It all begins with the traditional festival warm-up on July 9-10, and kicks into high gear July 11 with the opening night feature, “The Historian,” anchored by Jason Michael Brescia’s drama about Long Island twentysomethings, “Bridge and Tunnel.”

“The Historian,” from Mississippi-based Miles Doleac, who is making his directorial-screenwriting debut, is a “just perfect mainstream film that is done very well,” according to Markowitz. William Sadler (who appeared in “Iron Man 3” and is a LIIFE favorite) stars as Ben Rhodes, a troubled mid-30s classics professor, who tries to escape his past by taking a job at a new university. He struggles with an entrenched and equally troubled department chair, student apathy, and new relationships that complicate his worldview.

“Sadler is a brilliant actor and is just wonderful to watch in this,” says Markowitz.
Also in the prestigious opening night slot, is the first LIIFE entry from Jason Michael Brescia, who grew up in Malverne, came back to Long Island from California where had had been living to do “Bridge and Tunnel.”

Brescia directed and wrote the film, which focuses on a group of friends in their mid-20s stuck in the crossroads of their post-college lives. Sal, Terry, Nate, and Lina are childhood friends who grew up in post 9/11 New York, graduated high school at the peak of the War on Terror, and began adulthood amidst a global financial crisis. It stars Annet Mahendru (currently seen in FX’s “The Americans”) as well as Joe Murphy, of Valley Stream, and Chris Viemeister, of Lynbrook.