Posts Tagged '12 O’CLOCK BOYS'

Check out Baltimore City Paper’s “Film Fest Frenzy” issue covering MFF 2013!

Published May 8, 2013 Uncategorized 1 Comment
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CPCheck out Baltimore City Paper‘s coverage of this year’s Maryland Film Festival in their “Film Fest Frenzy” issue – on newsstands this week!

“This week’s feature helps kick off the Maryland Film Festival with stories about Lotfy Nathan’s 12 O’Clock Boys, Matthew Porterfield’s I Used to Be Darker, and Ryan White’s Good Ole Freda, about the Beatles’ longtime secretary. We also have shorter reviews of I Am Divine, If We Shout Loud Enough, After Tiller, Teacher, Fill the Void, and Post Tenebras Lux, plus listings for all movies at the festival (including CP recommendations), and a complete schedule.

Click here for more information in the Baltimore City Paper!

Baltimore City Paper also has a feature article on MFF 2013’s 12 O’Clock Boys – click here for Baynard Woods‘ article, “It’s 12 O’Clock in Baltimore.”

MARYLAND FILM FESTIVAL: OPENING NIGHT TITLES ANNOUNCED

Published April 25, 2013 Uncategorized Closed
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THE CHAIR

THE CHAIR

Maryland Film Festival (May 8-12 in downtown Baltimore) is proud to announce our 2013 Opening Night Shorts program, an eclectic mix of work from an extremely talented array of filmmakers. Maryland Film Festival has played a special role in advocating for short-form film and video since the festival’s launch in 1999, and has dedicated each of its Opening Nights to short films since 2004. The MFF 2013 Opening Night Shorts program will take place Wednesday, May 8th at 8pm, in The Brown Center (1301 Mt. Royal Avenue) on the Maryland Institute College of Art campus.

BONESHAKER

BONESHAKER

Maryland Film Festival 2013’s Opening Night Shorts Films are:  Frances Bodomo’s Boneshaker, a drama about an African family lost in rural Alabama starring Quvenzhané Wallis (Academy Award nominee, Beasts of the Southern Wild); Grainger David’s The Chair, the story of one boy’s reaction to an outbreak of poisonous mold in his small town, nominated for Cannes 2012’s Short Film Palme d’or and winner of SXSW 2012’s Short Film Jury Prize;  Riley Stearns’ 16mm-shot The Cub, a note-perfect dark comedy about humans living amongst wolves that was nominated for Sundance 2013’s short-film grand-jury prize;  Dara Bratt’s observational documentary Flutter, a portrait of an ordinary man living in the extraordinary world of butterfly collecting; Chetin Chabuk’s Jujitsuing Reality, an inspiring documentary about Scott Lew, a screenwriter living with ALS; and Lauren Wolkstein’s elegant and sly Social Butterfly, in which a mysterious American woman (Anna Margaret Hollyman) arrives at a teenage party in the South of France.

In addition to approximately 50 feature films and this Opening Night program, Maryland Film Festival 2013 will include nine more programs of short films, totaling approximately 80 short films including comedy, drama, animation, documentary, and experimental work, as well as Maryland Film Festival’s signature, mind-bending “WTF Shorts” program. Other filmmakers with new short-film work in MFF 2013 include acclaimed filmmakers such as Tsai Ming-liang, Amy Seimetz, Clay Liford, Dustin Guy Defa, Kat Candler, Kelly Sears, Annie Silverstein, Steven Schardt and the team of Lucas Leyva and Jillian Mayer; shorts with performances from Martin Starr, Brie Larson, Kate Lyn Sheil, Will Oldham, and Tunde Adebimpe; and shorts from Baltimore-based directors such as Karen Yasinsky, Alan Resnick, Phil Davis, Lorenzo Gattorna, and the team of Nicholas Kovacic and Matthew Riggieri.

Maryland Film Festival’s Opening Night Shorts program is made possible by the generous support of the William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund, creator of the Baker Artist Awards.

