Happy Monday
This is the final schedule for MIFF by-the-Sea, coming to Reel Pizza over
the weekend of Sept 11 - 14, 2009. We are all excited, and hopefully once
you have had a chance to check out all the wonderful films we have coming,
you will be equally excited.
I am attaching a pdf of the schedule-at-a-glance which the paper
subscribers will be receiving with their mailed schedule heading out
today. This email also includes descriptions of all every film we are
screening for your perusal and edification.
Once you have figured out which film(s) you want to see and when, we
recommend that you buy your tickets early to avoid disappointment. It is
a rare time when you can get advance tickets at Reel Pizza; we hope you
will take advantage of it.
All tickets at $8 each are available now for purchase for this special
weekend. In addition to our regular cash or check options for tickets, we
will also take credit cards (especially useful for phone orders), which
will incur a small convenience fee.
The printer expects to have the full program booklets to us by Tuesday, so
feel free to stop by and pick one up after that.
Your new Reel Pizza schedule will be coming in a little while, and the
films and times for this coming weekend shortly after that.
Here, in no particular order, are the MIFF films we will be screening,
plus a few others. An " * " means that an honored guest associated with
the film will be attending the screening. Please acknowledge your
appreciation to the film sponsors of their support.
Back with you soon with more Reel Pizza news
-Lisa
The Rivals USA 2009 91min Director: Kirk Wolfinger Sponsored by
CARMEN VERANDAH Fri 6:30, Sun 2:00*
Could there be any more different Maine towns than Rumford and Cape
Elizabeth? Rumford is a working class town in the western mountains, where
the paper mill is one of the region's primary employers. Cape Elizabeth is
an affluent Portland suburb, nestled in the lap of the sea and of luxury.
But when Cape Elizabeth, which had had no tradition of high school
football at all, starts a team and finds a coach who turns it from a
doormat to an undefeated championship contender in just a few years, a
rivalry is born with perennial powerhouse Rumford, a rivalry whose roots
go far beyond what happens between the goal posts. The two football teams
and their charismatic coaches, find themselves, as if in a story book
script, heading towards undefeated seasons—with only the other standing in
the way. The Rivals is a hugely entertaining, remarkably perceptive and
yes, downright nail-biting true story. It's not just a film about Maine;
it's a film virtually entirely by people who currently live in the State.
Every camera person, sound person, and PA who worked the shoots is from
Maine. The editing team is comprised of Mainers. The music, with the
exception of one song, is done by musicians from Maine. Several bands and
musicians contributed existing pieces or composed music for the film for
nothing or next to nothing. The sound design and mixing was done in
Portland. This is a 99% Made in Maine film. None of that would be as
important as it is if The Rivals weren't simply a terrific film, no matter
what its origin.
The Necessities of Life **Audience Favorite Award Winner** Canada
2008 103min [in French and Inuktitut with subtitles]
Director: Benoit Pilon Sponsored by EDEN RISING Fri 6:00, Sun 8:00, Mon
7:45
Winner of 4 Genies (the Canadian Oscar equivalent) including Best Actor,
Director and Screenplay and 3 Jutras (the Québécois Oscar equivalent)
including Best Film, The Necessities of Life is a finely observed and
beautifully filmed story of cross-cultural connection set during the
tuberculosis epidemic that broke out in the Inuit population of far
northern Canada in the 1940s and '50s. Natar Ungalaaq of The Fast Runner
stars as a stricken man, diagnosed with TB when a medical boat docks
during the brief summer in which his Baffin Island home is accessible to
the outside world. Three months' passage later, he lands in Quebec City,
where everything seems alien—even the myriad trees that obstruct clear
views unlike the stark, wide-open vistas of home. While no one here speaks
Inuktitut, Tivii does grasp that his treatment is expected to last as long
as two years. Despairing, he's nonetheless somewhat buoyed by the warm
concern of fellow patient Joseph and nurse Carole. His outlook improves
when she orchestrates the hospital transfer of Kaki, a similarly afflicted
orphan who's been away from his native culture for many months. That's
time enough to have learned French, so he can act as Tivii's translator,
while the latter takes a fatherly interest in stoking the child's lapsed
knowledge of traditional Inuk customs and myths.
