27th Maine International Film Festival Program Guide
JULY 12–21, 2024
MISSION
VISION
A community where all people enjoy transformative experiences in the arts.
VALUES
COMMUNITY
We are building a thriving, connected, and equitable community through shared experiences in the arts. By presenting arts programming by, with, and for our community, we promote growth and well-being.
CREATIVITY
We recognize the vital role creative expression plays in a fulfilled life and a vibrant community, nurture individual artistic endeavors at all levels, and encourage all creative outlets.
COLLABORATION
We connect and work with creatives, arts and cultural organizations, and other strategic partners to energize and enrich our community through the arts.
DIVERSITY, EQUITY + INCLUSION
We honor and celebrate the array of identities in our local community and broader communities, including those that are not part of the predominant culture. We hold space on our stage, our screens, and our gallery walls, in our studios, and at our community events and programs to present diverse stories, identities, and lived experiences in real and authentic ways.
Mike Perreault Executive Director
Festival Staff
Ken Eisen Programming Director
Austin Frederick Technical Director
Raynor Ahlstrin-Muniec Operations Coordinator
Savanna Alley Event Assistant
Candance Andre Event Assistant
Julia Badaraco Event Assistant
Nancy Bixler Senior Associate Programmer
Yvonne Brown Clay Studio Coordinator
Kyle Burbage Guest Services Coordinator
Jackie Ferlito Communications Coordinator
Alexa Gallant Event Assistant
CJ Gilligan Event + Volunteer Coordinator
Lucien Gross Production Assistant
Pete Haase Event Assistant
June L’Heureux Gallery Attendant
Sam Jamison Event Assistant
Bridget Kahan Guest Services Coordinator
Elias Kemp Production Assistant
Arleen King-Lovelace Guest Services Coordinator
Jill Lawrence Patron Services Assistant
Lisa Lessard Guest Services Coordinator
Trish Lowell Senior Associate Programmer
Ruby Marden Production Assistant
John Meader Photographer
Chris Melville Director of Marketing + Communications
Jak Peters Senior Associate Programmer, Technical Coordinator
Juniper Purinton Technical Director Waterville Opera House
Matthew Russ Gallery Attendant / Event Assistant
Saidah Russell Guest Programmer
Phoebe Sanborn Administrative Coordinator
Serena Sanborn Manager of Outreach + Community Partnerships
Phoebe Ellen Sessler Technical Coordinator
Tessa Shanteler Event Assistant
Sara Stewart Event + Volunteer Coordinator
Moya Stringer Production Assistant
Marie Sugden Exhibitions Coordinator
Luca Thamattoor Event Assistant
Greta Thiele Patron Services Assistant
Joshua Veilleux Box Office Manager
Zachary-Allen Wallace Venue Manager
Bria Watson Senior Associate Programmer
Lily Webb Venue Manager
Stevie Webb Patron Services Assistant
Mali Welch
/ All Over It
Festival Branding and Collateral
Lisa Wheeler Education Manager
Jordyn Woodard
Marketing + Development Coordinator
MID-LIFE ACHIEVEMENT
AWARD: MARY HARRON
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
AWARD: JOS STELLING OPENING NIGHT
Programmer Credits
Throughout this guide, MIFF’s film programmers are identified by their initials: KE Ken Eisen, SR Saidah Russell, NB Nancy Bixler, TL Trish Lowell, JP Jak Peters, BW Bria Watson
Camera Policy
Photographic, video, audio, and other recordings may be captured by Waterville Creates at its events and venues, including the Maine Film Center, Waterville Opera House, and Ticonic Gallery + Studios. This media may be used for marketing purposes in print, web, and social media marketing, as well as in third-party publications. Your presence at Waterville Creates events and venues constitutes your consent to being included in such media recordings.
Special Thanks
Harrison Bender, Jim Stark, Maxine Swann, Jake Perlin, Steve Gaydos, Garineh Nazarian, Trésor Senga, Wangeci M rage, Christina Starr, Andrea Quaid, Derek Kimball, Peter Brown, Kate Hunter, Tyler French, Dave Boardman, Louise Rosen, Desi DuBois
Individual Tickets
All festival screenings and events are available via MIFF.org and at the Ed Harris Box Office in the Paul J. Schupf Art Center, located at 93 Main Street, Waterville, until three hours prior to the listed showtime. After that time, tickets may only be purchased by queuing in the rush line under the tent outside the Paul J. Schupf Art Center. All tickets $14.
Admission Information
Festival Passes
Full Festival Pass ($250): Use this pass to reserve tickets for all MIFF events. Redeemable by one person per event. Admitted in first group for screenings if tickets are reserved in advance, subject to the Pass Terms + Conditions. 10-Pass ($125): Use this pass to reserve tickets for all MIFF events. Redeemable for 10 tickets. One pass holder will manage this pass by redeeming up to two tickets on this pass for the same event. This pass holder must reserve a ticket for themselves and for their guest, if applicable, for each screening they attend. Admitted in first group for screenings if tickets are reserved in advance, subject to the Pass Terms + Conditions.
PRESENTING SPONSORS
OFFICIAL VEHICLE OF MIFF
TOURMALINE PRIZE SPONSORS
LODGING SPONSORS
MEDIA SPONSORS
PRODUCER’S CLUB
Peter and Lee Lyford
Pass Terms + Conditions:
All pass holder ticket reservations are honored on a firstcome, first-served basis. Pass holders are encouraged to reserve tickets to screenings in advance via MIFF.org, by calling the Ed Harris Box Office at 207.873.7000, or by visiting us in-person at 93 Main Street in Waterville. Advance ticket reservations will be available until three hours prior to the published screening time and are subject to each venue’s remaining availability at the time of reservation. With advance reservation, pass and package holders must arrive at the MIFF admissions tent outside the Paul J. Schupf Art Center at least 15 minutes before the scheduled screening time to be guaranteed admission. Pass holders who do not reserve tickets in advance or who arrive less than 15 minutes before published screening times are not guaranteed admission for any screening. Available seats at showtime may be re-sold to other patrons.
VENUE SPONSORS
SUPPORTING SPONSORS
DIRECTOR’S CLUB
HOSPITALITY SPONSORS
FUNDED IN PART BY A GRANT FROM:
MIFF FAN CLUB
Tobi Schneider and Steven Neumeister, Stephen and Cathy Sears, Barbara and Ted Alfond, Bill and Joan Alfond Family, Joel Johnson, Dr. Donald Cragen, Nancy Sanford, Pat Clark, Kathryn Slott
Presley Ackeret, Martha Arterberry, Peter and Joan Beckerman, John and Judy Bielecki, Karen Kusiak, Bill Wilson
FRIENDS OF THE FESTIVAL
Samantha Burdick, Truman L. King IV, Ford Smiley, Tony Crabtree, Marilyn and Roger Renfrew
Nancy Meader
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93 Main Street
Waterville, Maine 04901
207.873.7000
Welcome to the Maine International Film Festival.
It’s a pleasure to welcome you to Waterville for this 27th edition of MIFF. This year the festival received the most submissions in its history, culminating in a program of more than 100 films representing over 40 countries. That’s not to mention three stellar made-in-Maine features and 19 short films developed right here. I’m also particularly looking forward to exhibiting a selection of new films from Rwanda, to continue highlighting some of the best works from Latin America, and to welcome these and so many other filmmakers to present and discuss their work with you. If this is your first time at MIFF, you’re in for a superb experience.
If you’ve attended MIFF before, you know that one of the greatest honors a filmmaker can receive is a Moose award. This year, we’re humbled to be able to welcome back two great filmmaker guests. Jos Stelling, who received the original Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999 (and coined the term “Mid-Life Achievement”), returns 25 years later for a second honor and the U.S. premiere of his (alleged) final film, Natasja’s Dance, on July 15. Mary Harron will also join us as we screen four of her films and present her with a richly deserved Mid-Life Achievement Award at the screening of Daliland on July 16.
This and every year, MIFF is the result of robust collaborations, and our mission continues to be deeply rooted in building community through film.
As you experience all that this year’s festival offers, please take note of our sponsors and programmatic partners, say hello to our excellent staff and volunteers, and get outside and enjoy the beautiful Central Maine region. We’re so honored you’ve joined us and look forward, as always, to seeing you at the movies.
Mike Perreault Executive Director Maine Film Center
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Maine Film Center
Cinema 1
MFC 1 115 seats
Friday July 12
Saturday July 13
Sunday July 14
Monday July 15
Tuesday July 16
Wednesday July 17
Thursday July 18
Friday July 19
Saturday July 20
Sunday July 21
9PM LE SAMOURAÏ
12PM CITIZEN KWAME SHOWN WITH I WANNA GO HOME
3PM THE BRIDE SHOWN WITH IGIHUKU
6PM NOBODY WANTS TO SHOOT A WOMAN
9PM LONGING AND BELONGING SHORTS
12PM ALL ILLUSIONS MUST BE BROKEN
3PM NOCTURNES
6PM AMERICAN PSYCHO
9PM THE BONES
3PM GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS
6PM THE OTHER PROFILE
9PM CITY OF WIND
3PM NEW FILMS FROM LATIN AMERICA: 14 POEMS, TEGUCIGALPA NO TIENE STREET VIEW, UNA MIRADA HONESTA (AN HONEST LOOK)
6PM WEST INDIES: THE FUGITIVE SLAVES OF LIBERTY
9PM AMERICA – EVERYTHING YOU EVER DREAMED OF: THE FILMS OF RHODY STREETER AND TONY GANZ
2PM* LUBO
6PM THE MOTH DIARIES
9PM HOUSE ARREST
3PM AN OPEN DOOR – TEMPLE GRANDIN SHOWN WITH PLEASE ASK FOR IT
6PM GOODFELLAS
9PM POETRY
3PM MAD ABOUT THE BOY: THE NOËL COWARD STORY
6PM SNOW LEOPARD
9PM NEIRUD SHOWN WITH THREE VENDORS OF IPANEMA
12PM CARLO...AND HIS MERRY BAND OF ARTISTS
3PM DANCE FIRST
6PM THE GHOST TRAP
9PM THE RUSE
12PM EVERY LITTLE THING
3PM MAINE MUSIC SHORTS
*SHOWTIMES WITH ASTERISKS ARE OUTSIDE NORMAL START TIMES
Maine Film Center
Cinema 2
MFC 2 43 seats
9:40PM THE SIREN
12:10PM* CLOSE YOUR EYES
3:40PM AN OPEN DOOR – TEMPLE GRANDIN SHOWN WITH PLEASE ASK FOR IT
6:40PM FIVE AND A HALF LOVE STORIES IN AN APARTMENT IN VILNIUS, LITHUANIA
9:40PM MARIA KRISTU: THE BUUMBA STORY
12:40PM CROSSING
3:40PM CASABLANCA (2023) SHOWN WITH MORE THAN YOU CAN KNOW
6:40PM LA NUIT DU VERRE D’EAU (MOTHER VALLEY)
9:40PM NOBODY WANTS TO SHOOT A WOMAN
3:40PM WITHOUT AIR 6:40PM THE ECHO 9:40PM VICTIMS OF SIN
3:40PM THE OTHER PROFILE
6:40PM LA BASE 9:40PM KALEIDOSCOPE SHORTS
2:40PM* CLOSE YOUR EYES
6:40PM NEW FILMS FROM LATIN AMERICA: 14 POEMS, TEGUCIGALPA NO TIENE STREET VIEW, UNA MIRADA HONESTA (AN HONEST LOOK)
9:40PM MAD ABOUT THE BOY: THE NOËL COWARD STORY
3:40PM LONGING AND BELONGING SHORTS
6:40PM THE TEACHER
9:40PM FILM IS DEAD. LONG LIVE FILM!
2:40PM* LUBO
6:40PM OCEANS ARE THE REAL CONTINENTS
9:40PM GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS
12:40PM WEST INDIES: THE FUGITIVE SLAVES OF LIBERTY
3:40PM ALL ILLUSIONS MUST BE BROKEN
6:40PM RECOVERY CITY
9:40PM AMERICAN PSYCHO
12:40PM LE SAMOURAÏ 3:40PM SNOW LEOPARD
Maine Film Center
Cinema 3
MFC 3 22 seats
9:20PM NOCTURNES
12:20PM YELLOW BUS
3:20PM OCEANS ARE THE REAL CONTINENTS
6:20PM AMERICA – EVERYTHING YOU EVER DREAMED OF: THE FILMS OF RHODY STREETER AND TONY GANZ
9:20PM LA BASE
12:20PM DREAMERS
3:20PM CITIZEN KWAME SHOWN WITH I WANNA GO HOME
6:20PM WITHOUT AIR
9:20PM MOI-MÊME SHOWN WITH THE KATZ TAPES
3:20PM IN CAMERA
6:20PM MOI-MÊME SHOWN WITH THE KATZ TAPES
9:20PM PAINT ME A ROAD OUT OF HERE SHOWN WITH THE MASTERPIECE
3:20PM HOUSE ARREST
6:20PM CROSSING
9:20PM IN CAMERA
3:20PM CASABLANCA (2023) SHOWN WITH MORE THAN YOU CAN KNOW
6:20PM THE BRIDE SHOWN WITH IGIHUKU
9:20PM ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS
3:20PM THE ECHO
6:20PM COUP DE TORCHON
9:20PM LA NUIT DU VERRE D’EAU (MOTHER VALLEY)
3:20PM MARIA KRISTU: THE BUUMBA STORY
6:20PM CITY OF WIND
9:20PM FIVE AND A HALF LOVE STORIES IN AN APARTMENT IN VILNIUS, LITHUANIA
12:20PM POETRY
3:20PM SAGES-FEMMES (MIDWIVES)
6:20PM THE BONES
9:20PM YELLOW BUS
12:20PM RIEN À PERDRE (ALL TO PLAY FOR)
3:20PM CHARLIE SAYS
Waterville
Opera House WOH 800 seats
6:30PM OPENING NIGHT: EVERY LITTLE THING
1PM KALEIDOSCOPE SHORTS
4PM DREAMERS
7PM LOST ON A MOUNTAIN IN MAINE
1PM VICTIMS OF SIN
4PM PAINT ME A ROAD OUT OF HERE SHOWN WITH THE MASTERPIECE
7PM CARLO...AND HIS MERRY BAND OF ARTISTS
1PM CHARLIE SAYS
4PM COUP DE TORCHON
7PM LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: DE DANS VAN NATASJA (NATASJA’S DANCE)
1PM ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS
4PM THE SIREN
7PM MID-LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: DALILAND
1PM THE TEACHER
4PM MAINE NARRATIVE SHORTS
7PM CENTERPIECE FILM: THE GHOST TRAP
1PM SAGES-FEMMES (MIDWIVES)
4PM THE RUSE
7PM DANCE FIRST
1PM RIEN À PERDRE (ALL TO PLAY FOR)
4PM MAINE DOCUMENTARY SHORTS
7PM RECOVERY CITY
1PM MAINE MUSIC SHORTS
4PM MAINE NARRATIVE SHORTS
7PM MAINE DOCUMENTARY SHORTS
1PM FILM IS DEAD. LONG LIVE FILM!
