Thursday, February 8------Hoboken, New Jersey, directly across the Hudson River from Manhattan, is famous for three things: the site where the American pasttime of baseball was invented; the birthplace of legendary crooner Frank Sinatra; and the location for the 1950s film classic ON THE WATERFRONT, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando, in the role that won him his first Oscar. This historical waterfront town was once a bastion of working class families, visiting sailors and tough men who worked the docks. Hoboken has become considerably more genteel (and pricey), so the next logical step in its evolution was the establishment of a film festival.

So thus was born the Hoboken International Film Festival, slated to run June 1 to 7, 2007 in what has been dubbed New Jersey's artistic capital. The festival is a week long celebration, exhibiting some of the world's finest independent films, with personal appearences by numerous film and television stars, and offering exciting and educating seminars.

Films will be exhibited on a Hudson River pier, overlooking the majestic Manhattan skyline. All filmmakers receive two all-access passes allowing them free admission to all film exhibitions, seminars, workshops, filmmakers receptions, the day-long wine tasting, and the gala awards ceremony.

The Hoboken International Film Festival is dedicated to showcasing and promoting fine non-studio films, TV pilots, and screenplays from filmmakers throughout the United States and internationally. The winner of the jury award for Best Feature Film will be granted a worldwide distribution offer from Echelon Studios. Cash prizes, ranging from $500 to $1000, are presented in 10 categories, and all officially selected films (features, documentaries & shorts) will receive an offer to be aired on a new national on-demand network, the Directorz Channel.

The first of several honorees who will be feted at the Festival's Gala Awards Ceremony is veteran actor Charles Durning, who will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. Durning is a respected character actor who has been nominated twice for the Oscar (for THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS and TO BE OR NOT TO BE), as well as a Golden Globe nomination and a National Board of Review win as Best Supporting Actor in Sidney Lumet's urban masterpiece DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975).

Sandy Mandelberger
Film New York Editor