Automorphosis USA 2008 77min Director, Producer: Harrod Blank
Sponsored by LOMPOC CAFÉ Sat 8:15, Sun 4:15
What if you could morph your car into a mobile work of art, and drive it
down the road for all to see? What would it look like? In his wild wheeled
new film Automorphosis, Harrod Blank wows us with some of the most amazing
cars—and most amazing art—you've ever seen. An interactive Art Car that
was inspired by an actual dream, the Camera Van has the ability to capture
the amazed reactions of people who see it for the first time. While Blank
had previously sought to document onlookers' honest responses to Art Cars,
he was unable to record their candid reactions since he could not get
close enough without revealing his camera. The solution that appeared in
his dream was to affix a large enough quantity of cameras to his car that
no one would know which ones, if any, worked. Of the 2,500 cameras mounted
to the van, six are functional Canons that shoot print film, and two are
operational video cameras that transmit live images to the giant
"filmstrip" composed of four TV monitors on the passenger side of the
vehicle. Other cars and their creators in the jaw-dropping Automorphosis
include world renowned spoon bender Uri Geller and his
fork-and-spoon-covered "Peace Car"; Howard Davis's "Telephone Car" an
obsession-driven telephone collection; and Leonard Knight, a religious
folk artist who's painted his vehicles as well as most of an entire
mountain in the desert as a testament to his faith. Weaving his own tale
amidst the others, Blank, as narrator, is the glue that binds these
vibrant portraits. The personalization of the car into wild mobile art may
be the ultimate personification of uniquely American creativity.
Bonne Année Costa Rica 2008 105min Director: Alexander Berberich
Sponsored by GRINGOS Sat 8:30, Mon 5:30
Bonne Année takes place during the course of one fateful night in an
unnamed Latin American city. It is New Year's Eve, and two hit men, one
American, one French, ponder the night and their lives in this stylish and
unconventional thriller. The film begins with the end of the evening's
story, then retraces the events that lead there in a series of beautifully
composed, continuous "long take" shots averaging 10 minutes each. This
technique, pioneered by Alfred Hitchcock in Rope but almost never used
since, is stunningly effective. Bonne Année is the first film by
Alexander Berberich and features an assured and radiant performance from
Karen Young, who's dazzled as a leading lady in a range of great films
from the international (Laurent Cantet's Heading South) to the American
independent (Tom Noonan's The Wife) to the Hollywood (Daybreak, Heat) to
upper case TV series ("The Sopranos," in which she appeared regularly as
Agent Robyn Sanseverino).
The Language of America USA 2009 90min [partly in various Native
languages with subtitles] Director, Producer: Ben Levine Sponsored by
ABBE MUSEUM Sat 4:15*, Sun 6:00
Once lost, how can a language, an invaluable treasure, be revived? Ben
Levine, whose Reveil: Waking Up French looked at the French language here
in Maine, goes deeper in the world premiere of his new film, made with the
Wampanoag, and Narragansett Tribes of New England, and in particular with
Maine's own Passamaquoddy, who have carefully tended their language to
keep it alive. All are native cultures and languages that have been
severely threatened by the culture of the relative newcomers to this
hemisphere. The Language of America, a project many years in the making,
takes us to places we've never been, in words we've never before heard.
Li Tong China 2009 75min [in Mandarin with subtitles] Director:
Nian Liu Sponsored by CAFÉ BLUEFISH Sat 7:00, Sun 2:15
A children's story for all ages follows a little girl's journey home
through the old and new streets of a changing Beijing. Shot in a realistic
style and from young Li Tong's perspective, we see a big, wonderful and
slightly overwhelming world, and the ease and sensitivity of director Nian
Liu enable us to be right there in it with her. This is the China of
today, revealed in a way that's both startlingly real and truly magical.
Li Tong reveals a city and its people in the eyes of a lost, curious and
very resilient child.
