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
Jak Peters Senior Associate Programmer, Projectionist
Saidah Russell Guest Programmer
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
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
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.
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
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:
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.
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.
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.
OFFICIAL VEHICLE OF MIFF
TOURMALINE PRIZE SPONSORS
SUPPORTING SPONSORS
VENUE SPONSORS
HOSPITALITY SPONSORS
MEDIA SPONSORS
PRODUCER’S CLUB
Peter and Joan Beckerman, Lee and Peter Lyford, Tobi Schneider and Steve Neumeister
DIRECTOR’S CLUB
Pat Clark, Stephen and Cathy Sears, Nancy Sanford, Barbara and Ted Alfond, Kathryn Slott, Joel and Alice Johnson, Holly Gooch
LODGING SPONSORS
FUNDED IN PART BY A GRANT FROM:
MIFF FAN CLUB
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
Once you download the app you’ll never need WiFi or cellular data to find what you are looking for. On the road, around our towns, on the trail, or even out on the water, the app will guide you to nearly 100 spectacular locations throughout Maine’s Kennebec Valley.
Users will love its GPS-based mapping and inspiring descriptions that will lead them along our scenic drives and tours. Those seeking local brews will easily sip their way through the 14 stops along the Kennebec Valley Beer Trail or follow the listings to recreational trails, roadside oddities, outdoor sculptures and historic sites.
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
KNOWING THE SCORE
11
Thursday July 13
3PM ERRANTE: LA CONQUISTA DEL HOGAR (WANDERER: THE CONQUEST OF HOME)
6PM THE TUBA THIEVES 9PM KING ON SCREEN
3PM THE WOUNDS
6PM THE GREAT FLOOD, SHOWN WITH BURIED NEWS
9PM BRAVO, BURKINA!
Friday July 14
3PM SIMON THE MAGICIAN
6PM DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME
9PM NORTH CIRCULAR, SHOWN WITH PLACE AND TIME: THE NORTH SHORE
Saturday July 15
12PM 44TH MAINE STUDENT FILM & VIDEO FESTIVAL
3PM MAINE DOCUMENTARY SHORTS
6PM HEIGHTENED
9PM MOSTLY-MAINE HORRORS
Sunday July 16
12PM ANXIOUS IN BEIRUT
3PM JULES
3:40PM THE STORY OF MY WIFE
SILVER HAZE
RETURN TO DUST
3:40PM THE LAST DREAM: TARKOVSKY AND THE SACRIFICE
6:40PM TIBI TENDLU: THE DIRT THAT BINDS US
9:40PM FROM THE MORNING TO THE NIGHT
3:40PM TERRA FEMME
6:40PM AURORA’S SUNRISE 9:40PM BADLANDS
3:40PM VICENTA B, SHOWN WITH FISHING WITH EINSTEIN
6:40PM JULES
9:40PM INFERNAL AFFAIRS
12:40PM THE WOUNDS
3:40PM ISRAELISM
6:40PM THE THREE MUSKETEERS
9:40PM QUEEN OF THE DEUCE, SHOWN WITH PICKUP/DELIVERY
12:40PM THE DEVIL, PROBABLY
3:40PM HANGDOG
Cinema 3
MFC 3 22 seats
Opera House
WOH 800 seats
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
12:20PM HEIGHTENED
3:20PM ISRAELISM
6:20PM RETURN TO DUST
9:20PM SILVER HAZE
3:20PM PASSAGES
6:20PM THE DEVIL, PROBABLY
9:20PM BRAVO, BURKINA!
