Camden International Film Festival

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First Light

Sep 2016

2015 | Directed by Adam Mazo & Ben Pender-Cudlip

First Light independently documents the work of the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the first such task force in US history to investigate issues important to Native Americans. The TRC was dedicated to uncovering and acknowledging the truth about what happened to Wabanaki children and families involved with the state’s child welfare system. First Light is the first film in a series, anchored by the feature film Dawnland slated for release in 2018.

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One Year Lease

Sep 2015

2014 | Directed by Brian Bolster

One Year Lease documents the travails of Brian, Thomas and Casper as they endure a year-long sentence with Rita the cat-loving landlady.

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Constraints

Sep 2013

2013 | Directed by Eric P. Gulliver

Constraints is the story of a former nude model whose portrait is used to explore notions of exploitation vs. empowerment. While visualizing the tenuous line between “art” and “pornography,” the film extrapolates the details of the model’s former lifestyle: why it started, what happened at shoots, and why it ultimately wasn’t for her. Through aesthetic mystery and underlying tension, the documentary illuminates certain paradoxes of representation — the difference between intent and viewership. Told through the words of a former model, this tale of personal regret is made even more urgent because “what goes on the Internet, stays there forever.”

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Sanjiban

Sep 2012

2012 | Directed by Ben Pender-Cudlip

After his diagnosis with terminal cancer, eccentric filmmaker Sanjiban Sellew spent his final days at home with family and friends. Choosing to be as open with death as he was with life, he narrated on camera the extraordinary changes happening to him: “I feel myself becoming less of a human being daily, by the cancer in my brain that’s still chomping away at my electronics, my circuit boards.” After two and a half months, he died at home in rural Massachusetts. This short documentary takes place in the space and time between the end of one journey, and the beginning of another. With his twin brother John as our guide, we ferry Sanjiban’s body from home—a makeshift shrine in the dining room—to the furnace that will consume his earthly remains. “Sanjiban” is an intense, life-affirming story about the profoundly human experience of saying goodbye.

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The Stone Rules

Sep 2011

2011 | Directed by Dean Merrill

The Stone Rules was shot to capture the First Annual J.C. Stone Sculpture Symposium featuring Maine artist Don Meserve.

The film highlights the artists as they explain their creative process and the relationship of “the ideas they bring to the stone, and what the stone suggests.” The artists venture further into a discussion of the creative process, transcending into a philosophical approach to the dual relationship of artist and medium.

Narrated by Don Meserve, this film is tribute not only to artists, but to Don who passed away last year after a long struggle with Lung Cancer. His personality, knowledge, lively wit, and creativity left its mark on all who he encountered, especially those in the craft.

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Meet Your Farmer: Reed Farm

Sep 2010

2010 | Directed by Cecily Pingree & Jason Mann

A short profile of Dan Tibbetts, a dairy farmer from Windsor, Maine. As small dairy farms around New England struggle to survive in an industry that is increasingly hostile, Tibbetts has an additional worry: how to pass his farm, and his craft, on to his children.

The Meet Your Farmer project is a series of eight short films about Maine farmers. (www.meetyourfarmer.org). Executive Producer – Maine Farmland Trust (www.mainefarmlandtrust.org).

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Meet Your Farmer: Tide Mill Farm

Sep 2010

2010 | Directed by Cecily Pingree & Jason Mann

Aaron Bell & Carly DelSignore run a diverse and busy farm while raising their three children, the ninth generation of the Bell family to live in Edmunds, Maine. On the coast of Whiting Bay in Washington County, the farm is breathtakingly beautiful. As they work to carve out a living selling locally-grown food in one of the poorest counties in New England, the Bell family reminds us of the quality of life that small farms provide to their communities, and what we will lose if they disappear.

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Sketches of an Icon

Sep 2010

2008 | Directed by Morgan Kirkham

WWII veteran and Vinalhaven resident Bert Dyer discusses life on an island off the coast of Maine. A regular presence outside of the Vinalhaven’s only grocery store, Bert has been a fixture of this town for many years — this film touches upon a few key elements of island living and the man himself.