Film companies run test screenings of uncompleted films to see how they fare with the public.
During a three-week run of screenings this spring (which ended this past weekend), 12,000 attendees (including me) ended up descending on the Old Vic Tunnels for a mysterious cinematic adventure.
The five-day run of screenings in East Hampton, Sag Harbor, Westhampton Beach and Southampton begins with "The Cooler," starring Alec Baldwin and Maria Bello, and ends with "The Human Stain," starring Nicole Kidman and Anthony Hopkins.
"The nudiest festival I can remember," said one Cannes regular after a run of screenings including Rebecca Zlotowski's Grand Central, Alain Guiraudie's Stranger by the Lake, François Ozon's Young and Beautiful and Abdellatif Kechiche's Blue Is the Warmest Colour, the leads in all spending as much time in the buff as not.
(The same company runs more screenings at the nearby Hackney Downs Studios).
The only time I saw the sun was running between screenings.' Later, when he moved into producing films such as The Crying Game and Scandal, 'it got to the point where I would go for three days just for meetings'.
WHAT TO DO The Alliance Française (58 rue Suffren; 91-413-2338-146; weeklyindia.org/pondichery) runscreeningscreenings of English, French and Indian movies, and its library is a nice place to hang out and flip through old policiers and copies of Paris Match.
Screenings run from July 31 to September 11.
While child tickets to traditional screenings run about $8.75 in large cities like New York and Los Angeles, child admission for 3-D screenings is $13.
It reopens to live performance this summer with a kids musical – The Go! Go! Go! Show – which will run alongside movie screenings, but there are also plans to use the 300-seat space for late-night comedy.
