The Brooklyn Film Festival presents BUT NOT FOR ME with introduction and Q&A with director Ryan Carmichael and actors from the film.

But Not For Me combines hip-hop and spoken word performance with stories of self-realization and love. Will is a young writer living in the big city, and barely scraping by on his copywriter’s salary. When he meets Hope, his beautiful and enigmatic new neighbor, he is certain he has found the inspiration and the validation he’s been seeking. But as he struggles to find his way, Will learns he must reconcile his youthful vision of life with the complexities of the real world in order to find true fulfillment.

The Brooklyn Film Festival presents ABBY SINGER/SONGWRITER, with introduction and Q&A with director Onur Tukel and members of the cast.

In Abby Singer/Songwriter, Jamie Block – a divorced stockbroker has-been who was once an indie-rock star signed to Capitol Records – meets Onur Tukel, a hapless middle-aged filmmaker who has just moved to Brooklyn. In this coming-of-middle-age story, Onur persuades Block to sink his money into a series of increasingly absurd music videos to promote his comeback as a musician. Desperate to impress his two beautiful, nonchalant teenaged daughters, Block casts them in the videos, which then play on multiple screens throughout this hallucinatory film. As tension mounts between director and musician Block’s bank account and grip on reality dwindle.

A two-hour video variety show of rare footage and pop culture commentary.

Comedian Kevin Maher presents an obsessive look at the Animal Attack genre: from recent CGI beasts to the nature-gone-wrong films of the Drive-In era. This two-hour multi-media show includes dozens of film clips featuring crazed cats, angry bears, giant spiders, Freudian snakes, killer cockroaches, a racist dog and much more. With special guest presentations by Jon Abrams (Editor-in-Chief, Daily Grindhouse), Wendy Mays (creator of SPACE CAT) Matt Glasson (co-host, Kevin & Matt Geek Out About Zombies) and Tom Blunt (film blogger and variety show host)  

Plus Kevin hand-picked some of his favorite scenes from the genre, including: the most pretentious animal incident, best gratuitous animal attack, and cinema’s fakest reptile (hint: it’s not DinoCroc).

A documentary on THE DAMNED, the first English punk artist to release a single and album. Director Wes Orshoski in attendance for a post-screening Q&A!

From Lemmy filmmaker Wes Orshoski comes the story of the long-ignored pioneers of punk: The Damned, the first U.K. punks on wax and the first to cross the Atlantic. This authorized film includes appearances from Chrissie Hynde, Mick Jones (The Clash), Lemmy and members of Pink Floyd, Black Flag, GNR, the Sex Pistols, Blondie, Buzzcocks, and more. Shot around the globe over three years, the film charts the band’s complex history and infighting, as it celebrated its 35th anniversary and found its estranged former members striking out on their own anniversary tour, while still others battle cancer.

Part of Nitehawk Cinema’s MUSIC DRIVEN signature series. Presented with our media partner, Noisey.

HEAVEN ADORES YOU is an intimate, meditative inquiry into the life and music of Elliott Smith. Director Nickolas Dylan Rossi will be in attendance for a Q&A.

By threading the music of Elliott Smith through the dense, yet often isolating landscapes of the three major cities he lived in — Portland, New York City, Los Angeles — Heaven Adores You presents a visual journey and an earnest review of the singer’s prolific songwriting and the impact it continues to have on fans, friends, and fellow musicians.

What kind of person was Elliott Smith? Since his death in 2003, many media-makers have attempted to tell the story of his creative “sad-sack” genius, often through the lens of struggle, heartache and addiction. Director Nickolas Rossi employs a different lens, placing music center-stage, creating a framework for Elliott to narrate the story of his life himself, through the filter of recorded conversations and interviews, with support from friends along the way. With great care, Rossi expertly weaves together 30+ interviews to create an intimate and personal history like never seen before.

Part of Nitehawk Cinema’s MUSIC DRIVEN signature series.

Nitehawk’s Live Sound Cinema presents a special one nite screening and New York premiere of PARTIR TO LIVE featuring a live score by director Domingo Garcia-Huidobro and Jozef Van Wissem.

