New York Fest Takes a Shot at Cannes : Movies: The Lincoln Center Film Society and the Independent Feature Project merge two high-profile autumn events in a bid to rival famed French festival.

New York City may not have the posh beaches of the Riviera nor its romping topless sun worshipers. But this month it will have its own Gotham-style film fete that organizers hope will one day rival the influence of the Cannes Film Festival.

The Lincoln Center Film Society and the Independent Feature Project have joined forces to merge two already high-profile autumn events--the New York Film Festival and the Independent Feature Project market. The two-week-long “East Riviera” film happening, aptly dubbed the New York Film Fortnight, begins Sept. 20 and ends Oct. 6.

Like Cannes, the collaboration between the film festival and the IFP market mixes business and art, the industry and moviegoing public under one umbrella. The pure art part happens at the festival, which takes place uptown at Lincoln Center, where an international assortment of films make a U.S. debut and draw the audience to see what’s new. This year that includes 28 programs of films from 20 countries.

Meanwhile, downtown at the Angelika Film Center, the IFP’s market will screen 70 feature films by U.S. filmmakers and 40 by those from outside the United States, including several from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. But the purpose of showing these films and 68 so-called works-in-progress--all to industry executives--is to attract distribution deals and additional financial backing that will make it possible for these independent works to garner audiences that many of the festival’s entries are almost guaranteed.

To make attendance at both events easier for industry executives, accreditation at the IFP market will provide access to press screenings at the festival. In addition, Fortnight will boast the joint cocktail parties and receptions at which industry insiders can indulge in their favorite activity--schmoozing. Also a la Cannes, the Fortnight is expected to have a daily newspaper provided by European-based Screen International.

New York may not offer the chi chi beauty of Cannes or the great skiing of the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, but the Film Fortnight could succeed for business reasons. Where the IFP Market always has been able to attract industry executives from both the United States and Europe, the film festival gets the good press. Organizers hope the events can share and share alike and allow industry executives to attend both events in one trip.

Despite very little advanced planning and insufficient funding, organizers decided to launch the Fortnight this year. Why? Because the city and the industry here needed it.

“There was so much negative publicity after the movie studios’ boycott of New York and its production unions,” said Sandy Mandelberger, the IFP market’s director. “We saw industry people abandoning the city. We could have waited until 1992, but we felt it important psychologically to do something--even if something simple--to reinforce New York’s importance as a center for film development, production and distribution.”

To further promote New York--and to match Cannes--the IFP organized the Gotham Awards, which will honor the nexus between accomplishment in independent filmmaking and New York.

Based on a body of work rather than one film, the first Gotham Award recipients include filmmaker Jonathan Demme (“The Silence of the Lambs,” “Married to the Mob”); Spike Lee’s director of photography, Ernest Dickerson, who recently completed work on his own movie, “Juice”; and actor John Turturro, whose has appeared in “Jungle Fever,” “Do the Right Thing” and “Barton Fink.”

Other recipients are producer Michael Hausman, writer Richard Price and filmmaker Jennie Livingston (“Paris Is Burning”). A special lifetime achievement award is being presented to Irwin Young, chairman of Du Art Labs. The awards will be presented at a black-tie fund-raising dinner Sept. 30 at the trendy mid-town night spot Laura Belle’s.

The awards have a prestigious board of industry movers and shakers backing them, which includes actors Robert De Niro, Karen Allen and Andie MacDowell; filmmakers Barbara Kopple, Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee and John Sayles, and film grand pooh-bahs Arthur Krim and Harvey Weinstein.

Another missing element from the event is money--an affliction independent filmmakers and New York often share. IFP and film society organizers said that next year they will seek corporate underwriting for joint events and services for the Fortnight, such as a shuttle bus between Lincoln Center and the Angelika Film Center.

“I’m not sure anything can ever approach Cannes, and (the Fortnight) is definitely not a ‘must come’ event this year,” said Ira Deutchman, the head of a New Line Cinema’s start-up theatrical division Fine Line Features. “But it gives people a lot of reason to make that trip to New York and, with a few years of this and some more events, I expect we could see it take off.”