4PM NEIRUD SHOWN WITH THREE VENDORS OF IPANEMA
6:30PM CLOSING NIGHT: KNEECAP
Special Events
7PM WATERVILLE ROCKS HEAD OF FALLS
2PM IT TAKES A VILLAGE: MAKING AN INDIE MOVIE GREENE BLOCK + STUDIOS
3PM WATERVILLE MOVES: MIFF EDITION STUDIO 1902
12PM MIFF MUG WORKSHOP TICONIC GALLERY + STUDIOS
9PM LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECEPTION: JOS STELLING AMICI’S CUCINA
6PM HALCYON ENSEMBLE GREENE BLOCK + STUDIOS
9PM MID-LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECEPTION: MARY HARRON FRONT & MAIN
11AM DROP IN SCREEN PRINTING WORKSHOP HINGE COLLABORATIVE
3PM ART IN THE PARK: ROPE WALK WITH SUSIE BRANDT CASTONGUAY SQUARE
3PM 3D PRINTING TICONIC GALLERY + STUDIOS
4PM MAKE IT IN MAINE: INDUSTRY PANEL GREENE BLOCK + STUDIOS
MID-LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
MARY HARRON
In 2006, Mary Harron was a wonderful special guest at MIFF’s ninth edition. In our catalog, introducing her, we said, “Mary Harron’s films are unique portraits of characters on the edge—of society, of the ‘norm,’ often of themselves,” and we cited the new film she brought us that year, The Notorious Bettie Page, as well as her previous ones, American Psycho and I Shot Andy Warhol. In the years since then, Mary has, like the true auteur she is, pursued the same methodology, focusing on people, artists, known and unknown, who hew to their own path—as she does herself. We are showcasing many of her newer films, including her terrific latest, Daliland, but also bringing back a film that’s gone from littlenoticed to outright cult phenomenon in the quarter century since it was first released, American Psycho. And this year—and about time it is!—we will present Harron with our Mid-Life Achievement Award moose! Welcome back, Mary!
Mid-Life Achievement Award Presentation
Tuesday, July 16 7PM | WOH
USA, France, United Kingdom 2022 - DCP - 97 minutes, in English
Director: Mary Harron
Screenplay: John Walsh
Producers: Daniel Brunt, Chris Curling, Edward R. Pressman, Sam Pressman, David O. Sacks
Cast: Ben Kingsley, Barbara Sukowa, Ezra Miller, Christopher Briney, Rupert Graves
Print Courtesy: Magnolia Films
Daliland is a piece of cake for Ben Kingsley, who stars as Salvador Dali in pioneering director Mary Harron’s arresting latest film, and a gateaux for us as well… We enter Daliland, the crazy world of Dali and his dynamic, equally iconoclastic wife Gala (Fassbinder standby Barbara Sukowa) through the eyes of a young assistant, trying to find his own place in the art world, only to enter another universe. “The latest of the director’s splendidly offbeat biopics captures the madness, the comedy, and the tragedy of the surrealist legend who turned his very identity into a work of art”—Owen Gleiberman, Variety —KE Sponsored by Tobi Schneider and Steven Neumeister
Sunday, July 14 6PM | MFC 1 Saturday, July 20 9:40PM | MFC 2
AMERICAN PSYCHO
USA 2000 - DCP - 102 minutes, in English
Director: Mary Harron
Screenplay: Mary Harron, Guinevere Turner, based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis
Producers: Christian Halsey Solomon, Chris Hanley, Edward R. Pressman
Cast: Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Bill Sage, Chloë Sevigny
Print Courtesy: Lionsgate Films
Do you like Huey Lewis and the News? While reasonably successful when first released at the turn of the 21st century, the ensuing years have proven to be this unsettling and sometimes grimly funny film’s true time. Based on Brad Easton Ellis’ novel, American Psycho follows Patrick Bateman (scarily, realistically played by Christian Bale), a seemingly repulsive young Wall Street businessman, misogynistic and venial in the manner of the day for his “type,” who’s far worse than that, as we find out after dark. —KE Sponsored by Presley Yong Ackeret
CHARLIE SAYS
USA 2018 - DCP - 110 minutes, in English
Director: Mary Harron
Screenplay: Guinevere Turner, based on the books The Family by Ed Sanders and The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten: Life Beyond the Cult by Karlene Faith
Producers: Dana Guerin, Cindi Rice, Jeremy M. Rosen, John Frank Rosenblum, Kevin Shulman
Director Mary Harron tackles the tale of arguably the most famous American psycho of all time with the Manson family movie Charlie Says Written by Harron’s longtime collaborator Guinivere Turner, the film is based in part on Ed Sanders’ 1972 book The Family, and takes as its narrative spine the story of prison activist Karlene Faith, who wrote the book The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten: Life Beyond the Cult. Merritt Wever portrays Faith as she educates Manson girls Leslie Van Houten (Hannah Murray), Patricia Krenwinkel (Sosie Bacon), and Susan Atkins (Marianne Rendón) during the early days of their incarceration. Grad student Karlene relies on deep wells of empathy and her feminist beliefs to help the women emerge from Manson’s brainwashing. “Charlie Says is a fascinating and feminist exploration of Manson’s first victims: the girls themselves”—Katie Walsh, Los Angeles Times —KE Sponsored by Martha Arterberry and Bill Wilson
THE MOTH DIARIES
Canada, Ireland, USA 2011 - DCP - 82 minutes, in English Director: Mary Harron
Screenplay: Mary Harron, based on the novel by Rachel Klein
Producers: David Collins, Karine Martin Cast: Sarah Bolger, Anne Day-Jones, Sarah Gadon, Valerie Tian, Melissa Farman
Print Courtesy: IFC Films
Monday, July 15 1PM | WOH Sunday, July 21 3:20PM | MFC 3
“There are three things in every vampire story,” says girls’ boarding school teacher Mr. Davies (Scott Speedman): “Sex, blood, and death.” And Harron’s filmic adaptation of Rachel Klein’s novel has them all too, but not in any of the ways you might be accustomed to. If westerns start with, “A stranger comes to town,” The Moth Diaries starts with the inevitable entry of a stranger into a closed community as Rebecca is enrolled at Brangwyn School. Flirtations, jealousies, and self-discovery inevitably must ensue, but is what’s happening to Rebecca at Brangwyn more than “normal”? —KE Wednesday, July 17 6PM
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
JOS STELLING
There’s a truly great MIFF story that you’ll hear when Jos Stelling arrives on stage from the Netherlands at the Opera House to receive his well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award—and you just have to be there to hear it! But besides the fun of that, there’s the wonderment of Jos Stelling’s films, and of the American premiere of his latest (and, he says, last) terrific and distinctive film, Natasja’s Dance
Perhaps you’re familiar with Stelling’s inimitable work, including The Pointsman, shown at Railroad Square Cinema in the ’90s, The Girl and Death, screened at MIFF in 2013, or the retrospective of Stelling’s work, which MIFF presented in its second year, 1999. They are all of a piece, all the work of a true auteur. A favorite quote of one of the sincere efforts to describe the amazing mix of delight and surprise that watching one of his films creates is Screen International’s “an utterly compelling blend of Tarkovsky and The Marx Brothers.” There are others, equally hilarious and accurate and worked on.
So now, in his presence, you can imagine for yourself how to describe Natasja’s Dance.
Monday, July 15 7PM | WOH
DE DANS VAN NATASJA (NATASJA’S DANCE)
Netherlands 2024 - DCP - 102 minutes, in Dutch and Russian with English subtitles
Dreamlike, funny, and haunting, sometimes all at once, Natasja’s Dance begins by following Daantje, a forlorn little boy, whose mother comforts him only with a tale of a young woman who awaits him, a young woman who can dance beautifully. Decades later, as an equally forlorn adult, he meets Natasja, a former ballerina who induces him to embark with her on a trip to her native Russia. Is this the woman he’s awaited all his life? In Stelling’s world, the answer may not be completely clear, but the journey is a thing of beauty and wonder. —KE
Sponsored by Peter and Joan Beckerman
Maine Premiere
EVERY LITTLE THING
Australia 2024 - DCP - 93 minutes, in English
Director, Screenplay: Sally Aitken
Producers: Bettina Dalton, Anna Godas, Oli Harbottle
Cast: Terry Masear
Print Courtesy: Dogwoof
It’s the little things that count. The little things in Every Little Thing are tiny hummingbirds—sometimes even tinier hummingbird babies—abandoned, injured, and/or strayed. Director Sally Aitken’s beautiful film makes us prize them as much as their savior, Terry Masear, does. Terry lives in a beautiful, verdant house in the hills overlooking Los Angeles and devotes her life, love, and savings to these impossibly wondrous creatures, brought to her for nursing from far and (mostly) near. You don’t have to love hummingbirds, birds, animals, or even most humans to love Every Little Thing. You just have to love life itself. —KE
Sponsored by Peter and Lee Lyford
CENTERPIECE FILM
New England
Premiere
THE GHOST
USA 2024 - DCP - 105 minutes, in English
Director: James Khanlarian
TRAP
Screenplay: James Khanlarian, based on the novel by K. Stephens
Producers: Peter Couture, K. Stephens, Cheri Savage, Ryan Post, Simon Fawcett
Cast: Zak Steiner, Greer Grammer, Sarah Catherine Hook, Taylor Takahashi, Steven Ogg, Xander Berkeley, Sarah Clarke
Print Courtesy: Khanlarian Entertainment
Here’s a Maine film so genuine it couldn’t have been shot elsewhere—and it wasn’t. In The Ghost Trap, based on a coastal-set novel by K. Stephens, young lobsterman Jamie Eugley has a beautiful life, lobstering on the coast…until he doesn’t. His loving girlfriend Anja suffers a debilitating, slowly healing but possibly long-term head injury, and a rival lobstering crew is becoming increasingly threatening. Jamie’s temptation to steer in the wrong direction is clear in this wide open landscape—from playing as dirty as his rivals to giving in to the interest of another woman, the alluringly named Happy. Can he keep to the wide and wavey yet straight and narrow? Gorgeously shot, mostly on Maine’s stunning seawaters, The Ghost Trap is the real deal. —KE Sponsored by Northern Light Inland Hospital
Wednesday, July 17 7PM | WOH Saturday, July 20 6PM | MFC 1
NEW FILMS FROM LATIN AMERICA
Tuesday, July 16 3PM | MFC 1 Wednesday, July 17 6:40PM | MFC 2
Argentina 2023 - DCP - 14 minutes, in English
Director, Writer, Print Courtesy: Maxine Swann
POEMS
North American Premiere 14
Maxine Swann, who will be joining us for the North American premiere of all three films in this set, is known as one of the finest contemporary U.S. fiction writers, now living in Buenos Aires (her best known work includes Flower Children, The Foreigners, and Serious Girls). With 14 Poems, she moves into filmmaking—and stars as a self-made drag king for part of it—with astonishing assurance and smashing results. —KE
North American Premiere
TEGUCIGALPA NO TIENE STREET VIEW
Argentina, Honduras 2023 - DCP - 5 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles
Director, Writer, Print Courtesy: Manuel Muñoz
From Honduras and Argentina, in Tegucigalpa No Tiene Street View, director Manuel Muñoz takes us to another land. Here, the Great Khan has dreamed of a city and describes it to Marco Polo. There is travel across an imagined impossible city, an empty restaurant, a rainy street, and the constant presence of smoke, fire, and ash. —KE
North American Premiere
UNA MIRADA HONESTA (AN HONEST LOOK)
Argentina, Colombia 2022 - DCP - 80 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles
Directors: Santiago Nacif Cabrera, Roberto Persano
Print Courtesy: Omar Neri
In An Honest Look, the focus is direct yet reverberates beyond the time and place of its subject. The first images of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo that went around the world, the mythical photo of Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” goal against England in the 1986 World Cup, and the series on the historic Trial of the Military Juntas in Argentina are some of the most emblematic photos captured by the lens of Eduardo Longoni. This celebrated and unique photographer synthesizes the commitment of a whole generation of photojournalists who resisted in the streets during the dark years of the civil-military dictatorship in Argentina, a time Argentines now fear may be returning. —KE
New England Premiere
CITIZEN KWAME
Rwanda 2023 - DCP - 82 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay, Producer: Yuhi Amuli
NEW RWANDAN CINEMA
Cast: Kennedy Mazimpaka, Laura Profrock, Xavier Lapouille, Yuhi Amuli
Print Courtesy: ArtMattan Productions
A Kafkaesque film about travel visas, Citizen Kwame tells the story of an African man who wants to travel outside of his compound, but he must first get a visa from a white, Western gatekeeper who controls movements in and out of the house. It is only with the help of a new white, Western girlfriend that he succeeds. “This film explores universal themes such as freedom of movement, family, and friendship”—Yuhi Amuli.
