An online “tribute conversation” featuring writer, director and producer Aaron Sorkin, moderated by Stephen Colbert, will be part of the this year’s Montclair Film Festival. Originally scheduled for the spring, the ninth annual edition of this festival will take place Oct. 16-25, with both drive-in and online screenings.
Sorkin, whose credits span television (“The West Wing,” “The Newsroom”), film (“Moneyball,” “A Few Good Men,” “The Social Network”) and Broadway (“To Kill a Mockingbird”), has a new film he wrote and directed, “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” debuting on Netflix Oct. 16. The tribute conversation will be online starting Oct. 17.
Colbert, who lives in Montclair and is on Montclair Film’s advisory board, will also be involved with an online staged reading of the hour-long pilot episode of “Sometimes Live,” Oct. 25 at 7:30 p.m. “Sometimes Live” is a comedy that he and others created for ABC television in 1998, but that ABC rejected. The pilot has never been aired or published before. The other cast members of the reading have not been announced yet.
Also available online starting Oct. 17 will be discussions featuring Sienna Miller; Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti; Kingsley Ben-Adir; and Lee Isaac Chung. And there will be panel discussions on the following subjects: “Preserving the Legacy of Cinema: 30th Anniversary of the Film Foundation,” “Creating Equity and Opportunity in Documentary Film,” “Fostering Change: Philanthropy and Impact Filmmaking,” “Hungry to Learn: Food Insecurity in New Jersey” and “New Jersey Filmmaking in a Post-COVID Environment.”
The festival’s opening, closing and centerpiece films have already been announced. The full lineup will be released on Oct. 2.
Tickets will go on sale for Montclair Film members on Oct. 5, and to the general public on Oct. 8. Visit montclairfilm.org.
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