Festivals Previews

NIGHTSTREAM 2021 is a go!

by Jenn Misko

It’s Opening Night of the second annual NIGHTSTREAM virtual film fest! Join me (Jenn) as I dive in, today through next Wednesday, October 13th!

What Is This Festival?

Last year, deep in the middle of pandemic lockdowns, five genre film festivals from across the United States – including our very own North Bend Film Fest – joined together Voltron-style to create a fairly spectacular new virtual genre film fest. (“Genre” mostly means “horror”, but also includes adjacent stuff like sci-fi, thriller, experimental, outré, “vanguard”, etc as well as documentaries about all of the above.) This year, even though most of those fests have also returned to some variety of in-person iteration as well, four of them still re-teamed to bring us a second edition of this special virtual fest.

Films are available to view via the fest’s Eventive platform, which can be accessed on streaming devices such as Apple TV or Roku or on a computer. Tickets can be purchased in packages of 5 or 10 films, or as individual tickets to single films as long as they don’t sell out. (At least one film has sold out already!) Most films will have a set time at which they debut, and then remain available through the end of the fest, although a select few play live at their showtime and are not available elsewhere on-demand. You can suss out which of those is which via their notes on the schedule page. Geoblocking restricts viewing to US audiences.

In 2020, as a full disclosure, I (Jenn) worked this fest as staff (and had a fantastic time with it). But this year I’m strictly press, simply covering it as a fan! Expect capsule-ish reviews sprinkled in here over the next week, which you can find tied together with a NIGHTSTREAM 2021 tag on posts.  

Feature Highlights

This year’s festival lineup includes 31 feature films as well as four shorts blocks. A special sidebar section of these features includes four rare folk-horror films, curated by Kier-La Janisse (who’s also got a documentary about folk horror to kick things off) under a “NIGHTSTREAM Retro” banner. Other features that jump out to me as highlights include:

  • Satoshi Kon, The Illusionist: a highly-anticipated documentary about the Japanese animator of such films as Perfect Blue and Paprika.
  • All My Friends Hate Me: I’m not familiar with filmmaker Andrew Gaynard or anyone in this British cast, but a “cringe-heavy and awkwardly hilarious dark comedy” sounds like it’s likely to be my speed.
  • Landlocked: a “lo-fi yet highly ambitious head-turner” involving a young man watching his family’s old home movies, a premise and description which gives me Censor or Beyond the Gates vibes.

Event Highlights

NIGHTSTREAM is also a fest that does an exceptional job with programming non-film “events”, most of which can be accessed via the fest’s Eventive platform (some only at specific times, but mostly available on-demand throughout the festival). It’s an option to purchase a Panels-only badge to the fest for $25, or access to these events comes with any film pass package purchase as well (the “Night Owl” badge comes with your choice of 5 films, or the “Homebody” badge gets you 10; it’s also possible to buy individual tickets to films, until they sell out, but those do not come with Panels access).

One thing I noticed during last year’s fest was that it was clear the programmers went to some specific lengths to include as many diverse voices as possible (women, POC, LGBTQ folks, etc). They were able to get some big names on board which led to some very interesting commentary and discussions, as well as some more socially-oriented stuff. A few events had interactive potential, like a running comments stream or even the opportunity to turn on one’s video in a Zoom, or to interact in the festival’s Gather space, which is an 8-bit virtual hangout zone (a platform also used by SIFF’s virtual fest this year) which was adorably designed with areas to look like sets from The Shining, Twin Peaks, etc.

It looks like a lot of that great stuff is coming back in new iterations this year! It’s worth perusing the entire Panels/Podcasts/Special Events lists (near the bottom on the Lineup Announcement page) to see what catches your fancy, and it’s likely every single one of them will offer something of value, but some immediate standouts to me include:

  • A Conversation with THE GREEN KNIGHT Filmmaker David Lowery: “a candid look back through the process of making his medieval fantasia”. I’m a huge fan of this film as well as this director’s work in general so very much looking forward to hearing what he has to say.
  • Anniversary Party Presented By FANGORIA: a star-studded event celebrating all kinds of milestones, featuring Karyn Kusama, Bryan Fuller, David Dastmalchian, Ernest Dickerson and more.
  • A Glitch In The Metaverse: Tech Tock with Rodney Ascher: an event with the director of creepy reality-pushing docs like Room 237, The Nightmare, and the new A Glitch in the Matrix (which is available to watch via Hulu now) – which will be available for viewing both via computer, as well as via VR headset.

Previous SunBreak Coverage

SunBreakers have actually already contributed a few reviews about films that are showing during this festival; we probably won’t be adding new reviews for these in this round, but encourage readers to check out our pre-existing coverage on:

All images courtesy of NIGHTSTREAM. NIGHTSTREAM runs virtually now through October 13th. Follow other updates from this year’s festival via our NIGHTSTREAM coverage.