SHOWN WITH
I WANNA GO HOME
Rwanda 2022 - DCP - 5 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Kevine Kabeja Umuhoza
Print Courtesy: Mashariki African Film Festival
Evie, 20, lives alone far from her home. Everything looks strange to her as she re-embodies history through movement and story.
Northeast U.S. Premiere
THE BRIDE
Rwanda 2023 - DCP - 73 minutes, in Kinyarwanda with English subtitles
Eva dreams of attending medical school, but her aspirations are interrupted when she is kidnapped by a group of men as a part of the Guterura rite of enforced marriage. Abandoned by her family, she struggles to cope with the grim reality of her new life with her husband, Silas, and his cousin. While Silas is away working, the two young women form a tender connection as they spend their days doing household chores, beading, making tea, and swapping family histories and memories of the genocide. Despite this newfound ally, Eva contemplates running away to a life of freedom. Rendered with a quiet naturalism and brimming with humanity, The Bride is both a profound portrait of friendship amid dire circumstances and a calm contemplation of the ghosts of Rwanda’s past.
SHOWN WITH IGIHUKU
Rwanda 2023 - DCP - 14 minutes, in Kinyarwanda with English subtitles
Director: Bora Shingiro
Screenplay: Yvonne Gasana
Producers: Bora Shingiro, Cedric Shimwa
Cast: Celine Uwase, Cecile Kakuze Romami
Print Courtesy: Mashariki African Film Festival
A meditation on grief, identity, family, and religion 30 years on from the generational impact of a genocide.
Sponsored by Pat Clark
CLOSING NIGHT
Sunday, July 21 6:30PM | WOH
Ireland 2024 - DCP - 105 minutes, in English and in Gaelic with English
subtitles
Director: Rich Peppiatt
Screenplay: Rich Peppiatt, Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara, DJ Próvai
Producers: Trevor Birney, Jack Tarling
Cast: Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara, DJ Próvai
Print Courtesy: Sony Pictures Classics
When fate brings Belfast, Northern Ireland schoolteacher JJ into the orbit of self-described “low life scum” Naoise and Liam Og, the needle drops on a hip-hop act like no other, a group called Kneecap. Rapping in their native Irish language, Kneecap fast become the unlikely figureheads of a civil rights movement to save their mother tongue (or to adapt it: a language encumbered with 40 words for “stone” now has one for “stoned”). But the trio must first overcome police, paramilitaries, and politicians trying to silence their defiant sound, whilst their anarchic approach to life often makes them their own worst enemies. In this fiercely original sex, drugs, and hip-hop biopic with a most definitely nondocumentary approach, Kneecap play themselves, laying down a global rallying cry for the defense of native cultures. —KE
TOURMALINE PRIZES
Maine International Film Festival champions Maine-made films by awarding the annual Tourmaline Prizes. These juried honors, named for Maine’s state gem, recognize the best Maine-made films of the festival. On closing night of MIFF, a $5,000 prize will be awarded to the best feature film, and a $2,500 prize will be awarded to the best short film.
Wangeci Murage
Wangeci Murage is a broadcast media executive and creative content specialist based in Nairobi, Kenya. As Chief Executive Officer at Media Pros Africa, Wangeci offers tailored media solutions to multimedia platforms, content producers, telecommunications companies, film festivals, content markets, and media schools across the African continent.
The Jury
Siân Evans
Sponsored by:
are in competition for Tourmaline Prizes
Siân Evans is the founder of Farthest Films, Smash Inc., and Ffilmcompany. Since 1981 she has directed, produced, made green tea on set, cleaned primes with her shirttails, and transcribed numerous inaudible interviews recorded in the presence of screaming cats. She helps filmmakers identify the arc of their stories and their audiences, professionally plan out the life of their production, and adapt over time. Siân is a proud member of the Documentary Producers Association.
Se Young Kim
Se Young Kim is an assistant professor in the Cinema Studies Department at Colby College. His research interests include contemporary East Asian and U.S. cinema with a focus on the use of violence, in addition to digital media such as video games and streaming media. He is currently working on a book manuscript that tracks the proliferation of violence and its relationship to economic crisis in South Korean and Japanese cinema from 1998 onward.
New England Premiere
ALL ILLUSIONS MUST BE BROKEN
USA 2024 - DCP - 89 minutes, in English
Directors, Print Courtesy: Laura Dunn, Jef Sewell
Producers: Laura Dunn, Jef Sewell, Owsley Brown
Cast: Ernest Becker, Sam Keen
14
July 20 3:40PM
The Executive Producer credits for All Illusions Must Be Broken are telling: MIFF MidLife Achievement Award honoree Terrence Malick and Robert Redford, perhaps the two American movie industry-related people most closely associated with and concerned with nature. Directors Laura Dunn and Jef Sewell have made a transfixing film (shot in part around Stonington, Maine) about Ernest Becker, the American cultural anthropologist whose book The Denial of Death won a Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. Becker’s multidisciplinary exploration of human nature and his own personal testimony challenge us to move beyond our fears and see the beauty that surrounds our fragile lives. Not for nothing did Dunn and her crew come to Maine, where nature remains more in evidence than in many other places now. —KE Sponsored by RE-BOOKS and Children’s Book Cellar
Maine Premiere
AN OPEN DOOR — TEMPLE GRANDIN
USA 2024 - DCP - 60 minutes, in English
Director: John Alexander Barnhardt
Producers: John Lee Fetservand, Grant Braun Boerner, Ashley Wilcox, Rachael Anne Mild, John Alexander Barnhardt, Kevin Lee Kirchner
Cast: Mary Temple Grandin
Print Courtesy: Barnfly Productions
An Open Door is the international award-winning documentary that reflects on the influential life and work of Dr. Temple Grandin, a pioneer in advocating for humane livestock treatment, autism rights, and neurodiversity inclusion. Through interviews with Dr. Grandin, her colleagues, industry professionals, and those she has inspired, the film highlights her groundbreaking contributions, her perspective on autism and visual thinking, and her enduring legacy. —NB, TL, JP, BW
SHOWN WITH
PLEASE ASK FOR IT
USA 2023 - DCP - 20 minutes, in English
Directors: Allison Waid, Stephen Sutton
Producers: Kira Simon—KEnnedy, Allison Waid
Cast: David “Fox” Caldwell
Print Courtesy: Allison Waid
In Holly Springs, Mississippi, David “Fox’’ Caldwell perseveres as the beloved owner of Aikei Pro’s Record Shop on Blues Alley, a historic hub for Hill Country Blues artists like Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside. Despite challenges from other local business owners, Mr. Caldwell, known as the “Father of the Alley,” remains steadfast in preserving the shop’s legacy. Featuring original music by William Tyler, R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Precious Bryant, Little Joe Ayers, and other renowned artists in the blues genre. —NB, TL, JP, BW
Sunday, July 14 9PM | MFC 1 Saturday, July 20 6:20PM | MFC 3
New England Premiere
THE BONES
Canada, Germany 2024 - DCP - 98 minutes, in English and in Mongolian, Arabic, German, and French with English subtitles
Director: Jeremy Xido
Producer: Ina Fichman
Print Courtesy: Dogwoof
Fossils ‘R’ Us? Well, we haven’t quite reached that point, but The Bones has a lot to say to us because dinosaur bones have a lot to tell us. The Bones is a stunning, documentary exploration of the high-stakes world of dinosaur bone trading, where obsessive collectors compete with museums, scientists, and high-end auction houses to own a piece of the past. It’s a story of intrigue and illicit capers at the collision of science, commerce, and a dark colonial legacy. Paleontologist Bolor Minjin, the first scientist to ever repatriate fossils that had been stolen from Mongolia, travels through her homeland, training the next generation of Mongolians to be the guardians of the bones. In Morocco, Nizar Ibrahim leads a team into the Sahara on a quest to unearth the next great scientific discovery, but must negotiate with fossil dealers who want big money for the same bones. Eminent paleontologist Jack Horner—the man upon whom Jurassic Park protagonist Dr. Alan Grant is based— changes the concept of fossils’ value by breaking them open, searching for molecular clues that will help him resurrect an actual dinosaur. Part international thriller, part meditation on the nature of existence, the film reveals the hidden world of passionate, globetrotting scientists and fossil dealers, battling over the meaning of the bones and of our uncertain future. —KE
Sponsored by Stephen and Cathy Sears
Sunday, July 14 7PM | WOH
Saturday, July 20 12PM | MFC 1
CARLO...AND HIS MERRY BAND OF ARTISTS
USA 2024 - DCP - 77 minutes, in English Director, Print Courtesy: Richard Kane
Carlo Pittore, the exuberant, larger-than-life former Central Maine figurative artist and activist, is discussed by a small group of friends and fellow artists who gathered at a late afternoon al fresco picnic to assess Carlo’s impact. He died in 2005 at the age of 62. “The conversation is so casual and honest it’s almost as though Carlo had just stepped away from the table for a moment rather than for all eternity,” said art author Edgar Beem. Carlo’s advice to young artists to strike out, follow their dreams, and “do it” was palpable…as was the love for him and the hurt he sometimes caused. Featuring Central Mainers including Natasha Mayers, Herb Hartman, and Barbara Sullivan, the film captures Carlo’s ambition for artistic greatness, his infectious personality, his struggle with sexual identity, and his complicated legacy as memories and perspectives clash. From MIFF veteran and director of the Truth Tellers series, Richard Kane. —KE
Sponsored by Lockwood Hotel / Front & Main
World Premiere
U.S. Premiere
CASABLANCA (2023)
France, Italy 2023 - DCP - 63 minutes, in Italian with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Adriano Valerio
Producers: Giulia Achilli, Marco Alessi, Lionel Massol, Pauline Seigland
Cast: Fouad Miftah, Daniela Brandi
Print Courtesy: Salaud Morisset
No, not at all THAT Casablanca! And yet, there’s a bit of irony in documentarian Adriano Valerio’s choice of a title, which harkens back to the Bogart-Bergman romance of Michael Curtiz’s celebrated film classic of 80 years earlier. Fouad, a Moroccan clandestinely living in Italy for years, and Daniela, a former drug addict from Apulia’s upper middleclass, find each other by chance in Umbria. The meeting is the beginning of a love that helps them heal. But Fouad’s feeling of not belonging, and the interminable wait for a visa, are pushing him to the brink: will he stay in Umbria or go back to Casablanca, even if it means he’ll never return? This is a supremely moving and telling documentary. —KE
SHOWN WITH
New England Premiere
MORE THAN YOU CAN KNOW
USA 2023 - DCP - 29 minutes, in English
Director, Print Courtesy: Naomi Guttman
Screenplay: Naomi Guttman, Celina Siegel
Producers: Naomi Guttman, Miriam Lewin
Every marriage is a mystery, even to the people involved. In her short personal documentary More Than You Can Know, Canadian-American writer Naomi Guttman explores her parents’ long marriage and the contrast between youthful idealism and real life. With home-movie footage, letters, photographs, and surprisingly candid interviews about love, fidelity, and gender roles, the film provides a rare and intimate glimpse into the arc of a complex relationship. —NB, TL, JP, BW
New England Premiere
CITY OF WIND
Qatar, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Mongolia, France 2023 - DCP - 104 minutes, in Mongolian with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir
Producers: Munkhzorig Bayasgalan, Katia Khazak, Charlotte Vincent Cast: Tergel Bold-Erdene, Nomin-Erdene Ariunbyamba, Anu-Ujin Tsermaa
Print Courtesy: Best Friend Forever
In City of Wind, we follow teenager and shaman-in-training Ze, a shy but determined boy whose commitment to traditional spiritual values make him the apple of his parents’ eye and something of a pariah amongst his peers. Things change when Ze meets Marala during a ritual meant to bless her upcoming heart surgery. Her immediate distrust of Ze and his shamanic ritual unsettles and intrigues him and the two begin a furtive romance. Marala, eager to see the world, dreams of escaping to Korea, and her wanderlust challenges Ze’s rigid upbringing and forces him to question what exactly he wants for his future. Mongolian director Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir’s first feature film demonstrates a wisdom and command of storytelling far beyond her years or experience and showcases the depth and complexity of a country often diminished to its harshest realities on screen. Questions of tradition versus modernity, self versus community, duty versus freedom are familiar, but Purev-Ochir’s understated filmmaking brings them to screen with a vibrancy and immediacy that is undeniably moving. —SR
NEW FEATURES
Saturday, July 13 12:10PM | MFC 2
Wednesday, July 17 2:40PM | MFC 2
New England Premiere
CLOSE YOUR EYES
Spain, Argentina 2023 - DCP - 170 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles
