Small Island, BIG World of Film

By Brenda Horrigan

The Annual Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival Celebrates its 17th year September 6th – 11th 2022

Welcome back to the cinematic celebration that is the Annual Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival! This is our seventeenth year. Wow—how’d that happen? It is because of you, film lovers!

We are ecstatic to be back with you again, with this full five days of top films from around our planet. Plus, parties, special guests, and more! From September 6–11 you’ll be treated to an array of narrative and documentary films, animation, and shorts. Something for everyone! These films demonstrate the wonders of film, the range of its ability to make us laugh and cry, to make us think deeply as we take in these works’ bold imagery, creative storylines, and unique characters. Sit back, let cinema wrap you in its warm magic. 

For seventeen years, the Annual Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival has served as a culminating highlight of this Island’s culture-packed summer season. Each September we gather the best new films from around the globe, aiming to provide a path to bridge cultural differences and allow an exploration of universal human experiences.

The Film Center in Vineyard Haven, home of the Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival
Tented Opening Night Party of a past Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival.

The fun kicks off Tuesday afternoon, September 6, with A FILM ABOUT COUPLES (Dominican Republic) a dramatic comedy about a pair of film makers tangling with their marital problems while trying to make a movie about love. In the evening, shoe lovers and anyone who adores a great immigrant success story, will relish the chance to see the Italian documentary SALVATORE: SHOEMAKER OF DREAMS, about the legendary Salvatore Ferragamo. 

From Spain comes OFFICIAL COMPETITION in which a billionaire businessman in search of fame and social prestige decides to make a unique, groundbreaking film. To achieve this goal, he hires the best of the best: A stellar team consisting of famous filmmaker Lola Cuevas and two well-known actors who boast not only an enormous talent, but also an even bigger ego: Hollywood star Félix Rivero and aging theater thespian Iván Torres. They’re both legends, but not exactly the best of friends. Through a series of increasingly hilarious tests set by Lola, Félix and Iván must confront not only each other, but also their own legacies.

This is the closing night film followed by The Closing Night Party!

On Wednesday, September 6, you can HIT THE ROAD with a new Iranian film that transforms the road-trip genre into something raw and moving. That evening do not miss PINK MOON, the Tribeca award-winner from the Netherlands.

HIT THE ROAD
When a young woman receives the absurd news from her father that he’s had enough of life and wants it to come to an end, she is forced to search for a way to deal with his last wish. It’s the Tribeca Award winner from the Netherlands screening Wednesday night.

Thursday, it’s the official opening party! Enjoy drinks and appetizers from the renowned Goldies. Immediately following, you can stroll over to the Film Center for the movie BROKER, the new film from Korea featuring Song Kang-ho, last seen in the Oscar-winning “Parasite.”

Scene from THE BROKER

BROKER from Korea will screen Thursday, September 8th at 7:30 pm. Directed by Japan’s Kore-eda Hirokazu, the Korean-language BROKER scored a best actor prize at Cannes for male lead with PARASITE star Song Kang-ho. Playing like a scrappy road movie, more than a crime story, the film tells the tale of two chancers who are trying to arrange an adoptive home for an unwanted infant, the child’s mother who tags along, and two women police officers on their trail.

On Friday, September 9, you can choose from a film smorgasbord. First there’s WAITING FOR BOJANGLES, a French romantic dramatic, followed by the thrilling Guggenheim Foundation fellow Signe Baumane, here to show her animated feature MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH MARRIAGE, which infuses music and science into a personal love story. Then it’s our annual INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILMS JURIED COMPETITION. Come see the 10 finalists and learn who our expert jury selected as the best overall.

Saturday, September 10, starts strong with UTAMA, the moving tale of an elderly couple up against the Bolivian environment, a film that racked up awards including a grand jury prize at Sundance. And then Saturday afternoon—whoa-ho!—it’s the return of the “king of indie animation” with BILL PLYMPTON’S WORLD OF ANIMATED SHORTS. Don’t miss this special event with Oscar nominee Bill Plympton who’s been amusing (and startling) Vineyard audiences and the world for years. Saturday night don’t miss Italy’s THE GOOD BOSS, winner already of 30 awards, including “Best Actor” for Javier Bardem, playing the lead. 

Sunday, September 11, there’s another strong line-up, starting with DOS ESTACIONES, a drama about an iron-willed woman determined to save her family’s famed tequila factory. Hop to the other side of the globe with the Israeli tale KARAOKE, and witness a middle-class couple being shaken back to life by the arrival of an exotic new neighbor. (We thank the Consulate General of Israel to New England for co-sponsoring this terrific film that’s gathered multiple major award nominations.)

