David Lowery
Maryland Film Festival is thrilled to announce that filmmaker David Lowery will be the host for our 2013 Opening Night Shorts Program, which will take place on Wednesday, May 8th at the MICA Brown Center, 8pm. Tickets for Opening Night and the rest of MFF 2013’s lineup are on sale now – click here to purchase through MissionTix.
Lowery, a multi-year participant in MFF and an alum of the festival’s signature Opening Night Shorts Program, has received widespread acclaim for his forthcoming feature, the Cannes-bound Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, starring Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, and Rooney Mara. Lowery has also made waves in recent months with a series of profile-raising announced projects, ranging from a reinvention of Disney’s Pete’s Dragon to a crime drama with Robert Redford attached as star and producer, The Old Man and the Gun.
MFF has been a proud supporter of Lowery throughout his career. Among Lowery’s films as director, MFF has screened his short film A Catalog of Anticipations in 2008, his feature St. Nick in 2009, and his Will Oldham-starring short Pioneer within MFF 2011’s Opening Night Shorts Program. The many other features Lowery has worked on in various capacities include editing Sun Don’t Shine (MFF 2012), shooting Lovers of Hate (MFF 2010) and Empire Builder (MFF 2012), and co-writing Pit Stop (MFF 2013).
MFF first devoted their Opening Night to short films in 2002, and has done so each year since 2004. Thanks to the ongoing support from the William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund, creator of the Baker Artist Awards, the festival has played a unique role in advocating for short-form film and video work. MFF has presented its Opening Night with a series of fascinating hosts, from acclaimed critics like Andrew O’Hehir and Ann Hornaday to award-winning filmmakers such as Bobcat Goldthwait and Barry Levinson. It’s with great pleasure that the festival welcomes David Lowery, a visionary director and generous film collaborator, as the first Opening Night alumnus to host this special evening.
As announced last week, 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 Academy Award nominee Quvenzhané Wallis; 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.
Maryland Film Festival 2013 will take place May 8-12 in beautiful downtown Baltimore, presenting approximately 50 features and 80 short films on 7 screens within the Station North Arts and Entertainment District. Its Closing Night film, as announced last week, will be Mother of George by Andrew Dosunmu. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.mdfilmfest.com.
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