The second annual Nitehawk Shorts Festival is excited to introduce the debut of a ‘Midnite’ category this year.

Co-programmed with Sam Zimmerman (Fangoria), this program features short films by international filmmakers more appropriately viewed after dark. Screening includes an introduction by Caryn Coleman, Sam Zimmerman and filmmakers.

Filmmakers Gathering pre-party in our downstairs bar from 10pm – 12am.

NITEHAWK SHORTS FESTIVAL: MIDNITE PROGRAM
Darren Banks – Interiors (ALT Ending) (10 minutes)
Peter McCoubrey and Luke McCoubrey – The Grey Matter (18 minutes)
Andrea McGinty – McDreamy (2 minutes)
Claire Ensslin – Pedestrian (7 minutes)
Ben Aston – He Took His Skin Off For Me (11 minutes)
David Cronenberg – The Nest (9 minutes)
Rick Niebe – Study for Interior with Figures and Sounds (4 minutes)
Jesse Burks – One Please (6 minutes)
Bonnie Black – Brute (15 minutes)
Ben Steiner – The Stomach (15 minutes)

Prize sponsorship provided by Heard City (a boutique audio post-production facility) and Nice Shoes (the full service, artist-driven design, animation, visual effects and color grading studio specializing in high-end commercials, web content, film, TV and music videos). One filmmaker will receive 14 hours (2 days) of Sound Design and/or Mix in Manhattan or Dumbo with one Sound Designer/Mixer courtesy of Heard City and 20 hours of color grading with a night colorist (valued at $16K) from Nice Shoes. The winner is selected by festival organizers and invited guests.

The second annual Nitehawk Shorts Festival continues with our DAY TWO brunch screening featuring a another fantastic program of documentary, animation and narrative fiction shorts.

Screening followed by Q&A with the filmmakers and festival programmers along with a casual closing party afterwards in our downstairs bar!

NITEHAWK SHORTS FESTIVAL: DAY TWO PROGRAM
Dan Canyon and Leo Marks – Cuckoo (8 minutes)
Connor Hurley – The Naturalist (12 minutes)
Christopher Hawthorne – Bender (18 minutes)
Josh Lopata – Fade (9 minutes)
Talia Alberts – re: Jess (15 minutes)
Joe Kowalski and Zoe Logan – Minor Monuments (3 minutes)
Nerina Penzhorn – A Day in the Sun (13 minutes)
Jacob LaMendola – Stoney (15 minutes)
Joe Petrilla – reConception (12 minutes)

Prize sponsorship provided by Heard City (a boutique audio post-production facility) and Nice Shoes (the full service, artist-driven design, animation, visual effects and color grading studio specializing in high-end commercials, web content, film, TV and music videos).One filmmaker will receive 14 hours (2 days) of Sound Design and/or Mix in Manhattan or Dumbo with one Sound Designer/Mixer courtesy of Heard City and 20 hours of color grading with a night colorist (valued at $16K) from Nice Shoes. The winner is selected by festival organizers and invited guests.

The second annual Nitehawk Shorts Festival continues with our DAY ONE brunch screening featuring a another fantastic program of documentary, animation and narrative fiction shorts.

Screening followed by Q&A with the filmmakers and festival programmers!

NITEHAWK SHORTS FESTIVAL: DAY ONE PROGRAM
Marcel Simoneau – Le Village (22 minutes)
Roy Germano – A Mexican Sound (13 minutes)
Theodore Collatos – Time (7 minutes)
Marisa Tontaveetong, Shir Wen Sun, Tamarind King, and Yu Ueda – Starlight (4 minutes)
Nathaniel Lindsay – Green Eyed (15 minutes)
Mike Fernandez – i found a bird (8 minutes)
Lindsey Lambert – Lost in Prospect Park (5 minutes)
Bill Morrison – All Vows (10 minutes)
Saul Abraham and Josh Feder – Baby (15 minutes)
Peter Vack – SEND (8 minutes)

Prize sponsorship provided by Heard City (a boutique audio post-production facility) and Nice Shoes (the full service, artist-driven design, animation, visual effects and color grading studio specializing in high-end commercials, web content, film, TV and music videos). One filmmaker will receive 14 hours (2 days) of Sound Design and/or Mix in Manhattan or Dumbo with one Sound Designer/Mixer courtesy of Heard City and 20 hours of color grading with a night colorist (valued at $16K) from Nice Shoes. The winner is selected by festival organizers and invited guests.

In 20,000 DAYS ON EARTH, drama and reality combine in a fictitious 24 hours in the life of musician and international cultural icon Nick Cave.

20,000 Days On Earth takes us deep into the heart of how myth, memory, love and loss, shape our lives, every single day. A line in Cave’s songwriting notebook calculating how many days he’d been alive inspired the film’s title. The film delves into Nick’s artistic processes, unpicking the stuff that makes him tick. Fusing drama and documentary to weave a cinematic day-in-the-life with unique verité observations of his full creative cycle.

Multimedia artist One9’s documentary NAS: TIME IS ILLMATIC follows the trajectory of Nas’ 1994 landmark debut album, Illmatic, one of the most important and revolutionary albums in hip hop.