Maryland Film Festival has now announced the majority of its 2013 lineup, with the announcement of its 2013 Closing Night soon to come. A full list of the feature films announced for MFF 2013 follows:

12 O’CLOCK BOYS (Lotfy Nathan)

16 ACRES (Richard Hankin)

AATSINKI: THE STORY OF ARCTIC COWBOYS (Jessica Oreck)

AFTER TILLER (Martha Shane and Lana Wilson)

AUGUSTINE (Alice Winocour)

BEFORE YOU KNOW IT (PJ Raval)

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO (Peter Strickland)

BLUEBIRD (Lance Edmands)

THE BOY EATING THE BIRD’S FOOD (Ektoras Lygizos)

BUTTER ON THE LATCH (Josephine Decker)

BY AND BY: NEW ORLEANS GOSPEL AT THE CROSSROADS (Matthew T. Bowden & Joe Compton)

COMPUTER CHESS (Andrew Bujalski)

DOWNLOADED (Alex Winter)

DRINKING BUDDIES (Joe Swanberg)

FILL THE VOID (Rama Burshtein)

GOOD OL’ FREDA (Ryan White)

HERE COMES THE DEVIL (Adrián García Bogliano)

HIT & STAY (Joe Tropea and Skizz Cyzyk)

I AM DIVINE (Jeffrey Schwarz)

I USED TO BE DARKER (Matt Porterfield)

IF WE SHOUT LOUD ENOUGH (Gabriel DeLoach and Zach Keifer)

IT FELT LIKE LOVE (Eliza Hittman)

LEVIATHAN (Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel)

THE LOST WORLD (Harry O. Hoyt)

MUSEUM HOURS (Jem Cohen)

PARADISE: FAITH (Ulrich Seidl)

PARADISE: HOPE (Ulrich Seidl)

PARADISE: LOVE (Ulrich Seidl)

THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO IDEOLOGY (Sophie Fiennes)

PIT STOP (Yen Tan)

POST TENEBRAS LUX (Carlos Reygadas)

PRINCE AVALANCHE (David Gordon Green)

THE RAMBLER (Calvin Reeder)

REMOTE AREA MEDICAL (Jeff Reichert & Farihah Zaman)

SWIM LITTLE FISH SWIM (Lola Bessis and Ruben Amar)

A TEACHER (Hannah Fidell)

THIS IS MARTIN BONNER (Chad Hartigan)

TOUCHY FEELY (Lynn Shelton)

V/H/S/2 (omnibus)

WATCHTOWER (Pelin Esmer)

WE ALWAYS LIE TO STRANGERS (AJ Schnack and David Wilson)

WILLOW CREEK (Bobcat Goldthwait)

WHITE REINDEER (Zach Clark)

ZERO CHARISMA (Katie Graham and Andrew Matthews)

TWELVE MORE FEATURES ANNOUNCED FOR MARYLAND FILM FESTIVAL 2013!

Published April 16, 2013 Uncategorized 2 Comments
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Good Ol' Freda production still horizontal

GOOD OL’ FREDA

Maryland Film Festival is proud to announce a dozen more titles for our 2013 edition, bringing the total number of features revealed to 36 thus far.  Our fifteenth annual festival, which will take place May 8-12 in downtown Baltimore, has expanded to 5 days and will include approximately 50 features and 9 shorts programs.  We will also present a silent classic with an original score performed live by the Alloy Orchestra and a favorite film selected and hosted by legendary director John Waters!

The diverse round of titles announced today includes work from Finland, Mexico, Austria, and Israel, and such titles as Zach Clark’s holiday-themed, darkly comic White Reindeer; Alex Winter’s riveting look at the rise and fall of Napster, Downloaded; Jessica Oreck’s experiential documentary about a family of reindeer herders, Aatsinki; and Calvin Reeder’s surreal, horror-tinged mindbender about a mysterious loner, The Rambler.

More MFF 2013 lineup announcements are coming soon! If you haven’t seen them yet, make sure to check the 24 features we announced last week! For all the latest information, continue to visit this blog, and follow us at facebook.com/MarylandFilmFestival and on Twitter, @MdFilmFestival.

Today’s announced features for Maryland Film Festival 2013 are:

16 ACRES_070412_02284504.jpg

16 ACRES

16 Acres (Richard Hankin) From the editor and co-producer of Capturing the Friedmans comes this riveting and nuanced documentary look at the rebuilding of Ground Zero—one of the most architecturally, politically, and emotionally complex urban renewal projects in history.

AATSINKI_[Jessica_Oreck]1

AATSINKI: THE STORY OF ARCTIC COWBOYS

Aatsinki: The Story of Arctic Cowboys (Jessica Oreck) One year in the life of a family of reindeer herders in Finnish Lapland yields an immersive study of hard work, hard earned leisure, and an intricate bond between man and nature. From the director of Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo.

Before You Know It (P J Raval) This observational documentary raises the curtain on a profoundly neglected segment of the LGBT community, its senior population, as three gay men residing in very different regions of the U.S. face new life challenges.

