BNFF10: The 4th Annual Buffalo Niagara Film Festival Recap

The Buffalo Niagara Film Festival closed out its fourth annual entry, ending a pretty great eight days of cinema. Attendance might have been stunted due to a plethora of activities in Buffalo, including a Salman Rushdie talk that prevented me from going to opening night and the brief return of Sabres hockey to the playoffs, but that did little to dampen the spirits of organizers, volunteers, or filmmakers. What makes this event uniquely great in comparison to an event like the Toronto International Film Festival is that you don’t have…

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BNFF10 REVIEW: The Crimson Mask [2010]

“Puppets don’t have the strength to pull their own strings” Originally conceived as two short stories, one about a boxer and the other a banker, writer/director Elias Plagianos decided to combine both tales into The Crimson Mask, making its Western New York debut at the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival. After realizing short films have little to no chance of making back the money put forth, he saw how the two ideas rested on the same general Faustian principle of selling one’s soul for a hastily thought out scheme for success.…

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