Ernest Thompson – Imagine News

Brings Films, Filmmakers and Film Lovers to Waterville

The 17th Annual Maine International Film Festival (MIFF) will be held July 11-20 at the historic Waterville Opera House and the iconic art house theater, Railroad Square Cinema. The ten-day cinematic celebration offers around one hundred films that represent the very best of new American independent, international, and locally made movies as well as new restorations of past cinema masterpieces.

BOYHOOD: by Richard Linklater

The festival will open on July 11 with Richard Linklater’s much-anticipated BOYHOOD, which will be opening in New York that same evening. Filmed over twelve years with the same cast, BOYHOOD is a groundbreaking story of growing up as seen through the eyes of a child named Mason (a breakthrough performance by Ellar Coltrane), who literally grows up on screen before our eyes. Starring Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as Mason’s parents and newcomer Lorelei Linklater as his sister Samantha, BOYHOOD charts the rocky terrain of childhood like no other film has before.

Ernest Thompson, screenwriter of “On Golden Pond”

More than just movies, MIFF also offers visitors a chance to interact with directors, actors, producers, musicians, and other special guests through intimate Q&As, panel discussions and parties. Each year, MIFF brings around fifty filmmakers from around the world to the festival, and this year is no exception. Special guests will include Brazilian filmmaker Claudio Marques, returning guest Oscar winner Ernest Thompson, indie filmmaker Sara Driver, and the 2014 Mid-Life Achievement Award honoree Glenn Close.

Glenn Close, this year’s Mid-Life Achievement honoree

A six-time Academy Award nominee, Close will receive the festival’s highest honor on Sunday, July 13 after a special screening of ALBERT NOBBS, a film that she co-wrote, co-produced, starred in, and composed the lyrics for the Golden Globe and World Soundtrack nominated song, “Lay Your Head Down.” Additional films to be shown as part of the festival’s tribute to Close include COOKIE’S FORTUNE, DANGEROUS LIAISONS, and LOW DOWN, which debuted at Sundance earlier this year.

This year’s festival will also include a special section of sixteen films from the Martin Scorsese presents Masterpieces of Polish Cinema collection and will once again feature a selection of “Re-discovery” films, classic films that have been newly restored, including THE CONFORMIST, A HARD DAY’S NIGHT, GUN CRAZY, and TOO MUCH JOHNSON, Orson Welles’ first film. MIFF 2014 will also feature a special section entitled Leonard Mann and Eurocrime: Found in Translation with American actor Leonard Mann, who at the age of twenty in the late 60s and early 70s, became a star of “Spaghetti westerns” and Italian “Eurocrime” thrillers in Italy.

In addition to featuring films from around the world, MIFF also showcases some of the best films made within the state of Maine. Each year, one day of the festival is named as Making It In Maine Day, where audience members have the opportunity to see a Maine-made film in any time slot during the festival. New this year, MIFF will be co-hosting with MPBN, the Maine Film Office, and the Maine Arts Commission a brunch for Maine filmmakers to provide opportunities for them to network with the presenting agencies as well as each other. Making It In Maine Day 2014 will be held on July 12th and the brunch is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. at the Hathaway Creative Center.

MIFF 2014 will also include Volume 2 of MIFFONEDGE, a new initiative of the festival that was introduced last year. Featuring exciting and innovative work spanning decades of moving image history, MIFFONEDGE explores the intersection of film and art and pushes the boundaries of commonly accepted notions of cinema. This year’s program features a drop-in exhibition, a cameraless film workshop, and a special Found Films event, all hosted at Common Street Arts, as well as a live performance by the Psychedelic Cinema Orchestra at the Waterville Opera House on Saturday, July 19.

The full MIFF schedule will be available on the festival’s website in mid to late June. Passes are now available for purchase through the website. The Maine International Film Festival is a project of the Maine Film Center, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to enrich, educate and entertain the community through film and art.

For more information visit www.miff.org.

ernest-thomp — Ernest Thompson at Whitebridge Farm, photo by P.T. Sullivan

ELYSIAN FARM

A complicated young man rescues a little girl from her abusive parents and is instantly suspected of kidnapping. And the chase is on.

