26th Maine International Film Festival Program Guide

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6 1 – 7 ULY 2023

M I F F. O A Project of

Presenting Sponsors

RG

WE ARE WATERVILLE CREATES.

Offering movies, classes, concerts, plays + more

Find us here!

PAUL J. SCHUPF ART CENTER 93 Main Street, Waterville, Maine 04901 207.873.7000 watervillecreates.org

TABLE OF CONTENTS VENUES + SPONSORS

5

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

8–9

Jak Peters Senior Associate Programmer, Projectionist

MID-LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: ILDIKÓ ENYEDI

10–11

OPENING NIGHT

12

Saidah Russell Guest Programmer

CLOSING NIGHT + TOURMALINE PRIZES

13

SPECIAL GUEST: BILL MORRISON

14

Festival Staff Mike Perreault Executive Director Ken Eisen Programming Director Julia Dunlavey Assistant Executive Director Austin Frederick Technical Director Nancy Bixler Senior Associate Programmer Jordyn Chelf Marketing + Development Coordinator Mary Ellms Communications Coordinator Jackie Ferlito Interim Communications Coordinator Arleen King-Lovelace Guest Services Coordinator Jill Lawrence Patron Services Assistant Lisa Lessard Guest Services Coordinator Audrey Loo Production Assistant Trish Lowell Associate Programmer Yiyun Mao Production Assistant John Meader Photographer Deni Merrill Venue Manager Emilienne Ouelette Senior Patron Services Assistant

Phoebe Sanborn Administrative Coordinator Serena Sanborn Manager of Outreach + Community Partnerships Phoebe Ellen Sessler Operations Specialist Sara Stewart Event + Volunteer Coordinator Marie Sugden Exhibitions Coordinator Nathan Sylvester Venue Manager Greta Thiele Patron Services Assistant Josh Veilleux Box Office Manager Zachary-Allen Wallace Venue Manager Bria Watson Senior Associate Programmer Lily Webb Technical Coordinator Mali Welch/All Over It Festival Graphic Design Lisa Wheeler Education Manager Jen Whelan Patron Services Assistant

NEW FEATURES

15–34

REDISCOVERY

35–38

SHORTS PROGRAMS

39–43

SPECIAL EVENTS

44

INDEX

65

Programmer Credits Throughout this guide, MIFF’s film programmers are identified by their initials: KE Ken Eisen, SR Saidah Russell, NB, TL, JP, BW Nancy Bixler, Trish Lowell, Jak Peters, Bria Watson

Ticket Information Individual Tickets

Pass Information

Individual tickets for all festival screenings and events are available at MIFF.org and at the Ed Harris Box Office at the Paul J. Schupf Art Center, 93 Main Street, Waterville, until three hours prior to each showtime. After that time, tickets may only be purchased by queueing in the Rush Line at the Paul J. Schupf Art Center.

All screenings $14.

Full Festival Pass ($250): Admits one to all events. Nontransferable.

Partial Pass ($125): Ten admissions to all events; good for up to two admissions per event.

Pass holders must arrive in line for their screening at the Paul J. Schupf Art Center at least 15 minutes prior to showtime to receive priority entry at the Maine Film Center and the Waterville Opera House. All event entry is subject to availability.

Special Thanks Derek Kimball, Caitie Collier, Charlotte Warren, Allen Baldwin, Emma Gregg, Louise Rosen, Tyler French, Teresa McKinney, Kate Hunter, Desi DuBois, Scott Wilkinson, Andrea Quaid, Todd Field, Mike Kaplan, Jake Perlin, Jim Stark, Karen Young

YOUR FREE GUIDE TO

what’s going on in waterville

Available at locations all over town! + always at Paul J. Schupf Art Center

Venues Paul J. Schupf Art Center

Camera Policy Photographs and video footage will be taken throughout MIFF and will be used by the Maine Film Center and Waterville Creates for marketing purposes in our print materials, on our website and social media channels, and in third-party publications. Your presence at Festival events constitutes your consent to being included in such recordings. No cameras or recording devices may be used during any film screenings.

93 Main Street, Waterville We welcome you to your new home for film and the visual and performing arts in downtown Waterville. The Ed Harris Box Office serves all ticket, pass, and merchandise sales, and is the point of admission for entry to all screenings at:

Maine Film Center Our state-of-the-art, three-screen, independent cinema is acclaimed for exhibiting transformative first-run, classic, and international film—and for serving the best popcorn in the known universe.

Waterville Opera House Since 1902, the beautifully restored, 810-seat Waterville Opera House has been bringing the magic of the performing arts to audiences of all ages through community theatre, dance, concerts, and educational programming.

PRESENTING SPONSORS

OFFICIAL VEHICLE OF MIFF

VENUE SPONSORS

TOURMALINE PRIZE SPONSORS

DAY SPONSORS

SUPPORTING SPONSORS

LODGING SPONSORS

HOSPITALITY SPONSORS

MEDIA SPONSORS

FUNDED IN PART BY A GRANT FROM:

PRODUCER’S CLUB

DIRECTOR’S CLUB

MIFF FAN CLUB

Peter and Joan Beckerman, Lee and Peter Lyford, Tobi Schneider and Steve Neumeister

Pat Clark, Stephen and Cathy Sears, Nancy Sanford, Barbara and Ted Alfond, Kathryn Slott, Joel and Alice Johnson, Holly Gooch

Jane Morrison, Deirdre and Jennifer Finney-Boylan, Ross Metzman, Karen Kusiak, Dr. Donald Cragen, Judy and John Bielecki

FRIENDS OF THE FESTIVAL Michelle Jensen, Harry Rabideau, Marilyn Renfrew

Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

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93 Main Street Waterville, Maine 04901 (207) 873-7000

Welcome to the Maine International Film Festival!

This year we explore new horizons. Across the Sky Bridge that links the Waterville Opera House to the new Maine Film Center at the Paul J. Schupf Art Center, and through a hundred films from across the globe, this MIFF will transport you throughout space and time.

We envision: Making new connections. Looking deep into the past, as our special guest Bill Morrison does in his work, we’re invited to reflect upon the origins and medium of film and how these elements of culture profoundly resonate in the present-day. In tandem with our partners at Ticonic Gallery + Studios and the Joan Dignam Schmaltz Gallery of Art, whose exhibitions and programs heighten the senses and encourage learning and discovery.

Building community. We invite anyone aged 18 and under to attend any event at the festival for free through the Youth Arts Access Fund by inquiring at the Ed Harris Box Office. We’ll proudly exhibit a bumper crop of Maine-made films and host an industry-focused event to highlight the efforts that make our state a competitive and fulfilling place to work in film and media.

Celebrating the cinema. With our now-annual, juried Tourmaline Prizes, we honor the best short- and feature-length made-in-Maine films. And, of course, we celebrate the internationally renowned and admired director Ildikó Enyedi with a MIFF Moose, 24 years after she first visited us here in this place we call home.

We’re honored that you’ve joined us for this experience.

Mike Perreault Executive Director Maine Film Center

Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

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SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

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Maine Film Center Cinema 1 MFC 1 115 seats

Maine Film Center Cinema 2 MFC 2 43 seats

Friday July 7

9PM THE CONFORMIST

9:40PM SHORTS “FROM AWAY”

Saturday July 8

12PM KARAOKE 3PM BADLANDS 6PM NORTH CIRCULAR, SHOWN WITH PLACE AND TIME: THE NORTH SHORE 9PM THE BEASTS

12:40PM SORCERY 3:40PM TWICE COLONIZED 6:40PM RICEBOY SLEEPS 9:40PM THE SACRIFICE

Sunday July 9

12PM 20,000 SPECIES OF BEES 3PM INFERNAL AFFAIRS 6PM PASSAGES 9PM KOKOMO CITY

12:40PM MEETING POINT 3:40PM Q UEEN OF THE DEUCE, SHOWN WITH PICKUP/DELIVERY 6:40PM T HE SUN RISES IN THE EAST, SHOWN WITH CONVICTION 9:40PM ALIS

Monday July 10

3PM MY TWENTIETH CENTURY 6PM BLACK BARBIE: A DOCUMENTARY 9PM SORCERY

3:40PM WISDOM GONE WILD 6:40PM LA PECERA (THE FISHBOWL) 9:40PM NICE PEOPLE

Tuesday July 11

3PM KNOWING THE SCORE 6PM WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES 9PM THE SUN RISES IN THE EAST, SHOWN WITH CONVICTION

3:40PM THE STORY OF MY WIFE 6:40PM SILVER HAZE 9:40PM RETURN TO DUST

Wednesday July 12

3PM ERRANTE: LA CONQUISTA DEL HOGAR (WANDERER: THE CONQUEST OF HOME) 6PM THE TUBA THIEVES 9PM KING ON SCREEN

3:40PM T HE LAST DREAM: TARKOVSKY AND THE SACRIFICE 6:40PM T IBI TENDLU: THE DIRT THAT BINDS US 9:40PM F ROM THE MORNING TO THE NIGHT

Thursday July 13

3PM THE WOUNDS 6PM THE GREAT FLOOD, SHOWN WITH BURIED NEWS 9PM BRAVO, BURKINA!

3:40PM TERRA FEMME 6:40PM AURORA’S SUNRISE 9:40PM BADLANDS

Friday July 14

3PM SIMON THE MAGICIAN 6PM DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME 9PM NORTH CIRCULAR, SHOWN WITH PLACE AND TIME: THE NORTH SHORE

3:40PM V ICENTA B, SHOWN WITH FISHING WITH EINSTEIN 6:40PM JULES 9:40PM INFERNAL AFFAIRS

Saturday July 15

12PM 44TH MAINE STUDENT FILM & VIDEO FESTIVAL 3PM MAINE DOCUMENTARY SHORTS 6PM HEIGHTENED 9PM MOSTLY-MAINE HORRORS

12:40PM THE WOUNDS 3:40PM ISRAELISM 6:40PM THE THREE MUSKETEERS 9:40PM Q UEEN OF THE DEUCE, SHOWN WITH PICKUP/DELIVERY

Sunday July 16

12PM ANXIOUS IN BEIRUT 3PM JULES

12:40PM THE DEVIL, PROBABLY 3:40PM HANGDOG

Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

Maine Film Center Cinema 3 MFC 3 22 seats

Waterville Opera House WOH 800 seats

Special Events

9:20PM BLACK BARBIE: A DOCUMENTARY

7PM OPENING NIGHT: HANGDOG

8:30PM WATERVILLE ROCKS: THE WEIGHT BAND HEAD OF FALLS

12:20PM WISDOM GONE WILD 3:20PM ALIS 6:20PM FREE MONEY 9:20PM VICENTA B, SHOWN WITH FISHING WITH EINSTEIN

1PM CHOCOLAT 4PM THE THREE MUSKETEERS 7PM MAINE DOCUMENTARY SHORTS

12:20PM HEIGHTENED 3:20PM ISRAELISM 6:20PM RETURN TO DUST 9:20PM SILVER HAZE

1PM THE CONFORMIST 4PM SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD 7PM MID-LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: ON BODY AND SOUL

10AM MIFF MOVEMENT WITH MATTHEW CUMBIE STUDIO 1902 9PM MID-LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECEPTION: ILDIKÓ ENYEDI FRONT + MAIN, 9 MAIN ST

3:20PM PASSAGES 6:20PM THE DEVIL, PROBABLY 9:20PM BRAVO, BURKINA!

1PM SHORTS “FROM AWAY” 4PM SHOE SHINE CADDIE, SHOWN WITH OLD MAN AT THE CORNER STORE 7PM WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT

1PM MAKE YOUR OWN MIFF MUG THE ART OF CLAY STUDIO

3:20PM RICEBOY SLEEPS 6:20PM 20,000 SPECIES OF BEES 9:20PM THOSE WHO WAIT

1PM AURORA’S SUNRISE 4PM FREE MONEY 7PM CENTERPIECE FILM: KING ON SCREEN

9PM CENTERPIECE RECEPTION AMICI’S CUCINA, 137 MAIN ST

3:20PM WE ARE THE WARRIORS 6:20PM SHOE SHINE CADDIE, SHOWN WITH OLD MAN AT THE CORNER STORE 9:20PM MEETING POINT

1PM WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT 4PM WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES 7PM THE LEGEND OF LYLAH CLARE

10AM DROP-IN PRINTMAKING HINGE COLLABORATIVE, 5 SILVER ST 7PM MAKE YOUR OWN MIFF MUG THE ART OF CLAY STUDIO

3:20PM TWICE COLONIZED 6:20PM THE SACRIFICE 9:20PM THE LAST DREAM: TARKOVSKY AND THE SACRIFICE

1PM ANXIOUS IN BEIRUT 4PM MOSTLY-MAINE HORRORS 7PM MAINE NARRATIVE SHORTS

3PM ART IN THE PARK: MAKE A CRANKIE CASTONGUAY SQUARE

1PM KNOWING THE SCORE 4PM KARAOKE 7PM WHAT I WANT YOU TO KNOW

9PM RECEPTION FOR BILL MORRISON OPA, 139 MAIN ST

12:20PM NICE PEOPLE 3:20PM THE BEASTS 6:20PM KOKOMO CITY 9:20PM FROM THE MORNING TO THE NIGHT

1PM MAINE NARRATIVE SHORTS 4PM WE ARE THE WARRIORS 7PM THOSE WHO WAIT

4PM MAINE FILM INDUSTRY PANEL GREENE BLOCK + STUDIOS, 18 MAIN ST

12:20PM SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD 3:20PM LA PECERA

1PM WHAT I WANT YOU TO KNOW 4PM CHOCOLAT 7PM CLOSING NIGHT: I LIKE MOVIES

9PM CLOSING NIGHT PARTY SILVER STREET TAVERN, 2 SILVER ST

3:20PM T IBI TENDLU: THE DIRT THAT BINDS US 6:20PM ERRANTE: LA CONQUISTA DEL HOGAR 9:20PM TERRA FEMME

Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

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MID-LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD ILDIKÓ ENYEDI It was the second year of MIFF and the last year of the millennium when Ildikó Enyedi had her first career retrospective—at this festival. At the time, we said: “Bursting onto the international film scene with My Twentieth Century, winner of the Caméra d’Or for Best First Feature from the Cannes Film Festival, Ildikó Enyedi immediately established herself as one of the freshest and most important new voices in international film. The promise of her stunning debut has been borne out in the remarkable films she’s made since, each one a delightful blend of myth and whimsy, of playfulness and profundity.…Neither time nor space is big enough to contain the imagination of this unique director.”

