Lower East Side Film Festival to Open with Pete Ohs' ‘The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick'
The 15th anniversary of the beloved Lower East Side Film Festival (LESFF) has a star-studded lineup. IndieWire can announce that LESFF 2025 will open with the New York premiere of Pete Ohs' 'The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick' May 1. The festival will conclude May 5 with Lola Rocknrolla's true crime documentary 'The Big Johnson' about drag queen Dean Johnson.
'Our Opening and Closing Night films are proof that indie filmmaking packs a punch,' Roxy Hunt, LESFF Co-Director and CEO of BFD Productions, said. 'Pete Ohs and Lola Rocknrolla are true badass filmmakers, telling stories that are daring, original, and unapologetic. At a time when Hollywood is playing it safe and overlooking bold, visionary voices, independent film is where authentic stories have the freedom to break through. LESFF has always been about championing that spirit, and this year is no different.'
More from IndieWire
ADVERTISEMENT
'The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick' had its world premiere at SXSW. The film stars Zoë Chao, Jeremy O. Harris, Callie Hernandez, and James Cusati-Moyer a as friend group whose weekend retreat goes unsettlingly wrong after an ominous tick bite seems to unravel reality.
In contrast, 'The Big Johnson' tells the story of late NYC legend Dean Johnson, who was a drag queen, rock star, activist, and enigma, per the logline. 'A towering figure in the underground scene, Johnson's shocking, unsolved death remains a mystery. Was it murder? Was it an accident? One thing's for sure: Dean changed New York forever,' as the description reads.
''The Big Johnson' is thrilled to have our New York premiere at the LES Film Festival,' director Lola Rocknrolla said. 'Dean Johnson lived most of his adult life on the Lower East Side and I lived on Ludlow Street for the better part of a decade. Roxy Hunt and Tony Castle are the best festival curators I have ever worked with and they really care about keeping film and culture alive. This is our neighborhood, this is our festival and we can't freakin' wait for it.'
LESFF will take place May 1 to 5, and will have screenings at Village East by Angelika and DCTV's Firehouse Cinema. Purchase tickets to the Lower East Side Film Festival here.
'The Big Johnson'
This festival also marks the launch of its first-ever Stay Indie Project, a direct pipeline for independent filmmakers to get their projects made. Launched in collaboration with BFD Productions, the initiative connects independent filmmakers with development, financing, and production support to greenlit indie films. The first Stay Indie project to be part of the festival is feature 'Not One Drop of Blood,' which had its world premiere at Filmfort (Treefort Music Fest, Idaho) before screening at The Florida Film Festival. It will have its New York premiere at LESFF out of competition.
ADVERTISEMENT
'Not One Drop of Blood' is produced by LESFF co-directors Hunt and Tony Castle, as well as LESFF Board Member Sarah Wharton. The feature documentary film is directed by Jackson Devereux and Lachlan Hinton, and follows the decades-long mystery of unexplained cattle mutilations in rural Oregon. The doc was based on Anna King's NPR reporting; King produces the film that was financed and produced in partnership with BFD Productions, Northpoint Post, and Copperline Creative.
'With the Stay Indie Project, we're helping tear down the biggest roadblock indie filmmakers face — getting their films made,' Tony Castle, LESFF Co-Director and COO of BFD Productions, said. 'It's not enough to just celebrate independent film; we need to actively build a pipeline for bold, risk-taking storytellers to get their work out into the world. By pairing the festival with our production company, we're giving filmmakers real resources, real funding, and real momentum. But it doesn't stop at making movies — we're here to make sure they get seen. Getting indie films into actual cinemas, on the big screen, where they belong—that's what it's all about. Watching movies together, in the dark, the way they were meant to be experienced. That's the magic. That's the mission.'
'Not One Drop of Blood'
Additional Stay Indie Project features in the works include narrative film 'Our Bodies and Other Shames,' written by Malka Wallick and directed by Jenny Lester; and documentaries 'The Ark,' 'Hoop Like This,' and 'Credible Fear.'
'Our Bodies and Other Shames' stars Alysia Reiner, Micaela Diamond, Gideon Adlon, and Malka Wallick as childhood best friends who are forced to confront their past when one is diagnosed with breast cancer.
ADVERTISEMENT
'The Ark,' which is directed by Jeremy Chilnick and Viacheslav Rakovskyi, centers on a young Ukrainian family who, in the midst of war, transforms their farm into a refuge for 1,000 displaced animals.
