The 9th Annual Lonely Seal Film Festival kicks off Thursday, August 27 and runs through Sunday, August 30 at the Regent Theater in Arlington, Massachusetts which is less than 30 minutes from Boston.
This festival, focused on four days of independent film, special events and filmmaker programming has highlights including Academy Award-winning On Golden Pond screenwriter Ernest Thompson who will be in attendance for a screening of his short film The Constituent and a signing of his new novel, Out Clause.
Other highlights include….
On Saturday, August 29, from 11:00 PM–12:30 AM, Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation returns to Greater Boston for the first time in 18 years, with a program personally curated by Spike Decker.
Sunday also features the first-ever cinematic feature-film version of Eugene O’Neill’s The First Man.
Additional festival highlights include Comedy Night on Thursday, 8/27 Women in Focus on Friday, 8/28 and a packed Saturday featuring the Writer’s Block Strategy Seminar, Women in Film & Video New England (WIFVNE) Showcase, Local Boston Showcase, festival party and the aforementioned Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation.
The Lonely Seal Film Festival is the latest effort to grow the indie film community by Hammad Zaidi. Per his bio, “Zaidi, a disabled kid with a rail-thin left arm, a useless hand, and a cowboy limp, watched a documentary on the clubbing of harp seals. All snow-white pups perished except for one called “The Lonely Seal.” The name stuck, as did Hammad’s intent to make the world a better place. A few decades and several charitable endeavors later, from limping door-to-door to wrangle donations for the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon in the 1970s to donating to his alma mater UCLA for 30 years and several multiple-year contributions to film festivals, including Slamdance, SXSW, Nashville, and the Kansas City Filmmakers Jubilee – Hammad’s mission has always been to do his part in making to the world a better place to live.”
Tickets, full lineup and more can be found at https://lonelysealfestival.com/