Bluebird_30

BLUEBIRD

Bluebird (Lance Edmands) In the frozen woods of an isolated Maine logging town, one woman’s tragic mistake shatters the balance of the community, resulting in profound and unexpected consequences.

Downloaded (Alex Winter) With remarkable insight and access, this documentary tells the story of the rise and fall of Napster, taking a close look at the internet mavericks and musicians involved and the lasting global impact of peer-to-peer file sharing.

Here_Comes_The_Devil

HERE COMES THE DEVIL

Here Comes the Devil  (Adrián García Bogliano) From Mexico comes this horror film concerning disappeared children and panicked parents, offering ever-escalating thrills as it heads to increasingly bloody, diabolical, and even psychedelic territory.

Fill the Void (Rama Burshtein) This drama set in Tel Aviv’s Orthodox community centers around 18-year-old Shira, who faces unexpected life challenges when her older sister dies.

Good Ol’ Freda (Ryan White) Freda Kelly was just a shy Liverpudlian teenager when she was asked to work for a local band hoping to make it big. That band was The Beatles, and Freda was their devoted secretary and friend for 11 years; this documentary tells her story—and the story of the world’s most famous band through her eyes.

MH_Guard

MUSEUM HOURS

Museum Hours (Jem Cohen) From the director of Benjamin Smoke and Instrument comes this gentle and expertly crafted drama about a Vienna museum guard and the friendship he forms with a woman visiting town to care for a sick friend.

THE RAMBLER_Lindsay Pulsipher and Dermot Mulroney shooting_photo by Juliana Halvorson

THE RAMBLER

The Rambler (Calvin Reeder) Dermot Mulroney, Lindsay Pulsipher, and Natasha Lyonne star in the latest psychotronic vision from the director of The Oregonian, in which a mysterious loner, newly released from prison, sets out on a journey filled with bizarre characters and warped experiences.

We Always Lie to Strangers (AJ Schnack and David Wilson) A documentary story of family, community, music and tradition, built over five years and set against the backdrop of Branson, Missouri, one of the biggest tourist destinations in America.

WHITE REINDEER STILL 1

WHITE REINDEER

White Reindeer (Zach Clark) After an unexpected tragedy, Suzanne searches for the true meaning of Christmas during one sad, strange December in suburban Virginia. From the director of Vacation! and Modern Love Is Automatic.

Previously Announced Titles for 2013:

12 O’CLOCK BOYS (Lotfy Nathan)

AFTER TILLER (Martha Shane and Lana Wilson)

AUGUSTINE (Alice Winocour)

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO (Peter Strickland)

COMPUTER CHESS (Andrew Bujalski)

DRINKING BUDDIES (Joe Swanberg)

HIT & STAY (Joe Tropea and Skizz Cyzyk)

I AM DIVINE (Jeffrey Schwarz)

I USED TO BE DARKER (Matt Porterfield)

IF WE SHOUT LOUD ENOUGH (Gabriel DeLoach and Zach Keifer)

IT FELT LIKE LOVE (Eliza Hittman)

LEVIATHAN (Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel)

THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO IDEOLOGY (Sophie Fiennes)

PIT STOP (Yen Tan)

POST TENEBRAS LUX (Carlos Reygadas)

PRINCE AVALANCHE (David Gordon Green)

SWIM LITTLE FISH SWIM (Lola Bessis and Ruben Amar)

A TEACHER (Hannah Fidell)

THIS IS MARTIN BONNER (Chad Hartigan)

TOUCHY FEELY (Lynn Shelton)

V/H/S/2 (omnibus)

WATCHTOWER (Pelin Esmer)

WILLOW CREEK (Bobcat Goldthwait)

ZERO CHARISMA (Katie Graham and Andrew Matthews)

MARYLAND FILM FESTIVAL 2013: FIRST LINEUP ANNOUNCEMENT

Published April 9, 2013 Uncategorized 3 Comments
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Photo still from Lotfy Nathan's 12 O'CLOCK BOYS.

12 O’CLOCK BOYS

Maryland Film Festival has begun unveiling the lineup for its 15th annual festival, which will take place May 8-12, 2013 in downtown Baltimore and include over 50 feature films and 10 short-film programs from around the world.

