Beacon Film Society presents…

RIVER OF GRASS

Thursday March 19, 2026
7:30p (7p doors)

Howland Cultural Center 

477 Main Street  Beacon NY  12508

Q&A with writer/director Sasha Wortzel to follow the screening.

RIVER OF GRASS is a present-day reimagining of environmentalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s celebrated book, “The Everglades: River of Grass,” (1947), which forever changed the public’s understanding of the area from worthless swamps to an essential source of freshwater, enabling the ecosystem to endure, just barely, today.

In the wake of a hurricane, Douglas visits filmmaker Sasha Wortzel in a dream, catalyzing a prismatic journey across the Everglades with Miccosukee educator and activist Betty Osceola. We meet a mother taking on the polluting sugar industry; a two-spirit Miccosukee environmentalist and poet; a mother-daughter team removing snakes wreaking havoc on the ecosystem; and a family who have fished in the Everglades for six generations. Interweaving Douglas’s writing, personal narration, present-day verité, and archival footage,

RIVER OF GRASS reveals how this country’s origin story haunts and inextricably shapes contemporary American life, while asking how we might weather coming storms better together.

“Winking and wondrous… bewitching”

-Robert Daniels / RogerEbert.com

“A vivid love letter to the land and a call for its protection”

-Pat Mulen / POV Magazine

Sasha Wortzel (Director, Producer, Editor) is an award-winning filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist. Raised in Southwest Florida and based in New York City, Wortzel specifically attends to sites and stories systematically erased or ignored from these regions’ histories. Wortzel is a recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship in Film-Video. Her films have screened world-wide at venues including MoMA DocFortnight, CPH:DOX, True/False, San Francisco International, Hot Docs, Dokufest, Wexner Center for the Arts, and Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her expanded cinematic work has been exhibited at the New Museum, The International Center for Photography, and The Kitchen, among others. Wortzel is a 2023 MacDowell Fellowship, 2020 Oolite Arts Ellies Award, and 2017 NYFA Fellowship. RIVER OF GRASS is her first feature documentary. The film has received institutional support from Sundance, Ford Foundation, Field of Vision, Doc Society, Chicken & Egg Pictures, and Sandbox Films. Her short films include HOW TO CARRY WATER (2023), an IDA Awards nominee for best short documentary and currently streaming on Criterion Channel; THIS IS AN ADDRESS (2020) distributed by Field of Vision; and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARSHA! (2018; co-director Tourmaline) which won special mention at Outfest. Her artwork is in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Studio Museum of Harlem, Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, and Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places. She has been featured in The New York Times, Artforum, and Art in America.

Beacon Film Society presents…

WE CAN BE HEROES

Thursday February 26, 2026
7p (6:30 doors)

Howland Cultural Center 

477 Main Street  Beacon NY  12508

Q&A with film participant, collaborator and cast member Judson Packard to follow the screening.

Sometimes, finding your tribe requires a bit of magic.  Deep in the forest, where fur-lined armor is handmade and lightsaber combat is a daily ritual, a group of teens embark on a quest of legendary proportions. For attendees of a live action role-playing (LARP) camp in upstate New York, the accepting environment gives neurodivergent, queer, and self-proclaimed “nerdy” teens the space for true self-discovery. As the campers immerse themselves in an imaginative world, they discover inner strength and emerge as heroes.

“We Can Be Heroes is a documentary
that makes your heart swell”

-D. Feinberg (Hollywood Reporter)

“In a time where we are constantly overwhelmed by news of turbulence and uncertainty, we hope the film will inspire you to look around with fresh eyes and find all that we can still be — and need to be — hopeful for.”

– film director Carina Mia Wong

Judson Easton Packard graduated from Kansas State with a Bachelor’s degree in English and from Rutgers with an MFA in Creative Writing. They have been involved with the Wayfinder Experience since 2003 when they first came as a camper. They were on the Rules and Regulations board from 2013-2018. Before that they served the community by serving on the Hiring Board, and working every event they were given the opportunity to. They believe in hill trolls and LARP because the costumes bring out their eyes. In 2023 Judson became an owner as well.  

 Judson was a key influence, participant and collaborator of the this documentary, which premiered at SXSW. 

Beacon Film Society presents…

MATCH IN A HAYSTACK

Thursday October 16, 2025
7:30p (7p doors open)

Howland Cultural Center 

477 Main Street  Beacon NY  12508

Q&A with film editor Arielle Sherman will follow the screening.

When Russia invaded, the women of Ukraine’s leading contemporary dance group struggled to find purpose in their work. A search for resistance ultimately led them back to dance.

Dance becomes an act of bravery in Match in a Haystack, a new documentary film following a dance troupe in Ukraine directed by Joe Hill and executive produced by Misty Copeland, the first African American woman to be promoted to principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre. 

“The message of Match in a Haystack is that art is resistance, that creation in the face of destruction is an assertion of humanity, identity, culture.”

–LA Times Film Critic Katie Walsh

Arielle Sherman is an Emmy award winning NYC based film and television editor. She began her professional career working as an assistant editor, and VFX editor on many critically acclaimed and commercially successful feature films and television series before shifting into editing full time.

Arielle has always believed in the power of storytelling through visual mediums. Through editing, she is able to experiment with and expound on the boundaries of both narrative and visual aesthetics.

She is a born and raised Californian and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Beacon Film Society presents…

BOUND

7p Tuesday May 6, 2025

The Beacon Movie Theater 

445 Main Street  Beacon NY  12508

A meet-and-greet with the filmmaker will be hosted across the street from the theater at Kitchen & Coffee at 6pm prior to the screening,

Q&A with film director Isaac Hirotsu Woofter will follow the screening

 “It’s balanced, well shot, compelling and an absolute gem of an indie film.”

