"SPELLBOUND" TEAM RETURNS TO WFF
Jeffrey Blitz and Sean Welch – whose highly acclaimed 2002 documentary Spellbound delighted Williamstown Film Festival audiences and went on to receive an Academy Award nomination – are returning to the Berkshires on August 6th.
That night at 7:00pm, writer-director Blitz and producer Welch will attend a screening of their first fiction feature Rocket Science at Images Cinema, which is jointly presenting the film with WFF. This coming-of-age story about a stuttering kid who tackles the mysteries of life, love, and public speaking won Blitz the Dramatic Directing Award at its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. On their way to the August 10th premiere in Manhattan, Blitz and Welch are making a special stop in Williamstown to do a Q-&-A after the screening. WFF will be the last festival in America to show Rocket Science before it opens.
 Life is not easy for teenager Hal Hefner of suburban New Jersey. Aside from divorced parents, his mother's new boyfriend, and an aggressive brother, Hal has an unpredictable stutter that makes high school an exercise in embarassment. So it's a total surprise when Ginny Ryerson – the beautiful, brilliant star of his school's debate team – recruits him. Hal is not only dazed by the offer; he's smitten... and sex starts to rear its head everywhere. The twists and turns that ensue from Hal's decision to give debating a shot are human, hilarious, and heartbreaking.
"What's wonderful about Rocket Science," notes WFF executive director Steve Lawson, who reunited with Blitz and Welch at Sundance and has pursued the film for Williamstown ever since, "is the way Jeff has taken the affinity he showed for young people in a documentary and applied it to fictional characters. After a film as fine as Spellbound you're anxious about what the director will come up with next... but Rocket Science is a ten-strike, and I'm thrilled it's brought Jeff and Sean back to WFF."
Images Cinema is located on Spring Street in Williamstown. Tickets - which cost $12, with Images members and students $10 - may be purchased in advance by calling (413) 458-1039 and will be sold at the door on the night pending availability.
See rocketsciencemovie.com/ for more information
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