Pachamama Bolivia/Japan/USA 2008 104min [in Quechura (Spanish &
Aimara) with subtitles] Director, Producer, Screenplay: Toshifumi
Matsushita Sponsored by CARMEN VERANDAH Sat 6:15, Sun 8:30
In Bolivia, 13 year old Kunturi for the first time accompanies his father
as he leads a traditional, colorfully outfitted llama caravan along the
ancient "ruta de la sal" (salt route). The journey begins at their home on
the salt plains where the blocks of salt are harvested and leads to the
increasingly remote villages of the Andes where the grateful villagers
barter corn and pumpkins for the essential salt and ends with the Tinku
Festival where Kunturi meets his future wife. Pachamama has been correctly
compared to Latcho Drom and Postmen in the Mountains: all three could be
called ethnographic road movies with big hearts and eyes for beauty.
"Named after the Queeha earth goddess, the pic portrays a vanishing way of
life yet emerges as a delightful celebration of it." Variety.
Shooting Beauty USA 2008 62min Director: George Kachadorian
Sponsored by OPERA HOUSE INTERNET CAFÉ Sat 4:45, Sun 6:15*
Already the winner of Audience Awards from two film festivals, Emmy
nominated filmmaker and Durham resident, George Kachadorian's documentary
film tells the story of aspiring fashion photographer Courtney Bent, whose
career takes an unexpected turn when she discovers a hidden world of
beauty at a center for people living with significant cerebral palsy and
other disabilities. Courtney overcomes her own reservations and begins
inventing accessible cameras for her new friends to take pictures of their
world. Ernest 'EJ' James learns to snap photos with his tongue while
dodging Boston traffic. Tom Herrick, who spent the first 18 years of his
life confined to his bedroom, completely changes his self-concept-—he
ceases to be a person with a handicap and becomes a person with a camera.
Mary Jo Chaisson may be the most infectious, joyful character ever
captured on film. And Tony Knight, a handsome, well spoken Jamaican native
uses his photography to 'start the conversation' with a public afraid to
approach him. The group's efforts snowball into an award winning
photography program called "Picture This"—and become the backdrop for this
eye-opening story about romance, daring, loss and laughter that will
change what you thought you knew about living with a disability—and
without one.
Showing With: I Am a Man: From Memphis, a Lesson In Life USA 2008 27
minutes Director Jonathan Epstein
In 1968, thousands of African-American men marched through the streets of
Memphis, demanding overdue respect with signs reading 'I Am a Man.' In the
long shadow of the slaying of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the stories of
the average men and women who made one of the civil rights movement's most
pivotal, historic stands have been overlooked. Surrounded by the unique
soul music that helped make Memphis world famous, I Am a Man inspiringly
follows Elmore Nickleberry — one of the original 1968 protesters — who, at
77, is continuing to drive his trash truck through the streets of downtown
Memphis.
ME Short Films Sponsored by CAFÉ THIS WAY Fri 8:15*, Sat 2:00, Mon
8:00 This selection of newly-minted Maine-made shorts covers topics that
are quintessential, from lobster to maple sugaring, from summer cabins to
Katahdin. Like being here, only way more filmic!
Life by Lobster* USA 2009 60min Director: Iain McCray Martin
Contrasting the stark beauty of the Downeast Maine seacoast with the stark
reality of earning a living there, Life by Lobster, a new hour-long
documentary by 22-year-old independent filmmaker Iain McCray Martin, a
native of Deer Isle, takes you inside the lives of five young lobster
fishermen determined to pursue this proud traditional vocation against
steadily mounting obstacles.
Once More to the Cabin USA 2009 28min Directors: Jim Isler, Tom
Isler A 93-year-old widow returns to the cabin in Boothbay Harbor where
she first fell in love in an attempt to say good-bye to her late husband
in a film lovingly made by her grandsons.
Road to Katahdin USA 2009 9min Director: Georg Koszulinski
A wonderfully personal essay on climbing our most famous peak, from Georg
Koszulinski, whose Dead Buffalo was also in this year's festival, and
whose Immokalee U.S.A. was a highlight of last year's.
The Music of the Sugarbush USA 2007 16min Director: Nelson Cole
Filmed at a Skowhegan sugarhouse, The Music of the Sugarbush takes us into
the world of maple sugaring as co-owner Iver Lofving shares his thoughts
about the continuation of an old tradition.
