Ariel Phenomenon premiere at the Academy of Music Theater in Northampton, Massachusetts October 7th and 8th.
Tickets range from $12 for Friday’s screening and $15 on Saturday which includes a 1 hour panel discussion. (details below) Martin Willis, Podcast UFO will be live streaming the panel discussion.
Northampton, MA – September 21, 2022 – On October 7 and 8, the widely acclaimed film Ariel Phenomenon, directed by Randall Nickerson of Whately will premiere at the historic Academy of Music Theater (274 Main Street) in Northampton Massachusetts at 7 p.m. To date, Ariel Phenomenon has achieved a 7.8 on IMDB, a 100 percent Critics & 97 percent Audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and positive reviews from film critics, along with international press coverage.
For media screening tickets or interviews with Randall Nickerson, please email Chrissy Newton at chrissy@vocabcommunications.com. Please click here to download the EPK for press photos, stills and more information on the cast, crew and director. Screeners are also available upon request.
In 1994, over sixty schoolchildren witnessed an unidentified craft land outside their schoolyard. Over twenty-five years later, this incident is still fresh in students’ memories. They continue to search for answers – and the courage to speak their truth. In this first feature documentary about the Ariel School UFO incident, a young woman returns to her school in rural Zimbabwe – the place that, at the age of nine, shattered her reality. We meet a respected BBC war reporter who reluctantly covered the event, ultimately leading him to risk his career on the one story that haunted him the most. Jeopardizing his reputation is Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John Mack, whose validation of the witnesses made this mass-sighting impossible to ignore. Alongside the investigators, the now-adult students ask the question many have struggled with for over two decades: “What happens when you experience something so extraordinary that nobody believes you?”
Audiences may recognize the event from the 2020 documentary The Phenomenon, directed by James Fox, who dedicated the last twelve minutes of his film to the Ariel School incident. This memorable ending to the film made many viewers hungry for more information on the Ariel event.
Tickets range from $12 for Friday’s screening and $15 on Saturday which includes a 1 hour panel discussion. Panelists will join both live and via Zoom for a conversation on the event and the phenomena overall. Panelists will include Salma Siddick (live), witness and former Ariel School student; Lisil Field (remote), witness and former Ariel School student; Gunter Hofer (remote), scientist and photographer who investigated the scene of the event, and several more well-known experts on the topic from across the U.S..
In addition to director Randall Nickerson, a Whately native, the filmmaking team and crew are all local residents and award-winning documentary professionals from around the Pioneer Valley, including Christopher Seward of Ashfield (Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, 2018 SXSW Grand Jury-winning People’s Republic of Desire, and 2019 Sundance Grand Jury-winning One Child Nation), Rikk Desgres of Northampton (Baseball, Wild by Law, Divided Highways), and more film professionals from Greenfield, Northampton, and Turners Falls.
“My team and I have dug up every type of primary document and media source we could find,” says Randall Nickerson. “Everything in the film is authentic archival materials. We didn’t use special effects, no recreations. You can’t recreate what people actually saw. But when they talk, the audience can imagine it. And hopefully, that will make it even more impactful.”
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To book an interview with Randall Nickerson, press images or more information please contact:
VOCAB Communications
Chrissy Newton, Publicist
416.705.9523
Chrissy@vocabcommunications.com