New York City’s newest festival brought out the cool kids of music and film

This October in New York City saw the arrival of The Downtown Festival, a new music, film, and arts festival that brought out the who’s who of the city’s bustling film and music scenes from Jeremy O. Harris and Chloë Sevigny, to rising musical acts Liam Benzvi and Malice K.

In NYC, festivals are a dime a dozen but none are doing it quite like the newest kid on the block which is focused on “championing new voices and bold, experimental work [that’s] sadly not often found in today’s festival landscape,” says founder and filmmaker Rebekah Sherman-Myntti in a press release. Over the course of three weekends, the festival’s inaugural event will showcase a bevy of hand-selected shorts, films, and music videos from up-and-coming filmmakers, alongside performances from some of NYC’s most exciting, rising musicians.

Taking over the historic Roxy Cinema, the festival’s kickoff weekend on Oct. 4-6 saw the premieres of thriller Pet Shop Days by Olmo Schnabel, Or Something by Jeffrey Scotti Schroeder (starring Subway Takes’ Kareem Rahma and Mary Neely), and more, as well as panels with Sevigny and the award-winning playwright Harris.

The festival’s second weekend brought out its wide slate of music programming. On Oct. 12, singer-songwriter Benzvi, alongside a lineup that included Scarlet Rae, Pleasure Systems, Jordan Raf, and Quiet Luke, took over a cavernous theater turned private studio for an intimate night of music, while the following night, in partnership with the Brooklyn-based community hub The Hancock, the festival saw noisier show outs from singer Malice K and noise-rock band Voyeur.

“NYC has such a great history of music,” Voyeur frontman Jake Lazovick tells The FADER. “All my favorite music has come from here. I feel like the city cares more about real estate than culture. But there are a lot of people working hard to continue this history and making sure the city doesn’t get completely astroturfed.”

Ahead, see some exclusive snapshots from the first two weekends of festivities, and be sure to check out The Downtown Festival’s remaining programming, which teases as-of-yet unannounced "special events," here.