Our closing night film is OFFICIAL COMPETITION, a comedy about a billionaire in search of creative fame who hires a top filmmaker and two big talents (and even bigger egos). Starring the incomparable Penelope Crus and Antonio Banderas. “Deliciously silly and wildly entertaining,” this film is the perfect way to close out our five days of fabulous film. Or is it? Because you absolutely should not miss our closing night party at FISH MV, on Vineyard Haven’s Main Street.

Welcome to our small island. And to the big world of film. All packed into five very special days.

“We’re so glad you’ll be here to enjoy them with us,”

says Festival Director/Founder Richard Paradise (with great gusto!)
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The 31st Annual Woods Hole Film Festival Kicks off July 30th

We are thrilled that the Woods Hole Film Festival is back for its 31st year! Here are a few highlights to check out in addition to a lineup that includes more than 50 films including short films as well as features.

AFTER ANTARCTICA screening at the Museum of Science on July 21

On the Third Thursday of every month this summer, join the Museum of Science and the Woods Hole Film Festival in the Mugar Omni Theater for a lineup of independent film screenings amplifying inspiring and vital stories of climate change from some of today’s most visionary documentary filmmakers.

1-800-HOT-NITE Premieres in-person on  August 4th

Films are screening in theaters and online (July 30th – August 6th) Tickets can be purchased on each film’s event page. (please note: Miles From Nowhere, The Butterfly in the Sky, Fashion Reimagined & Bonnie Blue: James Cotton’s Life in the Blues will not screen virtually)

Can’t be there in Person?
Don’t worry! Virtual passes are available!

The All Films Pass gives you VIRTUAL ACCESS ONLY to all the feature films, short films and short film programs in the 31st Annual Woods Hole Film Festival from Saturday, July 30 through Saturday, August 6, 2022

Tickets are now available on the WHFF website

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AIFF Celebrates its Seventh – Year Kick-Off

Starts with an Homage to the Serbian Community in Boston

Arlington International Film FestivalFor the past seven seasons, the Arlington International Film Festival (AIFF) has curated a festival in October that celebrates the very best of new local, national, and international independent films for audiences to enjoy. AIFF’s Selection Committee watches hundreds of submissions each year and is delegated with the task of choosing films that represent the creative in storytelling and technical execution while holding to the festival’s mission of fostering appreciation for different cultures by exploring the lives of people around the globe through independent fi lm. Each year brings forth amazing visions of filmmakers that we are honored to bring to Greater Boston.

This year, the judges have selected a film that will kick-off the 2017 Festival, homage to our Serbian community, which represents the vision and passion of the French as well as the Serbian communities.

THE PROMISE by director Zeljko Mirkovic

Synopsis: A century ago Rogljevo, a remote village in the far eastern corner of Serbia, was incredibly prosperous, one of the top five wine regions in Europe. The wines of Rogljevo were to be found at exhibitions in Bordeaux and Paris. But today this region is poor and deserted. In ‘cinema verite’ style, this documentary follows the extraordinary experience of a French family who moved
into the village to make wine, believing they had discovered a promised land. Their arrival sparked high hopes with some villagers and great resistance and mistrust with others. Can Europeans from two opposite sides of the continent come together to revive the ancient glory of this forgotten wine region? Winner of the Best Documentary at the Mediterranean Film Festival in Italy and Eugene International Film Festival, Oregon.

The Arlington International Film Festival (AIFF) runs from Thursday, October 26 through
Sunday, October 29 at the Capitol Theatre in East Arlington. AIFF will be screening feature narratives and documentaries as well as programs of short narrative, documentary and animation. Please visit www.AIFFest.org after September 20th for program details.

Our feature Student Filmmaker’s Program, VOICES OF OUR YOUTH will be screened on Saturday, October 28 at 12 noon whereupon voices of Arlington/Greater Boston will converge with the voices of youth across the country and around the world; i.e. Australia, Canada, China, India, Mexico, Netherlands, and Portugal. Watching High School student films is a process of discovery. Come, sit back, and wait for the unexpected. This year’s shorts address topics ranging from social justice, fictional exploration, depression, equality for women, disabilities, relationships, and artistic aspirations.

Independent films chosen this year by our Selection Committee range in topic from social justice, art, dance, music and marriage.

We are honored to open this year’s festival with a dynamic US premiere Thursday, October 26, 7 PM, SHADOWGRAM acclaimed Italian director Augusto Contento. An astonishing documentary about the African-American community in Chicago, it captures the memories of African-Americans living in the USA – fifty years after the abolition of the ignominious Jim Crow Laws… what has changed? Did anything really change? Who does remember how it was? Has there been an evolution of the African American community? Their hopes, their dreams, their will? The film features a cross-section of people – a psychiatrist, an administrator, a teacher and a hip-hop artist to name a few -, who reminisce about their childhoods, reflect on the hopes of generations gone by and their influence oncurrent daily life.

