Posts Tagged 'MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series'

The MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series Presents BRASSLANDS with Filmmaker Bryan Chang on Tuesday 4/21!

Published April 8, 2015 Documentary Film , Film Screening Closed
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BRASSLANDSposterThe MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series will present the award-winning music documentary BRASSLANDS on Tuesday 4/21 at 7:30pm at the MICA Brown Center!

The film will be presented by Bryan Chang, a member-owner of the Meerkat Media Collective. WYPR’s Tom Hall will conduct a 10 minute interview with Chang immediately following the screening for later airing on WYPR as part of the MFF/ WYPR Spotlight Series.

EVENT INFO:
The MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series presents BRASSLANDS
Tuesday 4/21
7:30pm
MICA Brown Center
$10/Free for Friends of the Festival and MICA students and faculty with ID

BRASSLANDS Synopsis
A tiny Serbian village explodes with brass cacophony and riotous celebration as more than half a million music fans descend upon Guča, the world’s largest trumpet competition. Amidst a cast of defending Serbian champions and struggling Roma Gypsies, an unlikely brass band from New York City, Zlatne Uste, voyages to represent the United States only a decade after NATO bombs rocked Belgrade. They will be the first Americans ever to compete at Guča. BRASSLANDS offers an intimate and sometimes unsettling portrait of how the hopes and fears of this diverse group of characters collide in their search for common ground and musical ecstasy.

RESCHEDULED! MFF 2014’s EVOLUTION OF A CRIMINAL with Filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe 3/30!

Published February 25, 2015 Documentary Film , Film Screening Closed
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THIS EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED!  Maryland Film Festival is proud to bring back to Baltimore one of MFF 2014’s most provocative, insightful, personal, and inspiring films, EVOLUTION OF A CRIMINAL! Director Darius Clark Monroe will be with us to introduce his work and answer your questions after the film!  This screening will take place on Monday, March 30th at 7:30pm at the MICA Brown Center.

Spotlight-Bubble_v2_600pxThis film will be part of the MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series and WYPR’s Sheilah Kast will conduct a 10 minute interview with Darius Clark Monroe following the screening. Click here for a listing of previous Spotlight Series podcasts: http://programs.wypr.org/podcast/maryland-film-festival/wypr-spotlight-series

Event Info:
Monday, March 30
7:30pm
MICA Brown Center
1301 W. Mt. Royal Avenue
$10/free for Friends of the Festival

How does a 16-year-old go from honors student to bank robber? Filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe explores the financial desperation that led him to turn to crime as a teenager in Texas, and returns to the scene of the crime to interview family members, close friends, and mentors to reflect on the aftermath.

Vital, thoughtful, and deeply personal, first-timer Darius Clark Monroe’s autobiographical doc stands as a testament to the power of movies to stir empathy.
— Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice

Its images, its shape, its tone, and its implications make it a terrific movie, as well as the birth of an artist.
— Richard Brody, The New Yorker

MFF 2014’s program notes:
Darius Clark Monroe’s EVOLUTION OF A CRIMINAL brings something new to the world of film. In examining a bank robbery committed by Texas high-school students, Monroe’s film interweaves suspenseful reenactment footage with candid interviews from people involved in every angle of the crime. We hear from participants, victims, family members, and law-enforcement officials, all very open in discussing how the crime impacted them at the time, and how they relate to it now. The twist? The filmmaker himself was one of the men involved in the robbery.

With an unflinching eye, Monroe dissects the various factors that drove him from a lighthearted childhood to this extreme act, giving us first-person access to both the facts and the emotional weight embedded in the planning, the crime, and its aftermath. In the process, he not only reconnects with the people with whom he robbed the bank, but also reaches out to people on the receiving end of the crime.

Executive-produced by Spike Lee and a hit at its SXSW 2014 premiere, EVOLUTION OF A CRIMINAL is a unique project delivered with great skill, confidence, and insight. Occupying its own niche at the intersection of documentary, true crime, and personal essay, it’s both a gripping viewing experience and a conversation-starter—about race, class, education, and the prison system, just for starters—of the highest order. (Eric Allen Hatch)

MFF Presents 3 Not-To-Miss Films!