3:20PM RICEBOY SLEEPS
6:20PM 20,000 SPECIES OF BEES
9:20PM THOSE WHO WAIT
3:20PM WE ARE THE WARRIORS
6:20PM SHOE SHINE CADDIE, SHOWN WITH OLD MAN AT THE CORNER STORE
9:20PM MEETING POINT
3:20PM TWICE COLONIZED
6:20PM THE SACRIFICE
9:20PM THE LAST DREAM: TARKOVSKY AND THE SACRIFICE
3:20PM TIBI TENDLU: THE DIRT THAT BINDS US
6:20PM ERRANTE: LA CONQUISTA DEL HOGAR
9:20PM TERRA FEMME
12:20PM NICE PEOPLE
3:20PM THE BEASTS
6:20PM KOKOMO CITY
9:20PM FROM THE MORNING TO THE NIGHT
12:20PM SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD
3:20PM LA PECERA
1PM CHOCOLAT
4PM THE THREE MUSKETEERS
7PM MAINE DOCUMENTARY SHORTS
1PM THE CONFORMIST
4PM SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD
7PM MID-LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: ON BODY AND SOUL
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 AURORA’S SUNRISE
4PM FREE MONEY
7PM CENTERPIECE FILM: KING ON SCREEN
1PM WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT
4PM WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES
7PM THE LEGEND OF LYLAH CLARE
10AM MIFF MOVEMENT WITH MATTHEW CUMBIE STUDIO 1902
9PM MID-LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
RECEPTION: ILDIKÓ ENYEDI FRONT + MAIN, 9 MAIN ST
1PM MAKE YOUR OWN MIFF MUG THE ART OF CLAY STUDIO
9PM CENTERPIECE RECEPTION AMICI’S CUCINA, 137 MAIN ST
10AM DROP-IN PRINTMAKING HINGE COLLABORATIVE, 5 SILVER ST
7PM MAKE YOUR OWN MIFF MUG THE ART OF CLAY STUDIO
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
1PM MAINE NARRATIVE SHORTS
4PM WE ARE THE WARRIORS
7PM THOSE WHO WAIT
4PM MAINE FILM INDUSTRY PANEL GREENE BLOCK + STUDIOS, 18 MAIN ST
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
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
Sunday, July 9 7PM | WOH
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
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
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
Tuesday,
July 11 3:40PM |
Friday, July 14 3PM | MFC 1
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
Friday, July 7 7PM | WOH
Sunday, July 16 3:40PM | MFC 2
Tuesday, July 11 7PM | WOH
Wednesday, July 12 9PM | MFC 1
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
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
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
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.
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.
Sponsored by:
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.
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
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
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
Friday, July 14
6PM | MFC 1
Sponsored by SBS/Carbon Copy
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.
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
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
Thursday, July 13 1PM | WOH
Sunday, July 16 12PM | MFC 1
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
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
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
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
Monday, July
Wednesday, July 12 3PM | MFC 1
Friday, July 14 6:20PM | MFC 3
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
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
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
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
Sunday, July 9 3:20PM | MFC 3
Saturday, July 15 3:40PM | MFC 2
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
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
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
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
Tuesday, July 11 3PM NEW FEATURES
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Friday, July 14 1PM |
Sunday, July 9 9PM | MFC 1
Saturday, July 15 6:20PM | MFC 3
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
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
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
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
Sunday, July 9 12:40PM | MFC 2
Wednesday, July 12 9:20PM | MFC 3
Monday, July 10 9:40PM | MFC 2
Saturday, July 15 12:20PM | MFC 3
Saturday, July 8 6PM | MFC 1
Friday, July 14 9PM | MFC 1
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
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
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
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
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
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
Sunday, July 9 3:40PM | MFC 2
Saturday, July 15 9:40PM | MFC 2
Sunday, July 9 6:20PM | MFC 3
Tuesday, July 11 9:40PM | MFC 2
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
Saturday, July 8 6:40PM | MFC 2
Tuesday, July 11 3:20PM | MFC 3
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
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
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
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.
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
Saturday, July 8 12:40PM | MFC 2
Monday, July 10 9PM | MFC 1
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
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
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
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.
Saturday, July 8 9PM | MFC 1
Saturday, July 15 3:20PM | MFC 3
Wednesday, July 12 3:40PM | MFC 2
Thursday, July 13 9:20PM | MFC 3
Sunday, July 9 6:40PM | MFC 2
Tuesday, July 11 9PM | MFC 1
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
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
Wednesday, July 12 6PM | MFC 1
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
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
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,
Thursday, July 13 3PM | MFC 1
Saturday, July 15 12:40PM | MFC 2
Tuesday, July 11 9:20PM | MFC 3
Saturday, July 15 7PM | WOH
Wednesday, July 12 6:40PM | MFC 2
Friday, July 14 3:20PM | MFC 3
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
Eastern U.S. Premiere
Saturday, July 8 3:40PM | MFC 2
Thursday, July 13 3:20PM | MFC 3
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
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
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
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
Saturday, July 8 9:20PM | MFC 3
Friday, July 14 3:40PM | MFC 2
Wednesday, July 12 3:20PM | MFC 3
Saturday, July 15 4PM | WOH
Friday, July 14 7PM | WOH
Sunday, July 16 1PM | WOH
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
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
USA 1973 - DCP - 94 minutes, in English
Director, Producer, Screenplay: Terrence Malick
Cast: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates
Print Courtesy: Warner Bros.
