Questlove, John Turturro, and More Join Curator Lineup for Playback Film Festival at BAM

By Brooklyn Magazine

Back in July, BAM announced Playback, a new (hopefully recurring) film festival, would be one of the headliners of its upcoming fall program. Out the gate, given its hosts and creators—New York Liberty Governor Clara Wu Tsai, and filmmakers Spike Lee and Nicholas Ma—hopes were high for the “Brooklyn Watch Party,” an ostensibly dressed-down alternative to the stuffy institutional festivals that tend to seize seats and screens around the city this time of year.

But now, we know that faith wasn’t misplaced. According to a press release, the initial lineup of guest curators includes The Roots drummer and acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, actor and repeated Spike collaborator John Turturro, and Bryan Stevenson, the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. Each will present and discuss a film of their choice on November 7 and November 8; Questlove is bringing Denis Sanders’ Soul to Soul (1971) and Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy (1982); Turturro’s picks are Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966) and Pietro Germi’s Divorce Italian Style (1961); and Stevenson will bring Fernando Meirelles’ City of God (2002) and Salaam Bombay! (1988), directed by Mira Nair, who is slated to speak with Stevenson following the screening.

This is all on top of Spike’s own selection, a screening of his beloved 1994 crime drama, Crooklyn—followed by a panel discussion with the film’s stars, Alfre Woodard, Zelda Harris, Cinqué Lee, and Joie Lee—as well as yet-to-be announced curators, and a big, proper block party in front of the Howard Gilman Theater to close it all out.

If that sounds like your kind of weekend, tickets for individual Playback screenings are available to purchase now via BAM. Grab your stubs today and hold tight for more updates on the programming in the weeks ahead.