Published February 11, 2015 Film Screening Closed
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babayaga

THE VANQUISHING OF THE WITCH BABA YAGA

Maryland Film Festival is pleased to reprise three incredible films from our 2014 festival in February and March: THE VANQUISHING OF THE WITCH BABA YAGA with filmmaker Jessica Oreck (2/17); EVOLUTION OF A CRIMINAL with filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe (3/3) and APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR with filmmaker Desiree Akhavan (3/30).  The filmmakers will be present to introduce each of the films and answer your questions afterwards!

These screenings will take place at the MICA Brown Center at 7:30pm and will be $10/free for current Friends of the Festival and MICA students/faculty (with ID).  In case you missed them at our festival last year, here’s a another chance to check out these three incredible films you won’t find in theaters:

Baba1-759x506Tuesday 2/17, 7:30pm
MFF 2014 Festival Reprise: THE VANQUISHING OF THE WITCH BABA YAGA with filmmaker Jessica Oreck
MICA Brown Center
Mystery/Experimental (2014). Filmmaker Jessica Oreck explores Eastern Europe’s haunted woodlands.
evolution_of_a_criminal-01Tuesday 3/3, 7:30pm
The MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series/2014 Festival Reprise: EVOLUTION OF A CRIMINAL with filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe
MICA Brown Center
Documentary (2014). After 10 years, filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe returns to his hometown to examine how his robbery of a bank affected his family, friends and other victims. Interview between WYPR’s Tom Hall and Darius Clark Monroe follows the screening for MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series.
appropriate-behaviorMonday 3/30, 7:30pm
MFF 2014 Festival Reprise: APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR with filmmaker Desiree Akhavan
7:30pm
MICA Brown Center
Drama/Romance (2014). Shirin struggles to become an ideal Persian daughter, a politically correct bisexual, and a hip young woman from Brooklyn.
Tickets for these screenings will go on sale at the MICA Brown Center on the day of the event starting at 6:30pm.  Plenty of seating is available and no reservations are required.  Current Friends of the Festival can check in with their names at the MFF table and get 2 free tickets to the screening on the night of the show. To join or renew your Friends of the Festival membership, click here.

The MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series Returns with AFTER TILLER on Monday 2/10!

Published February 4, 2014 Uncategorized Closed
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AFTER TILLER

AFTER TILLER

We’re thrilled to announce the return of the MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series next Monday 2/10 with a screening of MFF 2013’s award-winning documentary, AFTER TILLER.  WYPR 88.1FM’s Sheilah Kast will interview the film’s co-director Martha Shane on stage after the screening, followed by a Q & A with the audience. For an archive of past MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series interviews, click here.

AFTER TILLER intimately explores the highly controversial subject of third-trimester abortions in the wake of the 2009 assassination of practitioner Dr. George Tiller. The procedure is now performed by only four doctors in the United States, all former colleagues of Dr. Tiller, who risk their lives every day in the name of their unwavering commitment toward their patients.

Spotlight-Bubble_v2_600pxSCREENING INFORMATION:
The MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series presents AFTER TILLER with co-director Martha Shane
Monday, February 10
7:30pm
MICA Brown Center’s Falvey Hall
1301 West Mt. Royal Street
Baltimore, MD
$10/FREE for FOFs and MICA Students      

Martha Shane (co-director/co-producer) is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker. From 2006 to 2008, she co-directed, produced and co-edited the feature documentary BI THE WAY (MFF 2008), which had its premiere at the SXSW film festival in 2008 and debuted on MTV’s LOGO channel in summer 2009. Subsequently, Shane worked as a freelance editor, producer, and cinematographer for projects ranging from a short documentary about a community health center in post-Katrina New Orleans to an experimental film about the Japanese writer Osamu Dazai. AFTER TILLER is her second feature documentary.

HOW TO GET 2 FREE TICKETS (must be a current Friend of the Festival to be eligible): Email tickets@mdfilmfest.com with your name and “AFTER TILLER” in the subject line to be added to the RSVP list for this screening.  On the night of the show, check in at the MFF table with your name to get your tickets.  To join or renew your Friends of the Festival membership, click here.

Photos from MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series screening of AMERICAN PROMISE!

Published October 21, 2013 Uncategorized Closed
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L to R: Michèle Stephenson, Jed Dietz, Joe Brewster and Tom Hall.

On October 11, the MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series and Open Society Institute teamed up to bring you a screening of the award-winning documentary AMERICAN PROMISE with special guests directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson.

