NEW FEATURES World Premiere
THE WOUNDS
Thursday, July 13 3PM | MFC 1 Saturday, July 15 12:40PM | MFC 2
Argentina 2023 - DCP - 82 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles Director, Print Courtesy: Alfredo Lichter Alfredo Lichter, who wowed MIFF audiences two years ago with his Tierra del Fuego-set The Loneliness of the Bones, returns to explore a different landscape of Argentina and to explore the intersection of past and present in The Wounds. During the 19th and 20th centuries, thousands of Italians left their country to search for a new life. Argentina was one of several possibilities. Some of these families arrived in the countryside and a small town in Córdoba, an Argentine province. All their lives they wondered: Do we belong here or are we just passing through? The feelings of uprooting and absence are a legacy that endures. But many stories are lost in the landscape. Caravans of machinery move along the roads between endless green fields. Agricultural activity models the social and economic reality, and there are few who inhabit those places. Technological growth on one side; invisible human wounds on the other. Even the town cinema closed for good; its absence is also part of the void. Is this the void suffered by immigrants? No one answers because the protagonists of The Wounds are ghosts. The Wounds is a haunted and haunting and heartfelt journey. —KE
World Premiere
THOSE WHO WAIT
Tuesday, July 11 9:20PM | MFC 3 Saturday, July 15 7PM | WOH
USA 2022 - DCP - 78 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay, Print Courtesy: Chani Bockwinkel, Ty Burdenski Cast: Effie Bowen, Derek Jackson, Daniel Noel Those Who Wait is a poetic retelling of the Millerite doomsday movement that swept across America in the 1840s. The film follows the town of Portland, Maine as its residents navigate several waves of apocalyptic prophecy and disappointment. Told in tableau and parable, this queer gaze into the colonial past explores the powers and perils of “believing it’s over.” In a moment of political and environmental upheavals and catastrophes, the film explores our collective desire to embrace apocalyptic fantasy. “With a primarily queer/trans cast and crew, we sought to bring a queer sensibility to all aspects of an (unlikely) production. With many parts of the historical record missing, we attempt to be in conversation with history while allowing queer imagination to fill in the cracks. As filmmakers, it’s our goal to depict tensions that reach beyond coming out narratives and instead contribute to the “queering” of histories (and futures). Consider this an attempt to not simply queer the subjects of history but to reassert that there have always been other political and spiritual strategies for being, other fabrics to our world, and other strategies of how to penetrate them… and a commitment to learning from the experts of our past–from their success and their failures.” – Directors Chani Bockwinkel, Ty Burdenski —NB, TL, JP, BW
Maine International Film Festival 2023 MIFF.ORG
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