As MFF 2012 reaches its mid-point, here’s another pair of programming picks from Eric Hatch–two very different films, both of which have their first of two screenings today, Saturday, and then repeat on Sunday.
JEFF
JEFF
This beautiful, brilliant, and somehow not (visually) graphic film is half-doc, half-fiction, and 100% about Jeffrey Dahmer. That said, this is a million miles from the lurid pulp that comprises most serial-killer film and literature. Instead, what we have here is sometimes quite beautiful dramatic filmmaking a la Gus Van Sant fused to documentary interviews with three people changed by Jeffrey Dahmer—a neighbor, a medical examiner, and the interrogator who got the killer’s confession. We’ll have both director Chris James Thompson and Dahmer’s interrogator, Patrick Kennedy, here for our screenings of this unique hybrid film. JEFF is something unexpected, exciting, and new. JEFF plays tonight (5/5) at 9:30pm and again Sunday (5/6) at noon at the Charles Theater.
GAYBY
GAYBY
Looking to laugh? You can’t go wrong with GAYBY. As much about straight people looking for love as it is an insider’s look at the pleasures and pitfalls of modern gay culture, this crossover comedy follows two thirty-something friends who, despite incompatible sexual preferences, decide to make a baby (and do it the old fashioned-way). We had director Jonathan Lisecki’s short of the same name here for MFF 2010 and again for that summer’s Artscape, and it was a runaway hit at both. This feature generously reimagines and expands upon that short, with warm and hilarious results. GAYBY brims with a contagious belief in our capacities for love and friendship—and earns it by never cheating in its honest portrayal of real life in all its messy, hilarious, awkward complexities. GAYBY plays tonight (5/5) at 8pm and again on Sunday at 5:00pm at the Charles Theater.
– Eric Hatch, Director of Programming
Maryland Film Festival Blog 
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