The Martha’s Vineyard Film Society revs up the port town of Vineyard Haven once more with its annual International Film Festival. During September 8–11, films will show day and night, all at in-town venues within easy walking distance of one another and the town’s many galleries, shops, and restaurants, punctuated by parties large and small.
It’s the sixth festival for the Society, but the organization is not just going strong, it’s growing fast (see sidebar below). Again, the films to be screened come from every corner—Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South America, Eurasia, and Africa—supporting the ongoing festival theme, “Other Places.” With four jam-packed short-film showcases and over two dozen feature films, the 2011 MV International Film Festival lives up to what is too often a cliché, and provides something for everyone.
Comedies abound, starting with JUST LIKE US, an American film but one that was shot in Dubai, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Director and stand-up comic Ahmed Ahmed shows how humor can help break down cultural misperception that persist despite how technology and globalization has shrunk the world. As Variety put it, “Egyptians are well known for being hilarious—who knew?”
Steve Coogan, an edgy British comedian with a cult following, plays a striving actor turned food critic in THE TRIP. When his American girlfriend takes off abruptly, Coogan gets friend Rob Brydon to accompany him on a tour of fine dining establishments across the UK. Largely improvised, the pair’s dueling Michael Caine impressions alone are worth the ticket price.
One would not think that the years of oppression under the depraved Romanian dictator Ceausescu would be a source of humor—but in TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE, Palme d’Or winning director Cristian Mungiu takes tragedy and twists it into mordantly funny tales that are part Kafka, part Seinfeld.
From Italy and China come two tales of middle-aged men adapting reluctantly but ultimately with grace and humor to a world that is not always kind to its elders. In SALT OF LIFE, actor-writer-director Gianni di Gregorio is a lost soul whose daughter pities him and whose amicable wife he hasn’t slept with in years. It’s a problem to which he simply can’t reconcile himself. Women no longer notice me, he moans to a friend, not in “that way.” In THE PIANO IN A FACTORY (grand jury prizewinner at the 2011 Miami Film Festival), Guilin, a middle-aged ex-steelworker struggles to hold on to his daughter when his wife, who’s found a sugar daddy, wants a divorce. The daughter, an aspiring musician, decides she must live with the parent who can provide a piano, and Guilin sets out with musician pals to make one—from the scraps of his closed factor.
Documentaries are well represented, including a trio of films that have benefitted form the support of the Fledgling Fund, a philanthropic organization based in New York whose mission is to improve the lives of the vulnerable through innovative media projects. CONNECTED, an official selection of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, takes a multidimensional approach to understand urgent social issues, by examining how they connect—through the environment, population, technology, economy, and more. Combining powerful visuals and animation, CONNECTED uses both humor and irony to make its powerful point. BAG IT, the second Fledgling Fund–supported film, won audience choice awards at three US film festivals this year. It’s the tale of an America guy who decides to stop using plastic bags. This simple action gets him thinking about the use and abuse of plastic in society and soon he’s off on a global tour through our crazy-for-plastic world, with its throwaway mentality. MADE IN INDIA, a festival favorite at the 2010 Hot Docs International Film Festival, explores the phenomena of “outsourcing” motherhood, exploring the booming industry known as Reproductive Tourism by following an infertile American couple as they see a surrogate. Rarely spoken about, this one sector of international trade currently brings $450 million a year to India.
Another eye-catching documentary focused on India is MARATHON BOY, which explores a four-year-old phenomenal runner. Is he a gifted athlete? Another exploited Indian child? “Epic, artistic, and even archetypal,” was the fervent review by Variety.
“Food porn, par excellence,” says Slant magazine of JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI, a documentary on the 85-year-old sushi master of Tokyo who still strives for perfection. “I’ll try to reach the top,” sais Jiro Ono, “but no one knows where the top is.”
Award-winning dramas round out the schedule. INCENDIES, winner of 8 Genie Awards, the Canadian Oscar equivalent, tells the tale of twins Jeanne and Simon who, upon their mother’s death learn two shocking things: their father, long thought dead, is alive in Lebanon. And they have a brother they never knew about. They set off to find their family and reclaim their roots. “Stunning in its impact,” Roger Ebert declares. This Academy Award nominee (for Best Foreign Language Film) is bought to the festival in cooperation with the Quebec Delegation-Boston.
OCTUBRE, from Peru, won the 2010 Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize, with its story of devout Sofia and stoic Clemente, brought together over an abandoned baby, the result of Clemente’s liaison with a prostitute. In PUZZLE, a more lighthearted film, a housewife ignored by her family, discovers she has a gift for championship puzzle-solving. It stars María Onetto (THE HEADLESS WOMAN), whom the New York Times descries as having the “dignified bearing and mysterious expression of a middle-aged Mona Lisa.”
Even more ethereal is THE STRANGE CASE OF ANGELICA, a romance and ghost story both, by 101-year-old Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira. A young photographer is called in to shoot a portrait of a recently deceased young bride. When he looks through his lens at her, she comes alive. “One of the 10 best films of the year!” says Film Comment. Two Danish families intersect in a revenge thriller, IN A BETTER WORLD, which nabbed the 2011 Best Foreign Film Oscar and Golden Globe.
Shorts don’t get short shrifted on the Vineyard. Oscar-nominated independent animator Bill Plympton—a festival supporter from year one—returns to curate another outstanding showcase of animation shorts. (He’s also the author of the just-released autobiographical Independently Animated, which includes a hilarious foreword by Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam.)
This is the second year for the festival’s International Short Film Competition, with expert judges Andrew Mer, of Snagfilms, Diana Barrett, president of the Fledgling Fund, and Tim Miller, Cape Cod Times film critic. Rounding out the panel is last year’s competition winner, Luke Matheny, whose GOD OF LOVE went from the Vineyard to Hollywood, winning the 2011 Oscar for Best Live Action Short.
A third shorts showcase is the ongoing feature “Think Globally, Shoot Locally.” This year Vineyarders Dan and Greg Martino are they organizers, offering a public forum for the many local, talented filmmakers to display both short films and portions of works in progress.
Filling out the shorts schedule is a selection of international shorts selected by festival director Richard Paradise. “Shorts are big at our festival,” he quips.
This is a mere sampling of what’s in store for MVIFF attendees. Learn more at the festival website, www.mvfilmfest.com, where you can also join the mailing list and buy advance festival passes beginning in early August.
Sidebar BREAKING: FILM CENTER IN THE NEAR FUTURE
The high-energy buzz that always precedes the Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival has already begun, with the announcement last week that the MV Film Society, which produces the festival, is creating a permanent home for the organization, the MV Film Center.
As the Martha’s Vineyard Times reported, a local builder and architect, Sam Dunn, approached MV International Film Festival director Richard Paradise about building a theatre on land he owns. The plan is for Mr. Dunn to give the society a long-term lease; in exchange, the society must fit out the interior of the building, including seating and projection equipment.
“I said ‘wow,'” Mr. Paradise told the press, taken aback by the generosity of Mr. Dunn’s proposal. It’s a fiscally responsible approach, he explains. “Compared with what it would cost if I had to buy the land, design the building, do all the permitting—you’re talking millions,” Paradise told the media, explaining why he had not before considered building a permanent home for the film society, despite the success of its year-round programs and annual festival. The planned film center will still require fundraising, but at a far more manageable level for the all-volunteer organization.
Drawings and a model of the planned center will be on display during the festival, allowing patrons to see for themselves what the future holds for the community, and for this vibrant film festival and the growing organization behind it.