Director: Víctor Erice
Screenplay: Víctor Erice, Michel Gaztambide
Producers: José Alba, Odile Antonio-Baez, Agustin Bossi, Pablo Bossi, Pol Bossi, Víctor Erice, Maximiliano Lasansky, Cristina Zumárraga
Cast: Manolo Solo, Jose Coronado, Ana Torrent
Print Courtesy: Film Movement
In 1973, Víctor Erice made The Spirit of the Beehive, now recognized as one of the greatest films ever made. In the 50 years since, he made only two other features, both luminous: El Sur and Dream of Light. And now, at last, 30 years after the most recent of them, there is another, and Close Your Eyes manages to easily meet its incredible expectations, a haunting meditation on memory, absence, and the enduring resonance of the moving image. Set in contemporary Madrid, an aging filmmaker named Miguel Garay is called upon to recount his memories of working on his final and still unfinished film, The Farewell Gaze. During its production, the lead actor and Miguel’s close friend, Julio Arenas, disappears without a trace, leaving in his wake a mystery that will haunt the lives of everyone associated with the film. Miguel never directed another project, instead living a quiet life as a writer by the coast. He remained reluctant to unravel the mystery surrounding Julio until approached by an investigative television program reviving the case decades later. With careful reflection, he reconnects with the film’s crew, former lovers, and Julio’s daughter, seeking closure for the disappearance and what it meant for all of their lives. —KE Sponsored by Karen Kusiak
Maine Premiere
Sunday, July 14 12:40PM | MFC 2
Tuesday, July 16 6:20PM | MFC 3
CROSSING
Sweden, Denmark, France, Türkiye, Georgia 2024 - DCP - 105 minutes, in English and in Georgian and Turkish with English subtitles
Director, Screenplay: Levan Akin
Producer: Mathilde Dedye
Cast: Mzia Arabuli, Lucas Kankava, Deniz Dumanli
Print Courtesy: MUBI
The title of Georgian director Levan Akin’s (And Then We Danced) low-key yet taut and riveting film refers to passings between Georgia and Türkiye, between genders, between humans in general. Lia, a retired teacher, has made a promise to find out what happened to her long-lost niece, Tekla. When Lia learns from a neighbor, Achi, that Tekla might have left their Georgian homeland and be living in Türkiye, Lia and Achi set off together to find her. Arriving in Istanbul, they discover a beautiful city full of connections and possibilities. But searching for someone who never intended to be found is harder than they expected—until they meet Evrim, a lawyer fighting for trans rights. As Lia and Achi weave their way through the city’s backstreets, Tekla starts to feel closer than ever. Levan Akin’s fourth feature film is filled with an impressive emotional immediacy. Two initially hesitant strangers overcome not only ideological but also internal boundaries on their mission and join forces. The topography of the city plays just as important a role in this ode to humanity as the array of characters that live within it. Like Istanbul, Crossing is something to get lost in. —KE Sponsored by Karen Kusiak
New England Premiere
DANCE FIRST
USA 2023 - DCP - 100 minutes, in English and in French with English
subtitles
Director: James Marsh
Screenplay: Samuel Beckett, Neil Forsyth
Producers: Michael Livingstone, Viktória Petrányi, Tom Thostrup
Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Aiden Gillen, Robert Aramayo, Bronagh Gallagher, Maxine Peake
Print Courtesy: Magnolia Films
MIFF Mid-Life Achievement Award honoree Gabriel Byrne stars in a sort of dual role as Samuel Beckett and Samuel Beckett in Dance First, a kind of interior biography of the great Irish dramatist best known for the existentialist Waiting for Godot. But existentialism is nowhere in Dance First, whose concerns are both more personal and more directly Gaelic. Literary genius Beckett lived a life of many parts: Parisian bon vivant, WWII Resistance fighter, Nobel Prizewinning playwright, philandering husband, recluse. But despite all the adulation that came his way, he was a man acutely aware of his own failings. Titled after Beckett’s famous ethos, “Dance first, think later,” the film is a sweeping account of the life of this 20th-century icon, made more than human in director James Marsh’s imaginative film. Marsh has tried fictional biography before in The King (about Elvis) and The Theory of Everything (about Stephen Hawking). He knows whereof he imagines. —KE Sponsored by Franklin Savings Bank
Eastern U.S. Premiere DREAMERS
Switzerland, Germany, USA 2023 - DCP - 83 minutes, in English and in Spanish with English subtitles Director: Stéphanie Barbey, Luc Peter Screenplay: Stéphanie Barbey
Producers: Luc Peter, Katia Monla, Dirk Manthey
Print Courtesy: Lightdox
“Dreamers” is a term bandied about in politics these days, referring to undocumented, long-term U.S. residents, usually brought to the country as children. But Stéphanie Barbey and Luc Peter’s hugely compassionate film makes a bigger case for the Dreamers by going small and following one family of them, three decades into their U.S. experience. At the age of 9, Carlos arrives in Chicago from Mexico with his three brothers and his parents. The day he turns 18, his future becomes uncertain. According to U.S. law, Carlos is now undocumented. The slightest mistake can lead him to deportation. From defeats to successes, Dreamers tells the story of Carlos (now 38 years old), his brothers, and the fate of 2.5 million people growing up in a country that still does not recognize them as its own. —KE Sponsored by Mid-Maine Global Forum
NEW FEATURES
Monday, July 15 6:40PM |
July 18 3:20PM |
Thursday, July 18 9:40PM | MFC 2 Sunday, July 21 1PM | WOH
New England Premiere
THE ECHO
Mexico, Germany 2023 - DCP - 102 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles
Director, Screenplay: Tatiana Huezo
Producers: Tatiana Huezo, Dalia Reyes
Cast: Montserrat Hernandez, María de los Ángeles Pacheco Tapia, Luz María Vázquez González
Print Courtesy: Match Factory
MIFF’s special guest two years ago, the brilliant MexicanSalvadoran director Tatiana Huezo (Prayers for the Stolen), has a terrific new documentary, The Echo, that we’ve been eager to share with you for a long time now. Huezo’s compassionate and beauty-finding eye shows us things we couldn’t see without her cinema. Huezo lived for a year and a half in a tiny rural Mexican village, and after that time her camera is no longer an intruder or a distanced observer, but a part of the environment—even as it lovingly records it. Variety said of Huezo’s very unique and beautiful work: “Examining the unique ties that bind farming families, where everyone’s welfare hangs on the same unkind elements, this exquisitely textured film observes how children’s lives echo those of their parents, repeating for generations on the same constantly inconstant land, until somebody breaks the pattern.” —KE
FILM IS DEAD. LONG LIVE FILM!
USA 2023 - DCP - 108 minutes, in English Director, Producer, Print Courtesy: Peter Flynn
Paintings by great artists are one-of-a-kind and literally priceless. Great works of cinema are often taken for granted, and their existence and preservation often ignored; films can be lost forever because of that. Film is Dead. Long Live Film! explores the vanishing world of private film collecting—an obsessive, secretive, often illicit world of basement film vaults, piled high with forgotten reels, inhabited by passionate cineastes devoted to the rescue and preservation of photochemical film. Condemned as pirates and hounded by the FBI, film collectors have long lurked in the shadows. Yet their efforts have resulted in the survival of countless films that would otherwise have been lost to history (many of which have premiered in MIFF’s “Rediscovery” section).
Archives and studios now look to private sources for missing titles. As analog film fades from memory, the basement-dwellers and bootleggers of old are finally being given their due. —KE
Maine Premiere
North American Premiere
FIVE AND A HALF LOVE STORIES IN AN APARTMENT IN VILNIUS, LITHUANIA
Lithuania, Ireland, Latvia 2023 - DCP - 112 minutes, in English and in Lithuanian, Hebrew, Hungarian, and Polish with English subtitles
Director, Print Courtesy: Tomas Vengris
Screenplay: Tomas Vengris, Tatia Rosenthal
Producer: Uljana Kim
Cast: Velta Zygure, Vidas Petkevicius, Jonas Baskys, Valene Kane, Alison Oliver, Ella Lily Hyland
July 19 9:20PM
An Irishwoman struggles with temptation. An Israeli couple deal with fertility and family issues. A Hungarian pursues love. A stripper’s secret rendezvous is interrupted. A young gay man tries to impress a new love. An elderly couple seek some respite. A faded pop star looks for company. These seemingly unconnected incidents happen at the same address, but any evidence of their occurrence is wiped away between episodes by a quiet cleaning lady. Tomás Vengris’ ambitious, elegant film presents these moving stories of love and tragedy from an Airbnb apartment in Vilnius, and celebrates the elusive beauty in ordinary lives. Vengris has worked with MIFF Mid-Life Achievement Award honoree Terrence Malick, and his influence is here—as is a hearty dose of Baltic irony and humor. —KE
New England Premiere GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS
India 2024 - DCP - 118 minutes, in English and in Hindi with English subtitles
Mira is the perfect student: intelligent, resourceful, hard-working, and incredibly mature. Her future looks bright, and it’s no surprise when she’s elected the first female prefect at her incredibly strict boarding school nestled in the Himalayas. But as these stories often go, it’s not long before this studious and rule-abiding girl meets an enchanting and rebellious boy—in this case foreign student Sri—and the two start a relationship that threatens to derail Mira’s path to success. While the circumstances seem familiar, director Shuchi Talati thoughtfully broadens the scope to include the character of Mira’s young mother, Anila, a woman whose own promising future was curtailed by marriage and motherhood. Anila senses a kindred spirit in Sri and the two bond, turning an already tumultuous relationship between mother and daughter strangely competitive. Together, the trio enter into a fraught and complex triangle of affections and shifting power dynamics that will leave them all transformed. Talati’s direction is sumptuous, delicate, and painstakingly detailed. She inhabits Mira’s world, her sexual awakening, and broadening sense of self with compassion and immense subtlety. A hit out of Sundance, where it took home two awards, this piercing and multilayered coming-of-age slow burn is not to be missed. —SR Monday, July 15 3PM
NEW FEATURES
Tuesday, July 16 3:20PM | MFC 3
Wednesday, July 17 9PM | MFC 1
Monday, July 15 3:20PM | MFC 3
Tuesday, July 16 9:20PM | MFC 3
U.S. Premiere
HOUSE ARREST
Russia 2021 - DCP - 146 minutes, in Russian with English
subtitles
Director: Aleksey German Jr.
Screenplay: Aleksey German Jr., Maria Ogneva
Cast: Merab Ninidze, Anna Mikhalkova, Roza Khayrullina, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Aleksandr Pal
Print Courtesy: Big World Pictures
How is it possible that this strong and very arguably anti-Russian Russian film, completed and first screened some three years ago, will finally premiere in the U.S. at this year’s MIFF? In Alexsey German Jr.’s slyly combative satire, David, a university professor, takes to social media to criticize his city’s administration. But instead of the mayor’s dodgy dealings being investigated, David is himself accused of embezzlement and placed under house arrest. Despite the overbearing surveillance, double-crossing acquaintances, and growing media interest, David remains defiant and will not apologize. With the court case drawing ever nearer, does David have any hope of winning this battle against Goliath? House Arrest isn’t really a suspense film, but an idiosyncratic, quiet powerhouse, as the official lack of response to this thinly disguised and sometimes even outright funny allegory has perhaps implied. —KE
IN CAMERA
United Kingdom 2024 - DCP - 96 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Naqqash Khalid Producers: Juliette Larthe, Mary Burke
Cast: Nabhaan Rizwan, Amir El-Masry, Rory Fleck
Byrne
Print Courtesy: Together Films
Aden, a young actor, is caught in a cycle of nightmarish auditions. In Camera is a film about a young man navigating the pageantry of late capitalism, about the performance of everyday self, the horrors of the outsider gaze, what people project onto us, and who we must become to succeed. In Camera is not an ‘issues’ film. Too often films that center black and brown people are burdened with this responsibility—to educate, present conflict and/or trauma for a white gaze. This film frees itself by existing on its own terms, as Aden determines to—but instead of discarding those expectations it actively plays and taps into them. It is in dialogue with the rot at the core of our systems, making our social horrors and histories fertile ground to say something new. —NB, TL, JP, BW
U.S. Premiere
North American Premiere
LA BASE
France 2023 - DCP - 72 minutes, in French, Arabic and Laotian with English subtitles
Director: Vadim Dumesh
Producer: Quentin Laurent
Cast: Ahmed Mguiada, Jean-Jacques Papon, Kham Vong
Print Courtesy: Vadim Dumesh