Well, it’s been almost a quarter of a century since that time, and all that is even truer now than it was then as she’s proven in her amazing recent work, including The Story of My Wife (MIFF 2022) and On Body and Soul, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 2019. Join us in welcoming Ildikó Enyedi and her films once again as we present her with this year’s Mid-Life Achievement Award. —KE

Mid-Life Achievement Award Presentation

Sunday, July 9 7PM | WOH

ON BODY AND SOUL Hungary 2018 - DCP - 116 minutes, in Hungarian with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Ildikó Enyedi Producers: Ernõ Mesterházy, András Muhi, Mónika Mécs Cast: Alexandra Borbély, Géza Morcsányi, Réka Tenki, Zoltán Schneider, Ervin Nagy, Itala Békés

The hugely deserved 2019 Oscar nomination of On Body and Soul for Best Foreign Film of the Year as well as the Berlin Film Festival’s grand prize helped introduce Enyedi’s work to many unfamiliar with it before, and marks one of the finest works of cinema of recent years. On Body and Soul “combine[s] the fantastic and idiosyncratic to beguiling effect [and] rewrite[s] the rules that govern who is deemed worthy of love in the movies. The two main characters in On Body and Soul are Endre, the reserved manager of a slaughterhouse, who hides his emotions along with his useless left arm, and Maria, the new quality-control manager at the plant, who struggles with the banal to-and-fro of social interaction and recoils from physical contact. But at night, she and Endre share the same dreams: a mystical but matter-of-fact connection that transforms both into deer in a sparkling winter woodland….It’s an exquisitely offbeat love story and I fell headlong for its angular, awkward charm” —Wendy Ide, The Guardian. You will, too. —KE Sponsored by Front & Main

Monday, July 10 3PM | MFC 1

MY TWENTIETH CENTURY Hungary 1989 - DCP - 104 minutes, in Hungarian with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Ildikó Enyedi Producers: Gábor Hánek, Andrejz Schwartz, Archy Dolder Cast: Dorota Segda, Oleg Yanknkovsky, PéterAndorej Print Courtesy: Kino Lorber

Enyedi snagged a much deserved Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival with this delightful first feature, a fully formed charmer that immediately announced her unique style and vision, her compassion for her characters, and her brilliantly witty yet utterly sincere approach to the world. Incandescently luminous in the black and white of this recent, gorgeous 4K restoration, My Twentieth Century is set on the eve of…yup, the 20th century. Twins Lili, an anarchist, and Dóra, a luxurious woman of what was then called “loose morals,” along with Mr. Z, who loves them as an entity, all reach the Hungarian border at the same time on board the Orient Express. Their story, told under the spell of Thomas Edison’s new inventions and discoveries that would truly ring out the old, attempts to do nothing less than reclaim a new era from a discredited old one that’s passing like a train in the night. —KE

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Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

ILDIKÓ ENYEDI THE STORY OF MY WIFE

Tuesday, July 11 3:40PM | MFC 2

Hungary, Germany, France, Italy 2021 - DCP - 169 minutes, in English, and in Dutch, French, German, and Italian with English subtitles Director: Ildikó Enyedi Screenplay: Ildikó Enyedi, based on the novel by Milán Füst Producers: Maren Ade, Jonas Donbach, Peggy Hall, Janine Jackowii, Erño Mesterházy, András Muhl, Mónica Méks, Stéphane Parthenay, Pilar Saavedra Perrotta, Fiaminio Zadra Cast: Léa Seydoux, Gijs Naber, Louis Garrel Print Courtesy: FilmsBoutique Enyedi’s latest film, shown at MIFF last year, is her most ambitious ever. It’s a complete, delightful, fantastic success, a compound of Enyedi’s terrific filmmaking and star Léa Seydoux’s (the dazzling French actress of Blue Is The Warmest Color and No Time To Die) brilliance and charisma…and of a terrific premise. That premise resonates in ways large and small and current, though The Story of My Wife is set just after World War II, and is based on a long-celebrated novel.

Jacob Störr, a hardened Dutch sea captain, impulsively and boastfully makes a bet that he will marry the first woman to walk into the café he’s in. That woman turns out to be Izzy… and, though as gorgeous as she is smart, she may not be quite what he had in mind.... “We made this film about love, passion, adventure, about the thousand colors of light—a shamelessly emotional tale about what it means to be a man, about what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a human,” says Enyedi. —KE

SIMON THE MAGICIAN

Friday, July 14 3PM | MFC 1

France, Hungary 1999 - DCP - 100 minutes, in French and Hungarian with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Ildikó Enyedi Producers: Ildikó Enyedi, Joël Farges, Elise Jalladeau, Péter Miskolczi, Jolán Árvai Cast: Péter Andorai, Julie Delarme, Péter Halász, Hubert Koundé Print Courtesy: National Film Institute of Hungary Enyedi’s work often combines elements of the spiritual or magical with the much more everyday, and usually there’s humor (among other things) in those combinations and juxtapositions. That’s a governing principle in 1999’s Simon the Magician, in which a contemporary version of the Biblical figure Simon has a protracted battle of wits and powers with a fellow current sorcerer, leading to a challenge for each to be buried underground and then rise again. Mischievously witty and unexpectedly climactic, Simon the Magician is one of the many high points in Enyedi’s filmography, her last gift to the last century. —KE

Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

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OPENING NIGHT Friday, July 7 7PM | WOH Sunday, July 16 3:40PM | MFC 2

Maine Premiere

HANGDOG USA 2023 - DCP - 92 minutes, in English Director, Print Courtesy: Matt Cascella Screenplay: Jen Cordery Producers: Desmin Borges, Matt Cascella, Jen Cordery, Alyssa Roehrenbeck Cast: Desmin Borges, Steve Coulter, Catherine Curtin, Matthew Delamater, Kelly O’Sullivan, Barbara Rosenblat, Kate Alde Print courtesy: Matt Cascella Anxiety-ridden Walt embarks on a desperate quest through Portland, Maine to retrieve his stolen dog, Tony, before his girlfriend, the more straight-laced Wendy, returns from a crucial business trip, or risk losing them both. Walt’s search is a journey as idiosyncratic and detoured as Portland itself and Walt himself, whose forlorn face more befits the “hangdog” name than the dog’s ever could. Director Matt Cascella and writer Jen Cordery have made a film that’s charming, original, and sweet in its own deliberately shaggy way. Hangdog is a real Maine-made discovery.

—KE Sponsored by Barbara and Ted Alfond

CENTERPIECE FILM Tuesday, July 11 7PM | WOH Wednesday, July 12 9PM | MFC 1

New England Premiere

KING ON SCREEN USA 2022 - DCP - 105 minutes, in English Director: Daphné Baiwir Producer: Sebastien Cruz Print Courtesy: Dark Star Pictures In 1976, Brian de Palma directed a film adaptation of Carrie, the first novel by Stephen King. Since then, more than 50 directors have adapted Bangor resident King’s books, in more than 80 films and series, making him the most adapted living author in the world—and Maine synonymous with horror to much of that same world. What’s so fascinating about him that cinema can’t stop adapting his books? King on Screen tracks down filmmakers who have adapted King for cinema and TV. The more than 25 directors interviewed include Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile), Tom Holland (The Langoliers), Mick Garris (The Stand, Sleepwalkers) and Taylor Hackford (Dolores Claiborne).

Director of King On Screen Daphné Baiwir really does a remarkable job of making us understand why and how King is such a magnetic force for adaptation. —KE Sponsored by Tobi Schneider

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Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

CLOSING NIGHT New England Premiere

I LIKE MOVIES

Sunday, July 16 7PM | WOH

Canada 2022 - DCP - 99 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Chandler Levack Producer: Lindsay Blair Goeldner Cast: Isaiah Lehtinen, Percy Hynes White Print Courtesy: Visit Films It’s 2003. Video stores abound; even DVD is a thing of the future, and movie theaters are not to be readily found in the small Ontario town where I Like Movies takes place. But its…shall we say “hero?” Maybe not exactly—Lawrence is a wisecracking, cinemamad, socially maladroit 17-year-old who works in one of those video stores, reluctant to rent videos of films he doesn’t like, creating movies in his mind and in his video camera, epics in his sights.

But through his store’s no-nonsense manager, Alana, Lawrence’s perspective widens….and not just cinematically. I Like Movies is sweeter, funnier, smarter, and fresher than you can possibly imagine, a totally enjoyable watch for the audience (if this were the video store, we’d put it on the “Staff Picks” shelf that Lawrence institutes) and a real triumph for its debuting director, Chandler Levack, who seems to understand her young protagonist far better than he does himself. —KE Sponsored by Lee and Peter Lyford

TOURMALINE PRIZES Maine International Film Festival champions Maine-made films by awarding the annual Tourmaline Prizes. These juried honors, named for Maine’s state gem, recognize the best Maine-made films of the Festival. On closing night of MIFF, a $5,000 prize will be awarded to the best feature film, and a $2,500 prize will be awarded to the best short film.

Films with

are in competition for Tourmaline Prizes

The Jury Caitie Collier is an ambitious creative based in Portland, Maine with a background in production coordination and social media marketing at Stobo Films. Now freelancing in the camera department, Caitie is driven by her passion for cinema, exceptional organizational skills, and charismatic personality. Since her introduction to producing in 2017 at Mid-Maine Technical Center, where she won first place at the Maine Student Film + Video Festival with her documentary, Caitie has earned an associate degree in communications and new media from Southern Maine Community College.

Continually seeking new opportunities, she thrives in the Maine film industry while pursuing passion projects.

Amrutha Kunapulli is an enthusiast and scholar of world cinema, with a soft spot for cinemas of south India. Having grown up in Tamil Nadu, India with its obstinately commercial, yet unforgivingly political, film industry, her cinephilia and scholarship are driven by a want to understand popular and commercial film industries, and their ability to reflect historical and cultural contexts.

She specifically studies how various film industries navigate the local and the global in their attempt to find non-native audiences. Amrutha is currently working on her book, Worlding Tamil Cinema, and teaches at Colby College.

Laura Schenck brings over 30 years and a wide range of experience working in film, television, and digital media. She serves as the Director of Visual Productions and Executive Producer of Television and Special Projects at Maine’s PBS station, Maine Public. Schenck has worked on many National Awardwinning productions and is a threetime Emmy award-winning Writer/ Producer/Director in the Boston/ New England market and counts CINE Golden Eagle, NETA, and other awards in her list of filmmaking accomplishments.

Sponsored by:

Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

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SPECIAL GUEST: BILL MORRISON We’re honored to celebrate the tremendous contributions that Bill Morrison has made to the cinema and to American film history. Morrison makes films that reframe long-forgotten moving images.

His films have premiered at the New York, Rotterdam, Sundance, and Venice film festivals. His found footage opus Decasia was the first film of the millennium to be selected to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. The Great Flood, which we screen this year, was recognized with the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award of 2014 for historical scholarship. Dawson City: Frozen Time, another triumph, has been included on numerous lists ranking the best films of the decade, including the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, and Vanity Fair.

His exhibition, BILL MORRISON: CYCLES AND LOOPS, will show at the Joan Dignam Schmaltz Gallery of Art at the Paul J. Schupf Art Center from August 18–December 31, 2023.

Thursday, July 13 6PM | MFC 1

THE GREAT FLOOD

USA 2012 - DCP - 78 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Bill Morrison Print Courtesy: Icarus Films The Mississippi River Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in American history. In the spring of 1927, the river broke out of its earthen embankments in 145 places and inundated 27,000 square miles. Inspired by the catastrophe, The Great Flood is a collaboration between Morrison and guitarist and composer Bill Frisell. “In closeup, it shows trickling streams and rain on cotton plants swelling into torrents; cigar-toting politicians gesticulate reassuringly, and the wealthy making dignified retreats while the impoverished cling to the remains of shacks. Guitarist Bill Frisell’s live soundtrack of howling blues chords, Thelonious Monk hooks, country-swing and Old Man River quotes would make a fine concert without a film, too. Put the two together [and] the result moves up another creative and emotional level.”

—The Guardian

Shown With

BURIED NEWS

USA 2021 - DCP - 12 minutes, in English Director, Print Courtesy: Bill Morrison Archival footage produced in 1917 and 1920 makes its way to the surface after having been buried in an abandoned swimming pool for forty-nine years. Including four different news stories recovered in this excavation by a construction team in Dawson City, Morrison explores the ways in which “race has historically been used as a tool in the USA to divide people for the commercial or political gain of those in power.”

–Il Cinema Ritrovato Sponsored by SBS/Carbon Copy

Friday, July 14 6PM | MFC 1

DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME

USA 2016 - DCP - 120 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Bill Morrison Producers: Madeleine Molyneaux, Bill Morrison Print Courtesy: Kino Lorber “An instantaneously recognizable masterpiece.” –The New York Times. A hallucinatory cinematic fever dream, Dawson City: Frozen Time tells the bizarre true story of some 533 silent film reels, dating from the 1910s and 20s, that accumulated at the end of a film distribution line in northwestern Canada and which were miraculously discovered some 50 years later deep in the Yukon permafrost.