'Hoop Like This' is directed by Shubhangi Shekhar and follows the best Indian basketball players from around the globe as they join forces to compete in the world's highest stakes basketball tournament on ESPN to prove to the world that brown men can jump.
'Credible Fear,' directed by Gabrielle Ewing, is about a chance pairing between Yojana, a Guatemalan asylum seeker, and Amy, a DC attorney, during a seven-year battle for justice inside America's broken immigration system.
The full LESFF program will be announced soon.
Best of IndieWire
Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
How ‘Materialists' Finds True Love in New York City
Location work is not usually considered one of the 'creative' departments on a film. Of course, they work with the director and the production designer to find spaces that will work for specific scenes that can't or shouldn't be shot on a set, but theirs is the unsexy work of negotiating contracts with owners, securing all the needed permits, and handling the crew's impact on locations. Yet director Celine Song credits a great deal of the push-pull yearning of her second feature, 'Materialists,' to that location work. New York City is not the easiest place to shoot, but it was important to Song for the film to reflect the realities of what it's like to live in New York. The apartments and streets in which the characters fight and make up and make out are characters in and of themselves. 'Location management in this film is a creative position. We were talking pretty creatively — my DP, my line producer, my production designer, and my location manager — we're all trying to solve problems together,' Song told IndieWire on an episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. More from IndieWire 'Saw' Franchise Rights Acquired by Blumhouse, Reuniting James Wan with Horror Series A New Blu-ray Collection Opens the Warner Bros. Animation Vault - and Finds 50 Treasures Inside Location manager Joe Mullaney and his team even helped Song realize something about the characters that was embedded in the script, but no one had quite articulated. 'Joe was the first to notice — because he has to permit every time a character smokes — that Lucy [Dakota Johnson] never smokes with Harry [Pedro Pascal]. She only smokes with John [Chris Evans]. And of course eventually the actors figured that out, too, but Joe was the first,' Song said. 'It's a very specific perspective.' The perspective was an extremely important one for 'Materialists,' which is so specific to New York and yet contains a much wider historical scope. It begins with and then later checks in on a very early, prehistoric marriage, after all, and Song and Mullaney were delighted to find a corner of Central Park where a bridge could echo the sense of a cave, and visually merge the two storylines at the end. ' It requires Joe's lifetime, his whole career, of building trust in New York City. He needs to have a good reputation for being somebody who can be trusted to give you their space. So I'm relying so much on his work even before my movies, you know?' Song said. But something that pervades both of Song's movies, 'Materialists' and 'Past Lives' is how living in New York forces the characters to move through the echoes of millions of other people's lives. Visually, that sense was something no amount of B-Roll or establishing drone footage could create. The characters had to be in and of the city. It's part of the romance Song wanted to create. 'Public spaces in New York are the most romantic places, because you know that you're not the first couple to have an argument there. Like, [on] every corner of New York City, someone has peed there, someone has slept there, someone has had a huge argument there, and someone has kissed there,' Song said. 'We're shooting in New York City, which is expensive and difficult — just like living in New York City. But [it's] romantic and rewarding — just like New York City. We were sort of acknowledging, well, if you're doing it, you might as well do it.' That meant going all out on streets and stoops, especially in relation to John. His apartment isn't exactly conducive to heartfelt conversations, but Lucy's isn't that much better, either. And the fact that they can't be fully comfortable or private in the spaces they live changes how the characters move through the world and desire each other. ''Materialists' is about the way that the cynic and the romantic are in conversation, and in a bit of a tussle,' Song said. 'New York City is exactly that. To live in New York City, you have to be a romantic because the quality of living is not high enough for it to be possible for anybody who is not romantic in some way… but on the other hand, part of surviving in New York City is that you have to have a healthy dose of cynicism, too. [The city] just encapsulates that amazing balance. [So] it was always fundamentally a thing that we wanted to shoot in New York City.' 'Materialists' is now playing in theaters. To hear Celine Song's full interview, subscribe to the on , , or your favorite podcast platform. Best of IndieWire The Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in June, from 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' to 'Emily the Criminal' All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme' Nightmare Film Shoots: The 38 Most Grueling Films Ever Made, from 'Deliverance' to 'The Wages of Fear'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
