Niagara Falls International Film Festival Announces Line-up

Some Hollywood stardust coming to Niagara Falls on September 18th through the 21st. What's up?  It's The Niagara Falls International Film Festival (NFIFF).

Academy Award winner Louis Gossett Jr. will receive the NFIFF Legacy Award.  Other stars on hand: Robert Carradine, Perry Lang, Kelly Ward, and Bobby Di Ciccio,

Here is the news fresh from the NFIFF website,

 NFIFF will open with a Red Carpet Gala on Wednesday, September 18 at The Rapids Theatre (1711 Main Street) celebrating the films and career of  Director Samuel Fuller... the filmmaker’s wife and daughter, which will kick off a number of screenings of his classic films throughout the film festival, culminating in a Closing Night presentation of the WWII classic, THE BIG RED ONE.

Sam Fuller was a journalist, crime reporter, and served in WWII prior to getting into films, so his scripts often focus on human experiences with crime and or violence.  

Indeed, writes NFIFF, the director once made a parallel between moviemaking and war in a quote that served as something of a mission statement for his career

“Film is like a battleground, with love, hate, action, violence, death…in one word, emotion.”

The festival is also showing an array of films beyond Fuller's.  Just click here.

Otherwise, here are the Fuller films.  Must admit my favorite is "The Naked Kiss." It's gritty, quirky and a tad absurd, such fun!.  David Lynch definitely watched this film before making "Blue Velvet."

 A FULLER LIFE (2013)

Director: Samantha Fuller

Country: USA, Running Time: 80 min

Friends and admirers of iconoclastic film director Sam Fuller read from his memoirs.

THE BIG RED ONE (1980)

Director: Samuel Fuller

Country: USA, Running Time: 113 min

A hardened sergeant and the four core members of his infantry unit try to survive World War II as they move from battle to battle throughout Europe.

CHINA GATE (1957)

Director: Samuel Fuller

Country: USA, Running Time: 97 min

In 1954, during the French Indochina War, an Eurasian female smuggler and a group of French Foreign Legion mercenaries, infiltrate the enemy territory in order to destroy an arms depot.

HELL AND HIGH WATER (1954)

Director: Samuel Fuller

Country: USA, Running Time: 103 min

During the Cold War, a scientific team refits a Japanese submarine and hires an ex-Navy officer to find a secret Chinese atomic island base and prevent a Communist plot against America that could trigger WW3.

THE NAKED KISS (1964)

Director: Samuel Fuller

Country: USA, Running Time: 90 min

Kelly, a prostitute, traumatized by an experience, referred to as ‘The Naked Kiss,’ by psychiatrists, leaves her past, and finds solace in the town of Grantville. However, her path towards happiness is thrown amiss, when she witnesses a shocking event, which threatens not just her happiness, but her mental health as well.

Preceded by

ABERRATION

Director: Edmund Maziarz

Country: USA, Running Time: 9 min

POWER OF THE PRESS (1943)

Director: Lew Landers

Story by: Samuel Fuller

Country: USA, Running Time: 64 min

During WWII, the publisher of the isolationist New York Gazette is murdered just as he was about to change the paper’s policy and support the US war effort. His friend, a small town patriotic editor, is brought in to find the culprits.