Morrison deftly combines excerpts from this remarkable collection with historical footage, photographs, and original interviews, to explore the complicated history of Dawson City, a Canadian Gold Rush town founded across the river from a First Nation hunting camp, and then traces how the development of that town both reflected and influenced the evolution of modern Cinema. Dawson City: Frozen Time is a triumphant work of art that spins the life cycle of a singular film collection into a breathtaking history of the 20th century.

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Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

NEW FEATURES New England Premiere

20,000 SPECIES OF BEES

Sunday, July 9 12PM | MFC 1 Tuesday, July 11 6:20PM | MFC 3

Spain 2023 - DCP - 125 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Estebeliz Urresola Solaguren Producers: Valérie Delpierre, Lara Izagirre Cast: Sofía Otero, Patricia López Arnaiz, Ane Gabarain, Itziar Lazkano, Sara Cozar, Martxelo Rubio Print Courtesy: Kino Lorber In Spain’s Basque region, 8-year-old Aitor, nicknamed Cocó, lives with mother Ane and two older siblings, but feels more comfortable amidst the beekeeping farm of an aunt. Cocó, assigned male at birth, likewise begins to feel more comfortable identifying as a young girl. This could be the stuff of sensationalism, but, in fact, first time feature writer/director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren has made the opposite sort of film: a quiet, closely observed, underplayed yet deeply sympathetic film as much about the older women in this extended family as it is about its young protagonist.

Quietly emotional, deeply moving, 20,000 Species of Bees has its own quiet buzz, in some ways recalling an earlier Spanish cinematic masterpiece with an obvious connection, Victor Erice’s Spirit of the Beehive. —KE Sponsored by Deirdre Finney-Boylan and her wife, Jennifer Finney-Boylan, who, along with her friend, Jodi Picoult, is the co-author of the novel Mad Honey

New England Premiere

ALIS

Saturday, July 8 3:20PM | MFC 3 Sunday, July 9 9:40PM | MFC 2

Colombia, Romania, Chile 2022 - DCP - 84 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles Director: Clare Weiskopf, Nicolás van Hemelryck Screenplay: Tatiana Andrade, Anne Fabini, Gustavo Vasco, Clare Weiskopf, Nicolás van Hemelryck Producers: Alexandra Galvis, Radu Stancu Print Courtesy: Latino Films In a shelter for teenage girls in Bogotá, Colombia, a group of young women are invited to close their eyes and imagine the life story of a fictional classmate named Alis. The exercise begins as an apparently innocent game: Alis is a blank canvas on which they can project their own experiences and hopes. But as the fiction takes shape, grows, and blends with reality, it opens up the possibility for them to step outside of themselves and see their own experiences through a different perspective. Creating this fictional companion confronts them with the cycle of violence in which they have been immersed, and gives them a unique opportunity of dreaming a brighter future. Alis is ultimately as engaging and hopeful as the young women themselves are. —KE Sponsored by Alisa Johnson, Loan Officer, Movement Mortgage | mortgageswithlisa.com

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NEW FEATURES Thursday, July 13 1PM | WOH Sunday, July 16 12PM | MFC 1

North American Premiere

ANXIOUS IN BEIRUT Lebanon 2023 - DCP - 93 minutes, in Lebanese with English subtitles Director: Zakaria Jaber Producer: Jumana Saadeh Print Courtesy: Filmotor A very personal film that effortlessly yet brilliantly reaches the universal, Anxious in Beirut is a quiet astonishment. Young, self-taught Lebanese filmmaker Zakaria Jaber surveys the turmoil in his native city, a maelstrom of explosions, possible revolution, post-war trauma, and recurrent emergencies, and contemplates escape and emigration to a less troubled spot. And yet…Beirut and Lebanon are beautiful, powerful, and home. Jaber is aware that he is hardly the first to feel anxious in his homeland; witness the waves of past Lebanese immigration over time (including Waterville’s large Lebanese community, many of whose forebears fled Turkish invasions over 100 years ago.) But Jaber brings a vitality, an honesty, and an open eye to his personal narrative that engages us immediately and never lets go. —KE Sponsored by Mid-Maine Global Forum

Tuesday, July 11 1PM | WOH Thursday, July 13 6:40PM | MFC 2

Maine Premiere

AURORA’S SUNRISE Armenia 2022 - DCP - 96 minutes, in Armenian, Turkish, Kurdish, and German with English subtitles Director: Inna Sahakyan Screenplay: Peter Liakhov, Kerstin Meyer-Beetz, Inna Sahakyan Producers: Christian Beetz, Kestutis Drazdauskas, Eric Esrailian, Vardan Hovhannisyan, Juste Michailinaite, Inna Sahakyan Cast: Anzhelika Hakobyan, Arpi Petrossian Print Courtesy: Venera Films Animation? To deal with a holocaust? It works amazingly well in Aurora’s Sunrise, and perhaps better than any other way could.

Based on true personal as well as political stories, Aurora’s Sunrise mixes animation with actual footage of Aurora in the early, silent films in which she starred. At the age of 14, Aurora lost everything during the horror of the Armenian genocide. Two years later, through luck and extraordinary courage, she escaped to New York, where her story became a media sensation. Starring as herself in Auction of Souls, an early Hollywood blockbuster, Aurora became the face of one of the largest charity campaigns in American history. With a blend of vivid animation, interviews with Aurora herself, and 18 minutes of surviving footage from her lost silent epic, Aurora’s Sunrise revives a forgotten story of survival—and enchants and amazes. —KE

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Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

NEW FEATURES New England Premiere

BLACK BARBIE: A DOCUMENTARY

Friday, July 7 9:20PM | MFC 3 Monday, July 10 6:00PM | MFC 1

USA 2023 - DCP - 99 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Lagueria Davis Producer: Lagueria Davis, Aaliyah Williams Print Courtesy: The Film Collective Just in time to beat the release of the much anticipated Barbie feature film, Black Barbie: A Documentary is exactly what its title implies—the true story of the rise of Black Barbie dolls, an alternative literal model for young Black children. Black Barbie delves into the transformative arrival of Mattel’s groundbreaking Black Barbie to shift the predominantly White and blonde paradigm.

By examining the ways that the absence of Black images in the social mirror left Black girls with few opportunities for selfreflection, and in dissecting the complex effects of merchandising and representing, Black Barbie celebrates Black women who refuse to be invisible, and their struggle to elevate their own voices and stories in ways often missed. A central one here is director Lagueria Davis’ 83-year-old aunt, Beulah Mae Mitchell, who worked at Mattel and helped push the then radical idea of marketing a Black Barbie into reality. —KE Sponsored by Back Office Solutions

New England Premiere

BRAVO, BURKINA!

Monday, July 10 9:20PM | MFC 3 Thursday, July 13 9PM | MFC 1

USA 2023 - DCP - 64 minutes, in Italian and Moré with English subtitles Director, Screenplay, Print Courtesy: Walé Oyéjidé Producers: Giulia Alagana, Heather Barnes Cast: Hafissata Coulibaly, Aissata Deme, Mousty Mbaye, Noël Minoungou, Alain Tiendrebeogo A young Burkinabe boy traverses his community aimlessly, daydreaming about the world outside his small village. Years later we find him full grown, living and working as a migrant in Italy, cut off from his past. When he meets a Burkinabe woman also seeking asylum, their blossoming romance ignites a long repressed desire for home and the family and way of life he left behind. In this imaginative and incredibly style-forward debut feature, filmmaker Walé Oyéjidé works to encapsulate the painful feeling of being pulled in two distinct directions. Past versus future, tradition versus modernity, home versus away: Bravo, Burkina! wrestles with these contradictions inherent to the migrant experience, harnessing the magic, poetry, yearning, and sorrow that manifest in the spaces between. A hit at Sundance where it premiered in the NEXT section, Bravo, Burkina! is a truly distinct, deeply felt cinematic vision—don’t miss out! —SR Sponsored by Pat Clark

Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

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NEW FEATURES Wednesday, July 12 3PM | MFC 1 Friday, July 14 6:20PM | MFC 3

North American Premiere

ERRANTE: LA CONQUISTA DEL HOGAR (WANDERER: THE CONQUEST OF HOME) Argentina 2022 - DCP - 77 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles Director: Adriana Lestido Producers: Lita Stantic, Adriana Lestido Print Courtesy: Adriana Lestido/Punctum Sales

Between January 2019 and May 2020, Adriana Lestido, one of the world’s greatest photographers, embarked on a trip, with no company and no assistance whatsoever, through the Arctic Circle and the Svalbard Islands, an icy, inhospitable region near the North Pole. During those months, she captured a still unknown ecosystem in all its splendor. In this white desert, the vast, the enigmatic, and the melancholy merge with elegant, fixed images that take over most of the film.

It’s truly an “explorational documentary” because in each scene, Lestido turns the camera into a tool for research not only of the space, but also of her own solitary personal experience. Lestido’s book Antardita Negra perfectly and beautifully captures the Antarctic, so much closer to her Argentine homeland, but Errante speaks to a mirroring yet more mysterious landscape, closer to our home here, literally and otherwise (though perhaps not so much in July!). —KE

Saturday, July 8 6:20PM | MFC 3 Tuesday, July 11 4PM | WOH

Eastern U.S. Premiere

FREE MONEY Kenya, USA 2022 - DCP - 78 minutes, in English and in Swahili with English subtitles Directors: Lauren DeFilippo, Sam Soko Producers: Jordan Fudge, Amanda Pollak, Tess Cohen, Jeremy Allen, Lauren DeFilippo, Sam Soko Print Courtesy: Insignia Films In this fascinating exploration and incisive critique of Western philanthropy and Silicon Valley social experimentation, filmmakers Sam Soko and Lauren DeFilippo document attempts to bring Universal Basic Income (UBI) to the Kenyan village of Kogutu. For twelve years, the nonprofit GiveDirectly vows to grant villagers a monthly stipend, no strings attached, in the world’s largest UBI experiment. But what are the real-life consequences of this seemingly infallible project on the cultural traditions and daily realities of the villagers themselves, villagers already skeptical of the nonprofit sector and its outdated and often destructive white saviorism? Soko and DeFillippo manage to keep the experiences and shifting perspectives of the Kogutu citizens front and center, demonstrating how clumsy bureaucracy, outsider jealousy, and First World biases affect the ongoing success of this perhaps overly ambitious undertaking. –SR

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Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

NEW FEATURES World Premiere

FROM THE MORNING TO THE NIGHT

Wednesday, July 12 9:40PM | MFC 2 Saturday, July 15 9:20PM | MFC 3

USA 2022 - DCP - 77 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay, Print Courtesy: Tadin Jeongshin Brego Producers: Erin Enberg, Anna Gravél Cast: Casey Turner, Matt Delamater Tadin Brego’s directorial debut, From the Morning to the Night, follows the life of recovering drug addict, Anna, as she struggles to stay grounded in the present and in her stable relationship following the sudden death of her brother. Balancing her relationship, career, and hard-won sobriety ultimately becomes impossible and grief eventually overwhelms her. The film takes us down the wayward road of recovery, showing us that healing is not linear and care can look differently at various points in our lives. —NB, TL, JP, BW

Eastern U.S. Premiere

HEIGHTENED

Sunday, July 9 12:20PM | MFC 3 Saturday, July 15 6PM | MFC 1

USA 2022 - DCP - 98 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay, Print Courtesy: Sara Friedman Producers: John Hermann, Matt Ratner Cast: Sara Friedman, Dave Register, Mike Mitchell, Sarah Clarke, Xander Berkeley After pulling a fire alarm to escape a particularly bad panic attack mid-bar exam, Nora returns home to live with her emotionally distant parents in Maine. While she undergoes courtordered psychiatric treatment, Nora struggles to navigate both therapy and her tenuous relationship with her parents. Nora’s world is further upended when she is assigned to volunteer at her local state park. Nature-induced panic attacks subside in the company of her new supervisor, Dusty, and they strike up an unlikely friendship as fellow outsiders. When Nora realizes Dusty suffers from an undiagnosed anxiety disorder, she commits to helping him pass his law enforcement exam so that he can fulfill his dream of becoming a real Park Ranger. Nora and Dusty explore their relationships with their families—including how to deal with Dusty’s bullying stepbrother, Mitch, Nora’s occasionally destructive coping mechanisms, and their own expectations of themselves, all amidst their blooming romantic feelings for one another. —NB, TL, JP, BW

Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

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NEW FEATURES Sunday, July 9 3:20PM | MFC 3 Saturday, July 15 3:40PM | MFC 2

Eastern U.S. Premiere

ISRAELISM USA 2022 - DCP - 84 minutes, in English Directors: Eric Axelman, Sam Eilertsen Producers: Daniel J. Chalfen, Eric Axelman With: Simone Zimmerman, Cornel West, Noam Chomsky, Abe Foxman, Noura Erakat, Jeremy Ben-Ami Print Courtesy: Eric Axelman The role of Israel in American Jewish identity is challenged when Simone Zimmerman and Eitan join an awakening within the community after they witness Israel’s brutal treatment of the Palestinian people first-hand. Heartbroken and enraged at the older generation of American Jews who raised them to defend the State of Israel at all costs, they join a struggle not just for Palestinian rights but also within the Jewish community, pitted against those engaged with a mass mobilization who ensure that young American Jews remain pro-Israel. Their journey reflects a sweeping grassroots change within the community that will have major implications on how an ancient religion is evolving, and on America’s deep yet controversial relationship with Israel. Featuring Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, Peter Beinart, Noura Erakat, Abe Foxman, and Lara Friedman. —NB, TL, JP, BW Sponsored by Karen Kusiak