An amazing documentation—by those that live there, on their own smartphones—of a particular and unique community that nobody realized existed. Parisian taxi drivers document La Base, a gigantic transit hub isolated on the outskirts of Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport, a rich microcosm of community life, a safe refuge to face the fast-changing world. This is a community entirely taken for granted and unthought of, yet essential to the city’s everyday life, a community made up of those from France, from the Middle East, from Africa, a community that’s seemingly without a voice—but actually one that has many, though those we hear in director Vadim Dumesh’s smart film speak in a beautiful chorus, making La Base a heck of a metaphor for our larger world. —KE
New England Premiere
13
July 16 6:40PM
LA NUIT DU VERRE D’EAU (MOTHER VALLEY)
France, Lebanon 2023 - DCP - 83 minutes, in French and Arabic with English subtitles
Cast: Marilyne Naaman, Antoine Merheb Tarb, Nathalie Baye, Pierre Rochefort, Talal Jurdi
Print Courtesy: France TV Distribution
Two things are at the heart of La Nuit du verre d’eau (Mother Valley). One is the film’s stunning yet laden setting in Lebanon, 1958. The other is its riveting star, Nathalie Baye, one of the most justly lauded actresses of contemporary French cinema. The debut film of Carlos Chahine, La nuit de verre d’eau stars Marilyne Naaman and Pierre Rochefort alongside Baye. While a civil war rages, pitting Christians against Muslims in coastal towns, a young mother and model wife, Layla, spends the summer with her family in a remote village in the Christian mountains. It’s wedding season, but her two younger sisters, Eva and Nada, have no desire to follow in Layla’s footsteps by accepting arranged marriages organized by their father, a broke feudal aristocrat. This summer, an encounter with a Frenchman and his mother opens Layla’s eyes to her condition as a woman living in a patriarchal society, where female fates are decided by men: fathers, husbands, and even sons. For the first time ever, Layla begins to rebel. —KE Sponsored by Kathryn Slott
14 6:40PM
July 18 9:20PM
Saturday, July 13 7PM | WOH
U.S. Premiere
LOST ON A MOUNTAIN IN MAINE
USA 2024 - DCP - 115 minutes, in English
Director: Andrew Boodhoo Kightlinger
Screenplay: Luke Paradise, based on the book by Donn Fendler
Producers: Sylvester Stallone, Braden Aftergood, Dick Boyce, Ryan Cook, Derek Desmond, Heather Grehan
Cast: Luke David Blumm, Paul Sparks, Caitlin FitzGerald, Ethan Slater, Griffin Wallace Henkel, Bate Wilder
Print Courtesy: Blue Fox Entertainment
After 85 years, Maine’s perhaps best-known and most beloved book finally comes to the screen. Produced by Sylvester Stallone’s Balboa Productions with central Mainers Ryan Cook and Derek Desmond (whose documentary version of the story was a prizewinner at MIFF 11 years ago), this feature adaptation tells the true story of Donn Fendler, who in 1939 at the age of 12 spent nine long days lost in the wilderness of Mt. Katahdin. Yet another Mainer, Camden’s Caitlin FitzGerald, co-stars as Donn’s mother Mrs. Fendler. The book based on Donn’s story, Lost on a Mountain in Maine, became a gigantic hit children’s book the same year the events occurred and has remained a staple in Maine classrooms ever since. This is a very long awaited and anticipated adaptation, now finally achieved in its premiere showing at MIFF! —KE
Wednesday, July 17 2PM | MFC 1 Friday, July 19 2:40PM | MFC 2
Italy, Switzerland 2023 - DCP - 175 minutes, in Italian and Swiss German with English subtitles
Director: Giorgio Diritti
Screenplay: Giorgio Diritti and Fredo Valla, based on the novel by Mario Cavatore
Producers: Marco Cohen, Paolo Del Brocco, Fabrizio Donvito, Benedetto Habib, Christof Neracher, Daniel Campos Pavoncelli Cast: Franz Rogowski, Valentina Bellè, Joel Basman, Noémi Besedes, Philippe Graber, Diego Benzoni
Print Courtesy: Shadow Distribution
Lubo is a beautiful and moving low-key epic of a Romani man with multiple identities in the maelstrom of Europe in the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s. This is a terrific new film centered by a tourde-force performance from New York Film Critics’ 2023 Best Actor Franz Rogowski. Lubo’s quest leads him through “gypsy” music to fierce courtship and love, from the travails of the Depression through the rigors of war, from hate through love. Director Giorgio Diritti’s compassionate, wide-ranging film is soon to be distributed by Waterville’s own Shadow Distribution, whose first release was the likewise Romani-themed music epic Latcho Drom, and whose other films include Oscar nominee The Weather Underground and indie smash-hit documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill —KE
New England Premiere
Maine Premiere
MAD ABOUT THE BOY: THE NOËL COWARD STORY
United Kingdom 2023 - DCP - 91 minutes, in English
Director: Barnaby Thompson
Producers: Barnaby Thompson, Gregor Cameron
Cast: Noël Coward, Michael Caine, Alan Cumming, Lauren Bacall, Rupert Everett
Print Courtesy: Greenwich Entertainment
Noël Coward grew up in poverty and left school when he was only nine years old. He was queer in a very straight world. And yet, by the age of 30, he was the highest paid writer in the world, and a star on the Broadway stage. He seemed to define British urbanity and erudition. He wrote, directed, and/or acted in some of the most celebrated movies of the era and beyond, including Private Lives, Brief Encounter, Blithe Spirit, and In Which We Serve. He also became a world renowned songwriter and performer, of whom Frank Sinatra said, “If you want to hear how a song should be sung, go see Mr. Noël Coward.” And if that wasn’t enough, he was also a spy during the Second World War! Against all odds, Noël Coward became one of the most successful multi-talented artists of the 20th century. He defined an era and led an extraordinary life. This is his inspirational story told in his own words and music, and unique home movies. Mad About the Boy features Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Harold Pinter, Frank Sinatra, Lauren Bacall, Michael Caine, and Lucille Ball, with Rupert Everett as the voice of Coward. —KE Sponsored by Dr. Donald Cragen
Maine Premiere
MARIA KRISTU: THE BUUMBA STORY
Zambia 2021 - DCP - 119 minutes, in English and in Bemba and Ndebele with English subtitles Director, Screenplay, Producer: Paul S. Wilo Cast: Dyness Daisy Lungu, Ezekiel Banda, Paula Chanda, Sunday Gatawa
Print Courtesy: Media Pros Africa
In Zambian director Paul S. Wilo’s coming-of-age drama, 16-year-old Buumba (Dyness Daisy Lungu) is an aspiring writer and an avid follower of the conservative Maria Kristu Church. But as she learns more about the world beyond the church, Buumba finds herself increasingly torn between its restrictive doctrine and the pursuit of her writing ambitions, questioning everything she has been taught about a woman’s place in the world. When she discovers she has been promised in marriage, Buumba must go against the norms of her community and religion to escape and to fight for both herself and the other young women around her.
NEW FEATURES
Sunday, July 14 9:20PM | MFC 3
Monday, July 15 6:20PM | MFC 3
USA 2024 - DCP - 65 minutes, in English
Directors, Screenplay: Mojo Lorwin, Lee Breuer
Producer, Print Courtesy: Mojo Lorwin
Maine Premiere MOI-MÊME
Cast: Kevin Mathewson, Patrick Martin, Declan Keannelly, David Warrilow, Ruth Maleczech, Frederick Neumann
Moi-même is an experimental narrative film shot from 1968–1969 by Lee Breuer and future members of the theater company Mabou Mines. The film captures the journey of a 12-year-old boy attempting to create a film collective amid the backdrop of the May, 1968 protests in Paris. After decades of abandonment, the filmmaker’s son has revitalized the original footage through editing, the addition of a new script, and a complete soundtrack, honoring the original collaborators’ spirit while adding fresh perspectives and acknowledging the passage of time. —NB, TL, JP, BW
SHOWN WITH
USA 2024 - DCP - 25 minutes, in English
Director, Print Courtesy: Adam Fischer
Producers: Jorgy Cruz, Adam Fischer
THE KATZ TAPES
From 1980–2005, Larry Katz, a reporter for the Boston Herald, interviewed music’s biggest stars and recorded their conversations onto cassette tapes. His collection has been sitting untouched and unheard for decades...until now. —NB, TL, JP, BW
Friday, July 19 9PM | MFC 1 Sunday, July 21 4PM | WOH
Brazil 2023 - DCP - 72 minutes, in Portuguese with English subtitles
Director, Screenplay: Fernanda Faya
Producers: Fernanda Faya, Rica Saito
Print Courtesy: Utopic Docs
Brazilian documentary director Fernanda Faya has always wondered about her aunt Neirud, who died shrouded in mystery, leaving behind no trace of her past. Confronting secrets her family would rather leave covered, Faya pieces together the life of her enigmatic aunt. The hidden truth, as we discover with her, is truly amazing: Neirud toured Brazil as a wrestler in an underground all-female circus troupe throughout the ’60s and ’80s. As she investigates Neirud’s controversial ring persona, “Gorilla Woman,” the filmmaker uncovers a fascinating story about race, identity, and queer life. —KE
SHOWN WITH THREE VENDORS OF
USA 2024 - DCP - 25 minutes, in Portuguese with English subtitles
Director, Print Courtesy: Jonathan S. Lee
Producers: Siân Evans, Peter Azen
IPANEMA
Cast: Michelle Martins Costa, Valdomar Gomes do Nascimento, Maria “Baiana” Helena Da Costa Pinto
“The Human Being is Only Free When He is Master of Himself.” These words cap a mural in a favela high over Rio De Janeiro. Epictetus’ words frame the lives of three street sellers descending from the hills to sell their homemade foods on the Farme section of Ipanema Beach. The independent dignity of these vendors embody entrepreneurship and lives well lived. The three have been known and loved by the LGBTQ+ community on the Farme Beach for decades. —NB, TL, JP, BW
New England Premiere NEIRUD
World Premiere
NOBODY WANTS TO SHOOT A WOMAN
USA 2024 - DCP - 93 minutes, in English
Director, Screenplay, Print Courtesy: Kerry Ann Enright
Producers: Kerry Ann Enright, Marissa Velez
Cast: Tina Benko, Max Casella, Lev Gorn, Michael Godere
There are so many classic words to ascribe to Kerry Ann Enright’s debut feminist noir, Nobody Wants to Shoot a Woman, enjoying its world premiere at MIFF: tough, taut, tense, telling, tremendous. It’s a stark, intimate, yet unsentimental portrait of a mother, Mary, marginalized by society, who embraces a crime spree as a means to survive. The story is sparked by a riveting performance from Tina Benko. After her husband’s murder, Mary is forced to take matters into her own hands to secure her son’s stability. Faced with societal scorn and her own moral conflict, she navigates a perilous path, determined to shield her child from chaos. In her struggle, bonds of love and loyalty are tested. Nobody Wants to Shoot a Woman is simultaneously a throwback to another era and a reflection of our own. —KE
New England Premiere NOCTURNES
India, USA 2024 - DCP - 82 minutes, in English and in Hindi with English subtitles
Directors: Anirban Dutta, Anapuma Srinuvassen
Producer: Anirban Dutta
Print Courtesy: Dogwoof
Nocturnes transports us, seemingly magically, to the dense forests of the Eastern Himalayas where, in the dark of night, two curious observers shine a light on the secret world of moths. An immersive viewing experience of sound and imagery, Nocturnes weaves together an intricate and poetic tapestry of our world as ecologist Mansi sets out on a quest to study moths in one of the most life-filled places on Earth. She teams up with Bicki, a young man from the indigenous Bugun community, to seek clues about what the future has in store for the moths. Together, Mansi and Bicki traverse the landscape, meticulously working night after night to put up light screens that transform into a dynamic canvas with moths of varying sizes, designs, and textures, creating a painterly effect with their form, movement, and color. Meanwhile, the human beings wait, watch, and listen with patient anticipation and wonder. As do we. —KE
Saturday, July 13 3:20PM | MFC 3 Friday, July 19 6:40PM |
Tuesday, July 16 1PM | WOH
Wednesday, July 17 9:20PM | MFC 3
New England Premiere
OCEANS ARE THE REAL CONTINENTS
Cuba 2023 - DCP - 118 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles
Director, Screenplay: Tomaso Santambrogio
Producers: Gianluca Arcopinto, Marica Stocchi
Print Courtesy: Film Movement
What year is it? That’s a question we ask ourselves as we take in the stunning black-and-white beauty of Oceans Are the Real Continents, set entirely in contemporary Cuba. It’s a question the central characters ask themselves as well. Alex and Edith, a young couple in their 30s, live a relationship made up of small gestures and everyday life among the ruins of Cuban buildings. Milagro, a retired old lady, tries to survive by selling mani (typical Cuban peanut cones) and by illegally raising piglets in her backyard. Alain and Frank, two nine-year-old boys, go to school and dream of emigrating together to the United States to become Major League Baseball players. These three interlocking stories develop against the setting of San Antonio De Los Baños, a town in the Cuban inland where time seems to have frozen. “Beautifully realized... desolate and exquisite”—Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter.
ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS
China 2023 - DCP - 101 minutes, in Mandarin with English subtitles
Director: Wei Shujun
Screenplay: Wei Shujun, Chunlei Kang, based on the novel Mistake by the River by Yu Hua
Among the most popular indie films of recent years in China, Only the River Flows combines classic American film noir mystery, mood, and genre with a distinctively Chinese sensibility. The setting is 1990s small-town China. A woman’s body washes up on the riverbank. The young chief of police, Ma Zha, heads up the investigation. An apparently obvious perp leads to a hasty arrest, though the mystery lingers in Ma Zha’s mind. What kind of darkness is truly at play here? Director Wei Shujun’s throwback noir, shot in gritty, textured film grain, captures the opaque clues as torrents of rain envelop the characters, who threaten to descend into madness in pursuit of the truth. Equal parts atmospheric tour de force and beguiling puzzler, Only the River Flows is a masterfully styled ode to a bygone cinematic era and a sharp-edged portrait of provincial paranoia. —KE
New England Premiere
THE OTHER PROFILE
France 2023 - DCP - 82 minutes, in French with English subtitles
Director: Armel Hostiou
Producer: Jasmina Sijercic
Print Courtesy: Lightdox
When filmmaker Armel Hostiou discovers that his name and likeness have been stolen for a fake Facebook profile, he is justifiably unsettled. The doppelgänger account posts frequent solicitations for actresses to audition for a mysterious film allegedly shooting in Kinshasa, capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Facebook denies all of Hostiou’s pleas to remove the account, claiming that it appears to be authentic. Fed up, Hostiou decides to travel to Kinshasa, determined to track down the imposter and reclaim control over his online identity. Like a version of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness for the digital age, The Other Profile is a fascinating docu-thriller and expansive exploration of post-colonial Congo. The film continually keeps easy answers and absolutes out of reach, subtly arguing for obfuscation as an act of cultural preservation and survival. This twisty and surprisingly complex mystery will keep you guessing, even after the credits roll. —SR
Sponsored by John and Judy Bielecki
Maine Premiere
PAINT ME A ROAD OUT OF HERE
USA 2023 - DCP - 90 minutes, in English
Director: Catherine Gund
Producer: Tanya Selvaratnam
Cast: Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, Faith Ringgold
Print Courtesy: Aubin Pictures
In 1971, underestimated artist Faith Ringgold made a monumental painting for the women incarcerated at Rikers Island. Fifty years later, artist Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, who gave birth in prison 15 years ago, bands together with an eccentric bunch of activists, politicians, artists, corrections officers, and Ringgold herself to free the painting with the ultimate goal of freeing the women. Paint Me a Road Out of Here is a wild tale of the painting’s whitewashed journey and of the two artists who challenge the same powerful, oppressive, and persistent institutions, a half century apart with their artwork, their voices, and their shared, unwavering goals. —NB, TL, JP, BW
SHOWN WITH
THE MASTERPIECE
Spain 2024 - DCP - 20 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles
Director: Àlex Lora
Screenplay: Lluis Quilez, Alfonso Amador
Producers: Àlex Lora, Lluis Quilez, Néstor López, Jose Mari Martínez
Cast: Daniel Grao, Babou Cham, Melina Metthews, Adam Norou
Print Courtesy: Mailuki Films
Leo and Diana, a rich couple, bring a broken TV to a recycle point. They meet Salif and his son, two scrap dealers. Diana asks them to come to their house to get more objects. Once there, Leo looks at them collecting objects with mistrust, until he sees the scrap dealers have something they want. —NB, TL, JP, BW
Sponsored by Children’s Book Cellar and RE-BOOKS
NEW FEATURES
Friday, July 19 7PM | WOH
Saturday, July 20 6:40PM | MFC 2
Friday, July 19 1PM | WOH
Sunday, July 21 12:20PM | MFC 3
Maine Premiere
RECOVERY
CITY
USA 2024 - DCP - 94 minutes, in English
Director: Lisa Olivieri
Producers: Lisa Olivieri, Angelica Brisk
Print Courtesy: Twin Seas Media
…Otherwise known as Worcester, Massachusetts. But really, Lisa Olivieri’s taut, uplifting documentary is talking about a state of mind as much as or more than the literal city, an intimate, unflinching portrait of four bold women in the working class city of Worcester who refuse to let themselves or their community give in to the stigma and despair of addiction. Christine fights to regain custody of her young children while both grappling with a traumatic past and battling stigma from the very systems that are designed to help her. Bridget, who found recovery while in prison, now facilitates peer-led support meetings for women. On the frontlines, recovery coaches Janis and Rebecca navigate the city’s toughest corners, offering support and trying to save lives. In this portrait of resilience, grit, and camaraderie, the women use their lived experience to lift up those still struggling, refusing to give up hope. —KE
Maine Premiere
RIEN À PERDRE
(ALL
TO PLAY FOR)
France, Belgium 2023 - DCP - 112 minutes, in French with English
This is a strong film built on a great central performance by one of the most justly fast-rising French stars of the past decade, Virginie Efira (Victoria, Benedetta), nominated for seven César awards in seven years. Here, Efira plays Sylvie, who lives in Brest with her two children, Sofiane and Jean-Jacques. Together they form a tight, happy family. One night, alone in the apartment while his mother is at work, Sofiane hurts himself. The incident is reported and Sofiane is placed in foster care. Armed with a lawyer, her brothers, and her children’s love, Sylvie is confident she can overcome the bureaucratic and legal machines to reunite her family. But can she? —KE
World Premiere
THE RUSE
USA 2024 - DCP - 111 minutes, in English
Director, Screenplay, Print Courtesy: Stevan Mena
Producers: Stevan Mena, John Caglione
Cast: Veronica Cartwright, Michael Steger, Madelyn Dundon
When the in-home caregiver assigned to an elderly patient mysteriously vanishes, Dale (Madelyn Dundon) is quickly sent as the replacement nurse. She rushes to the remote seaside home, only to find herself in the middle of chaos—forced to deal with an unruly patient, mysterious neighbors, and terrifying supernatural occurrences that seem to plague the home. Is the house haunted? Or is something even more malevolent to blame? As the walls close in, unsure whom she can trust, Dale fears for her life and that of her patient. Filmed entirely in Blue Hill and starring the legendary Veronica Cartwright (Alien, The Witches of Eastwick, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Birds), you won’t want to miss this thriller full of twists, turns, and genuine scares. —NB, TL, JP, BW
Sponsored by Nancy Sanford
New
England Premiere
SAGES-FEMMES (MIDWIVES)
France 2023 - DCP - 99 minutes, in French with English subtitles
Thursday, July 18 1PM | WOH Saturday, July 20 3:20PM | MFC 3
Calling Midwives a fiction film is factually true in that it’s not a documentary, but scripted and acted—or so they tell us! But watching director Léa Fehner’s remarkable French work, it seems every bit as real as childbirth—tense, intense, and exhilarating. After five years of dedicated learning in midwifery—often hailed as “the most beautiful job in the world,” and sometimes by its exhausted practitioners in less gorgeous terms—Louise and Sofia are embarking on their professional journey, bracing themselves for the substantial responsibilities that will come their way daily. In a world that operates at a frenetic pace, they navigate the delicate realms of birth, motherhood, and, occasionally, great dangers for their patients. Will their profound calling endure the tumultuous storm they are about to face? No punches are pulled in this unforgettable and sometimes transcendent film. —KE
Sponsored by Joel Johnson in memory of Alice C. Johnson
NEW FEATURES
Friday, July 12 9:40PM | MFC 2
Tuesday, July 16 4PM | WOH
Friday, July 19 6PM | MFC 1 Sunday, July 21 3:40PM | MFC 2
New England Premiere
THE SIREN
France, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium 2023 - DCP - 100 minutes, in Persian with English subtitles
Director: Sepideh Farsi
Screenplay: Javad Djavahery
Producers: Vanessa Ciszewski, Annemie Degryse, David Grumbach, Richard Lutterbeck, Sébastien
Onomo
Print Courtesy: BAC Films
Is it possible? The Siren goes where no animated film has ever gone before: 1980, Abadan, Iran. The capital of the Iranian oil industry is resisting an Iraqi siege. Fourteen-year-old Omid has braved the siege and stayed in the city with his grandfather, waiting for his elder brother to return from the front line. Along with Omid, a gallery of unusual characters have all remained in the city for their own reasons, and each resists in his or her own way. But the noose is tightening as Omid tries to save his loved ones aboard an abandoned boat, set to become his very own ark, that he finds in Abadan’s port. A beautiful, one-of-a-kind film, The Siren is in no way your normal animated adventure. —KE
New England Premiere
SNOW LEOPARD
China 2023 - DCP - 109 minutes, in Tibetan and Mandarin with English subtitles
Majestic yet deadly, the Tibetan snow leopard has a complicated relationship with the communities of the Himalayan plateau. In the beautiful Snow Leopard, we see both the animal and the human inhabitants via the view of a local television crew director and his former schoolmate, a monk passionate about photography. While the monk’s brother, a herder who has suffered the loss of nine rams mauled by the leopard, wants to kill the beast, the religious man, who seems to subliminally communicate with the animal, wants to save it at all costs, as do the local policemen. Snow Leopard is a memorable, visually stunning film, a story so specific to its environment that it resonates far from it in its simple truth. —KE
Sponsored by Wild Clover Café
Maine Premiere
THE TEACHER
United Kingdom, Qatar, Palestine 2023 - DCP - 118 minutes, in English and in Arabic with English subtitles
Cast: Imogen Poots, Saleh Bakri, Muhammad Abed ElRahman
Print Courtesy: Goodfellas SAS
NEW FEATURES
Wednesday, July 17 1PM | WOH Thursday, July 18 6:40PM | MFC 2
British-Palestinian Farah Nabulsi makes her feature directorial debut following the success of her 2020 short film The Present, awarded a BAFTA and nominated for an Academy Award. A Palestinian school teacher struggles to reconcile his commitment to political resistance with a possible new romantic relationship with a British volunteer worker, while also providing emotional support for one of his students. —NB, TL, JP, BW
Eastern U.S. Premiere
WITHOUT AIR
Hungary 2023 - DCP - 105 minutes, in Hungarian with English subtitles
Director: Katalin Moldovai
Screenplay: Katalin Moldovai, Zita Palóczi
Producers: Katalin Moldovai, Bela Attila Kovacs, András Muhi
Cast: Ágnes Krasznahorkai, Tunde Skovran, Soma Sándor, Ágnes Lõrincz, Zsolt
Bölönyi
Print Courtesy: National Film Institute of Hungary
In response to Hungary’s extreme right-wing government, director Katalin Moldovai has made this sly but fierce satirical film. In a small Hungarian town, Ana Bauch is a dedicated and liberal-minded literature teacher within the public school system. Beloved by her students for her unorthodox and creative approach, she assigns Agnieszka Holland’s great 1995 film Total Eclipse, depicting the relationship between 19th-century French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, so they can better understand Rimbaud’s poetry. When a conservative father hears of the assignment, he reports Ana to the school’s principal, and Ana is accused of misconduct and spreading “homosexual propaganda,” and when the local media get wind of the brewing scandal, she faces even more scrutiny. In a system within which many have given up, Ana must decide to fight or to flee. —KE
YELLOW BUS
USA, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, India 2023 - DCP - 109 minutes, in English and in Arabic, Hindi, Tagalog, and Urdu with English subtitles Director, Screenplay: Wendy Bednarz
Producers: Nadia Eliewat, Guneet Monga
Cast: Tannishtha Chatterjee, Amit Sial, Kinda Alloush
Print Courtesy: Mad Solutions
Saturday, July 13 12:20PM | MFC 3 Saturday, July 20 9:20PM | MFC 3
In the sweltering Arabian Gulf heat, Ananda’s dreams of a better life than the one she left behind in India are shattered after her child is forgotten on a school bus. Devastated by her loss and armed with the child’s ashes, she stands up against society’s “invisible” caste, refusing the customary blood money and demanding accountability. Yellow Bus is more than a social investigation; it is the heartfelt story of a mother’s journey to grieve the passing of her child and to forgive those responsible, including herself. Featuring award-winning lead Tannishtha Chatterjee (Brick Lane, Parched), Yellow Bus showcases its transnational essence, using five different languages: Hindi, English, Urdu, Arabic, and Tagalog. The film was shot by the César winning DOP Sofian El Fani (Timbuktu, Blue Is the Warmest Color, It Must Be Heaven). —NB, TL, JP, BW
Maine Premiere
Saturday, July 13 6:20PM | MFC 3
Tuesday, July 16 9PM | MFC 1
AMERICA—EVERYTHING YOU EVER DREAMED OF: THE FILMS OF RHODY STREETER AND TONY GANZ
USA Early 1970s - DCP - 65 minutes, in English
Director: Rhody Streeter, Tony Ganz
Print Courtesy: The Film Desk
As funny as they are unsettling, as affectionate as they are trenchant, and made with a refreshing concision that belies the depth of their cultural and social observations, the short documentaries of Tony Ganz and Rhody Streeter are ripe for rediscovery. They were featured in their day on the public television series The Great American Dream Machine and The 51st State, and screened in the 1970s at MOMA, Film Forum, and the Whitney Museum. Yet Streeter and Ganz’s work has since fallen into obscurity, kept alive only through the devoted efforts of film collectors and programmers. Here is a telling look at the era, in segments including Sun City (about an early version of middle American retirement communities in Arizona), Honeymoon Hotel, Campus Crusade for Christ, Muzak, Help-Line, and Bowery Men’s Hotel, among others. It’s a straightforward but telling look at an era now gone, yet still very much present. —KE
Monday, July 15 4PM | WOH
Thursday, July 18 6:20PM | MFC 3
COUP DE TORCHON
France 1981 - DCP - 128 minutes, in English and in French with English subtitles
Director: Bertrand Tavernier
Screenplay: Jean Aurenche and Bertrand Tavernier, based on the novel Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson
Producers: Henri Lassa, Adolphe Viezzi
Cast: Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Stéphane Audran, Eddy Mitchell, Guy Marchand
Print Courtesy: Rialto Films
Great pulp fiction from American master Jim Thompson (The Getaway, The Grifters) meets great French irony and leftist politics in this truly fabulous cinematic experience from Bertrand Tavernier (The Judge and the Assassin, ’Round Midnight). Tavernier resets Thompson’s novel Pop. 1280 from pre-Civil Rightsera Texas to pre-WWII French colonial Senegal, where a spineless lawman (Philippe Noiret) is humiliated by his wife (Stéphane Audran), pushed around by two local pimps, and bullied by the military commandant in Dakar...though he still finds time for some hanky-panky with a new schoolteacher and more-than-willing married woman (Isabelle Huppert). But then the worm turns, as he decides to restart his life with a “clean slate” (a colloquial English version of the film’s title). Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Film of 1983, Tavernier’s “rowdy, broad, unsettling moral tale...follows screwball comedy out to its other side as madness: you’re never sure whether what you’re watching is high spirits or insanity”—Dave Kehr, Reader. —KE Sponsored by Colby Cinema Studies