The first dozen feature films announced include several highly anticipated made-in-Baltimore films, among them Matt Porterfield’s art-house drama I Used to Be Darker and Lotfy Nathan’s gritty documentary 12 O’Clock Boys. Also on tap for MFF 2013 are Bobcat Goldthwait’s Bigfoot-themed Willow Creek, and a diverse spectrum of films launched at Sundance 2013, including Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess, Lynn Shelton’s Touchy Feely, Yen Tan’s Pit Stop, and Eliza Hittman’s It Felt Like Love.

Maryland Film Festival has distinguished itself as a creatively charged meeting place for filmmakers and audiences, offering all U.S.-made features hosted by a filmmaker in a competition-free format. The festival is also known for its close relationship with legendary filmmaker John Waters, who selects and hosts a favorite film within each year’s festival. Building off record ticket sales in 2012, the festival has expanded from four to five days for its 2013 edition.

Lineup announcements will continue over the next 2 weeks. The first dozen titles announced for MFF 2013 are:

12 O’Clock Boys (Lotfy Nathan) This gritty and exhilarating documentary follows several years in the life of Pug, a young Baltimorean who hopes to join the exclusive ranks of Baltimore’s urban dirt-bike riders.

After Tiller (Martha Shane and Lana Wilson) A documentary look at the personal and professional lives of the only four U.S.-based doctors who continue to perform third-trimester abortions in the wake of the 2009 murder of Dr. George Tiller.

Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski) A subculture of offbeat personalities attempt to create the first computer system capable of beating human chess masters in this subversively shot, Robert Altman-worthy ensemble comedy.

IUSEDTOBEDARKER

I USED TO BE DARKER

I Used to Be Darker (Matt Porterfield) Ned Oldham, Kim Taylor, Hannah Gross and Deragh Campbell star in this Baltimore-made drama about shifting family and romantic relationships from the director of Hamilton and Putty Hill.

If We Shout Loud Enough (Gabriel DeLoach and Zach Keifer) An inside look at the Baltimore underground music scene through one of its most pivotal bands, Double Dagger, as they embark on their final tour.

A002_C004_0731UY

IT FELT LIKE LOVE

It Felt Like Love (Eliza Hittman) On the outskirts of Brooklyn, a fourteen-year-old girl’s sexual quest takes a dangerous turn when she pursues an older man and tests the boundaries between obsession and love.

The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (Sophie Fiennes) Philosopher Slavoj Žižek and filmmaker Sophie Fiennes use their interpretation of moving pictures to present a compelling cinematic journey into the heart of ideology–the dreams that shape our collective beliefs and practices.

Pit Stop (Yen Tan) Two gay men in small-town Texas, one maintaining the façade of a family life with his ex-wife and daughter and one spending much of his spare time visiting an ex-lover in the hospital, live parallel lives with overlapping hopes and dreams.

Touchy Feely (Lynn Shelton) The new film from the director of Humpday and Your Sister’s Sister is a family drama boasting a brilliant cast that includes Rosemarie DeWitt, Josh Pais, Ellen Page, Allison Janney, and Ron Livingston.

Photo still from Omnibus' V/H/S/2

V/H/S/ 2

V/H/S/2 (omnibus) Searching for a missing student, two private investigators break into his house and find a horrifying collection of VHS tapes. This sequel to cult favorite V/H/S includes segments by Eduardo Sánchez (The Blair Witch Project) and Gareth Evans (The Raid: Redemption).

Willow Creek (Bobcat Goldthwait) MFF audience favorite Bobcat Goldthwait follows up his acclaimed dark comedy God Bless America with this riveting Bigfoot film, shot on the same location as the controversial Patterson–Gimlin Bigfoot footage some 45 years ago.

Photo still from Katie Graham & Andrew Matthews' ZERO CHARISMA.

ZERO CHARISMA

Zero Charisma (Katie Graham and Andrew Matthews) An indie comedy about an ill-tempered game master and the neo-nerd hipster that interferes with his game, fresh from winning the SXSW 2013 Narrative Spotlight Audience Award.

SXSW Update #1: I AM DIVINE, 12 O’CLOCK BOYS

Published March 11, 2013 Uncategorized Closed
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I AM DIVINE

Photo of Divine from I Am Divine by MFF alum Jeffrey Schwarz, playing at the SXSW 2013 festival.

The South By Southwest Film Conference & Festival marks its 20th year in 2013, and three members of the MFF programming team — myself, programming administrator Scott Braid, and screening-committee member Eric Cotten — are all here in Austin to take in films. SXSW’s programming is international in scope, but the focus is on U.S. independent work, the next major stop for emerging domestic films after Sundance in January. It’s an especially important festival for the MFF programming team, the last trip we take before putting the finishing touches on our own lineup, which we’ll begin rolling out in early April.