PLATO’S PARTY

A college professor is far more interesting, witty and intelligent than the presidential candidates whose debate he’s moderating and is approached to run as a favorite son.

I’ve spent four years scripting and directing, acting in and writing songs for two new movies, TIME AND CHARGES and HEAVENLY ANGLE, offering both as On Location Training; more than 800 people participated. The movies’ combined budgets might keep a Hollywood movie stocked with M&Ms but both films are playing festivals now and the audience reactions have been gratifying, exultant crowds warming to what we all love in movies: a lot of heart, a lot of humor, a lot to think about. And now, along with my Whitebridge partners Morgan Murphy and Lori Gigliotti Murphy, I’m inviting distributors to help us expand that audience. Our trailers can be seen at www. timeandcharges.com and www.heavenlyangle. com.

We’re developing two new projects at Whitebridge. My script for ELYSIAN FARM is ready to roll, a ripped-from-the-headlines story of child endangerment, never, tragically, more timely. PLATO’S PARTY, about the bizarre state of our elective process, I rewrite every day because every day it gets, speaking of headlines, more bizarre.

ELYSIAN FARM asks a question we all may face and never know the answer to: if you saw a mother smacking her little girl in public, not in a TV What Would You Do way, but in real-life life- and-death, would you get involved? Gus Mullins does. Coming from a Dickensian childhood, too, he responds without thinking and, in no time, finds himself running from the police and the girl’s vindictive mother and step-father in a desperate race to find little Polo a safe haven.

Because of the implications of taking Polo away from her small town and because Gus tries, without immediate success, to enlist his own abuse-victim siblings, the frantic manhunt unfolds in the claustrophobic confines of the woods and streams of rural New Hampshire, ending, eventually, on Elysian Farm, the house of horror Gus grew up in. Bailey, a well-meaning, if bumbling, female cop trailing Gus, complicates matters further by seeing Gus for the hero he is and falling for him.

It’s a story of passion, more than compassion. Compassion means kindness, seeing a social problem and writing a check maybe, but this is the deep, hard emotion of FEELING the little girl’s agony and ACTING ON IT. First Gus, then Bailey, then most of the community in an uplifting, dramatic courtroom scene when the judge decides who will provide Polo with what she needs most – solace, safety, love.

We have our script and director; all we need is you. At Whitebridge Farm Productions we’ve demonstrated that we can make powerful films for next to nothing. With a budget of 5-7 million, ELYSIAN FARM could be the movie-star movie it deserves to be. Gus and Bailey are great roles. But we want it to be more than a film; it’s a cause. We want to shoot social media and TV PSAs to educate and reassure children in trouble that it’s okay to ask for help. And to encourage caring adults to follow their passion.

In PLATO’S PARTY, Thaddeus Barker teaches political science at the small college hosting a primary debate and, with his superior knowledge, acumen and charisma, far outshines the conga line of candidates. On a whim, KB Hardy, a veteran operative fed up with what used to be HIS passion, suggests that the professor throw his hat in the ring; why not? Thaddeus, well-versed in the travesty American elections have become, surprises him by accepting the challenge, but only if they can do it old school – no war chest, no commercials, no lies.

For KB, it’s refreshing to back a candidate with nothing to lose – Thaddeus unbound is a resounding voice of clarity and unmitigated courage – until he starts to win. The voters are charmed by Thaddeus’s no-nonsense, take-me- for-what-I-am approach and he pulls ahead of the career politicians. When Thaddeus’s colorful past comes calling, he’s unapologetic. “People aren’t voting for my past; they’re voting for their future.” The cutthroat battle to Primary night is as suspenseful as a thriller and will end depressingly predictably. Or will it?

PLATO’S PARTY isn’t just a good story; it’s a good chance to make a statement, to make a difference. We’re looking for True Believers to join us in the campaign. For a million or two, we could change theheadlines. To get involved or learn about these projects and more, visit www.ErnestThompson.us.