About the Champlain Valley Film Series

The Champlain Valley Film Series began showing movies in 2003 in the theater at the Willsboro Central School in Willsboro, NY, debuting with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Breaking Away, and Shakespeare in Love. In the summer of 2004 we started screening films outdoors behind the Essex Inn, in Essex, NY, with Some Like It Hot and North by Northwest. The summer movie series continued in 2005 with such films as Notorious and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In the winter of 2006 we began a new indoor series, with films such as March of the Penguins, The Battle of Algiers, and Capote. That summer we also began showing movies outdoors at Ballard Park in Westport, NY, with Master and Commander and A Hard Day's Night.

In 2012 we moved to our permanent home at the Whallonsburg Grange Hall.

We are very grateful to the Essex Community Fund/Adirondack Foundation for grants to help us purchase a new HD projector and a much bigger screen. We are also very grateful for the many donations from the community and for grants from the following organizations: the Arts Council for the Northern Adirondacks, the Boquet River Association, the Honeybee Foundation, and Steward's Shops Holiday Match.

2021
"Reel Talks" - Home Together virtual film series: Collective (with speaker Emilie Stigliani), The Dig (with speaker Dr. Justin Lowry), Mangrove (with speaker Andy Buchanan), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (with speaker Kenney Green), My Octopus Teacher (with speaker Richard King), Nomadland (with speaker Aaron Woolf), and The Personal History of David Copperfield (with speaker Dr. Elaine Ostry).

2020
Downton Abbey, Knives Out, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, Maiden, Parasite

"Reel Talks" - Home Together virtual film series: Honeyland (with speakers Dick Crawford and Larry Barns), John Lewis: Good Trouble (with speakers Paul Murray and Nell Stokes), Palm Springs (with speakers Jim Shepard and Rowan Ricardo Phillips), and Wadjda (with speaker Dr. Akanksha Misra).

2019
Apollo 11, Biggest Little Farm, BlacKKKlansman, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, The Favourite, First Man, Free Solo (with Don Mellor), Green Book, Incredibles 2, Late Night, Oum Kulthum (with Shirin Neshat), Paddington 2, A Star Is Born, They Shall Not Grow Old (with Andy Buchanan), Wetware (with Jay Craven), Yesterday

2018
Battle of the Sexes, Born to Rewild (with speaker John Davis), Coco, The Darkest Hour, Denial (with speaker Aaron Woolf), Dunkirk, Knife Skills (with speaker Nick August-Perna), Kubo and the Two Strings, Isle of Dogs, Lady Bird, The Post, RBG, The Rider, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Three Identical Strangers, Won't You Be My Neighbor?

2017
The BFG, The Big Sick, Dawson City: Frozen Time, Frantz, Hidden Figures, I, Daniel Blake, La La Land, Lion, Logan Lucky, Loving, A Man Called Ove, Manchester by the Sea, Moonlight, Oscar Shorts, Paterson, Queen of Katwe, Sully, and To Be a Miss (with director Aaron Woolf.)

2016
The Big Short, Bridge of Spies (with speaker Beth Amorosi), Brooklyn, Captain Fantastic, Creed, Eye in the Sky, Indignation, Inside Out, Love and Friendship, The Martian, Meru, Mustang, Oscar Shorts, Phoenix, Spotlight, Steve Jobs, Where to Invade Next, and Zootopia

2015
The 46ers, Birdman, The Black Stallion, Boyhood, Far from the Madding Crowd, Force Majeure, Ida, Imitation Game, Love & Mercy, Me and Earl and The Dying Girl, Pride (with historian Andy Buchanan), Oscar Shorts, The Salt of the Earth, Selma (with historian Paul Murray), Theory of Everything (our 200th movie anniversary celebration), Shawn the Sheep, Wallace and Gromit, Whiplash, Wild, Women of '69, Unboxed (with director Peter Barton and executive producer Liz Roman Gallese)

2014
12 Years a Slave (with historian Rachel Seligman), 20 Feet from Stardom, All Is Lost, American Hustle, Babe, Captain Phillips (with Captain Richard Phillips), Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Nebraska, Oscar Shorts, Philomena, The Fault in Our Stars, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Jersey Boys, The Old Breed (with director Mark Richey), Where the Rivers Flow North (with author Howard Frank Mosher and director Jay Craven)

2013
42, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Brooklyn Castle, Charlie Chaplin's The Kid (with live piano accompaniment by Ben Model), Fort Apache (with director Addison Mehr), Lincoln, Northern Borders (with director Jay Craven), Oscar Shorts, Robot & Frank, Ruby Sparks, The Sessions, The Way, Way Back, What Maisie Knew, Zero Dark Thirty.