Friday, July 14 6:40PM | MFC 2 Sunday, July 16 3PM | MFC 1

Maine Premiere

JULES USA 2023 - DCP - 90 minutes, in English Director: Marc Turtletaub Screenplay: Gavin Steckler Producers: Michael B. Clark, Andy Daly, Deborah Liebling, Alex Turtletaub, Marc Turtletaub Cast: Ben Kingsley, Harriet Sansom Harris, Jane Curtin, Zoe Winters, Anna George, Donald Paul Print Courtesy: Bleecker Street Films Milton (Ben Kingsley) is an aging retiree living alone in a small American town. His life is pretty small, and his memory seems to be getting even smaller. So when he reluctantly tells neighbors Joyce (Jane Curtin) and Sandy (Harriet Sansom Harris) that a spaceship has landed in his backyard and he’s feeding its alien pilot, they don’t believe it…’til they see it. Marc Turtletaub’s (Gods Behaving Badly) new film is an offbeat, lowkey pleasure, and a great vehicle for Kingsley, who underplays so well we forget he was once Gandhi and now are sure he’s just…Milton. —KE Sponsored by Ross Metzman

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Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

NEW FEATURES Maine Premiere

KARAOKE

Saturday, July 8 12PM | MFC 1 Friday, July 14 4PM | WOH

Israel 2022 - DCP - 100 minutes, in Hebrew with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Moshe Rosenthal Producer: Efrat Cohen Cast: Sasson Gabay, Lior Ashkenazi, Rita Shukrun, Alma Dishy, Timor Cohen, Kobi Farag, Arie Tcherner Print Courtesy: Greenwich Entertainment Karaoke! What could be wilder?! Well, a lot, but not for Tova and Meir, a staid Israeli couple with 46 years of marriage and two grown daughters. They live a comfortable life, with Meir currently on sabbatical from his academic professorship, and Tova running a boutique shop. Yet their lives get an unexpected jolt of excitement from their upstairs neighbor, Itzik, who invites them to his penthouse for karaoke nights. Tova and Meir fall hard for Itzik’s energetic lifestyle, entering into a competition amongst their other neighbors and soon themselves, trying to win Itzik’s attention. But do they really know the words to this song?! —KE

North American Premiere

KNOWING THE SCORE

Tuesday, July 11 3PM | MFC 1 Friday, July 14 1PM | WOH

Australia 2023 - DCP - 90 minutes, in English Director: Janine Hosking Producer: Margie Bryant With: Simone Young Print Courtesy: Autlook Films It seems impossible to talk about Knowing the Score without mentioning Tár, Todd Fields’ hugely acclaimed fiction film—yet certainly Knowing the Score could blithely be called “the real life Tár” as it follows its subject, the dynamic, inspiring, brilliant woman who made it to the top of the “man’s world” of conducting, wielding her wits, determination, sense of humor, and baton. The parallel is stronger because Knowing the Score’s executive producer is Tár’s Oscar-nominated star, Cate Blanchett. In real life, Simone Young has conquered the world of conducting, not just in her native Australia, but in London, New York, Berlin, and Vienna. She’s a dynamic, stunning presence as the subject of director Janine Hosking’s Knowing the Score. Encore! —KE Sponsored by Peter and Joan Beckerman

Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

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NEW FEATURES Sunday, July 9 9PM | MFC 1 Saturday, July 15 6:20PM | MFC 3

Maine Premiere

KOKOMO CITY USA 2023 - DCP - 73 minutes, in English Director: D. Smith Producers: Bill Butler, Harris Doran, D. Smith With: Daniella Carter, Koko Da Doll, Liyah Mitchell, Dominique Silver Print Courtesy: Magnolia Films Black trans filmmaker D. Smith has made a movie about four Black trans sex workers, shot in shiny, stunning high contrast black and white…and has made Kokomo City a total triumph. Daniella Carter, Dominique Silver, Koko Da Doll and Liyah Mitchell are all stunning, and their stories, as captured and depicted by Smith are diverse: sometimes funny, sometimes scary, always human, vital, and above all, frank. In fact, Smith’s four subjects seem like born storytellers…and they have stories to tell that you may not have heard before. Entering Kokomo City is an unforgettable experience.

—KE Sponsored by Wild Clover Café & Market

Monday, July 10 6:40PM | MFC 2 Sunday, July 16 3:20PM | MFC 3

New England Premiere

LA PECERA (THE FISHBOWL) USA/Puerto Rico, Spain 2023 - DCP - 92 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Glorimar Marrero Sánchez Producers: Glorimar Marrero Sánchez, Amaya Izquierdo, José Esteban Alenda Cast: Isel Rodríguez, Modesto Lacén, Magali Carrasquillo, Maximiliano Rivas, Anamín Santiago, Idenisse Salamán Print Courtesy: Visit Films Director Glorimar Marrero Sanchez pulls off an amazingly difficult feat in La Pecera, melding the most personal of stories with the most political. Vieques, Puerto Rico was for decades a testing ground for the U.S. military, and Noelia (in a fantastic performance by Isel Rodriguez) grew up on this island off the coast of Puerto Rico. Though she’s moved to San Juan, when she is diagnosed with a recurring cancer, she decides to forego treatment and return to Vieques, in part to try to raise awareness of the environmental hazards that the contamination of a former paradise has wrought. La Pecera, like its heroine, makes the old adage “the personal is political” hit home. —KE

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Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

NEW FEATURES U.S. Premiere

MEETING POINT

Sunday, July 9 12:40PM | MFC 2 Wednesday, July 12 9:20PM | MFC 3

Chile 2022 - DCP - 90 minutes in Spanish with English subtitles Director: Roberto Baeza Screenplay: Alfredo Garcia, Paulina Costa, Roberto Baeza Producer: La Toma Print Courtesy: Compañía de Cine When producers Alfredo García and Paulina Costa were infants, their fathers shared a tiny cell in one of the most notorious torture centers in Chile during Pinochet’s dictatorship. Paulina’s father eventually made it home but Alfredo’s father has been considered “missing” for the past 45 years. In Meeting Point, Paulina and Alfredo embark on a journey to recreate their fathers’ lives leading up to and encompassing their imprisonment. They hire actors to portray their parents in their youth and conduct in-depth and often painful interviews with surviving family members. This incredibly powerful experiment with fiction and non-fiction filmmaking functions as a kind of time machine, blending past and present and allowing for consistently moving moments of catharsis for all involved. For all of its many painful moments and reminders to never forget our history, Meeting Point is a testament to the power of filmmaking as a means of excavating past traumas and imagining brighter futures. –SR Sponsored by Joel and Alice Johnson

World Premiere

NICE PEOPLE

Monday, July 10 9:40PM | MFC 2 Saturday, July 15 12:20PM | MFC 3

USA 2022 - DCP - 95 minutes, in English Director: Jeff Griecci Screenplay: Ian Carlsen, Jeff Griecci Producers: William Paul Steele, Ian Carlsen, Jeff Griecci, E.C. Brego Cast: William Paul Steele, Grace Bauer Old lovers reunite, a friendship is betrayed, a pet is killed, a runaway discovered, and a coworker comes back from the dead in these five interconnected tales about suffering from kindness. Shot over five years, this ambitious no-budget indie film shows a side of Maine not seen anywhere else. This quirky compilation of stories, all inspired by real happenings and conversations in and around Portland, finds bleak comedy in a backwater state being dragged into a diverse and inclusive 21st century. For fans of Aki Kaurismäki, Jim Jarmusch, and J.D. Salinger. —NB, TL, JP, BW Sponsored by Holly L. Gooch and Travis J. Carl

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NEW FEATURES Saturday, July 8 6PM | MFC 1 Friday, July 14 9PM | MFC 1

Eastern U.S. Premiere

NORTH CIRCULAR Ireland 2022 - DCP - 85 minutes, in Gaelic with English subtitles and in English Director, Screenplay: Luke McManus Producers: Elaine Gallagher, Luke McManus Performers: Gemma Dunleavy, Johnny Flynn, Ian Lynch, Eoghan O’Ceannabhain, Lisa O’Neill, Séan Ó Túama Print Courtesy: Lightdox

A real discovery, shot in beautiful black and white, North Circular is a documentary musical journey that travels the length of Dublin’s North Circular Road, exploring the history, music, and streetscapes of a street that links some of the country’s most beloved and infamous places. Told in 4:3 Academy ratio, the “old style” of pre-‘50s movies, the film evokes and draws on the history of the city and of Ireland itself, from colonialism to mental health, to the struggle for women’s liberation, while also engaging with urgent issues of today, including the battle to save the legendary Cobblestone Pub, center of Dublin’s recent folk revival, from destruction at the hands of cynical property developers. But this is, above all, a musical tour, including fabulous performances from artists local to the North Circular, including John Francis Flynn, Séan Ó Túama, Eoghan O’Ceannabháin, Ian Lynch, and Gemma Dunleavy. If you don’t know them now, you’ll want to after you see and hear North Circular. —KE

Shown With

PLACE AND TIME: THE NORTH SHORE

USA 2023 - DCP - 10 minutes Directors, Print Courtesy: John Meader, Shawn Burke The title says much. The images and sound say the rest. Ace MIFF photographer John Meader and equally exemplary sound recordist Shawn Burke combine forces on a moment in space and time on the north shore of Massachusetts. The idea of adding audio to stills is a way to add depth and time to the viewing of still imagery. By focusing on a specific area—as they did in last year’s MIFF selection, Place And Time: Portland, Maine—they give the viewer a thoughtful way to see and hear the coast without the sense of action expected in video or film footage. We see and hear anew. —KE Sponsored by Donald Cragen

Sunday, July 9 6PM | MFC 1 Monday, July 10 3:20PM | MFC 3

Maine Premiere

PASSAGES France 2023 - DCP - 91 minutes, in English and in French with English subtitles Director: Ira Sachs Screenplay: Ira Sachs, Mauicio Zacharias Producers: Saïd Ben Saïd, Michel Merkt Cast: Franz Rogowski, Ben Wishaw, Adèle Exarchopoulos Print Courtesy: MUBI

In a pre-release review from its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, critic Alissa Wilkinson (Vox) went to the heart of the many complicated contradictions at work in Ira Sachs’ Passages: “It’s an extremely European film from the American director Ira Sachs, full of homages to classics of European cinema, and a portrait of a rascal and the helplessness of the human heart.” The “rascal” here is Tomas (Franz Rugowski, A Hidden Life), a magnetic if narcissistic charmer, married to the steady, far less flashy Martin (Ben Whishaw, The Personal History of David Copperfield) whose many virtues are not enough to keep Tomas from sleeping with Agathe (Adele Exarchopoulis, Blue is the Warmest Color), a schoolteacher he meets at a party. Yes, it’s a triangle of emotion, eroticism, and extremes, and Sachs (Love Is Strange) never shies from the sparks in this powerful drama. —KE

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Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

NEW FEATURES New England Premiere

QUEEN OF THE DEUCE

Sunday, July 9 3:40PM | MFC 2 Saturday, July 15 9:40PM | MFC 2

USA 2023 - DCP - 78 minutes, in English Director: Valerie Kontakos Screenplay: Valerie Kontakos, Despina Pavlaki Producers: Ed Barreveld, Valerie Kontakos, Despina Pavlaki Print Courtesy: Greenwich Entertainment Do you think you have an interesting and unusual life story? Whatever it is, it’s got nothing on Chelly Wilson’s. She was a Greek immigrant, Jewish grandmother, and a proud owner of porn theaters—both straight and gay—in 1970s New York City.

Through audio recordings, Chelly recounts her pre-war escape from Greece up through her unlikely motherhood and rise to wealth as a shrewd businesswoman on New York’s infamous 42nd Street, aka “The Deuce.” Fascinating WWII and NYC archival footage illustrates this entertaining story of a family and its matriarch, a truly unique character with chutzpah in spades, in director Valerie Kontakis’ remarkable biography of a remarkable woman. —KE

Shown With

PICKUP/DELIVERY USA 2023 - DCP - 11 minutes, in English Director, Print Courtesy: Babe Howard Cast: Matt Blackman, Elizabeth Marvel, Bill Camp On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Isaac runs into Alice on the street. Isaac used to know Alice. Isaac is going through it. So is Alice. But she’s wondering if maybe he can do her a favor. A fine first film from director Babe Howard features NYC acting stars Elizabeth Marvel and Bill Camp. —KE

Maine Premiere

RETURN TO DUST

Sunday, July 9 6:20PM | MFC 3 Tuesday, July 11 9:40PM | MFC 2

China 2022 - DCP - 134 minutes, in Mandarin with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Ruijun Li Producers: Yan Li, Min Zhang Cast: Renlin Wu, Hai-Qing, Denping Zhao Print Courtesy: Film Movement A deeply affecting love story and portrait of a dying, rural way of life in contemporary China, Return to Dust was a Chinese box office hit upon its release late last year—until it was abruptly pulled from theaters by governmental order.

Independent filmmaker Li Ruijun plunges us into China’s pastoral northwest border region with Mongolia. In a small, rural village in Gaotai (the director’s home region) two lonely, middle-aged people—Cao, a timid woman suffering from chronic illness and a disability, and Ma, an unassuming farmer with little to his name—are pushed into an arranged marriage by their respective families. Cast aside as burdens, Cao and Ma begin a relationship that’s tepid at first, but which warms as the two spend their days fixing up an abandoned house on their small patch of land. Invigorated by a shared purpose and the all-consuming nature of farm work, the couple’s bond grows. However, in the dwindling rural communities of the Gansu province surrounding them, local farmers are being incentivized by local government to demolish their homes and uproot toward the cities.