Saturday, July 8 3PM | MFC 1
Thursday, July 13 9:40 PM | MFC 2
“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
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.
Saturday, July 8 1PM | WOH
Sunday, July 16 4PM | WOH
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
Sunday, July 9 3PM | MFC 1
Friday, July 14 9:40PM | MFC 2
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
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
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
Monday, July 10 6:20PM | MFC 3
Sunday, July 16 12:40PM | MFC 2
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
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
Wednesday, July 12 7PM | WOH
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
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
Saturday, July 8 9:40PM | MFC 2
Thursday, July 13 6:20PM | MFC 3
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
Saturday, July 8 4PM | WOH
Saturday, July 15 6:40PM | MFC 2
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
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
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
Thursday, July 13 7PM | WOH
Saturday, July 15 1PM | WOH
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.
USA 2022 - 3 minutes, in English
Director, Screenplay: Gordon LePage
In this adorable stop-motion adventure, two raccoons take different paths to snacks.
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.
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.
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.
Saturday, July 8 7PM | WOH
Saturday, July 15 3PM | MFC 1
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sponsored by Franklin Savings Bank
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 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.
Thursday, July 13 4PM | WOH Saturday, July 15 9PM | MFC 1
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.
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.
Friday, July 7 9:40PM | MFC 2
Monday, July 10 1PM | WOH
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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+.
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.
PRO Moving Service is proud to be a part of this dynamic Central Maine community! Our unparalleled level of service is always available to the creators in this unique area. Whether we’re moving artwork or the artist, office furniture or the office manager, restaurant fixtures or the chef, PRO will always be there. Count on us for your moving, installations, office furnishings and more. Thanks for choosing a PRO!
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.
Whether you’re starting your first job or retiring from your last, we understand that every financial situation is different ... just like the people we serve.
Sickness and injury are unpredictable. That’s why we made walk-in care available seven days a week
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Productivity, Engagement and Retention are the names of the game today in the workplace.
It’s no secret that training and education are the best ways to ensure that your employees are the most productive and engaged as possible.
Companies that have their workforce involved in comprehensive training programs enjoy a 24% higher profit margin than companies that don’t.
Want be er results for your company and employees? Check out the Institute’s available Professional Development courses.
For more information, or to sign up for a course please visit thomas.edu/training
thomas.edu • (207)859-1111
PATHWAY TO A PROMISING FUTURE, GUARANTEED.
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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Shannon Haines President + CEO
Patricia King Vice President
Mike Perreault Maine Film Center Executive Director
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
Jill Lawrence Patron Services Assistant
Deni Merrill Senior Patron Services Assistant
Emilienne Ouellette
Senior Patron Services Assistant
Jak Peters Patron Services Assistant
Alan Sanborn Patron Services Assistant
Phoebe Sanborn Administrative Coordinator
Serena Sanborn Manager of Outreach + Community Partnerships
Sara Stewart Event + Volunteer Coordinator
Marie Sugden Exhibitions Coordinator
Nathan Sylvester Patron Services Assistant
Greta Thiele Patron Services Assistant
Erik Thomas Waterville Opera House Assistant Executive Director
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
James LaLiberty, Chair Jabar, LaLiberty, & Dubord
Elizabeth Finch, Vice Chair Colby College Museum of Art
Kelly Huggins, Treasurer One River, CPAs
Lori Roming, Secretary Unity Foundation
Brian Clark Colby College
Amanda Cooley Kennebec Savings Bank
Dr. Donald Cragen Thomas College
John Dalton Retired from Northern Light Inland Hospital
Shannon Haines Waterville Creates
Tammy Rabideau Waterville Public Library
Debra Susi Maine Central Institute