GOODFELLAS (IN 35MM)
USA 1990 - 35mm - 145 minutes, in English
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenplay: Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese
Producer: Irwin Winkler
Cast: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino
Print Courtesy: Warner Brothers, Park Circus
Goodfellas screens at this year’s festival in a vintage studio 35mm print as a tribute to MIFF’s first director Joan Phillips-Sandy, this being one of her personal faves. But Joan is not alone in her admiration: Goodfellas is now widely seen as Martin Scorsese’s greatest film, and seems likely to keep that reputation. A dazzling and complete immersion into the world of New York Italian gangsters, of Goodfellas, Roger Ebert notes simply, taking out the obvious competition, “No finer film has ever been made about organized crime—not even The Godfather.” We enter three decades in this world with a young Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) and, like him, will be marked by the killer cast of characters, inhabited, it seems, rather than “played” by Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci (who won an Oscar for his performance here), Lorraine Bracco, and Paul Sorvino. But it’s safe to go down these mean streets in the not-so-mean aisles of the Maine Film Center. —KE Sponsored by SBS Carbon Copy
LE SAMOURAÏ
France, Italy 1967 - DCP - 101 minutes, in French with English subtitles
Director, Screenplay: Jean-Pierre Melville
Producers: Raymond Borderie, Eugène Lépicier
Cast: Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier
Print Courtesy: Janus Films
From Jean-Pierre Melville (Le Cercle Rouge) comes “the closest thing to a perfect movie that I have ever seen”—director John Woo. It is perhaps the tightest of Melville’s tougher-than-noir crime films. “In the opening shot, Jef is laid out on a bed, at one side of the frame, like the dreaming St. Ursula in Caravaggio’s famous painting from 1495. The only difference is that the blessed saint is not enjoying a slow Gitane. Eventually, Jef rises from his restful pose to don his coat and gray hat, standing before the mirror and running his fingers around the front of the brim to ensure that he looks sharp. This is not vanity; the sharpness is like a blade—a guarantee that his presence, and his skills, will slice into his environment at the most acute and most profitable angle.”—Anthony Lane, The New Yorker. This new 4K restoration, starring the great Alain Delon, is nothin’ to mess with but somethin’ to see. —KE Sponsored by Colby Cinema Studies Friday, July 12 9PM
POETRY
South Korea, France 2010 - DCP - 141 minutes, in Korean with English subtitles
Director, Screenplay: Lee Chang-dong
Producer: Lee Joon-dong
Cast: Yun Jeong-hie, Lee Da-wit, Kim Hee-ra, Kim Yong-taek
Print Courtesy: Film Movement
Thursday, July 18 9PM | MFC 1 Saturday, July 20 12:20PM | MFC 3
The low—KEy yet hardly reserved cinema of South Korean director Lee Changdong calls out for rediscovery—or just plain discovery, since he remains little known to too much of the cinema world. His 2010 film Poetry, is a “tour de force” with “an extraordinary vision of human empathy” (The New York Times). Kind-hearted Mi-ja is tasked with raising her troubled teenage grandson, Jong-wook, while her daughter works in far-off Busan. Denying that her abilities as a caregiver are threatened by early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, Mi-ja begins to study poetry-writing at the local cultural center. At first, she finds inspiration in the beauty of the natural world, but Mi-ja’s strength is tested when Jong-wook becomes involved in a shocking scandal. And yes, the film itself is poetic. —KE Sponsored by Barbara and Ted Alfond
Sunday, July 14 1PM | WOH
Monday, July 15 9:40PM | MFC 2
VICTIMS OF SIN
Mexico 1951 - DCP - 90 minutes, in Spanish and French with English subtitles
Rediscovery or just plain discovery, Victims of Sin is something to see. “Sordid grandeur…[s]aturated with Showbiz…[t]he movie is a perfect storm, the confluence of three huge talents: It was directed and cowritten by the nation’s most macho filmmaker (Emilio Fernández)…it was shot by Mexico’s greatest cinematographer, Gabriel Figueroa (an even tougher Communist than his mentor Sergei Eisenstein); and it stars filmdom’s ultimate rumbera, a 30-year-old bolt of lightning, the Havana-born, sensationally uninhibited dancer Ninón Sevilla.”—J. Hoberman, Artforum. In Fernández’s unique blend of film noir, melodrama, and musical, acting-dancing sensation Sevilla plays Violeta, a cabaret performer who adopts the abandoned child of Rosa and Rodolfo, Violeta’s murderous pimp. Motherhood forces Violeta to give up her career, but the kindhearted club owner Santiago saves her from a life of poverty and prostitution—until Rodolfo, freed from prison, seeks to reclaim his son. Best known for the award-winning María Candelaria (1944) and The Pearl (1947), Fernández infuses Victims of Sin with impassioned songs and performances by Sevilla, an icon of Mexican cinema and a purveyor of African, Caribbean, and Cuban dance styles. —KE
Tuesday, July 16 6PM | MFC 1 Saturday, July 20 12:40PM | MFC 2
WEST INDIES: THE FUGITIVE SLAVES OF LIBERTY
France, Algeria, Mauritania 1979 - DCP - 116 minutes, in French with English subtitles
Director, Producer: Med Hondo
Screenplay: Med Hondo, Daniel Boukman based on the novel Les Negriers (The Slavers) by Daniel Boukman
Cast: Cyril Aventurin, Fernand Berset, Roland Bertin, Gérard Bloncourt, Toto Bissainthe
Print Courtesy: Janus Films
Mauritanian-French director Med Hondo’s West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty proved a watershed event for African cinema—the continent’s first musical as well as a sui generis amalgam of historical epic, Broadway revue, Brechtian theater, and joyous agitprop. Using an enormous mock slave ship as the film’s only setting, Hondo mounts intricately choreographed reenactments and dance numbers across his multipurpose set to investigate more than three centuries of imperialist oppression. The story traverses the West Indies, Europe, and the Middle Passage; jumps across time to depict the effects of official French policy upon the colonized, the enslaved, and their descendants; and surveys the actions and motivations of the resigned, the revolutionary, and the powers that be (along with their lackeys). No mere extravaganza, West Indies is a call to arms for a spectacular yet critical cinematic reimagining of an entire people’s history of resistance and struggle. “The African musical masterpiece you’ve never seen...An exhilarating big-budget tribute to American musicals and a scathing indictment of colonialism.”—British Film Institute. —KE
MAINE NARRATIVE SHORTS
TODAY WE CLIMBED A HILL
USA 2023 - DCP - 8 minutes
Director, Screenplay: Gordon LePage
Two mice build a mountain to reach a box of Corn Flakes.
DETOX
USA 2023 - DCP - 9 minutes, in English
Director: Alex Hanno
Screenplay: Wes Hopper
Producers: Wes Hopper, Alex Hanno
Cast: Caitlin Morris
While away on a technology detox in the northern reaches of Maine, a social media addict is interrupted by an unexpected visitor.
BABY SHROOMS
USA 2023 - DCP - 14 minutes, in English
Director: Colin Mader
Screenplay: Colin Mader, Nathan Sylvester, Jared Mongeau
Cast: Nathan Sylvester, Jared Mongeau
After learning he’s going to be a father, a man takes psychedelics with his best friend one last time.
THE SELECTMAN
USA 2023 - DCP - 25 minutes, in English
Director: David Antonio Martin
Screenplay: Robert Hadlock
Producer: Gabby Gammon
Cast: Robert Hadlock, Jade Kaiser, Eilise Patton
In the fictional town of Picasquiddy, ME, affluent summer visitors breathe life into the town each year, but their adult children, despite privileged education, struggle to find direction. Whether due to lack of pressure, artistic pursuits, or a reluctance to leave the enchantment of Neverland, these likable but unmotivated individuals represent a unique challenge for the town’s future in this zany comedy.
Wednesday, July 17 4PM | WOH
Saturday, July 20 4PM | WOH
COME STAY
USA 2024 - DCP - 14 minutes, in English
Director, Screenplay: Victoria Haynes
Producer: Annarosa Mudd
Cast: Mackenzie Meehan, Mary Cavett, Matt Delamater
When stay-at-home mom Hannah invites her newly divorced acting school friend Cassie up to Maine for the weekend, disappointments and longings bubble to the surface.
HIGH TIDES
USA 2024 - DCP - 13 minutes, in English
Director, Screenplay: Allie Ray Thaller
Producers: Allie Ray Thaller, Alexa Saft
Cast: TJ Parker, Sadie Marie Lucey, Jasen Richardson
On the frigid coast of Maine, a young fisherman battles his father’s oppressive reign while facing his own internal struggles. Passionately made by Maine high school students aged 16–18, the film explores themes of generational trauma and violence.
THE BOAT INSPECTOR
USA 2023 - DCP - 8 minutes, in English
Director, Screenplay: Madison Morin
Cast: Marley Reedy, Emmett Anderson
North Pond in Smithfield, Maine is a desolate dream come true to those like the North Pond Hermit, who prefer intense solitude, but what about Ellie, the local boat inspector? The call of the loon can only fill up so much silence and her season is coming to an end. Just when the foliage has peaked, a unique boater named Alex appears and invites Ellie on an adventure.
FRANKLIN
USA 2023 - DCP - 6 minutes
Director, Screenplay: Maddy Stevens
Franklin, a lovable pig in a sweater vest, can’t stop looking at his phone. When the unimaginable happens, he uncovers connections with old hobbies and new friends in this stop-motion animation short.
The Selectman
MAINE DOCUMENTARY SHORTS
Friday, July 19 4PM | WOH
Saturday, July 20 7PM | WOH
SLUDGE: A PFAS UPRISING
USA 2023 - DCP - 26 minutes, in English
Director: Jeffrey Christian
Producers: Kiera Howard, Amanda Christian, Jeffrey Christian, Michael Pagano
Doing the right thing cost them everything. Sludge is a gripping documentary revealing the plight of farmers who bravely exposed the contamination of their land, water, and livestock by forever chemicals, leading to devastating losses. The film raises questions about accountability while highlighting ongoing efforts to safeguard our environment for generations to come.
OFFERING
USA 2024 - DCP - 6 minutes, in English
Director: Aren LeBrun
Producers: Aren LeBrun, Lihua Lei Farley
Maine-based sculptor Lihua Lei Farley casts local boulders in rice paper and shellac, offering them back to the waters of Madison’s Wesserunsett Lake as an offering of kindness and nourishment for the Earth, our only home.
THE COMEBACK MILL
USA 2024 - DCP - 23 minutes, in English
Director, Producer: Josh Gerritsen
In Maine, where paper mills have long been central to communities, an architect and chemist embark on a multimillion-dollar project to repurpose a closed paper mill in Madison, transforming it into a wood fiber insulation manufacturing facility over four years. This innovative initiative not only revitalizes the mill but also introduces a pioneering venture in North America for sustainable building materials.
WALDO COUNTY WOODSHED
USA 2024 - DCP - 7 minutes, in English
Director: Julia Dunlavey
Cast: Jessica Alsop, Bob MacGregor, Jessica Leahy
The Waldo County Woodshed offers a vital source of heat to Mainers who need it.
CHASING FREEDOM
USA 2024 - DCP - 6 minutes, in English
Director, Producer: Caitlin Grant
Cast: Carol Brunjes, Pat Brown
Carol, a woman born with cerebral palsy, decides to take control of her life by pursuing adventure sports, only to be met with more health challenges.
FILLING THE GAPS
USA 2024 - DCP - 32 minutes, in English
Director: Jim Tuttle
Producers: Jim Tuttle, Alex Lancial
Filling the Gaps chronicles Amber Lombardi’s journey as a dental hygienist and oral health advocate who, alongside her husband Mike, founded Mainely Teeth in 2020 to provide dental care across Maine. Through innovative approaches like a mobile dental clinic equipped with teledentistry, they’ve significantly increased access to dental services for underserved communities, showcasing the profound impact of grassroots initiatives in addressing systemic health challenges.
—NB, TL, JP, BW
Sponsored by Robert Sezak
The Comeback Mill
MAINE MUSIC SHORTS
SURROUNDED BY WOODS
USA 2023 - DCP - 14 minutes, in English
Director, Screenplay: Yuke Ma
Producer: Erin Murphy
Cast: Dennis Patkus
At the age of 74, Dennis Patkus traces back to his freewheeling life in Florida beside the sea and how he finally settled down in Maine, opening a small guitar shop in Waterville surrounded by woods and forests. The film uses personal archives and oral histories to explore Dennis’ dream of making music, as well as his understanding of, and struggle to come to terms with, the aging process.
Saturday, July 20 1PM | WOH
Sunday, July 21 3PM | MFC 1
LEAF PLAYS THE PORTLAND HOUSE OF MUSIC
USA 2024 - DCP - 15 minutes, in English
Director: Cash Cassidy
Cast: Max Jones, Emma Derhak, Josh Libby, Eden York, Caleb Vickery
Young Portland, Maine-based band LEAF plays their biggest show yet at the Portland House of Music. This short documentary follows them through the hours before, during, and after the show.
A PHANTOM SONG
USA 2024 - DCP - 45 minutes, in English
Directors, Producers: Michael Gorman, Donna Daly
A Phantom Song is a theatrical journey intertwining Captain Ahab’s crew, blues music, and the Maine opiate crisis, symbolizing a quest for recovery and inclusion in Augusta. Through a cast drawn from the recovery, reentry, and unhoused community, the play confronts stigma and biases, echoing the haunting atmosphere of Moby Dick and blues to illuminate the intersection of past traumas and future hopes in the soul of a theater and its community.
AN EXTRAORDINARY PLACE
USA 2024 - DCP - 32 minutes, in English
Director: Tom Bell
Producer: Annella Linton
For anyone who yearns for a human connection to music, this is the story of a quirky radio station in Maine and its eccentric DJs. The documentary showcases the people behind the microphone, taking the audience into the heart of the station and its community-first ethos.
Sponsored by Jabar LaLiberty
An Extraordinary Place
KALEIDOSCOPE SHORTS
Saturday, July 13 1PM | WOH Tuesday, July 16 9:40PM | MFC 2
I KEEP BUMPING INTO CANDY MALDONADO
Canada 2023 - DCP - 11 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Luke Black
Producers: Ali Mashayekhi, Maryam Remtulla, Gillian Fortin
After a chance meeting with his childhood hero, a man’s euphoria over the encounter turns into an existential crisis as he continues bumping into the former Major League Baseball player everywhere he goes.
MONDELE
USA 2024 - DCP - 16 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Daniel Kayamba
Producers: Daniel Kayamba, Abib Ajibola, Angie Lawing
Cast: Steven Mulimi, Rose Tshela, Jay McDaniel, Gloria Mudiayi, Justin Ndacaisaba, Rachettee Manzambi
Mondele is a poignant coming-of-age film that explores the immigrant experience through the lives of Mary and her son Nathan, immigrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who strive to build a new life in the American Midwest. As Nathan pursues his dream of filmmaking amidst his mother’s high expectations, the film offers a heartwarming glimpse into their journey of resilience and aspiration.