-Film Carnage

Isaac Hirotsu Woofter’s feature directorial debut throws us into an urban labyrinth where Bella (Alexandra Faye Sadeghian), a young woman escaping an abusive home life, ignites a narrative as resilient as it is evocative. This isn’t just a story—it’s an emotional roller coaster where past injustices and hopeful futures clash with enthusiasm. The film intertwines drama and thriller elements, presenting a profound exploration of the human spirit and the intricate dance of family ties.

Isaac Hirotsu Woofter is a NYC based actor and filmmaker. He wrote the screenplay for Steven Seagal’s action movie, THE BUSHIDO BUTCHER, for Shadow Box Pictures and Aldamisa Entertainment. His work has been selected in dozens of Festivals, received countless nominations, and multiple awards.

As a director, Isaac’s written, produced, and directed book trailers for multiple New York Times Best Selling Authors. As an actor, Isaac’s played numerous lead and title roles, including the Tony award-winning Broadway show WAR HORSE. In 2008, he was nominated alongside Patrick Stewart, for Best Supporting Actor in a Shakespeare Play.

Beacon Film Society presents…

VALVE TURNERS

7p Tuesday April 22, 2025

The Beacon Movie Theater 

445 Main Street  Beacon NY  12508

Q&A moderated by BEACON CLIMATE ACTION NOW with director Steve Bonds-Liptay & cinematographer Deia Schlosberg will follow the screening

A small group of activists travel to remote valve sites and take a daring stand against the fossil fuel industry. Acting in solidarity with Standing Rock, they carefully plan a bid to disrupt the entire flow of tar sands oil from Canada into the United States. Pipelines carrying 2.8 million barrels per day are halted, eliciting a firm counteraction from the fossil fuel industry and local authorities. Charged with 27 felonies and 15 misdemeanors, they face a protracted legal battle at district courts in Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana and Washington. At jury trials in each state, their team of attorneys to defend their actions as a necessary response to the climate emergency.

2025 Wild & Scenic – Spirit of Activism Award WINNER

2024 DCTV Climate Film Fest   –  Jury Award WINNER

From the Boston Tea Party to the Greensboro Four,

the American story is punctuated by ambitious small groups engaging in nonviolent resistance against injustice and the abuse of power. Again and again, people organize and use nonviolent tactics to galvanize the public around pressing issues.

I write this as the 2025 fires in Los Angeles are upending countless lives. The momentum of the climate emergency feels relentless and the fossil fuel industry’s grip on our lives, our politics and our economy can seem insurmountable.

In the years ahead, what will be our collective response? When political systems are captured by corporate interests, what will spur them to act? And if governments are unable to protect us, at what point must we take matters into our own hands?

These are difficult questions that the public continues to grapple with. They afford no easy answers. My hope is that VALVE TURNERS can support and amplify the ongoing conversations around direct action and legal strategies that challenge and expose the fossil fuel industry and their political allies.

Steve Bonds-Liptay

Steve Bonds-Liptay contributed cinematography and editing to the award-winning HBO documentary “How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change” which premiered at Sundance 2016. That same year, he co-directed and produced DIVEST!, a concert film about fossil fuel divestment and began filming VALVE TURNERS. Steve’s photography has appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times and The Boston Globe.

Beacon Film Society presents…

WITH PETER BRADLEY

7p Tuesday March 25, 2025

The Beacon Movie Theater 

445 Main Street  Beacon NY  12508

Q&A moderated by Terry Nelson with director Alex Rappoport will follow the screening

When filmmaker Alex Rappoport met then 79-year-old abstract artist Peter Bradley in early 2020, Bradley hadn’t sold many paintings or had a major show in over four decades – yet he still painted every day in his shipping-container studio, heated by a wood stove, no matter what the weather. Over time, Rappoport recorded Bradley’s fascinating life story, which occupies a unique and inexplicably overlooked place in 20th century art history. Bradley was one of the first important Black gallery dealers in the 1970s, likely the first Black abstract artist represented by a major New York City gallery, and curator of one of the first integrated art shows in America. As Bradley tells it, all this unfolds amidst the systemic racism of both society in general and the art world in particular.

Talented & willful, Peter Bradley lived life to its fullest – until he fell upon hard times and drug abuse in the 1980s that nearly ended his career.  He now lives in an eclectic 18th century stone house in upstate New York with his wife and on-screen companion Rudolph the housecat. When COVID shut down most of the world, Alex started spending his days filming and deepening his friendship with Peter, a process which spanned more than a year. The result is a revealing 90-minute film about an extraordinary life.

WITH PETER BRADLEY is an intimate, provocative series of conversations with the now 81-year-old abstract painter and sculptor. At turns bitter and humorous, the recounting of Bradley’s rise to success as an artist – and subsequent fall from grace – unfolds against the backdrop of seasonal change at his rural home and studio.

Alex was nominated for an Emmy Award for his work on the PBS series “Egg: The Arts Show”. His documentary short film, “Standpipe Siamese and the Adventures of Frost” premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival and was described by The New York Times “as the place where visual art and independent filmmaking meet.” Alex produced “Thomas Woodruff’s Freak Parade” for Gallery HD as well as the interstitial series “Scenes from the Sundance Lab” for the Sundance Channel.  WITH PETER BRADLEY is Alex Rappoport’s feature-length directorial debut. He and Peter reside in Saugerties, NY.