With their livelihood disappearing, the couple attempt to build a new life together with continued patience and determination toward their home and each other. —KE Sponsored by Jane Morrison

Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

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NEW FEATURES Saturday, July 8 6:40PM | MFC 2 Tuesday, July 11 3:20PM | MFC 3

RICEBOY SLEEPS Canada 2022 - DCP - 117 minutes, in English and in Korean with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Anthony Shim Producers: Bryan Demore, Anthony Shim Cast: Choi Seung-yoon, Ethan Hwang, Dohyun Noel Hwang, Anthony Shim, Hunter Dillon, Jerina Son Print Courtesy: Sphere Films

After a mysterious family tragedy, So-Young, a Korean single mother, moves her young son, Dong-Hyun, to Canada with the hope of giving him a better life.

As the years pass, we witness the toll racism, illness, cultural assimilation, and familial resentment take on their relationship and Dong-Hyun’s tumultuous coming of age. In only his second feature film, director Anthony Shim—partially inspired by his own childhood—crafts an incredibly impactful, visually expansive, and emotionally resonant portrait of a mother and son living parallel lives in a strange and confounding new world. It’s a sweeping and ambitious cinematic vision, one that feels consistently grounded by heartbreaking and thoughtful performances, palpable intimacy, and searing tenderness. Winner of the Toronto International Film Festival’s coveted Platform Prize in 2022, Riceboy Sleeps solidifies Shim’s promise as an emerging director to watch. –SR Sponsored by Mid-Maine Global Forum

Monday, July 10 4PM | WOH Wednesday, July 12 6:20PM | MFC 3

Eastern U.S. Premiere

SHOE SHINE CADDIE USA 2023 - DCP - 62 minutes, in English Director, Print Courtesy: Leonard Manzella Producers: Leonard Manzella, Simo Nylander With: Adrian Spears

“The homeless” are an abstract group of humans to most. But Shoe Shine Caddie humanizes the unhoused experience by capturing the irresistible spirit of 61-year-old Adrian Spears. After years of incarceration, he’s surviving on the streets of San Luis Obispo, California by shining shoes on a street corner, while fighting for custody of his three-year-old daughter. Adrian is also bursting with vitality and wit, truly his own man. Movie actor (as “Leonard Mann”) turned therapist turned director Leonard Manzella returns to MIFF with this truly lovely portrait of a man looking down at people’s shoes, but also out at the world. —KE

Shown With

OLD MAN AT THE CORNER STORE USA 2023 - 8 minutes, in English Director: Nadav Heyman, Anabella Casanova Screenplay, Print Courtesy: Nadav Heyman Producers: Cheryl Mann, Collin Del Cuore Cast: Zoe Rawlings, Fen Del Cuore, Mher Khachatryan, Adrian Dela Rosa, Nadav Heyman, Donte Cooley A stooped old man, seemingly barely functional, is the object of scornful attention from the neighborhood kids until…they discover there’s more going on there than they had imagined possible, or that they have going on for themselves…. —KE Sponsored by Nancy Sanford

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Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

NEW FEATURES New England Premiere

SILVER HAZE

Sunday, July 9 9:20PM | MFC 3 Tuesday, July 11 6:40PM | MFC 2

United Kingdom 2023 - DCP - 102 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Sacha Polak Producers: Marleen Slot Cast: Vicky Knight, Esme Creed-Miles, Charlotte Knight, Archie Brigden Print Courtesy: Dark Star Pictures “Silver Haze” is the name of a strain of cannabis that Franky (Vicky Knight), the central character of this gritty, strong film, happens to be growing. The name also points to both the literal smoke of Franky’s past and the smokescreens that Franky uses to protect herself—until she dares to find a relationship with Florence (Esmé Creed-Miles). Florence certainly has some major issues of her own, but is able to break through to something that had seemingly been lost in Franky, who finally dares to show herself to the world.

In the 50s and 60s, the brand of tough, realistic drama that director Sacha Polak gives us in a very much more contemporary way in Silver Haze was called “kitchen sink realism.” But while Silver Haze is certainly not fluff, it’s a terrific evocation of life, both hard and joyous. —KE

Eastern U.S. Premiere

SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD

Sunday, July 9 4PM | WOH Sunday, July 16 12:20PM | MFC 3

Estonia 2023 - DCP - 89 minutes, in Estonian with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Anna Hints Producer: Marianne Ostrat Print Courtesy: Greenwich Entertainment The traditional smoke sauna of Estonia is part of UNESCO’s list of world cultural heritage. In director Anna Hints’ beautifully visualized Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, a small group of diverse women gather in this intimate space where they can cleanse not just their bodies, but also their souls. Water, fire, air, and the earth of the burning wood bring the four elements into one space with the women, who make very human magic from these ingredients over the course of four seasons. Hints immerses us in a space perhaps innately known to all humans, but here specifically feminine, suspending viewers in a powerful experience of love and acceptance. —KE Sponsored by Boy Locksmith

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NEW FEATURES Saturday, July 8 12:40PM | MFC 2 Monday, July 10 9PM | MFC 1

Eastern U.S. Premiere

SORCERY Mexico 2023 - DCP - 100 minutes, in Mapuche, German, and Spanish with English subtitles Director: Christopher Murray Screenplay: Christopher Murray, Pablo Paredes Producers: Nicolás Celis, Viola Fügen, Rocío Jadue, Juan de Dios Larraín, Pablo Larraín, Michael Weber Cast: Valentina Véliz Caileo, Daniel Antivilo, Sebastian Hülk, Daniel Muñoz, Neddiel Muñoz Millalonco Print Courtesy: Matchbox Stunningly set on a remote island of Chiloé off the coast of Chile in the late 19th century, Sorcery is remote in both place and time, but not in viewpoint. An Indigenous girl named Rosa lives and works with her father on a farm. When the foreman brutally turns on Rosa’s father, she sets out for justice, seeking help from the king of a powerful organization of sorcerers. Will she get it?

Their power is in many ways stronger than that of the invaders who have conquered South America…perhaps. Is Sorcery a horror film? Depends on how you define that…perhaps. —KE

Thursday, July 13 3:40PM | MFC 2 Friday, July 14 9:20PM | MFC 3

TERRA FEMME USA 2021 - DCP - 62 minutes, in English Director, Producer, Screenplay, Print Courtesy: Courtney Stephens Filmmaker Courtney Stephens delves head first into the archive, excavating a range of fascinating amateur travelogues filmed by women during the early 20th century. Weaving in her own experiences traveling through India after a bleak health diagnosis, Stephens crafts a thought-provoking and dreamlike essay film, ruminating on female physical and spatial autonomy, the power and subjectivity of image making, and the inherent privilege of sating one’s wanderlust. Meticulously researched and skilfully edited, with a haunting score by Sara Davachi, Terra Femme explodes our understanding and popular usage of the term “female gaze,” turning it away from sexuality and desire and focusing it outwards, onto the world at large. Stephens considers these films not solely as neutral verité documents but portals into the inner lives and distinct interests of these women, welcoming the question, “when given the opportunity, how do women see the world differently?” –SR

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NEW FEATURES Maine Premiere

THE BEASTS

Saturday, July 8 9PM | MFC 1 Saturday, July 15 3:20PM | MFC 3

Spain 2022 - DCP - 137 minutes, in Spanish and French with English subtitles Director: Rodrigo Sorogoyen Screenplay: Isabel Peña, Rodrigo Sorogoyen Producers: Ignasi Estapé, Anne-Laure Labadie, Jean Labadie, Nacho Lavilla, Thomas Pibarot, Rodrigo Sorogoyen Cast: Marina Foïs, Denis Ménochet, Luis Zahera, Diego Anido, Marie Colomb Print Courtesy: Greenwich Entertainment Winner of nine Goya awards including Best Film of the Year as well as Best Director, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Music, The Beasts truly deserved them all. It’s an extraordinary film that is at once a psychological thriller, a deeply moving love story, and a multilayered commentary on class divide, xenophobia, and the gulf between city and country. Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s memorably intense film is set in a Galician (the “wild west” of Spain) farming village. It’s a region that’s as sweepingly idyllic as it is economically depressed. A bourgeois French couple, committed to organic farming, settles uneasily among the poor Spanish farmers who’ve struggled for generations to earn a living from this land. They clash over whether to sell their land to foreign interests who’ve offered fast money to develop wind power there. — KE Sponsored by Stephen and Cathy Sears

World Premiere

THE LAST DREAM: TARKOVSKY AND THE SACRIFICE

Wednesday, July 12 3:40PM | MFC 2 Thursday, July 13 9:20PM | MFC 3

United Kingdom 2023 - DCP - 72 minutes, in English and in Swedish, French, and Russian with English subtitles Directors, Print Courtesy: Seán Martin and Louise Milne Longtime MIFF regulars Seán Martin and Louise Milne premiere their latest film, a further exploration of the world of cinematic genius Andrei Tarkovsky, this time through his final—and some say his most stunning—film, The Sacrifice. The Last Dream returns to the stark Swedish landscape of Tarkovsky’s vision, and to his collaborators in making it, whose reminiscences about the film’s shoot and of Tarkovsky himself are themselves memorable, and frequently deeply illuminating. Please note the opportunity to see The Sacrifice at MIFF this year in addition to seeing The Last Dream.

—KE

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NEW FEATURES Maine Premiere

Sunday, July 9 6:40PM | MFC 2 Tuesday, July 11 9PM | MFC 1

THE SUN RISES IN THE EAST

USA 2021 - DCP - 58 minutes, in English Director: Tayo Giwa Screenplay, Producers: Tayo Giwa, Cynthia Gordy Giwa Print Courtesy: Black-owned Brooklyn This fast-moving historical astonishment chronicles the birth, rise and legacy of The East, a pan-African cultural organization founded in 1969 by teens and young adults in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Led by educator and activist Jitu Weusi, The East embodied Black self-determination, building more than a dozen institutions, including its own African-centered school, food co-op, news magazine, publisher, record label, restaurant, clothing shop and bookstore. The organization hosted world-famous jazz musicians like Pharaoh Sanders (who recorded his “Live at the East” album there) and Sonny Rollins, as well as Black poets at its highly sought-after performance venue, and it served as an epicenter for political contemporaries such as the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, and the Congress of Afrikan People, as well as comrades across Africa and the Caribbean.

In effect, The East built an independent Black nation in the heart of Central Brooklyn. The film also examines challenges that led to the organization’s eventual dissolution, including its gender politics, financial struggles, and government surveillance. Featuring interviews with leaders of The East, historians, and people who grew up in the organization as children, The Sun Rises in The East delivers an exhilarating and compelling vision, showing just how much was—and perhaps still is—possible. —KE

Shown With

CONVICTION

USA 2022 - DCP - 31 minutes, in English Director: Jeremy Raff Producer: Jeremy Young Print Courtesy: 2nd Place Media “I don’t want to be accepted, I want to be embraced,” says Brandon Jackson, who has just been released from 25 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

In 1997, Jackson was convicted for an armed robbery of $6,500 from an Applebee’s restaurant outside of Shreveport, Louisiana. Nobody was injured. There was no physical evidence connecting him to the crime. At trial, two jurors voted not guilty. In 48 states, it would have been a mistrial, and he may have walked free, but Louisiana’s Jim Crow-era laws designed to lock up Black defendants allowed for non-unanimous jury convictions. Jackson was sentenced to life in prison. Over time, he finds a sense of purpose advocating to reverse Louisiana’s last such law, as we see in this powerful documentary. —KE

New England Premiere

Wednesday, July 12 6PM | MFC 1

THE TUBA THIEVES USA 2023 - DCP - 91 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Alison O’Daniel Producers: Su Kim, Rachel Nederveld, Alison O’Daniel, Maya E. Rudolph, Elizabeth Skadden With: Nyeisha Prince, Geovanny Marroquin, Russell Harvard, Sam Quinones Print Courtesy: The Film Collective

A spate of robberies in Southern California schools had an oddly specific target: tubas. In this work of creative nonfiction, deaf first-time feature director Alison O’Daniel presents the impact of these crimes from an unexpected angle.

Blending documentary and fictionalized performances and set to an L.A. landscape/soundscape never quite seen/heard before, The Tuba Thieves explores a dimensional experience of deafness and reorients the audience auditorily in an unfamiliar and exhilarating way. This is NOT a conventional whodunit, to say the least. In The Tuba Thieves’ world, plants whisper and hum to each other, the air above a forest fire vibrates and one man’s ASL sign for “sunrise” is infinitely more expressive than the English word alone. —KE

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NEW FEATURES World Premiere

THE WOUNDS

Thursday, July 13 3PM | MFC 1 Saturday, July 15 12:40PM | MFC 2

Argentina 2023 - DCP - 82 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles Director, Print Courtesy: Alfredo Lichter Alfredo Lichter, who wowed MIFF audiences two years ago with his Tierra del Fuego-set The Loneliness of the Bones, returns to explore a different landscape of Argentina and to explore the intersection of past and present in The Wounds. During the 19th and 20th centuries, thousands of Italians left their country to search for a new life. Argentina was one of several possibilities. Some of these families arrived in the countryside and a small town in Córdoba, an Argentine province. All their lives they wondered: Do we belong here or are we just passing through? The feelings of uprooting and absence are a legacy that endures. But many stories are lost in the landscape. Caravans of machinery move along the roads between endless green fields. Agricultural activity models the social and economic reality, and there are few who inhabit those places.