Partir to Live is a non-standard audiovisual event at the intersection of experimental film and music. This is a non-narrative journey, an experiment with viewing sensuality, fascination with beauty and pain of loss. It’s a search for new possibilities of cinema with means of direct perception and abstraction as the main understanding tool.

Garcia-Huidobro is an aficionado of paranormal experiences and Partir to Live sees him attempting to reconstruct the previous moments of what could have been one of these episodes. High-tension cables, a forest, an abandoned church, a barefoot woman; past, present and future become confused, and in this dissolved reality, he is not sure to have found what he was looking for.

The film’s soundtrack was composed by Chilean director and musician Domingo Garcia-Huidobro (who also plays in Sacred Bones Records’ band Föllakzoida) and Jozef Van Wissem (composer and musical collaborator for Jim Jarmusch).

Music Driven teams up with Noisey for a special presentation of THE STORY OF JUDGE featuring Q&A with director Seth Lowery, and band members Sam Siegler, Mike Ferarro and John Porcell moderated by author Tony Rettman.

In 1991, at the height of its popularity, the New York hardcore band Judge broke up, leaving a long and storied career of incredible music and hyper-violent gigs for the history books. In the decades that followed, Judge’s meager output became hardcore punk 101 for much of the growing scene who built upon their metal-tinged riffs and attitude. While the legend grew, lead singer Mike Ferraro virtually disappeared, only to reemerge in 2013 at Webster Hall to headline one of the most respected hardcore punk festivals in the country, Black N’ Blue Bowl. Noisey caught up with the revered frontman during, before, and after his triumphant return to the stage in this theatrical screening of the four part series.

Part of Nitehawk Cinema’s MUSIC DRIVEN signature series. Presented with our media partner, Noisey.

Sundance Grand Jury Documentary winner, THE WOLFPACK, charts a fascinating coming-of-age story that serves as a true example of the power of movies to transform and save lives.

The Angulo brothers have spent their entire lives locked away from society in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Nicknamed “The Wolfpack,” they’re home-schooled, exceedingly bright, have no acquaintances outside of their own family, and have practically never left the confines of their apartment. What they know of the outside world is gleaned from films they watch obsessively, which they meticulously recreate using elaborate homemade props and costumes. For years this has served as a productive, creative outlet to stave off loneliness, but after one of the brothers escapes the apartment (wearing a Michael Meyers mask for protection), their lives are transformed, and the boys begin to dream of exploring.

Armed with unprecedented access into the subjects’ world and a vast archive of home movies, first-time director Crystal Moselle crafts a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary family, capturing the thrill of the Wolfpack’s discoveries without skirting the darker questions of abuse and confinement that weigh upon all of them.

GRINGO TRAILS takes on one of the most powerful globalizing forces of our time: tourism. On May 9, director Pegi Vail and Melvin Estrella will be in house for a Q&A; on May 10, they will be joined by travel writer Anja Mutic.

Spanning South America, Africa and Asia, the tourist pathway known as the “gringo trail” has facilitated both life-altering adventures and the despoiling of many once virgin environments. The film follows stories along the trail to reveal the complex relationships between colliding cultures: host countries hungry for financial security and the tourists who provide it in their quest for authentic experiences.

Just in time for Record Store Day, a special midnite Music Driven screening of glam rock doc JOBRIATH A.D. with Factory 25 Records and a Q&A with director Kieran Turner, The Magnetic Fields’ Stephen Merritt & Okkervil River’s Will Sheff.

Seventies glam rock musician Jobriath was known as “The American Bowie,” “The True Fairy of Rock & Roll,” and “Hype of the Year.” The first openly gay rock star, Jobriath’s reign was brief, lasting less than two years and two albums. Done in by a over?hyped publicity machine, shunned by the gay community, and dismissed by critics as all flash and no substance, Jobriath was excommunicated from the music business. He retreated to the Chelsea Hotel where he died, forgotten, in 1983 at the age of 37, as one of the earliest casualties of AIDS.

In the years since his death, new generations of fans have discovered his music through acts as diverse as Morrissey, Def Leppard, The Pet Shop Boys, and Gary Numan, all of whom have cited Jobriath as an influence. Through interviews, archival material, and animation, audiences can experience the heartbreaking and unbelievable story of the one, the only, Jobriath.