmmakers’ roundtable. Actually, a round hassock. We’re grabbing stars and directors for a few minutes back in the White Room Gallery before they dash off to premieres, lunches, agent meetings, maybe bidding wars! Maybe not.

Trade Secret is about Polar Bears. They still hunt them in Canada! “Over seven years in the making, it’s a wildlife investigative thriller. We did a lot of undercover shooting in 13 countries. They’re the icons of a melting planet. But there are other threats,” says Director/Producer Abraham Joffe.

Matthew Shear made Fantasy Life about a guy who needs a job and becomes a babysitter for Judd Hirsch’s three granddaughters. “He ends up falling for their mother played by Amanda Peet.” She came out here for the film. “I’ve always been a fan, She’s a mix of beauty and self-deprecating humor.” Shear likes the Hamptons. “It’s such a respected festival and a really important stop for some of the biggest movies as they go on their Awards season journey.”

Ellen Barkin goofed with me on the red carpet for Ask E. Jean. Full disclosure. I worked with E. Jean Carroll at what’s now MSNBC in the mid 1990s when she was attacked. The film outlines her legal battle with our President. She gives me a big hug and introduces me to Barkin and her lawyer Robbie Kaplan. The doc is sensational and I believe everything in it. Sorry, haters. And I believe it for another reason Carroll told me off the record. Don’t ask. I’m not telling.

Wait, there’s more from the other side. OK, East Hampton Middle School.

At the opening night film, Eternity, Elizabeth Olsen charms the crowd with tales of channeling Shirley MacLaine. It’s her “first romantic comedy,” she says. The film about the afterlife has Donna Karan admitting to me she’s looking forward to “seeing her husband there.” Partner and husband of the late icon B. Smith, Dan Gasby tells me, “There’s something after this life. I don’t know what it is, heaven or hell, but we’re always evolving.”

TV Veteran Bill Boggs braved the elements for Guild Hall (it’s back!) and liked Hamnet, explaining, “It’s about the creation of the masterpiece play Hamlet who is played by the gifted and tremendously talented Paul Mescal as the ‘Old Bard.'” I didn’t see it and he may be right. It’s got a lot of Oscar buzz.

But…

For me, hands down the best film of the festival was Sentimental Value by Joachim Trier and featuring his The Worst Person in the World star Renate Reinsve who, for my euro, is the new Meryl Streep. OK, I hear you. I need to calm down. But it got a standing ovation on a Saturday morning and this film will be in the Oscar conversation, I promise. Also in my Top 10.

Other things I saw included Christy with Sydney Sweeney (standard horrific bio pic stuff until the end when it soars). Also, she’s the best thing about the film, and until Euphoria comes back, she needs this to hit.

I attended only one of the “Morning Talks” and it was terrific. PR maven Peggy Siegal was front and center for each of them and proclaimed them all “great.” I saw HIFF Chief Creative Officer David Nugent at every screening. He was the Casey Kasem of the fest, counting down before each film. “This is number 101 — we have 83 left.” He also said he’d be waking up for a few days and automatically “thanking Audi and all the other sponsors.”

In the end, even a nor’easter couldn’t keep audiences away from Bradley Cooper. His Monday afternoon screening of Is This Thing On? sold out quickly, so the festival added another screening. I was looking forward to this one. In addition to directing, Cooper has a small role. The leads are Laura Dern and Will Arnett. He’s a stand-up comedian bringing his failed marriage to New York’s Comedy Cellar. Lots of real comics play supporting roles. And it’s good, but in stand-up terms, it’s a “loose set that closes well.”

And that’s a wrap. The 33rd Hamptons International Film Festival was, in Variety terms, “Boffo.” Board member Alec Baldwin summed it up for me. “Nugent says it’s the best year ever. He says that every year. We should just get him a T-shirt that says that.” Look for it on the merch table in the Regal East Hampton next year.

Bill McCuddy just keeps writing stuff and we keep publishing it. He spent 12 years on the red carpets of the Oscars, Golden Globes and “Anyplace else they’d hand out a statue.” He’s on a monthly national PBS/AllArts show that reviews films, has a WLIW-FM monthly show called “Air Hamptons” and votes in the annual Critic’s Choice Awards.