Technological growth on one side; invisible human wounds on the other. Even the town cinema closed for good; its absence is also part of the void. Is this the void suffered by immigrants? No one answers because the protagonists of The Wounds are ghosts. The Wounds is a haunted and haunting and heartfelt journey. —KE

World Premiere

THOSE WHO WAIT

Tuesday, July 11 9:20PM | MFC 3 Saturday, July 15 7PM | WOH

USA 2022 - DCP - 78 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay, Print Courtesy: Chani Bockwinkel, Ty Burdenski Cast: Effie Bowen, Derek Jackson, Daniel Noel Those Who Wait is a poetic retelling of the Millerite doomsday movement that swept across America in the 1840s. The film follows the town of Portland, Maine as its residents navigate several waves of apocalyptic prophecy and disappointment. Told in tableau and parable, this queer gaze into the colonial past explores the powers and perils of “believing it’s over.” In a moment of political and environmental upheavals and catastrophes, the film explores our collective desire to embrace apocalyptic fantasy. “With a primarily queer/trans cast and crew, we sought to bring a queer sensibility to all aspects of an (unlikely) production. With many parts of the historical record missing, we attempt to be in conversation with history while allowing queer imagination to fill in the cracks. As filmmakers, it’s our goal to depict tensions that reach beyond coming out narratives and instead contribute to the “queering” of histories (and futures). Consider this an attempt to not simply queer the subjects of history but to reassert that there have always been other political and spiritual strategies for being, other fabrics to our world, and other strategies of how to penetrate them… and a commitment to learning from the experts of our past–from their success and their failures.” – Directors Chani Bockwinkel, Ty Burdenski —NB, TL, JP, BW

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NEW FEATURES Wednesday, July 12 6:40PM | MFC 2 Friday, July 14 3:20PM | MFC 3

World Premiere

TIBI TENDLU: THE DIRT THAT BINDS US Eswatini 2023 - DCP - 74 minutes, in English and in Sylheti with English subtitles Director: Mari Gardner with 24 co-directors Producer: Roee Messenger Print Courtesy: Flourishing Films Co-directed by 24 non-filmmakers (mostly women) from the Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) along with Mari Gardner and produced by Roee Messenger, whose American Trial: The Eric Garner Story was hugely effective as a standout documentary in 2020. Tibi Tendlu is a participatory, community-based documentary in which the women involved learned how to operate filmmaking equipment to tell the stories of the sexual abuse they experienced. It has the testimonies of dozens of survivors of sexual abuse, and closely follows the uplifting and cathartic journeys of five women who were able to drastically improve their lives by speaking out against traditional patriarchy and injustice, breaking the cycle of abuse. —KE

Saturday, July 8 3:40PM | MFC 2 Thursday, July 13 3:20PM | MFC 3

Eastern U.S. Premiere

TWICE COLONIZED Denmark 2023 - DCP - 91 minutes, in English and in Danish, Greenlandic, and Inuktitut with English subtitles Director: Lin Alluna Screenplay: Lin Alluna, Aaju Peter Producers: Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, Stacey Aglok MacDonald, Bob Moore, Emile Hertling Péronard Print Courtesy: Autlook Films Renowned Inuit lawyer Aaju Peter has led a lifelong fight for the rights of her people. When her son suddenly dies, Aaju embarks on a journey to reclaim her language and culture after a lifetime of whitewashing and forced assimilation. But is it possible to change the world and mend your own wounds at the same time? Director Lin Alluna’s remarkable documentary is both tender and inspirational as it answers that question. —KE

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NEW FEATURES New England Premiere

VICENTA B

Saturday, July 8 9:20PM | MFC 3 Friday, July 14 3:40PM | MFC 2

Cuba 2022 - DCP - 77 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles Director: Carlos Lechuga Screenplay: Carlos Lechuga, Fabián Suárez Producers: Consuelo Castillo, Samuel Chauvin, Christopher Clements, Julie Goldman, Carlos Lechuga Cast: Linnett Hernandez Valdes, Pedro Antonio Martinez Ramirez, Mireya Chapman, Ana Flavia Ramos Print Courtesy: Habanero Films A supremely lovely and quietly resonant film. Vicenta, a Cuban woman with the ability to see into the future and converse with spirits, lives harmoniously with her only son until he decides to leave the country. Immersed in a profound crisis, Vicenta departs for a voyage to the heartland of a country where everyone seems to have lost their faith. Vicenta B inhabits the Cuba of the countryside and Santeria, of heart and soul, and of a sustaining inner strength. —KE

Shown With

FISHING WITH EINSTEIN USA 2023 - DCP - 3 minutes, in English Director, Print Courtesy: Stu Silverstein Central Maine artist, bread baker, and Railroad Square Cinema co-founder Stu Silverstein returns to MIFF with a whimsical meditation on Albert Einstein and his appreciation of nature and fly fishing…ironically or not, created through the not so natural gifts of A.I.: DALL-E-2 and ChatGPT. —KE

World Premiere

WE ARE THE WARRIORS

Wednesday, July 12 3:20PM | MFC 3 Saturday, July 15 4PM | WOH

USA 2023 - DCP - 72 minutes, in English Directors, Producers, Print Courtesy: David Camlin, Megan Grumbling Wells is a small, coastal Maine town near the New Hampshire border, a close community in many ways that finds itself unexpectedly rocked by controversy over the town high school’s sports teams’ nickname. In We Are the Warriors, co-directors David Camlin and Megan Grumbling, both themselves Wells High grads, evenhandedly follow the residents of Wells as they take on this polarizing issue after facing public allegations that Warriors football fans mocked Indigenous culture. Their strong film reveals how difficult conversations about identity and history are key to addressing Native American mascots. —KE

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NEW FEATURES Friday, July 14 7PM | WOH Sunday, July 16 1PM | WOH

World Premiere

WHAT I WANT YOU TO KNOW USA 2023 - DCP - 92 minutes, in English Director: Catie Foertsch Print Courtesy: Twin Seas Media Powerful and damning, director Catie Foertsch’s documentary, told largely in interviews with service members who were there, is about the cost and consequences of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the tragedy of sending young men and women to get injured and die in wars America didn’t need to fight, with the devastation of two countries and untold hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans as well. Like so many others, the veterans in this film—including two eloquent Mainers—suffered physical and mental injuries that will be lifelong. They also suffered moral injury from what they saw and what they did. Their injuries are compounded by the questions they can’t stop asking: Why were they lied to about the reasons for these wars? What was all the killing and destruction for? What’s to stop it from happening again? —KE

Saturday, July 8 12:20PM | MFC 3 Monday, July 10 3:40PM | MFC 2

New England Premiere

WISDOM GONE WILD USA 2022 - DCP - 84 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Rea Tajiri Producers: Rea Tajiri, Sian Evans Wisdom Gone Wild tells the remarkable story of Rose Tajiri, a Nisei woman who at the end of her life, following the onset of dementia, reinvents herself through her interactions with her daughter/care partner, bestowing a new name and identity on herself, altering her past along with her present. It is radically intimate, funny, and at the same time does not shy away from being painfully honest about living with dementia. Filmmaker Rea Tajiri puts her mother’s storytelling wisdom at the heart of this film. Wisdom Gone Wild offers a different story about aging, and about living with dementia: rather than centering a disease, the film centers Rose’s perspective, in its form and its content, telling the story of a life to be valued, rather than a problem to be willed away. —NB, TL, JP, BW

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REDISCOVERY 50th Anniversary Screening

BADLANDS

Saturday, July 8 3PM | MFC 1 Thursday, July 13 9:40 PM | MFC 2

USA 1973 - DCP - 94 minutes, in English Director, Producer, Screenplay: Terrence Malick Cast: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates Print Courtesy: Warner Bros.

“He was 25 years old. He combed his hair like James Dean. He was very fastidious. People who littered bothered him. She was 15. She took music lessons and could twirl a baton. She wasn’t very popular at school. For a while, they lived together in a treehouse.

In 1959, she watched while he killed a lot of people.” This was the way Warner Brothers’ poster for Badlands introduced the cinematic genius of Terrence Malick to the world. From there, Malick was to make Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, and The Tree of Life, among others (and to receive a MIFF Mid-Life Achievement Award in 2000.) But in 2023, 50 years later, Badlands stands as an American classic, little seen at the time it was released; looking better than ever now. Sissy Spacek (another MIFF Midlife Achievement Award Honoree) and Martin Sheen star in Malick’s stunningly original first film, based on the Starkweather/Fugate serial murders. When young Holly’s father (Warren Oates) forbids her to keep seeing Kit, they kill him and set off into the woods, prairies, and plains of the American west to hide out. Scored to Carl Orff’s simple yet haunted and haunting Schulwerk, Badlands depicts their world as simultaneously innocent and horrifying, perhaps not unlike American culture in other ways. —KE

CHOCOLAT

Saturday, July 8 1PM | WOH Sunday, July 16 4PM | WOH

France 1988 - DCP - 105 minutes, in English and in French and Hausa with English subtitles Director: Claire Denis Screenplay: Claire Denis, Jean-Pol Fergeau Producers: Alain Belmondo, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Gérard Crosnier Cast: Isaach De Bankolé, Mireille Perrier, Francois Cluzet, Jacques Denis, Giulia Boschi Print Courtesy: Janus Films When Chocolat was first shown in 1988, we didn’t know what to expect from “A Claire Denis film,” as Chocolat was her first feature. We still don’t, but we sure can recognize it as indeed that—a Claire Denis film, as distinctive as a Hitchcock or an Altman film.

Her work in the 35 years since Chocolat—including Beau Travail, Nenette et Boni, High Life and, more recently, Let the Sunshine In, Both Sides of the Blade and Stars at Noon, marks the output of one of the great directors of our time. If Chocolat seems not quite as edgy, it’s only because she was always so far ahead of us.

“Made with the complexity and subtlety of a great short story” (Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times), Chocolat drew on Denis’ own childhood experiences growing up in colonial French Africa for her multilayered, languorously absorbing feature debut, which explores many of the themes that would recur throughout her work.

Returning to the town where she grew up in Cameroon after many years living in France, a white woman (Mireille Perrier) reflects on her relationship with Protée (Isaach De Bankolé), a Black servant with whom she formed a friendship while not fully grasping the racial divides that governed their worlds. With a key soundtrack by Abdullah Ibrahim. —KE Sponsored by Kathryn Slott

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REDISCOVERY Sunday, July 9 3PM | MFC 1 Friday, July 14 9:40PM | MFC 2

INFERNAL AFFAIRS Hong Kong 2002 - DCP - 101 minutes, in Cantonese with English subtitles Director: Andrew Lau, Alan Mak Screenplay: Alan Mak, Felix Chong Producers: Andrew Lau Cast: Andy Lau, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Anthony Chau-Sang Wong, Eric Tsang, Kelly Chen, Sammi Cheng Print Courtesy: Janus Films The title, perhaps loosely but cleverly translated from the Cantonese, is just the first hint of the wit and smarts—if not the suspense—involved in this crackerjack Hong Kong thriller that went woefully underseen stateside in 2002, though it was a smash hit in its birthplace. The plot has a simple premise: the cops plant a mole in a far-reaching crime family…but the crime family simultaneously plants a mole within the police. Moral and pragmatic choices begin multiplying for the plants. Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau Tak-wah compete with dynamic directors Andrew Lau Wai-keung and Alan Mak for top honors in making this unforgettable film something that Martin Scorsese might eat his heart out for. —KE Sponsored by Colby Cinema Studies

Friday, July 7 9PM | MFC 1 Sunday, July 9 1PM | WOH

THE CONFORMIST Italy 1970 - DCP - 113 minutes, in Italian and French with English subtitles Director: Bernardo Bertolucci Screenplay: Bernardo Bertolucci, based on the novel by Alberto Moravia Producers: Maurizio Lodi-Fè Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Dominique Sanda, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin, Enzo Tarascio Print Courtesy: Kino Lorber

“One of the most visually ravishing films of all time... It remains as startling and revolutionary as it was upon original release”— Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture. “It’s a triumph of feeling and style—lyrical, flowing, velvety style, so operatic that you come away with sequences in your head like arias”—Pauline Kael, The New Yorker. From Bernardo Bertolucci comes a film by a director who went on to Oscar recognition with his epic The Last Emperor and more great masterpieces, including his even more amazing politically-based epic 1900. But The Conformist remains unmatched—simply among the greatest films ever made, and an unparalleled treat to see in this new 4K restoration. In Mussolini’s Italy, Jean-Louis Trintignant’s repressed haut bourgeois Marcello Clerici, trying to purge memories of a youthful, homosexual episode (and murder), joins the Fascists in a desperate attempt to fit in. As the reluctant Judas motors to his personal Gethsemane, he flashes back to a dance party for the blind; an insane asylum in a stadium; and wife Stefania Sandrelli dancing the tango in a working-class hall with his lover Dominique Sanda (MIFF’s Lifetime Achievement Award Honoree in 2018). Bertolucci’s masterpiece of a political thriller, adapted from the Alberto Moravia novel, boasts an authentic look created by production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti, a score by the great Georges Delerue and eyepopping color cinematography by Vittorio Storaro. —KE Sponsored by John and Judy Bielecki

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REDISCOVERY THE DEVIL, PROBABLY