As befitting a film festival that runs alongside equally renowned music and interactive (technology/gaming) components, SXSW’s line-up is peppered with some high-profile genre and midnight films. Last year saw the festival premiere The Cabin in the Woods, and this year’s edition boasts both the Evil Dead remake and V/H/S/2. We’ll be especially eager to check out the latter, a sequel to the omnibus horror film we screened within MFF 2012, this one boasting a segment by Maryland’s own Eduardo Sánchez.

Meanwhile, two very different Baltimore-focused documentary features have been generating much-deserved buzz at SXSW. Lotfy Nathan’s thrilling first feature 12 O’Clock Boys looks at Baltimore’s urban dirt-bike phenomenon, seen through the eyes of a young teenager who hopes to become a part of it. Simply put, this film contains some of the most eye-popping Baltimore footage ever caught on camera, sometimes exhilarating and sometimes poignant. Its trailer went viral on social media a few weeks ago, helping position the film as one of the festival’s most talked-about docs, an auspicious debut for a project that we’ve been tracking throughout its several years of production.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Schwarz, a frequent MFF guest who attended last year with the moving documentary Vito, has completed his highly anticipated new feature I Am Divine. It’s the definitive story of Baltimore’s own drag icon, made with the full cooperation of key participants like John Waters and Divine’s mother, and bursting with wonderful archival clips and stills. A roller coaster of a story filled with moments of triumph, heartbreak, and hilarity, it’s also another expertly crafted entry in Schwarz’s highly compelling body of biographical documentaries.

In addition to seeing films this year, I was invited to participate as a SXSW mentor in the field of documentary film programming. This allowed festival attendees to sign up for blocks of time to ask me questions about getting their documentary finished and out into the world. I met with a wide range of folks, from a few aspiring filmmakers looking for advice in getting their projects funded, to others with completed films in hand seeking tips on maximizing their films’ festival lives and positioning them for distribution. The SXSW mentorship program is a great facilitation of the networking possibilities one can find at film festivals; I enjoyed meeting this diverse group of people, and appreciated the opportunity to share some of the insights about the festival world I’ve gained over the seven years I’ve worked as a programmer for MFF.

SXSW continues through this weekend, and we’ll be in town for the full duration. We hope to take in about 50-60 features and as many shorts before the festival closes. Watch the MFF blog for more updates!

—Eric Allen Hatch, MFF Director of Programming

MFF Launches “Night Zones with Jimmy Joe Roche” with Tobe Hooper’s LIFEFORCE!

Published September 26, 2012 Uncategorized Closed
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Maryland Film Festival is excited to announce our newest series Night Zones with Jimmy Joe Roche, an offshoot of our popular Gunky’s Basement series (just voted best film series by Baltimore City Paper!) that will go deeper and darker into the realms of 70s and 80s horror.  Night Zones with Jimmy Joe Roche kicks off TONIGHT with a rare 35mm screening of Tobe Hooper‘s LIFEFORCE at the Charles Theater, 9pm.

This screening is $5 to the general public, but FREE to all current Friends of the Festival – no need to RSVP, just show up and check in at the MFF table in the lobby of The Charles.

As with Gunky’s, we will have limited edition posters created just for this event available for just $5 at the screening!

Limited edition poster for LIFEFORCE! Get yours at the show for just $5!

NIGHT ZONES WITH JIMMY JOE ROCHE presents Tobe Hooper’s LIFEFORCE
Wednesday, September 26th
9:00pm
The Charles Theater
1711 N. Charles Street
$5 general admission/FREE for current Friends of the Festival
Click here for Facebook invite

LIFEFORCE is a 1985 science fiction film directed by Tobe Hooper (TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, POLTERGEIST and writer of ALIEN) and written by Dan O’Bannon and Don Jakoby, based on Colin Wilson’s 1976 novel, The Space Vampires. Featuring Steve Railsback, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, Mathilda May, and Patrick Stewart, the film portrays the events that unfold “after a trio of humanoids in a state of suspended animation are brought to earth after being discovered in the hold of an abandoned European space shuttle.” (-Wiki)

We’re lining up three NIGHT ZONES screenings while Gunky’s is on hiatus — September, October, and November — we will be announcing more titles soon so keep checking our website and  Facebook pages for details!

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