Founded by award-winning actress, filmmaker, and curator Nora Armani, the festival will showcase films with human interest stories and socially relevant themes as a response to the proliferation of violence and violent forms of storytelling. Rated SR aims to promote positive social change through the powerful medium of cinema.
Amy Goodman, the host of Democracy Now!, will deliver the festival’s keynote address on Tuesday, March 18, and she will give out the “Rated SR Social Justice Award” for raising awareness to issues outside mainstream media. Such is the philosophy behind Democracy Now! currently aired by more than 1,000 radio, television, satellite, and cable TV networks in North America, and watched in dozens of countries via the Internet.
Tickets
Packages and discounted ticket options are now on sale at ratedsrfilms.org.
Group tickets available for parties of 10 or more at $8 per ticket through the Outreach Program.
Individual tickets are sold through the Quad Cinema.
Over thirty narrative and documentary films will screen including twelve feature films which will compete for the Grand Prize, a week-long theatrical engagement at the Quad Cinema, courtesy of the QuadFlix Select Program, and ten documentaries will compete for the documentary prize. The winner will receive a VOD DVD distribution deal, courtesy of Cinema Libre Studio, a leader in the distribution of social issue documentaries and independent feature films.
Films
Coney Island: Dreams for Sale, Alessandra Giordano, USA, 81 min, 2013, documentary
Dovid Meyer, Moshe Mones, USA/Israel, 101 min, 2013, narrative
Flore, Jean-Albert Lievre, France, 2014, 85 min, documentary
Forward 13: Waking Up the American Dream, Patrick Lovell, USA, 120 min, 2013, documentary
Full Circle, Zhang Yang, China, 2012,104 min, narrative
If Only Everyone…, Natalia Belyauskene, Armenia, 2012, 94 min, narrative
Indian Summer, Simon Brook, France, 84, 2013, documentary
My Love Awaits Me By The Sea (Habibi Biyestannani and el Bahr), Mais Darwazah, Palestinian Territories, Quatar, Germany, Jordan, 80 min, 2013, documentary
Offside Trap (Abseitsfalle), Stefan Hering, Germany, 98 min, 2012, narrative
Orphans of the Genocide, Bared Maronian, USA, 91 min, 2013, documentary
Small Small Thing, Jessica Vale, USA, 85 min, 2013, documentary
Documentary
Coal Rush, Lorena Luciano & Filippo Piscopo, USA, 85 min, 2013,
Control, Chris Bravo, Lindsey Schneider, USA, 50 min, 2013 (NYFA artist)
Destiny’s Bridge, Jack Ballo, USA, 80 min, 2013 (NYFA artist)
Fred Ho’s Last Year, Steven De Castro, USA, 58 min, 2013
From the Black You Make Color, Richie Sherman & Judy Maltz, USA, Israel, 75 min, 2012
Hamshen Community at the Crossroads of Past and Present, Lusine Sahakyan, Armenia, Turkey, 60 min, 2012
Not Who We Are, Carol Mansour, Lebanon, 72 min. 2013
Stable Life, Sara Macpherson, USA, 52 min, 2013
The Throwaways, Bhawin Suchak, USA, 62 min, 2013
Festival Partners
Academic partner, the School of the Visual Arts Social Documentary department, home of the new MFA in Social Documentary filmmaking.
Dailymotion, the official video media partner. A selection of close to 100 film trailers from the festival submissions are viewable on an official festival page, garnering close to 100,000 visits to date.
Village Voice, media partner.
Other promotional partners of the festival include: NYFA, Indieflix, Unifrance Films International, Cineuropa, Alouette Communications, FIAF, Samuel Infirmier, Final Draft and Center for Remembering and Sharing.
New-York based metalsmith designer Michael Aram has donated a special trophy to be awarded to the recognized Rated SR honoree.
The festival awards the Vanya Exerjian award to a film that raises awareness to violence against women and girls, in commemoration of Armani’s late cousin and uncle, victims of a violent hate crime.
Rated SR is a film festival that focuses on socially relevant human stories and raises awareness to social problems by offering positive solutions through the powerful medium of cinema. Rated SR believes that through raised awareness, expanded knowledge about diverse cultures, and the human condition as a whole, it is possible to create a better world free of violence, hate and crime.
Rated SR: Socially Relevant Film Festival New York shines the spotlight on filmmakers who tell compelling, socially relevant narratives across a broad range of social issues without resorting to gratuitous violence and violent forms of movie-making. Rated SR Films are enlightening, uplifting, entertaining, but most of all artistically appealing. A portion of the proceeds from ticket sales each year of the festival will be donated to a charity selected from the fields of poverty, homelessness, cancer and aging.
