Lit on Film @ Nitehawk

This event is located at Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, 136 Metropolitan Ave. Brooklyn, NY

From the stacks of Strand to the screen at Nitehawk, we invite you to join us for a night of literary adaptations. These stories have lived on shelves at Strand Book Store for 92 years, and we’re excited to see them come to life in 12 original short films.

Enjoy the films, hang around for the award ceremony, and do some networking in the bar after! Thanks to our judges, all those who submitted, Nitehawk Cinema and book lovers everywhere who make this film festival possible.

Here the film festival line-up:

They’re Made out of Meat – directed by Stephen O’Regan

”They’re Made Out of Meat” is a humorous but thought-provoking story based on a conversation between two aliens about meat creatures.

The Hobbyist – directed by George Vatistas

A seemingly ordinary man seeks out a sagacious druggist in search of an untraceable poison, but winds up getting more than he bargained for. Based on the 1961 Short Story by Frederic Brown.

Dulcinea – directed by Francisco Lidón Plaza

A young knight and his shield bearer travel the country roads in search of adventures pretending to be in a chivalry novel. But these are very hard times and it won´t be easy to become Don Quixote and find the lady he loves, Dulcinea.

Thumbelina and the Ogre – directed by Cécile Robineau

Thumbelina & The Ogre is a tale for kids & adults which offers a sensitive story about friendship.The film has also an ecological message as the ogre has learnt to care about everything in his gigantic garden and that’s why he considers with kindness Thumbelina, who was born in a flower.

Nevermore – directed by Joshua Franco

NEVERMORE is a dramatic thriller short that pays homage to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception by using a combination of CG, 2D, and traditional Stop-Motion practical effects.

We Are – directed by Abigail Karl

We Are is an experimental film built around excerpts from various works of Sylvia Plath read by young women from our time. These excerpts are supplemented by sexist advertisements and informational films from the 50s & 60s, which is the time Plath was a young woman.

Fleeting Autumn – directed by Vojtech Domlatil

Stopmotion poetry, oscilating between animation, documentary and experiment. Transforming Haiku poetry based on 5-7-5 syllables to the audiovisual form using 5-7-5 second shots structure. Shot during two month art residency in Japan.

Speak Thou Vast and Venerable Head – directed by Julia Oldham

Speak, Thou Vast and Venerable Head (2016) is an animated film that reimagines chapter 70 of Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, “The Sphynx,” in which Ahab addresses the severed head of a sperm whale.

Speaking Daggers – directed by Sally McLean

Eight characters from five different Shakespeare plays discuss love, revenge, deceit and power in overheard conversations, set against the backdrop of coffee, cakes and waitresses in crisp white shirts.

The Blue from Heaven – directed by Suzie Hanna

Glenda Jackson provides the voice of poet Stevie Smith in this animated interpretation of her extraordinary 1950’s poem ‘The Blue from Heaven’. Suzie Hanna has adapted and animated the poet’s own drawings to communicate her rueful, wistful, comic, and melancholy themes with music and sound design by Phil Archer. (See The Collected Poems and Drawings of Stevie Smith, Faber, 2015, edited by Will May.)

Father to Son – directed by Thomas Stokmans

In this musical debut film, there seems to be hardly any verbal communication between a father and his young son. But when dad plays his saxophone, the boy listens attentively. He gets a sip of dad’s coffee. A very small, intimate film with its heart in the right place.

The Yellow Wallpaper – directed by Janna Jesson

A woman is confronted with her anxiety after hey boyfriend disables access to her phone. Adaptation of a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Meet our judges:

Sasha Whittle is an award winning documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, currently a producer at BRIC TV in Fort Greene. She graduated Cum Laude from Middlebury College with a B.A. in Film and Sociology. Her short Three in Stride won best young creator at Urban World Film Festival in 2018. Her senior thesis The F Word premiered at the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival. When she’s not hunting down stories, she’s running in road races around the city.

Laura Naylor fell for images, moving and not-so-mobile, while studying art at Columbia University. Her directorial debut, Duck Beach — a feature documentary about Mormon singles trying to tie-the knot — premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival and aired on BBC 3 in the UK. Her second feature, The Fix, premiered at AFI Docs, won the jury prize for Best Documentary at the Soho International Film Festival, and was hailed a “poignant portrait of life in recovery” by The Hollywood Reporter. After animating a stop-motion sequence for one of her docs, she said YES PLEASE to creating tiny worlds. Her stop-motion adaptation of Melville’s Bartleby received an Opportunity Grant from New York Foundation for the Arts, premiered at the 2017 Aspen Shortsfest. was awarded Best Film at the 2018 Lit on Film Fest, and landed on Vimeo as a Staff Pick.

Katie Hay runs Vulture’s Insider Program, producing screenings and experiences that exhibit Vulture’s pop culture obsessions, most recently programming summer movie nights at Bryant Park. Before Vulture, she managed the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s New Wave Program, showcasing emerging filmmakers’ diverse cinema at festivals like New Directors/New Films (co-presented by MoMA). Katie holds certificates in film production and acting from NYU and UCLA, studied screenwriting under Robert McKee, and worked for various production companies and a commercial agency. She is a member of New York Women in Film and Television.