Film Festivals

A Report from the Maine International Film Festival

1 Aug , 1998  

Written by Devon Damonte | Posted by:

The first-ever Maine Film Fest pulls off a smashing success.

At a time when yet another film festival may seem like the last thing this world needs, the first Maine International Film Festival (or MIFF – winner of the prize for best festival acronym!) emerges as a testament to the importance of events like this for the vitality of film culture in New England. You won’t find glitzy, star-studded parties with lines of limousines in front at MIFF. You also won’t find many pretentious self-important industry types, nor screenings where you need an agent, bodyguard, and a bribe just to get into the theater. What you will find is an excellent line-up of new film and video plus several special guests, intelligently programmed, and professionally presented in comfortable and friendly Central Maine over ten mid-summer days.

MIFF presents a superb model for other small regional festivals to emulate. Panel discussion guest Ted Hope (of Good Machine in NY) observed that regional community film festivals are taking over the territory established by college film societies as a haven for international, documentary and art cinema. If only they all had the programming and presentation savvy of MIFF. This professionalism comes as no accident in Waterville. The Festival is hosted by Railroad Square Cinemas, a 25-year-old art house exhibitor run by a collective of extremely savvy cinephiles, who thoroughly proved their mettle several years ago when their original funky barn-like venue burned to the ground. At a time when dozens of independent art houses were dropping like flies all over the country from basic operating expenses, Railroad Square refused to die. Instead it successfully raised approximately $130,000 to build a brand new theater with two screens, and room to expand. Around the same time, these intrepid people discovered an amazing gypsy musical film called Latcho Drom which had been unable to find American distribution, so they created Shadow Distribution to release it quite successfully to the delight of cinema and music lovers across the country. Shadow has since released Latcho director Tony Gatlif’s second film Mondo, Bruce Macdonald’s Dance Me Outside, My Twentieth Century director Ildiko Enyedi’s second film Magic Hunter, and most recently, Ken Loach’s Nicaraguan romance Carla’s Song. The combined expertise of acting as distributor and year-round exhibitor add up to a group of people who are incredibly sophisticated in their know-how of finding and presenting great film and video.

Winner of the audience award at MIFF was Port Djema, a French film set in East Africa, which previously won Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival for this debut effort from Eric Heumann (who produced Indochine and the films of Theo Angelopoulis). Port Djema is a richly atmospheric and moving film about how the single-mindedness of a personal quest leads to a realization of humanity’s commonalty. Shadow Distribution will be releasing Port Djema for a limited theatrical run this fall, and I’d highly recommend you see it if you can. In perhaps MIFF’s biggest programming coup, Good Machine co-founder Ted Hope came from New York to present five films spanning the history of this most influential production and sales company, from Ang Lee’s first film Pushing Hands to young directors’ new features like Hilary Brougher’s gem The Sticky Fingers of Time. Hilary was also on hand to provide the festival an infusion of bright energy and insightful remarks. Sticky Fingers will be released by Strand sometime this fall – don’t miss it.

Other highlights of the fest included a diverse range of historic, new American indies, and international fare. Nationally recognized for their preservation work, Northeast Historic Film in Bucksport, Maine premiered newly-restored prints of The Movie Queen, two delightful episodes of an itinerant woman filmmaker’s home movie-style self portraits of Maine towns in the 1930’s. Closing Night featured the very witty and well-written film Pants on Fire from Maine native Rocky Collins. Pants won the Best Writer Award at this year’s Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, and provided a refreshingly uncategorizeable quasi-comedy, semi-tragedy within a true slice of life’s relationships. Unofficial winner for most controversial film was See the Sea, an elegantly crafted and despicable French film which generated lots of discussion ranging from "a masterpiece of short story on film" to "what an awful waste of time." Unexpected sights in rural Waterville were the punk rock drama Half-Cocked accompanied by a live performance from the directors’ band amidst the opulent Opera House setting. And a TBA slot was filled with an unpublished screening of seminal 60’s rock doc The TAMI Show which had hepcat fest-goers dancing and screaming in the aisles.

With a first year start like this, great things can be expected in years to come at the Maine International Film Festival. If you like your cinematic festivities pure and unsullied by industry hype, I suggest you plan your summer vacation around MIFF #2 in 1999.