NewFest’s Silver Anniversary Lineup Comes Out- CONCUSSION – Opening Night


Stacie Passon’s Concussion, which will open the 25th NewFest.

NewFest returns to Film Society of Lincoln Center next month, in partnership with Outfest Los Angeles, and organizers have revealed details of the upcoming event, which spotlights LGBT film.

Fifteen narratives, four documentaries, and 31 shorts are on tap for the festival, with the New York premiere of Stacie Passon’s debut featureConcussion kicking off the 25th edition on September 6. Closing out the silver anniversary of the festival will be Chris Mason Johnson’s Test. For the third year, the event will take place in partnership with the Film Society of Lincoln Center, with screenings and panels being held at the Walter Reade Theater and the JCC in Manhattan.

[The complete NewFest schedule and ticket sales information is available here.]

L.A.-based LGBT media arts organization Outfest programmed and will help run this year’s six-day event. Outfest and NewFest will form an official national organization next year.

A premiere at Sundance earlier this year, Concussion explores a suburban lesbian’s erotic reawakening from happy housewife to high-class call girl. The NewFest closer, meanwhile, is set in San Francisco in the ’80s and centers on young Frankie (real-life dancer Scott Marlowe), who navigates his role in a modern dance company and his evolving relationship with fellow dancer Todd (Matthew Risch). Other highlights include Interior. Leather Bar., directed by Travis Mathews and James Franco. Franco is also a producer of fellow NewFest title Kink, a doc directed by Christina Voros about five San Francisco-based BDSM workers who are employed at the kink.com studios.