Monday, July 10 6:20PM | MFC 3 Sunday, July 16 12:40PM | MFC 2

France 1977 - DCP - 95 minutes, in French with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Robert Bresson Producers: Michel Chanderli, Stéphane Tchalgadjieff, Daniel Toscan du Plantier Cast: Antoine Monnier, Tina Irissari, Henri de Maublanc, Laetitia Carcano, Nicolas Deguy Print Courtesy: The Film Desk How many directors are so distinctive they have a word that describes their style made from their name? Well, there’s “Bressonian,” coined by Cineastes for Robert Bresson’s spare, spiritually-based, utterly distinctive films, none of which were commercial hits, nor were they aspiring to be. Using non-professional actors, including children (Mouchette) and a donkey (Au Hasard Balthazar, the film that EO remade last year), Bresson was a true original. The Devil, Probably was his penultimate film, a cry of despair for a world that seemed to have lost its soul. Its 20-year-old protagonist, Charles, looks for answers in religion, psychotherapy, and politics, rejecting them all before fixing his sights towards suicide as the only answer for him. Yet Bresson’s artistry itself speaks of something more for Charles, and for the world he inhabits: our own. —KE

Michael Murphy and Mike Kaplan Present

THE LEGEND OF LYLAH CLARE

Wednesday, July 12 7PM | WOH

USA 1968 - DCP - 130 minutes, in English Director: Robert Aldrich Screenplay: Hugo Butler, Jean Rouverol Producer: Robert Aldrich Cast: Kim Novak, Peter Finch, Ernest Borgnine, Gabriele Tinti, Michael Murphy Print Courtesy: Warner Brothers In a Hollywood career that embraced everything from film noirs (Kiss Me Deadly) to Westerns (Apache) to war films (The Dirty Dozen) to campy horror (Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?) Robert Aldrich never made anything quite like The Legend Of Lylah Clare—and neither has anyone else! Michael Murphy, MIFF favorite and one of the film’s young supporting actors and Mike Kaplan, MGM publicist for the film at the time of its release, will introduce this deranged masterpiece. Take it from Time Out: “Hollywood picking its own scabs is always a riveting sight, and never more enjoyably so than in Aldrich’s supremely vulgar movie, which feeds glamorously off movie myth and experience to create a vigorously animated Hollywood Babylon where dead stars talk and everyone’s laundry is filthy. Kim Novak stars as the moulded reincarnation of Lylah Clare, whose stellar career ended in mysterious death on the night of her wedding to director Lewis Zarkan (Peter Finch), now attempting a semi-confessional biopic on the subject…Necrophilia, cancer, cripples, French critics, lesbianism, ignorant producers, nepotism, abortion, “Film artists,” Italian studs, and TV are the tasty elements Aldrich ghoulishly (and a little masochistically) juggles into a film fan’s delight, a side-splitting charade of satire, sarcasm and sheer perverse affection.” —KE

THE SACRIFICE

Saturday, July 8 9:40PM | MFC 2 Thursday, July 13 6:20PM | MFC 3

Sweden 1986 - DCP - 149 minutes, in Swedish with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Andrei Tarkovsky Producer: Anna-Lena Wibom Cast: Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Allan Edwall, Guðrún Gísladóttir, Sven Wollter Print Courtesy: Kino Lorber Andrei Tarkovsky’s final film, presented in a new 4K restoration, made in self-exile from Russia amidst the landscape of Sweden, is considered the great director’s ultimate masterpiece, following Solaris, Stalker, and Andrei Rublev. The Sacrifice finds a wealthy Swedish family gathering to celebrate the birthday of its patriarch, Alexander (Erland Jospephson, a Bergman fixture.) News of the outbreak of World War III reaches their remote Baltic island, and their happiness turns to horror. For Alexander, a philosopher troubled by the world’s spiritual failings, the prospect of extinction compels the ultimate sacrifice, so he enters into a Faustian bargain with God to save his loved ones from the fear which grips them. “You may find yourself moved as you never have been before”—Andrew Sarris, The Village Voice. Shown to accompany the premiere of The Last Dream: Tarkovsky and The Sacrifice at MIFF this year. —KE

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REDISCOVERY Saturday, July 8 4PM | WOH Saturday, July 15 6:40PM | MFC 2

THE THREE MUSKETEERS

United Kingdom 1973 - DCP - 106 minutes, in English Director: Richard Lester Screenplay: George MacDonald Fraser, based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas Producers: Alexander Salkind, Ilya Salkind, Michael Salkind, Wolfdieter von Stein Cast: Michael York, Oliver Reed, Raquel Welch, Faye Dunaway, Richard Chamberlain, Frank Finlay, Christopher Lee Print Courtesy: Rialto Pictures You could make a pretty good argument that Richard Lester, though highly successful, is the most underappreciated director of perhaps world cinema’s (including Hollywood’s) greatest era, the ‘60s through ‘80s. Coming from the UK’s unique brand of dry humor, and perhaps best known for directing the Beatles movies A Hard Day’s Night and Help, Lester made the funny yet profoundly emotional and affecting Petulia and Robin and Marian. In between, Lester directed—with characteristic wit and, somehow, great feeling—this heck of a fun romp of Dumas’ classic. A perfectly chosen and spirited cast make this sparkling new 4K restoration, “a superb bit of tongue-in-cheekery, stylish and fun, but also deeply affectionate.” —Los Angeles Times —KE

Tuesday, July 11 6PM | MFC 1 Wednesday, July 12 4PM | WOH

WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES

Hungary 2000 - DCP - 145 minutes, in Hungarian with English subtitles Directors: Béla Tarr, Ágnes Hranitzky Screenplay: Béla Tarr and László Krasznahorkai, based on the novel by László Krasznahorkai Producers: Franz Goëss, Paul Saadoun, Miklós Szita, Joachim von Vietinghoff Cast: Lars Rudolph, Peter Fitz, Hanna Schygulla Print Courtesy: Janus Films Enormously influential on other filmmakers, enormously revered by critics and cineastes, Béla Tarr, co-directing here with Agnes Hranitszky, remains generally much less known. This mesmeric parable of societal collapse, in a beautiful 4K restoration, is an enigma of transcendent visual, philosophical, and mystical resonance. Adapted from a novel by the celebrated writer and frequent Tarr collaborator László Krasznahorkai, Werckmeister Harmonies unfolds in an unknown era in an unnamed village, where, one day, a mysterious circus—complete with an enormous stuffed whale and a shadowy, demagogue-like figure known as The Prince—arrives and appears to awaken a kind of madness in the citizens, a madness that builds inexorably toward violence and destruction. In 39 of Tarr’s signature long takes, engraved in ghostly black and white, the directors conjure an apocalyptic vision of dreamlike dread and fathomless beauty. —KE

Monday, July 10 7PM | WOH Wednesday July 12 1PM | WOH

30th Anniversary - In Memoriam - 35mm Print

WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT

USA 1993 - 35mm - 118 minutes, in English Director: Brian Gibson Screenplay: Kate Lanier Producer: Doug Chapin Cast: Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, RaéVen Kelly, Virginia Capers Print Courtesy: Walt Disney Pictures The recent loss of Tina Turner reminds us of the strength of this remarkable woman, both in her personal life, where she was married to a monstrously abusive husband, and her professional life, which had roots in the same toxic relationship. What’s Love Got to Do with It is “driven by an electrifying soundtrack and by two performances of staggering power” –Entertainment Weekly.

Angela Bassett’s and Lawrence Fishburne’s Oscar-nominated performances as Tina and Ike Turner are the backbone of this film.

Tina Turner herself, born Anna Mae Bullock, provides both the autobiography as source material and the actual singing vocals behind Bassett’s portrayal, which is an inspiration. Its 30th anniversary reminds us of this extraordinary singer, and the struggle she faced that is, unfortunately, far from eradicated. —KE Sponsored by Peter and Joan Beckerman

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MAINE NARRATIVE SHORTS Thursday, July 13 7PM | WOH Saturday, July 15 1PM | WOH

SENTINELS USA 2023 - 15 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Matthew Luhrman Producers: Matthew Luhrman, Jeff Griecci, Christine Marshall Cast: Ian Carlsen, Ozma Kasten, Cassidy Kasten A young girl sets out on a mission to save her father from a debilitating illness by conjuring magical guardians.

When her tempestuous younger brother sabotages her mission, she must find a way to heal the rift before her whole family crumbles apart.

A CERTAIN SORT OF TRINITY

A NATURAL FORCE USA 2022 - 3 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Gordon LePage In this adorable stop-motion adventure, two raccoons take different paths to snacks.

CHUCKLE-FISH USA 2023 - 4 minutes, in English Director: Giles Timms A short visual poem about being a solo dad amidst the terrific and terrifying absurdity of modern life, Giles Timms explores themes of connection and disconnection during the pandemic—like someone on the outside looking in.

THE ADVENTURES OF BAXTER & CLYDE USA 2022 - 8 minutes, in English Director, Producer, Screenplay, Animator: John Michaud Cast: Byron Wagner, Kate Michaud An adventurous boy and a magical duck join forces to avert a crisis of lunar proportions on Mount Katahdin. Set in 1960 in the small, central Maine railroad town of Brownville Junction and inspired by American cartoons of the era.

USA 2022 - 20 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Charlotte Benoit Producers: Charlotte Benoit Cast: Martha Epstein, Annika Fagerholm, Cody Alexander Curtis, Mary Holt, Charlotte Benoit, Lena Mozzhelina Mary and Ruth, recent (or soon-to-be) college graduates, find themselves back in their hometown for Halloween.

Attending a party with their old high school classmates, each girl must confront their uncertain futures with the help of a costumed grim reaper.

VACATIONLAND USA 2022 - 20 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Joseph Louis Coleman Cast: Janet McTeer, Griffin Camens, Thomas Dodge Young lobsterman Paul must face his opioid addiction in order to save his livelihood and his relationships. This film, featuring Academy Award nominee Janet McTeer, masterfully captures the ambience of the Maine coast and its languid atmosphere.

—NB, TL, JP, BW

Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

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MAINE DOCUMENTARY SHORTS Saturday, July 8 7PM | WOH Saturday, July 15 3PM | MFC 1

BORN CURIOUS USA 2022 - 18 minutes, in English Director: Julia de Guzman J.R. Harris is an explorer, psychologist, and selfproclaimed “curious dude.” Born Curious, which explores the life of the explorer, is in turns comedic and lyrical, tense and heartwarming, and will inspire even the most timid among us to live braver and bolder every day.

SALT LINES

FROZEN HARVEST

United Kingdom, USA 2022 - 16 minutes, in English Director: Dan McDougall Producers: Nina Ross Salt Lines chronicles the journey of Brittany, a single mother and the fifth-generation captain of her own lobster trawler, as she defies gender norms and navigates the treacherous waters of the male-dominated fishing industry.

Returning to her roots after acquiring a law degree in Nashville, she bravely faces the relentless challenges of a physically demanding and perilous profession to provide for her children, revealing the resilience and determination that define her extraordinary story.

USA 2023 - 3 minutes, in English Director: Mark Fleming A poignant, visually stunning reminder of the profound impact of climate change as it threatens the cherished practice of ice harvesting, which is being kept alive by the Thompson Ice House in South Bristol.

TIERRA DE LECHE Nicaragua, USA 2023 - 12 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles Director: Milton Guillen, Fiona Hall Producer: Connor Whitley A group of Central American dairy workers in Maine reminisce about their relationship to the land, labor practices, and their home countries. Hours, days, weeks, and years pass by and the repetitiveness of the labor gives way to new families in a non-place. These workers, despite their initial dreams, never return home, where many of their families forget about them, or are lost to time.

SEEDS OF CHANGE USA 2023 - 27 minutes, in English Director, Producer: Maximilian Armstrong In Seeds of Change, an organic farmer in Charleston, Maine pilots an initiative to reform the prison food system, showcasing the significant impact of a five-acre prison garden on both the lives of the incarcerated men and the community at large.

SEE YOU IN APRIL USA 2022 - 17 minutes, in English Director, Producer, Screenplay: Alec Helm With: Rachel Paradis, Don Paradis, Melissa Paradis In Waterville, some of the best ice cream in the state is lovingly crafted at North Street Dairy Cone, a cherished mom-and-pop establishment that has stood the test of time for 58 years. This heartwarming documentary explores how the local and seasonal business manages to flourish and poses the question of what lies ahead for the beloved ice cream shop when its dedicated owners decide to retire.

—NB, TL, JP, BW

Sponsored by Franklin Savings Bank

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Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

MOSTLY-MAINE HORRORS Thursday, July 13 4PM | WOH Saturday, July 15 9PM | MFC 1

I KNOW WHAT YOU NEED

THE HULDRA

USA 2022 - 45 minutes, in English Director: Julia Marchese Screenplay: Julia Marchese, based on the short story by Stephen King Cast: William Champion, Caroline Goldenberg, Giovanna Drummond, Colin Fin It’s 1976, and popular college co-ed Elizabeth meets an unusual boy, Edward, who knows what she needs. But who is Edward really, and what secrets is he hiding? It’s a love story, but a Stephen King love story, so things aren’t always what they seem. Based on the short story from Stephen King’s 1978 Night Shift collection, I Know What You Need is an after-school special that dissolves into terror. Filmed on location in King’s dorm room at the University of Maine, where the story takes place.

USA 2023 - 13 minutes, in English Director: Allie Ray Thaller, Owen Hines Screenplay: Allie Ray Thaller, Olive Bickford Cast: Noah Spieldenner, Amara Beganny, Emily Campbell A teenage boy struggling with his mental health falls in love with a mysterious creature from Scandinavian folklore.

A horror romance written, directed, and acted by Maine Arts Academy students.

THE DOUBLEWALKER USA 2022 - 21 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Angela Sheil Producers: Angela Sheil, Jonathan Cantiello, Gina De Nardo, Zach Durocher Cast: Freja Zeuthen, Kristin Johansen An aimless twenty-something returns to her childhood home to find closure over a family tragedy, and instead discovers she may have inherited a sinister curse in this film shot entirely in Sedgwick, Maine, and inspired by Breton folklore.