SHADOWGRAM, was scheduled to screen at the United Nations meeting of the High Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in March of 2017 organized by US, European, South American, and Asian diplomats.
Unfortunately, this screening event that was supposed to take place on the Worldwide Day in Defense of all Human Rights was canceled by the US Embassy in Geneva upon request of the Trump administration. SHADOWGRAM was being screened officially in front of the whole diplomatic community and what truth were people going to discover about US African-American integration (or dis-Integration) that is not already known?

The short that will be screened with this feature is Honk: A Festival of Activist Street Bands by director Patrick Johnson featuring Boston’s own local international jazz musician, Ken Fields. There will be a Panel Discussion followed by an After-Party/Reception at Bistro Duet Restaurant in East Arlington.

Marriage and its relationship to love is examined from the perspectives of conservative Christians, Jews, Indians, and Indonesians in the films A COURTSHIP, (documentary), KOSHER LOVE (documentary), RATTLED (narrative), and PRIA (narrative) respectively.

Set for wide release in 2017, CHASING TRANE is the defi nitive documentary film about an outside-the-box thinker with extraordinary talent whose boundary-shattering music continues to impact and influence people around the world. This smart, passionate, thought-provoking and uplifting documentary is for anyone who appreciates the power of music to entertain, inspire and transform. Written and directed by critically-acclaimed documentary filmmaker John Scheinfeld (THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON and WHO IS HARRY NILSSON…?) the fi lm is produced with the full participation of the Coltrane family and the support of the record labels that collectively own the Coltrane catalog. Scheinfeld brings his strong story-telling skills to the creation of a rich, textured and compelling narrative that takes the audience to unexpected places.

THE SETTLERS looks at Jewish settlers in the West Bank and their allies – Jewish and non- Jewish alike.

THE SETTLERS by filmmaker Shimon Dotan takes a look at Jewish settlers in the West Bank and their allies – Jewish and non-Jewish alike – in Israel, America and Europe. The origins of the settler phenomenon, which reach back almost half a century, are explored in this documentary along with a look at who the settlers are today and how they impact the Middle East peace process.

PHIL’S CAMINO, a short documentary film that has officially been submitted to the 89th Academy for Oscar nomination consideration, tells the story of free spirit Phil, a man living with Stage four cancer and dreaming of walking the 500-mile spiritual pilgrimage Camino de Santiago across Spain. Inspirational!

Cannes Short Film Competition nominated LUNCH TIME for the Palm d’Or. Shot in Iran, this narrative follows a sixteen-year-old girl who has the responsibility of identifying the body of her mother. It is a story that speaks to the issues of a harsh bureaucracy and gender inequality.

Let’s watch a narrative comedy that will keep you laughing, HAVE A NICE FLIGHT! Yes, the airline personnel generally wish us a nice flight but what happens to a Vietnamese man needing to return to his country on a family emergency? He prepares to leave a US airport encountering rules of culture and language that are foreign to him, causing a lot of confusion and laughter, ending in appreciation and love.

EVERYONE KNOWS ELIZABETH MURRAY, is a tribute to a dynamic artist Elizabeth Murray, an intrinsic figure in New York’s contemporary art landscape scene from the 1970s until the early 2000s. This documentary highlights her struggle to balance personal and family ambition with artistic drive in a
male-dominated art world. It also addresses her later battle with cancer, at the peak of her career. Director, Kristi Zea is a two-time Oscar-nominated production designer and filmmaker and has designed classic films such as SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, GOODFELLAS and REVOLUTIONARY ROAD. This film
screens on Saturday afternoon and is followed by a Q&A/Reception at 13 Forest Gallery.

the man who wanted to change the world
From the Netherlands, THE MAN WHO WANTED TO CHANGE THE WORLD depicts African-born artist Peter Westerveid who claimed he had developed a solution to combat desertification and ultimately climate change.

Closing night features the U.S. premiere of THE MAN WHO WANTED TO CHANGE THE WORLD by director, Mariëtte Faber from the Netherlands. In the nineties, African born artist Peter Westerveld claimed he had developed a solution to combat desertification and ultimately climate change. His designs for
restoring the water cycles in Africa are unlike any organization has embarked on before, let alone a single man. But in Peter’s mind there is no doubt that he can heal the land. He is quarrelsome and his ideas are controversial. Despite being ridiculed he relentlessly pursues his dream for a green and drought-resistant world. Panel Discussion to follow.

You are invited to enjoy amazing independent films at the Capitol Theatre October 26 – 29! For more information visit www.aiffest.org.

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