The Wassaic Project is a free festival featuring the work of hundreds of artists who get together in the picturesque Wassaic hamlet for a weekend of culture, dancing and performances. We talked to Director of Film Programming, Liliana Greenfield-Sanders, about this year’s features which include Tribeca Film Festival winner Zero Motivation as well as other exciting debuts. Greenfield-Sanders herself is an accomplished filmmaker whose own Adelaide from 2009 won several awards in the festival circuit. We talked to her while she was in Los Angeles and discussed some of her favorite things about being a New Yorker, as well as what to expect from this year’s festival.
You’re an East Village girl, right?
Yeah! I miss it a lot.
What else do you miss when you’re not in the city?
Food delivery (laughs) The situation out here is grim. I miss walking. My mom suggested to me that I was getting bedsores from not walking. I visited recently, I try to go back as much as possible. It’s just that there is so much going on when you’re walking outside and sometimes you forget that. You’re walking and there are so many interesting people and as a writer I love that about New York. Looking around and getting lost in watching people. It sounds so cheesy I know...I also always took the bus and I think it was because you can really watch people. If you have the time, I suggest you catch the bus.
What do you miss the least?
Oh boy…Wow...let me think.
Well, I’m glad I missed that winter for sure (laughs) I was really mean to my parents about it as well, kept calling them and bragging about the heat in California and they would hang up on me. Again, turning it into a positive, I do miss the weather changes. NY and LA are very different, I can sit outside all day long her, in a very controlled temperature and that’s always nice.
How did you become involved with The Wassaic Project?
I have known Bowie Zunino, one of the co-founders and directors, since I was born. She and her husband Jeff Barnett-Winsby have this infectious energy that’s really fun to be involved with. That’s kinda what happened. The first Wassaic Project was pretty much just them throwing a party for their friends, and trying to get people to go up there, more people came than they expected and they asked me to show one of my films. As the project grew and I started reaching out to more people I started searching for more interesting films, that would connect more to audiences. We’ve been very careful to make sure that the project grows exponentially this year, but also keeping in touch with what we originally started out to do, which is to make it really accessible for artists and for people from New York who wanna take the train ride and experience this free festival.
What can you tell us about the festivities and the location and what goes on?
The space is amazing and we kinda grew around the space a bit. There was an abandoned cattle auction ring that we turned into our movie theater, there’s a seven story granary where we show anything from 70 to 100 artists’ work. We built stages outside of the horse barns, which full year round serve as residency spaces, we show dance and we screen films outdoors as well. We’ve adapted into what people want and what we would want.
Pitch the festival to stubborn people who refuse to leave the city.
I would say it’s a multidisciplinary festival which you won’t find anywhere else, it’s a train ride away from New York, you’re in the scenic Hudson valley and within half an hour you can see art, check out musical performances, see a movie, go on a hike, and then camp at night! Or you can go to the bar if that’s more your thing too! It’s like a fun party but you’re also getting your fill of amazing culture.
As a filmmaker, how did you become so interested in sharing the work of other filmmakers, instead of focusing exclusively on doing your own movies?
I’ve always been interested in helping other filmmakers, I think it’s important to do that, I went to film school and that experience was about working together. I’m proud of the independent film community. I think it came out of me going to festivals and being blown away by other people’s work. Our selection this year is amazing, and I think it’s the bold, unapologetic vision that I love.
Can you expand on this year’s selection?
I think what I love about these films, is that they’re all first features and they’re all important new voices, because they take chances, they’re not constrained by how the box office will do. They say what they want to say, they could be lumped into a certain kind of category, like “heavily directed by females” or “darkly comedic”, but it’s also very diverse. You have Talya Lavie in Zero Motivation talking about soldiers in a very acerbic way, then you have Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers, in Fort Tilden, doing this strangely tender take on adolescence and then Desiree Akhavan’s film Appropriate Behavior shows a vision no one else has, she explores bisexuality in this in-your-face way with her Persian American background, she is who she is and puts it all out there on the table.
Can you talk about Desiree Akhavan’s residency?
She’ll be working on her second feature, working with a mentor. We have the facility up there and it’s really cool to give artists a place to get out of the city and concentrate on their art. This is our first writing residency, but we’ve had many others in the past.
What other projects do you have in store?
I’m always working on too many projects. I just finished the Warner Bros. TV Workshop and am finishing writing my pilot. Right now I’m very focused on Wassaic and then I’ll be looking to work on a cable show.
The Wassaic Project runs from August 1-3. Click here for more information.