LAST SUMMER DAY
USA 2023 - DCP - 14 minutes, in English and Mandarin with English subtitles Directors, Screenplay: Flora Fei, Shintaro Ochiai
Producer: Flora Fei
Cast: Yen Wen Chen, Tianna Wang Key
A Chinese immigrant single mother who desperately wants to be close to her daughter, her only family, takes it to the extreme after discovering her daughter’s secret moveout plan. A portrait of a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship.
HARLEM FRAGMENTS
USA 2023 - DCP - 17 minutes, in English
Director: Cameron Tyler Carr
Screenplay: Cameron Tyler Carr, Wes Andre Goodrich, Danielle Therese Dougé
Producers: Flor Tejada, Collin Meath, Ben Thompson, Salma Qarnain
An Afro-futurist scrapbook storytelling of a Harlem Black family’s beautiful destruction during the 2008 recession. A natural disaster so mesmerizing you can’t look away from the tragedy. Based on true events.
A meaty comedy about a college admissions tour gone wrong.
SOMA
USA 2023 - DCP - 12 minutes, in English
Director, Screenplay: Aliza Brugger
Producers: Emily Eng, Mireia Vilanova
Cast: Ana Nicolle Chavez, Dan Cathcart
Quinn returns home to sucker money from her estranged half-sister, but a nightmarish evening forces her to fight for solace in their broken relationship.
Content advisory: sexual assault
SKATE!
Canada 2023 - DCP - 8 minutes, in English and in French with English subtitles
Director: Philippe Berthelet
Producers: Philippe Berthelet, Daniel Cross
Cast: Frédérique Girard
Multiple sexual misconduct scandals surrounding ice hockey’s biggest organizations have flooded tabloids in recent years. An entire generation of young athletes find themselves facing a moral dilemma. Frédérique, a longtime female youth hockey player, discusses her exit from the game.
UNLESS WE DANCE
Colombia 2023 - DCP - 15 minutes, in Spanish with English subtitles
Screenplay: Hanz Rippe Gabriele, Fernanda Pineda Palencia, Daniel Alberto Sánchez
Producer: Fernanda Pineda Palencia
Jonathan Bonays, an Afro dance teacher, works to rescue young people from crime in Quibdó, Colombia, through the formation of Black Boys Chocó dance company. Unless We Dance portrays union and dance as the greatest expression of shielding the Afro people, and is a tribute to their acts of resilience and to the lives lost along the way.
TENNIS, ORANGES
USA 2024 - DCP - 11 minutes, in Mandarin with English
subtitles
Director, Screenplay, Producer: Sean Pecknold
Cast: Kent Chen
A robotic vacuum suffering from burnout quits its job at a hospital and sets out to find community and a greater purpose on a quiet street where two lonely rabbits are stuck in perpetual loops.
Tennis, Oranges
LONGING AND BELONGING SHORTS
Saturday, July 13 9PM | MFC 1 Thursday, July 18 3:40PM | MFC 2
To yearn is to live, fully and unabashedly immersed in your feelings, and the films in this lineup seek to capture that amorphous experience from a variety of perspectives. The stories featured here run the gamut, from existential aches for love, acceptance, and connection, to more physical, more immediate pangs of hunger, lust, and grief. What unites this program and these characters is the all-too-familiar longing for something more, something left behind, something to complete us, something lost that can never be found. Often longing is difficult to articulate, but this collection of strange, humorous, heartfelt, and heartbreaking films will resonate nonetheless. —SR
DREAMS LIKE PAPER BOATS
Haiti 2024 - DCP - 19 minutes, in Haitian Creole with English
subtitles
Director, Screenplay, Producer: Samuel Frantz Suffren
Edouard has been separated from his wife for five years—the only remnant of her is a cassette tape she sent from the U.S. He and his young daughter navigate the years of absence, tending to a distant love.
INVASIVE SPECIES
USA 2023 - DCP - 13 minutes, in English
Director: Annie Ning
Screenplay: Annie Ning, with dialogue by Nathan Baron Silvern
Producers: Aisha Amin, Ruby Rose Collins
Cast: Emily May Jampel, Eve Austin, Katya Golvin, Stuart Green, JJ Paul
During her first artist residency, a young sound artist grappling with imposter syndrome learns to assert herself in increasingly extreme and surprising ways.
BOI DE CONCHAS (THE SHELL COVERED OX)
USA, Brazil 2024 - DCP - 15 minutes, in English Director, Screenplay: Daniel Barosa
Producers: Bruno Alfano, Daniel Barosa, Nikolas Vilarouca Maciel
Cast: Bebé Salvego
A strange epidemic is plaguing Rayane’s small town. Teenagers are mysteriously disappearing and, rumor has it, transforming into oxen. Still mourning the loss of her sister, Rayane attempts to preserve some normalcy by preparing a song for a local talent show, provided she doesn’t disappear herself.
NIVEL DIOS (GOD LEVEL)
Spain 2023 - DCP - 12 minutes, in Spanish with English
subtitles
Director: César Tormo
Screenplay: Alejandro Tortajada
Cast: Alejandra Lifante, Manolo Solo, José Sospedra, Ada Tormo
Laura, a whimsical 16-year old, develops a crush on her Religion teacher, fittingly named Jesus. Her crush quickly spirals into obsession and a spiritual awakening that will leave her forever changed.
THIRSTY GIRL
USA 2023 - DCP - 10 minutes, in English
Director, Screenplay: Alexandra Qin
Producers: Alexandra Qin, Brooke Goldman
Cast: Samantha Ahn, Claire Makenzie, David Eves, Joe Leitess, Josh Riley
On a tumultuous road trip with her troubled younger sister, Charlie struggles to play the role of caretaker while keeping her sex addiction a secret.
PLACES I’VE CALLED MY OWN
USA 2023 - DCP - 28 minutes, in Hindi with English subtitles
Director, Screenplay: Sushma Khadepaun
Producer: Justin Pechberty
Cast: Bhumika Dube, Amardeep Jha, Aditi Vasudev
In the middle of her IVF treatment, Tara, a queer woman longing for motherhood, is forced to return to India from the U.S. for her father’s funeral. There, she finds a mother in denial about her sexual orientation and an ex-girlfriend who has rebuilt her life with a man. Through it all, Tara must navigate her changing experience and understanding of home.
Boi de Conchas (The Shell Covered Ox)
SPECIAL EVENTS
IT TAKES A VILLAGE: MAKING AN INDIE MOVIE
Sunday, July 14, 2–4PM; Free; Seating is limited to 70
Greene Block + Studios, 18 Main Street
Join the Lost on a Mountain in Maine filmmakers for a panel and workshop to learn about the production of their film and best practices for your own project. Free and open to the public. RSVP encouraged via MIFF.org/program.
WATERVILLE MOVES: MIFF EDITION
Sunday, July 14
3–3:45PM: Parent/Guardian + Child (5 and under)
4–5PM: All Ages (ages 5+)
Studio 1902, 93 Main Street
Join collaborative dance makers and artists Matthew Cumbie and Jenny Ngidi-Brown to stretch and move as part of your day of movies!
MIFF MUG WORKSHOP
Monday, July 15, 12–2PM; $20; Capacity is limited to 20 participants
Art of Clay Studio, 93 Main Street
Inspired by the 2024 MIFF graphics and their seaworthy colors, paint your own mug as a unique souvenir of this year’s film festival. Mugs will be ready for pick up after 3pm on Wednesday, July 17 in the Art of Clay Studio.
HALCYON ENSEMBLE PRESENTS “REALIZED”
Tuesday, July 16, 5PM; Free
Greene Block + Studios, 18 Main Street
“Realized” combines stop-motion animation with live string quartet music to imagine our collective future. With animated films and stories inspired by a series of workshops with Maine high school students, “Realized” amplifies the artwork and voices of young people as they reflect on the present and imagine what a resilient, sustainable, and equitable future on this planet could look like 50 years from now. Featuring folk tunes and music by Caroline Shaw and Philip Glass, “Realized” is a creative, honest, and hopeful multimedia program exploring the potential we all have to enact meaningful change in our communities. RSVP via arts.colby.edu/reserve-tickets.
DROP IN SCREEN PRINTING WORKSHOP
Wednesday, July 17, 11AM–1PM; Free Hinge Collaborative, 5 Silver Street
Make and create a memorable MIFF print at Hinge Collaborative, Waterville’s community-based printmaking studio and gallery. Located within walking distance of MIFF.
YOUTH FILMMAKING WORKSHOP
Wednesday, July 17, 9AM–3PM; $50; Capacity is limited to 10 students in grades 5–8
Ticonic Gallery + Studios, 93 Main Street
For aspiring young filmmakers looking to get a jumpstart on their future productions! Learn the basics of cameras and other film gear, the different roles on a production team, how to effectively structure a story, and essential editing techniques on professional software. This class is a great first step in filmmaking and is intended both to give new directors the tools they need to make their own movies and to provide foundational skills that will help in further film production education. Filmmakers will walk out of this class with one or two short films to kickstart their portfolio! This program is eligible for the Youth Arts Access Fund. Registration required via MIFF.org/program or by visiting the Ed Harris Box Office. Sponsored by Mid-Maine Technical Center’s Mass Media Communications program.
SPECIAL EVENTS
ART IN THE PARK: ROPE WALK WITH SUSIE BRANDT
Thursday, July 18, 3–5PM; Free Castonguay Square
Collaborate with fabric artist Susie Brandt to repurpose worn-out garments into vibrant rope, breathing new life into forgotten textiles.
3D PRINTING
Thursday, July 18, 3–5PM; Free Ticonic Lobby
During Art in the Park, step inside the Paul J. Schupf Art Center, see 3D printers in action, and take home a printed piece as a MIFF souvenir!
MAKE IT IN MAINE: THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IMPACTING
THE PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FILMS MADE HERE
Saturday, July 20, 4–6PM; Free; Seating is limited to 70 Greene Block + Studios, 18 Main Street
With special guests. Moderated by Louise Rosen, managing director, Louise Rosen Ltd., and copresident, Maine Film Association. Free and open to the public. Presented by:
Unity Foundation salutes the dedicated staff and volunteers of the Maine International Film Festival!
Our mission is to support mission-driven nonprofits in Maine through capacity-building initiatives, organizational assessment, programmatic grantmaking and nonprofit management education. Our goal is to promote strong, sustainable nonprofits that reliably serve Maine communities.
Proud sponsor of the Maine International Film Festival
We also know that the more time you spend on administrative tasks means the less time you have to focus on generating income and growing your business. Let Back Office Solutions Maine be your right hand. We provide business solutions and bookeeping services throughout the state of Maine.
• Bookkeeping
• Back office organization and systems integration
• A/P (paying bills, inventory tracking)
• A/R (invoicing, collections, receiving payments and bank deposits)
• Payroll
• Bank statement reconciliation
• Data entry
• Special projects
• Financial reporting to management
• Digitization of documents
DIDN’T PLAN TO GET SICK?
THE OFFICIAL VEHICLE OF MIFF
The Oak Institute for Human Rights champions the struggles for dignity, freedom and justice for people throughout the world. It provides the opportunity for a front-line human rights activist operating in difficult or dangerous circumstances to come to Colby College every fall for respite and reflection. Oak strives to educate the campus and extended community about the work being done by our Fellow. It also encourages members of the community, especially students, to participate in research, internships, and activism on behalf of human rights.
The 2024/2025 Oak Institute for Human Right’s theme is Health and Human Rights. Although it can be hard to define, health is not, as the World Health Organization (WHO) reminds us, simply the absence of disease. Instead, health can be understood as a holistic and affirmative way of existing in the world. We can think of health at many different, interconnected scales: individual, family, community, society, and planetary. After all, the preamble of the 1946 Constitution of the World Health Organization states that “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.”
Board of Directors
James LaLiberty, Chair Jabar LaLiberty LLC
Amanda Cooley, Vice-Chair Kennebec Savings Bank
Lori Roming, Secretary Unity Foundation
Kelly Huggins, Treasurer One River, CPAs
Michelle Casavant Surrette Real Estate
Don Cragen Thomas College
John Dalton Retired from Northern Light Inland Hospital
Shannon Haines Waterville Creates
Teresa McKinney Colby College
Andrew Porter Surgical Data Science Collective
Debra Susi Maine Central Institute
Leadership Team
Shannon Haines President + CEO
Patricia King Vice President
Mike Perreault Maine Film Center Executive Director
Michelle Sweet Waterville Opera House Executive Director
Raynor Ahlstrin-Muniec Maine Film Center Operations Coordinator
Savanna Alley Event Assistant
Candance Andre Event Assistant
Julia Badaraco Event Assistant
Yvonne Brown Clay Studio Coordinator
Wil Currie Waterville Opera House Master Carpenter
Bryant Cyr Waterville Opera House Production Manager
Jackie Ferlito Communications Coordinator
Austin Frederick Maine Film Center Technical Director
Alexa Gallant Event Assistant
CJ Gilligan Event + Volunteer Coordinator
Pete Haase Event Assistant
Sam Jamison Event Assistant
June L’Heureux Gallery Attendant
Jill Lawrence Patron Services Assistant
Chris Melville Director of Marketing + Communications
Jordyn Woodard Marketing + Development Coordinator
June 26 – November 11, 2024
Joan Dignam Schmaltz Gallery of Art Downstairs from the Maine Film Center
Punchy! Surreal! Fantastic!
Contemporary artists Gladys Nilsson and Catalina Schliebener Muñoz contribute original works, made on-site in the Colby Museum’s downtown gallery, for this new exhibition. Their spirited, strange, cartoonish scenes are complemented by Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt’s Mysterium Tremendum, a quasi-autobiographical tale illustrated on 125 aluminum lasagna pans.