2012
The Artist, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Descendants, Iron Lady, A Week with Marilyn, Mission Impossible, Monsieur Lazhar, Moonrise Kingdom, The Navigator (with live piano accompaniment by Ben Modell), Oscars Shorts, Page One (with newspaper editors Lois Clermont and Keith Lobdell), Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, The Swell Season (with director Nick August-Perna).

 2011
127 Hours; Beginners; Buck; Cave of Forgotten Dreams; Easy A; Exit Through the Gift Shop; The Fighter; Incendies; Inside Job; Jane Eyre; The Kids Are All Right; The King's Speech; 2011 Oscar Shorts; Restrepo; Small Farm Rising (Q&A with director Ben Stechschulte); The Social Network; Waiting for Superman (introduced by CFES president Rick Dalton and school superintendent Steve Broadwell); Win Win.

2010
(500) Days of Summer; City Island; The Cove; Crazy Heart; An Education; The Ghost Writer; The Hurt Locker; Julie and Julia (introduced by chef John Ferry); Moon; Precious; Safety Last (introduced and with piano accompaniment by Ben Model); The Secret in Their Eyes; Up in the Air; Winter's Bone; Women Without Men (introduced by director Shirin Neshat); The Young Victoria.

2009
The African Queen; Annie Hall; Burn After Reading; Every Little Step (introduced by dancer Antonette Knoedl); Food, Inc. (introduced by farmers Mike & Laurie Davis); Frost/Nixon; Frozen River (introduced by writer/director Courtney Hunt); Buster Keaton's The General (introduced and with piano accompaniment by Ben Model); Ghost Town; Goodbye Solo; Happy-Go-Lucky; Islander (introduced by actor/screenwriter Thomas Hildreth); Man on Wire; Milk; Slumdog Millionaire; Sugar; Sunshine Cleaning; Trouble the Water; Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

2008
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days; The 11th Hour; Affliction (introduced by author Russell Banks); Air Guitar Nation; Atonement; Au Revoir, les Enfants; Away From Her; Casablanca; Charlie Wilson's War; The Darjeeling Limited; Death at a Funeral; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; Into the Wild; Juno; King Corn (introduced by writer/director Aaron Woolf); Lars and the Real Girl; No Country for Old Men; Son of Rambow; Tell No One; Then She Found Me; Touching the Void; The Visitor.

2007
Basquiat (introduced by sculptor Joel Shapiro and painter Ellen Phelan); Bobby (introduced by author Thurston Clarke); Casino Royale; Charade; Children of Men; Concert for George; Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing; The Heart of the Game; Henry V; Hot Fuzz; Kung Fu Hustle; The Last King of Scotland; Letters from Iwo Jima; Little Miss Sunshine; The Lives of Others; Local Hero; The Namesake; Once; Pan's Labyrinth; The Princess Bride; The Queen; Sicko; The Sting; Three Farms; Waitress; Whale Rider.

2006
The Battle of Algiers; The Beauty Academy of Kabul; Best In Show; Breaker Morant; Capote; Disappearances (introduced by writer/director Jay Craven); Good Night and Good Luck; A Hard Day's Night; An Inconvenient Truth; The Incredibles; L. A. Confidential; La Traviata; Life Is Beautiful; Mad Hot Ballroom; Master and Commander; Much Ado About Nothing; Neil Young: Heart of Gold; A Prairie Home Companion; Rockwell Kent; Spirited Away; Z.

2005
Invasion of the Body Snatchers; Notorious; March of the Penguins; Monty Python and the Holy Grail; The Producers; Putting It Together (introduced by actor/singer George Hearn); Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (also introduced by Mr. Hearn).

2004
North by Northwest; Some Like It Hot.

2003
A Bug's Life; Breaking Away; Close Encounters of the Third Kind; Dumb and Dumber, Grease; Shakespeare in Love.