‘Nobody Wants This' Season 2 Netflix Premiere Date Revealed, Creator Promises ‘Romantic and Funny' Outing
Netflix know that a lot of somebodies want this. The second season of 'Nobody Wants This' will premiere October 23. The show first dropped on the streamer last September to sparkling reviews, with IndieWire's Proma Khosla praising the chemistry between leads Kristen Bell and Adam Brody. The show, created by Erin Foster, finds Joanne (Bell, also an executive producer) and Noah (Brody) in a would-be conventional love story complicated by Noah's position as a rabbi. Popular podcaster Joanne isn't just not Jewish, she's also unreligious generally — as is her entire non-traditional family. As Noah and Joanne attempt to acclimate to each other's worlds, and Joanne explores converting, things get complicated — to put it lightly. More from IndieWire The Cast and Crew of 'St. Denis Medical' Found Joy and Warmth in the Show's Hospital Setting 'The Gilded Age' Season 3 Trailer: A New Generation Rises as Carrie Coon Tries to Secure Her Status in High Society 'Nobody Wants This' was renewed back in October, but the drop date was not revealed until the June 1 Netflix FYSEE L.A. Emmy event at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles. The evening featured a screening of the pilot followed by a live taping of Foster's 'The World's First Podcast' with Foster, Bell, Brody and fellow cast members Justine Lupe, Timothy Simons, and Jackie Tohn. Stephanie Faracy, Michael Hitchcock, Tovah Feldshuh, Paul Ben-Victor, Emily Arlook, Sherry Cola, and Shiloh Berman will also return for the next batch of episodes, and guests stars will include Miles Fowler, Alex Karpovsky, Arian Moayed, and Bell's 'Gossip Girl' co-star Leighton Meester. Foster based the series on her own life. The actress, writer and podcaster converted to Judaism after falling in love with her Jewish now-husband, Simon Tikhman. Last year, Foster discussed her experience with IndieWire. 'There were about 23 people [in my conversion class] and only three were converting for marriage, which tells you there was 20 very interesting stories going on in that room!' she said. 'And I thought it was just interesting. I hadn't ever seen anybody explore that area, and I thought it'd be cool.' Last month, Foster told IndieWire that Season 2 of 'Nobody Wants This' would be 'romantic and funny.' 'I'm not in the business of depriving people of what they want on a show like this, and making some like, artistic choice to rob you of what you want to see. I really tried to stay on point with Season 1, [it] was all these firsts, first kiss, first date, and this is going to be the next four to six months of the relationship what that looks like,' she said. Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Yahoo
Adam Brody ‘Tried Really Hard' to Host ‘Blue's Clues' in the '90s: ‘I Would've Loved It'
Adam Brody had his own 'welcome to L.A.' moment. The actor recently reflected on first arriving in the city to start his screen career. Among the first roles he went out for? 'Blue's Clues.' Brody told THR in the below video that he 'tried really hard' to land the hosting gig for the kid's TV series. 'I really wanted 'Blue's Clues' early on when I first moved to L.A. I tried really hard. It's like 1999. I didn't get it. But I would've loved it,' Brody said. More from IndieWire Ron Howard Loses His Sh*t in His Favorite 'The Studio' Scene Celine Song to Develop HBO Series 'Damage' Set in the World of E-Sports Steve Burns famously was cast instead, with Donovan 'Joe' Patton and Josh Dela Cruz later hosting additional iterations of the iconic series. 'Blue's Clues' premiered in 1996. Brody also recalled auditioning for 'Dawson's Creek.' 'There's an early 'Dawson's Creek' role. It really made me nervous to read with Scott Speedman. I was sweating,' he said. 'I believe [the role] went to Michael Pitt. They wanted pouting lips.' Pitt appeared in Season 3 of the series, which aired in 2002. Brody, of course, went on to have his breakout role in 'The O.C.' as Seth Cohen. The teen-centric ensemble drama premiered August 5, 2003. Brody thematically continued the Seth-ness he has become synonymous with for Netflix rom-com series 'Nobody Wants This.' 'We are in a tense moment of massive upheaval, and there doesn't seem to be many romantic comedies, period,' Brody told Variety about why the series became an overnight hit. 'I'm pinching myself a little bit.' 'Nobody Wants This' was renewed for a second season, which will premiere October 23, 2025. Series creator Erin Foster told IndieWire that Season 2 will be 'romantic and funny,' much like the first viral season of the show. 'I'm not in the business of depriving people of what they want on a show like this, and making some like, artistic choice to rob you of what you want to see. I really tried to stay on point with Season 1, [it] was all these firsts, first kiss, first date, and this is going to be the next four to six months of the relationship what that looks like,' she said. Adam Brody says he auditioned for #BluesClues and really wanted it during the Comedy Actor #Emmys #THRRoundtable | #OffScript debuts Friday on @IFC and @AMCplus and Sunday on and YouTubeLocation: The Luckman Club at Soho House West Hollywood — The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) June 13, 2025 Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
