Jacob Burns Film Center celebrates 10th Anniversary

The Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville turns 10 this year. But unlike other 10-year-olds, it’s giving presents rather than worrying about getting them.

The Burns already got the festivities rolling in May with “JBFC at Ten,” featuring films from its recurring series of the past decade. June sees the “24 Hour Movie Marathon” (11 p.m. June 18 to 11 p.m. June 19), with a surprise banquet of new films, foreign cinema classics, screwball comedies, music videos, documentaries, animated subjects and works unavailable on DVD or VHS. There’s a prize for everyone who stays for all 24 hours and, not surprisingly, free coffee throughout the night.

July and August offer an array of goodies. The “Sounds of Summer: New Music Documentaries” series opens July 5 with “Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune,” which includes a Q&A with director Kenneth Bowser and The New York Times critic Janet Maslin. This series runs through Aug. 10.

The “Party Movies” series (Aug. 12-Sept. 1) includes “The Lady Eve” (Aug. 13 and 15), a screwball comedy with Barbara Stanwyck as a shipboard con artist and Henry Fonda as her romantic mark. “Movies For Kids (and Their Families)” (July 1-Aug. 28) features films like “Against All Flags,” with Errol Flynn buckling all swashes.

Don’t forget that the center is offering all children’s tickets to films in this series, which are screened at noon, for $1 all year long, thanks to series sponsor Club Fit in Briarcliff Manor and Jefferson Valley. In addition, all JBFC members who purchase a ticket for a screening on the first Wednesday of every month in 2011 will receive one free small popcorn at the concession stand.

The center is a nonprofit cultural arts organization dedicated to presenting the best of independent, documentary, and world cinema, promoting 21st-century literacy and making film a vibrant part of the community. Located on a 47,500-square-foot, three-building campus, the JBFC is just 30 miles outside of New York City. Since its opening in 2001, more than one million people have seen  4,500-plus films from some 40 countries. The campus includes the 27,000 square-foot Media Arts Lab – the JBFC’s state-of-the-art education center, a creative and educational community for storytellers in the digital age, offering one-time workshops, intensive courses and weekend programs for children and adults of all ages. 747-5555, burnsfilmcenter.org