Hamptons Film Festival Shows How Many Local Celebrities Want to See New Films — A Lot– And a Famous German Director Arrives

home movies The Hamptons Film Festival shows how many local celebrities are new…

The 30th Hamptons International Film Festival, which kicked off Friday night, hasn’t looked back. Big movies to date have included The Whale, The Triangle of Sadness, Groucho and Cavett, Living, The Whale, The Triangle of Sadness, Living, and Hugh Jackman in The Son “.

Brunch at Nick and Toni’s on Saturday was attended by director Peter Hedges, as well as top doc director Nancy Buirski and Oliver Hermanus, director of Living, a great movie starring Bill Nighy.

But the surprising twist of lunch was the very late arrival of an elderly gentleman through the back door who asked if he could join us. “Everybody’s gone,” he said, looking at all the empty tables previously occupied by the likes of Alec Baldwin, who plays a big part in the festival. (He later hosted a Q&A with Dick Cavett.)

So what are you doing, I asked this nice man. “I make films. I’m a director.” Anything. I would know? “Maybe. I made The Tin Drum.”

ok what???? My friend Regina Weinreich, whose documentary about Paul Bowles screened at the very first Hamptons Film Festival three decades ago, blurted out, “Are you Volker????”

He was Volker Schlöndorff, one of the most important German directors of all. He directed “The Tin Drumer” and “Swann in Love” as well as the TV version of “Death of a Salesman” with Dustin Hoffman. He lives in Berlin but knows his way around the Hamptons. He brought a documentary called The Forest Maker to the festival. A behemoth of a filmmaker just hanging out.

Over at the screening of The Whale. East Hampton Middle School’s very large theater filled up very quickly. Famed photographer Bruce Weber, Interview magazine editor Sandy Brandt and CBS’s Alina Cho were all there, as was famed Beatles and Bee Gees PR man Peter Brown. (His name is heard in “The Ballad of John and Yoko.”) Some people cried, others cleared their throats. Everyone has sworn off dessert at dinner.

author

Roger Friedman started his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years at Fox News where he created the Fox411 column. His film reviews are published by Rotten Tomatoes and he is a member of both the film and television sections of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years, including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column covering the OJ Simpson trial in the mid-’90s, and Fox News (when it wasn’t that crazy ), where he reported on Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of Only the Strong Survive, a Cannes, Sundance and Telluride film festival selection, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

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