Silence Before Bach Spain 2008 102min [in Spanish and German with
subtitles] Director, Producer Pere Poratbella Sponsored by MOUNT DESERT
ISLAND ICE CREAM Fri 8:30, Sun 4:00
The long-awaited new film from former Buñuel producer and visionary
director Pere Portabella, one of the world's most distinctive and original
film voices, "The Silence Before Bach" is a true wonder. "Bach's music is
the only thing that reminds us the world is not a failure," says a
character in the film. Portabella, taking Bach's music as a theme and a
starting place, but taking it on the road, both literally (two Spanish
truckdrivers discuss its fine points; a group of several dozen young
cellists play rapturous Bach on a subway car they appear to have taken
over) and otherwise (as Portabella recreates the composer's life—sort of;
the film opens with a player piano moving of seemingly its own accord
through a bare art gallery, really dancing a pas de deux with Portabella's
camera.) The music is as glorious as the cinematic art; and the film's
meanings are open and perhaps even profound.
Ghost Bird USA 2009 85min Director, Producer: Scott Crocker
Sponsored by RUPUNUNI Sat 2:15. Mon 6:00
The true story of an extinct giant woodpecker features a small town In
Arkansas hoping to reverse its misfortunes, and the tireless odyssey of
bird-watchers and scientists searching for the Holy Grail of birds, the
elusive Ivory-billed woodpecker. Although considered extinct 60 years ago,
bird watchers refused to accept its passing. Then, scientists from Cornell
announced that it had been found…but had it? Scott Crocker's new
documentary was hailed in its recent World Premiere at Hot Docs as "comic,
mesmerizing and deeply poignant. This investigative doc is reminiscent of
the work of Errol Morris in the way it casts a spell while telling a story
and building a case" (Maclean's).
On a Phantom Limb USA Director: Nancy Andrews Sat 10:30*
Frequently featured at MIFF, director Nancy Andrews combines live action,
documentary, puppetry and animation to tell her stories. "On a Phantom
Limb," from this year's MIFF, features a cyborg: a woman/bird creature
that sometimes whimsically and sometimes disturbingly conveys the human
encounter with mortality. As one viewer wrote, this "cyborg heroine is a
metaphor for the postmodern condition, fragmented, reconstructed, hybrid,
virtual, part history/part future." Andrews is a faculty member at
College of the Atlantic and her films have been presented by the Museum of
Modern Art, Pacific Film Archive, Gene Siskel Film Center, and Ann Arbor
Film Festival, among others; and are in the film collections of the School
of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art. She has been
the recipient of grants and fellowships from The LEF Foundation, The
Illinois State Arts Council, The Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art
(supported by the Jerome Foundation and New York State Council on the
Arts), and National Endowment for the Arts. She is a current Guggenheim
Fellow; On a Phantom Limb was created during her Guggenheim Fellowship.
sabretooth I USA Director: Colin Capers Sat 10:30*
"sabertooth I" is a flowing work of linked and deeply layered images that
are frequently quite familiar, yet remain hard to define – much like a
dream whose narrative eludes us. Fleeting images of fields, a person, a
baby, surgery pass by, and then the images get lost in director Colin
Capers' meticulous, deeply artistic manipulations. Each frame contains as
many as eighty layers of video and audio. The result, combined with an
ethereal score, is a sensory experience that echoes the way thoughts,
visions, ideas and memory get layered and lost within our own minds. This
is not a MIFF film, but was featured at the Maine Film Center's newest
initiative – this spring's Lumina Festival, held in partnership with the
American Film Institute's Project 20/20 – where Capers won the emerging
filmmaker award.
48-Hour Music Festival Movie USA filmmaker David Camlin Fri 10:30* In
the midst of February's frigid grip on Maine, twenty-eight musicians
agreed to be randomly placed into six new bands. Portland's first 48-hour
music festival brings old friends, casual acquaintances and total
strangers in from the cold to begin composing a twenty-five minute set two
days before the scheduled performance. Following the progress of each
band in the festival as they compose and rehearse, The 48-Hour Music
Festival Movie brings you into unassuming buildings and behind the closed
doors of hidden practice spaces as a witness to the creative process of
developing a band. Both fans and practitioners of music will find this
collective among peers to be one of Portland's affective events in the
continuing evolution of its solid music scene. The 48-Hour Music Festival
Movie is not a MIFF film, but a Reel Pizza late-night special event
directed by recent COA alumnus Dave Camlin, winner of the Portland Phoenix
Short Film Award-winning "Smelt Fishing in America."
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