Even 20 years after its release, Illmatic is widely recognized as a hip-hop benchmark that captured the sociopolitical outlook, enduring spirit and collective angst of a generation of young artists searching for their voice in America.

Tracing Nas’s influences from the music of his jazz musician father, Olu Dara, to the burgeoning hip-hop scene in his native Queensbridge, Nas: Time is Illmatic describes the almost insurmountable obstacles he faced in creating his opus, providing an authentic and passionate account of Nas’s personal journey from a young street poet to a visionary MC.  -Cara Cusumano

A two-hour feast of zombie film footage and pop culture commentary.

Comedian Kevin Maher and filmmaker Matt Glasson present an obsessive look at zombies, from White Zombie to World War Z. The hosts explore pre-Romero voodoo zombies, Night of the Living Dead rip-offs, the recurring theme of Nazi Zombies in film, and the recent run of zombies overtaking pop culture. The two-hour show features dozens of clips including zombie film highlights from Italian, Asian, British and Mexican filmmakers.

With special guest presentations by Heather Buckley (Fangoria, Dread Central), Brian Solomon (The Vault of Horror), Daan Van Versendaal (The Netherlands Institute of Neuroscience), Doug Sakmann (Special FX Artist)  and Captain Cruella (Village Invasion Zombie Crawl). Plus trivia prizes and zombie snack foods!

Kevin and Matt are excited to bring their humorous, terrifying, quite unforgettable video variety show to Nitehawk Cinema. From casual filmgoers to die-hard zombie fanatics, it’s an evening of guaranteed zombie fun for everyone!

Two-time Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner leads an all-star cast in KILL THE MESSENGER, a dramatic thriller based on the remarkable true story of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb.

In Kill the Messenger, Gary Webb (Renner) stumbles onto a story which leads to the shady origins of the men who started the crack epidemic on the nation’s street and further alleges that the CIA was aware of major dealers who were smuggling cocaine into the U.S., and using the profits to arm rebels fighting in Nicaragua.

Despite warnings from drug kingpins and CIA operatives to stop his investigation, Webb keeps digging to uncover a conspiracy with explosive implications. His journey takes him from the prisons of California to the villages of Nicaragua to the highest corridors of power in Washington, D.C. – and draws the kind of attention that threatens not just his career, but his family and his life.

Nitehawk and Noisey present two special midnite screenings of KILL YOUR IDOLS with post screening Q&A with director Scott Crary. Also expected to attend: members of Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, Liars, Foetus, SWANS, Black Dice, Flux Information Sciences and other surprise guests

Scott Crary’s documentary Kill Your Idols is a sweeping look at New York’s No wave and art punk movements, and starts in the 1970s with acts like Suicide and DNA and goes all the way up to the early 2000’s with young acts like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Liars and Black Dice. Through clever editing, Crary tells the story of this difficult (for some!) style with clarity and wit, and features interviews from members of Sonic Youth, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Swans, Gogol Bordello and more. No Wave bands have the best names, don’t they?

Music Driven is presented in partnership with Noisey. Featuring Absolut Vodka cocktails.

Nitehawk plunges into the deep end of horror with a screening of a new restoration of water-logged zombie flick SHOCK WAVES. Director Ken Wiederhorn will be here for a Q&A after the film moderated by Fangoria’s Sam Zimmerman.

Remember that episode of Gilligan’s Island where the crew of the Minnow met up with an old SS scientist who was once in charge of a squad of unstoppable, underwater Nazi zombies? No? Well, that’s because that’s plot for Shock Waves, director Ken Wiederhorn’s oddball horror film about a group of yachters who have a nasty run-in with a band of zombies so well versed at killing that even Hitler didn’t want anything to do with them. Shock Waves stars horror icons John Carradine, Peter Cushing and Peter Cushing’s great, big fake scar, and is certain to leave you breathless. (Get it?)

Complimentary drinks at the after-party courtesy of Bronx Brewery.

SecretFormula presents…
Spoons, Toons & Booze Christmas Special

We love watching the holiday cartoons on TV the weeks leading up to Christmas, but they don’t show the awesome holiday specials we watched when we were kids anymore. We’ve solved this problem by hosting our own Christmas Special filled with holiday episodes of all the cartoons you loved as a kid! Hosted by SecretFormula’s Michael Austin and Nell Casey, come watch all of your favorite cartoon characters from the 1930’s through 1990’s learn the real meaning of Christmas with…

– Over 80 cartoon series to choose from and YOU get to choose what we watch!

– Special menu of Christmas themed episodes including the rare “He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special”, only aired once in the 80?s and then banished to VHS obscurity!

– Special appearance by Santa Claus himself! Have your picture taken on Santa’s lap and send it to your parents.

– Free all you can eat cereal bar filled with all the sugary, marshmallowy, fruity, chocolaty cereal you crave! Soy and regular milk available.

– Cereal themed cocktails like “The Sonny”, a White Russian topped with Cocoa Puffs and the Cinnamon Toast Crunch infused rum based “Complete Breakfast.”

– Hot winter drinks like Bourbon Apple Cider to warm you up and put you in the holiday spirit.

– Cereal Shots! Drop a shot of Baileys or Kahlua in to booze up your cereal bowl.

– Compete in contests to choose which cartoons we watch and win sweet prizes from Nitehawk Cinema.