Weekend Showcase Highlights Saratoga Films

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Seabiscuit. Paint. Saratoga Trunk to Ghost Story. Aftermath and The Skeptic, to the Horse Whisperer and Billy Bathgate.  

In actual setting or via its inspiration, Saratoga has provided a backdrop for filmmakers for the past 75. And consider this lesser-known fact: Truman Capote came to Yaddo in Saratoga Springs in the 1940s an aspiring young writer, and left having authored his first book. Forty years later an even younger trio of aspiring theater students shared classroom space and dorms at Skidmore College during a four-week arts camp.  The three teens who meeting one another for the first time (there even exists a snapshot to prove it) – late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, director Bennett Miller and writer Dan Futterman – would later collaborate on the film Capote, and earn awards and accolades across the world. 

An inaugural event – heralded as the Saratoga Film Showcase – aims to celebrate regional cinema, filmmakers, and the value of production offered in the Saratoga community with a series of happenings.   

Events take place on Friday Jan. 17 and Saturday, Jan. 18 and kick-off with a 7 p.m.  showcase short films and 9 p.m. welcome party Friday at Putnam Place, and continue with a variety of screenings and discussion panels on Saturday. 

The weekend’s headline event features a screening of the locally filmed “Paint” and a subsequent Q&A session with the film’s director, Brit McAdams, 7 p.m. Saturday at Scene One Wilton Mall Cinema. 

 Suggested donation is $50 for tickets that grant access to all events throughout the weekend, and are available at: https://www.saratoga-arts.org/event-5978760. Proceeds will be donated to Camp Stomping Ground as scholarships for teens to attend ArtsFest this summer.