NASH USA 2022 - 12 minutes, in English Director: Tim Warren Screenplay: Kyle Sullivan Producer: Chris Dreseris Cast: Griffin Robert Faulkner, Brian McCarthy 9-year-old Nash is determined to find the monster that killed his mother; his father George is equally determined to stop him.

—NB, TL, JP, BW

Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

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SHORTS “FROM AWAY” Friday, July 7 9:40PM | MFC 2 Monday, July 10 1PM | WOH

EKAI Spain 2021 - 20 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Arantza Ibarra Basañez Producers: Izaskun Arandia, Ana Martínez, Elaxar Lersundi The story of young transgender boy Ekai Lersundi, who took his own life in 2018 after fighting for better access to gender-affirming care in the Basque Country.

DREAMS OF HOME USA 2023 - 4 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Justin Kaminuma An experimental coming-of-age film following a boy skateboarding through abstract landscapes and memories in search of a place he encountered in a dream. By recontextualizing photographs and footage shot in his daily life over the years, he constructs a dreamscape that oscillates between the real and the surreal.

PANIC ATTACK Ireland 2023 - 14 minutes, in English Director, Producer, Screenplay: Anthony Assad Cast: Laurence McCann, Jackson Lennon, Geraldine McAlinden In this endearing short film, we follow Alex’s journey as he navigates the challenges of gender transition and grapples with his fears and anxieties. When his best friend Cal cancels their joint venture, Alex is forced to confront his insecurities and embark on a journey of self-discovery alone.

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Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

FAMILIAR STRANGER Switzerland, Italy 2022 - 19 minutes, in English and in German, Italian, and Swiss German with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Sara Furrer, Fabian Lütolf Producers: Edith Flückiger, Urs Augstburger Sara travels to La Spezia, Italy to uncover more about her grandfather, whose absence has left a void in her family. As she searches for clues, she grapples with the complexities of kinship and identity in this emotionally charged and thought-provoking documentary.

TOPIA USA 2022 - 15 minutes, in English Director: Jessie Lee Thorne, Justin Thorne Producer: David Orr With: Laja Field, Matt Luck, Annalise Gehling, Keilan Stafford, Jessie Lee Thorne Through striking visuals and haunting sound design, this experimental dance film explores manifestations of darkness and the necessity of vulnerability, community, and holding each other in pain and joy.

SHORTS “FROM AWAY”

NOT TODAY

BABEL

Turkey 2022 - 14 minutes, in Turkish with English subtitles Director: Yağmur Mısırlıoğlu Screenplay: Yağmur Mısırlıoğlu, Can Pekdemir Producer: Nefes Polat A cautionary tale of what happens when new-age thinking is applied to real life. Meryem works as a nanny for a wealthy family, while also shouldering the responsibility of her own family. One day Meryem decides to take the advice of her privileged employer, and soon discovers the path to self-discovery is not without its challenges and sacrifices.

Spain 2021 - 9 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles Director, Producer, Screenplay: Alejandro San Martín Cast: Antonio Gil, Luz Valdenebro, Paula Iglesias, Marcos Zhang, Angela Cremonte In this thought-provoking short film, we witness a group of people who are suddenly unable to communicate coherently, reduced to uttering only disjointed phrases. As society struggles to understand this baffling phenomenon, the afflicted individuals are isolated and subjected to scientific scrutiny.

SAND MAMA

WINTER’S PASSING

USA 2022 - 5 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Catherine Loerke Producer: Elise Shin Cast: Miriam Silverman, Adam Green Unable to resolve her identity crisis, an ambivalent mother makes a startling choice on a family beach trip.

Sand Mama asks the viewer to ponder how motherhood defines women’s identities, and at what cost.

USA, China 2022 - 21 minutes, in Mandarin with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Yang Fei Producers: Lei Xu, Yang Fei Cast: Zhiyi Yang, Jimei Zeng Following his mother’s untimely death and his father’s remarriage, 8-year-old Xuan is sent to live with his grandfather who owns a small urn shop. When Xuan meets a mother grieving the loss of her son, they learn that hope can come from unexpected places.

—NB, TL, JP, BW

Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

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SPECIAL EVENTS MAKE IT IN MAINE With Tax Incentives and Fiscal Sponsorship!

Saturday, July 15 4-6PM

GREENE BLOCK + STUDIOS 18 MAIN STREET WATERVILLE

Free and open to the public. Seating is limited to 70.

RSVP required via miff.org/program Join filmmakers, industry experts, and creators to learn about the benefits of film production tax credits, fiscal sponsorship for independent film production through the Maine Film Center, the current state of the film industry in Maine, and a vision for the future. Networking and refreshments begin at 4PM, and the panel discussion starts at 5PM. MODERATED BY LOUISE ROSEN, MANAGING DIRECTOR, LOUISE ROSEN LTD. AND CHAIR, ADVOCACY COMMITTEE, MAINE FILM ASSOCIATION

Louise has worked in independent media and the arts for over 25 years. As a media executive, she has in-depth experience in the film business, including project development, production, and distribution. She began her international career as Director of Sales & Co-productions at WGBH and has served as an editorial & business consultant, distributor, producer, and sales agent. Her projects have included Oscar, Emmy, Sundance, and other award-winning films released across all platforms worldwide. Louise tutors and has been a speaker and moderator at conferences and film festivals such as Sunnyside, DOC NYC, & Hot Docs.

Presented by:

MIFF Movement with Matthew Cumbie Sunday, July 9, 10–11AM Studio 1902, Paul J. Schupf Art Center Join collaborative dance maker and artist Matthew Cumbie to stretch and move before a long day of movies! Free, all ages and abilities welcome.

Make Your Own MIFF Mug Monday, July 10, 1-3PM + Wednesday, July 12, 7–9PM The Art Of Clay Studio, Paul J. Schupf Art Center Using underglaze decals, design your own MIFF/Maine themed mug as a unique souvenir of this year’s film festival. Ages 16+. Suggested donation: $20. Mugs crafted on 7/10 will be ready to pick up on 7/11, and those made on 7/12 will be ready to pick up on 7/14.

Drop-In Printmaking at Hinge Collaborative Wednesday, July 12, 10AM–12PM Hinge Collaborative, 5 Silver Street Make and create at socially-engaged art at Hinge Collaborative, Waterville’s community-based printmaking studio and gallery. Free, ages 16+.

Art in the Park: Make a Crankie Thursday, July 13, 3–5PM Castonguay Square Join artist and illustrator Lucky Platt for a hands-on program on the “Crankie,” a unique moving-panorama storytelling tool! Free, all ages and abilities welcome.

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Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

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Unity Foundation salutes the dedicated staff and volunteers of the Maine International Film Festival!

Our mission is to support mission-driven nonprofits in Maine through capacity-building initiatives, organizational assessment, programmatic grantmaking and nonprofit management education. Our goal is to promote strong, sustainable nonprofits that reliably serve Maine communities.

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The 2023/24 annual theme for the Oak Institute for Human Rights is Health and Human Rights. Our 2023/24 Fellow is Khosro Kalabsi Isfahani, an Iranian journalist, activist and researcher who writes for BBC Monitoring, the Atlantic Council, and ARTICLE 19, focusing especially on health and human rights violations.

Learn more about us and our events in the Fall on social media.

The Oak Institute for Human Rights at Colby College champions the struggles for dignity, freedom, and justice of people throughout the world. Every fall, we invite a front-line human rights activist operating in difficult or dangerous circumstances to come to Colby for respite and reflection as the Oak Human Rights Fellow.

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YOUTH ARTS ACCESS FUND The Youth Arts Access Fund (YAAF) is a dedicated fund to support free admission for youth ages 18 and under.

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INDEX 20,000 Species of Bees

15

Panic Attack

42

A Certain Sort of Trinity

39

Passages

24

A Natural Force

39

Pickup/Delivery

25

Alis

15

Place and Time: The North Shore

24

Anxious in Beirut

16

Queen of the Deuce

25

Aurora's Sunrise

16

Return to Dust

25

Babel

43

Riceboy Sleeps

26

Badlands

35

Salt Lines

40

Black Barbie: A Documentary

17

Sand Mama

43

Born Curious

40

See You In April

40

Bravo, Burkina!

17

Seeds of Change

40

Buried News

14

Sentinels

39

Chocolat

35

Shoe Shine Caddie

26

Chuckle-fish

39

Shorts “From Away”

42

Conviction

30

Silver Haze

27

Dawson City: Frozen Time

14

Simon the Magician

10

Dreams of Home

42

Smoke Sauna Sisterhood

27

Ekai

42

Sorcery

28

Errante: La Conquista Del Hogar

18

Terra Femme

28

Familiar Stranger

42

The Adventures of Baxter & Clyde

39

Fishing with Einstein

33

The Beasts

29

Free Money

18

The Conformist

36

From the Morning to the Night

19

The Devil, Probably

37

Frozen Harvest

40

The DoubleWalker

41

Hangdog

12

The Great Flood

14

Heightened

19

The Huldra

41

I Know What You Need

41

The Last Dream: Tarkovsky and The Sacrifice

29

I Like Movies

13

The Legend of Lylah Clare

37

Infernal Affairs

36

The Sacrifice

37

Israelism

20

The Story of My Wife

11

Jules

20

The Sun Rises in The East

30

Karaoke

21

The Three Musketeers

38

King on Screen

12

The Tuba Thieves

30

Knowing the Score

21

The Wounds

31

Kokomo City

22

Those Who Wait

31

La Pecera

22

Tibi Tendlu: The Dirt That Binds Us

32

Maine Documentary Shorts

40

Tierra de Leche

40

Maine Narrative Shorts

39

Topia

42

Meeting Point

23

Twice Colonized

32

Mostly-Maine Horrors

41

Vacationland

39

My Twentieth Century

10

Vicenta B

33

Nash

41

We Are the Warriors

33

Nice People

23

Werckmeister Harmonies

38

North Circular

24

What I Want You to Know

34

Not Today

43

What's Love Got to Do With It?

38

Old Man At the Corner Store

26

Winter's Passing

43

On Body and Soul

11

Wisdom Gone Wild

34

Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

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Staff

Board of Directors

Shannon Haines President + CEO

Deni Merrill Senior Patron Services Assistant

James LaLiberty, Chair Jabar, LaLiberty, & Dubord

Patricia King Vice President

Emilienne Ouellette Senior Patron Services Assistant

Elizabeth Finch, Vice Chair Colby College Museum of Art

Mike Perreault Maine Film Center Executive Director

Jak Peters Patron Services Assistant

Kelly Huggins, Treasurer One River, CPAs

Alan Sanborn Patron Services Assistant

Lori Roming, Secretary Unity Foundation

Phoebe Sanborn Administrative Coordinator

Brian Clark Colby College

Serena Sanborn Manager of Outreach + Community Partnerships

Amanda Cooley Kennebec Savings Bank

Michelle Sweet Waterville Opera House Executive Director Yvonne Brown Clay Studio Coordinator Jordyn Chelf Marketing + Development Coordinator Michael Churchill Waterville Opera House Technical Director Wil Currie Waterville Opera House Theatre Technician Bryant Cyr Waterville Opera House Production Manager Julia Dunlavey Maine Film Center Assistant Executive Director Jackie Ferlito Interim Communications Coordinator Mary Ellms Communications Coordinator Austin Frederick Maine Film Center AV Coordinator June L’Heureux Gallery Attendant

Sara Stewart Event + Volunteer Coordinator Marie Sugden Exhibitions Coordinator

John Dalton Retired from Northern Light Inland Hospital

Nathan Sylvester Patron Services Assistant

Shannon Haines Waterville Creates

Greta Thiele Patron Services Assistant

Tammy Rabideau Waterville Public Library

Erik Thomas Waterville Opera House Assistant Executive Director

Debra Susi Maine Central Institute

Joshua Veilleux Box Office Manager Zachary-Allen Wallace Patron Services Assistant Stephen Webb Patron Services Assistant Lisa Wheeler Education Manager Jen Whelan Patron Services Assistant

Jill Lawrence Patron Services Assistant

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Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG

Visit us this summer at our Joan Dignam Schmaltz Gallery of Art in the Paul J. Schupf Art Center!

Through July 31

Ashley Bryan / Paula Wilson: Take the World into Your Arms August 18 – December 31, 2023

Bill Morrison: Cycles and Loops ON CAMPUS | 5600 Mayflower Hill Through July 28, 2024

Painted: Our Bodies, Hearts, and Village Through October 22, 2023

Whistler: Streetscapes, Urban Change free and open to all museum.colby.edu Above: Ashley Bryan, Dahlias (detail), c. 2000. Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 in. (121.9 x 91.4 cm). Gift of the Ashley Bryan Center, 2022.006; Bill Morrison, Still from Dawson City: Frozen Time, 2016. 35mm film transferred to video, black and white, and color. 120 min. Courtesy of the artist; Jody Naranjo Folwell (Santa Clara Pueblo/Tewa, born 1942), Ghost Hunters, c. 2015. Redware, 16 x 6 ½ x 6 ½ in. Museum purchase from the Jere Abbott Acquisitions Fund, 2022.063.

COLBY CENTER FOR THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES SCHAIR-SWENSON-WATSON ALUMNI CENTER 128

THE COLBY CENTER FOR THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES CELEBRATES A DECADE OF ANNUAL HUMANITIES THEMES, LECTURE SERIES, AND FILM SERIES THAT INSPIRE DISCUSSIONS AND CHALLENGING CONVERSATIONS AROUND CAMPUS AND IN OUR COMMUNITY. IN 2023 - 2025, WE INVITE YOU TO EXPLORE THE WORLD OF PLAY IN EVENTS ON CAMPUS AND ACROSS WATERVILLE!