The screening was followed by an interview with WYPR’s Tom Hall and the directors, followed by Q & A with the audience.  The AMERICAN PROMISE Spotlight Series interview will air on WYPR 88.1FM in advance of AMERICAN PROMISE’s debut on PBS on February 3, 2014.  Click here for more information.

AMERICAN PROMISE spans 13 years as Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, middle-class African-American parents in Brooklyn, N.Y., turn their cameras on their son, Idris, and his best friend, Seun, who make their way through one of the most prestigious private schools in the country. Chronicling the boys’ divergent paths from kindergarten through high school graduation at Manhattan’s Dalton School, this provocative, intimate documentary presents complicated truths about America’s struggle to come of age on issues of race, class and opportunity.

WYPR's Tom Hall interviews Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson at the MICA Brown Center.

WYPR’s Tom Hall interviews Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson at the MICA Brown Center.

MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series and Open Society Institute present AMERICAN PROMISE on 10/11!

Published September 30, 2013 Uncategorized Closed
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Brewster Family

The Stephenson-Brewster family featured in AMERICAN PROMISE. From Left to Right: Joe Brewster, Idris Brewster, Miles Brewster and Michèle Stephenson. Photo credit: Orrie King.

The MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series returns on Friday 10/11 with a special screening of AMERICAN PROMISE co-sponsored by the Open Society Institute at the MICA Brown Center at 7:00pm with film directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson. Following the screening of AMERICAN PROMISE there will be a 10-minute interview between WYPR’s Tom Hall and the directors, followed by Q & A with the audience.

AMERICAN PROMISE won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Achievement in Filmmaking at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

SCREENING DETAILS:
Friday, October 11th
7:00pm
MICA Brown Center
1301 West Mt. Royal Avenue
Baltimore, MD
$10/$5 students w ID/free for Friends of the Festival and MICA students

AMERICAN PROMISE spans 13 years as Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, middle-class African-American parents in Brooklyn, N.Y., turn their cameras on their son, Idris, and his best friend, Seun, who make their way through one of the most prestigious private schools in the country. Chronicling the boys’ divergent paths from kindergarten through high school graduation at Manhattan’s Dalton School, this provocative, intimate documentary presents complicated truths about America’s struggle to come of age on issues of race, class and opportunity.

The MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series Returns with GOD LOVES UGANDA on 9/24!

Published September 12, 2013 Uncategorized Closed
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god-loves-uganda-poster-LR-smallThe MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series returns on Tuesday 9/24 with a special screening of Academy Award-winning filmmaker and MFF alum Roger Ross Williams‘ GOD LOVES UGANDA at the MICA Brown Center at 7:00pm. Williams’ documentary short MUSIC BY PRUDENCE was screened within MFF 2010.

Following the screening of GOD LOVES UGANDA there will be a 10-minute interview between WYPR’s Tom Hall and Roger Ross Williams, followed by Q & A with the audience.   Click here for podcasts of past Spotlight Series interviews.

SCREENING DETAILS:
Tuesday, September 24th
7:00pm
MICA Brown Center
1301 West Mt. Royal Avenue
Baltimore, MD
$10/$5 students w ID/free for Friends of the Festival and MICA students

The feature-length documentary GOD LOVES UGANDA is a powerful exploration of the evangelical campaign to change African culture with values imported from America’s Christian Right.

The film follows American and Ugandan religious leaders fighting “sexual immorality” and missionaries trying to convince Ugandans to follow Biblical law.

GOD LOVES UGANDA premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 18th, 2013 and has won numerous awards at film festivals so far. The film serves as a catalyst for change, through our upcoming international screening tour and social action campaign.

“Roger Ross Williams’s forceful polemic succeeds to a startling degree, rightly decrying the use of the gospel to incite homophobia, and allowing the most fervent interviewees to damn themselves with their own proselytizing words. It’s strong, head-shaking stuff…”
– Variety

The MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series Presents 2013 Sundance Hit WHICH WAY IS THE FRONT LINE FROM HERE? THE LIFE AND TIME OF TIM HETHERINGTON on 3-27!

Published March 21, 2013 Uncategorized Closed
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WhichWayistheFrontLine

The MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series presents a special screening of Sebastian Junger‘s WHICH WAY IS THE FRONT LINE FROM HERE? THE LIFE AND TIME OF TIM HETHERINGON, an official selection of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, on Wednesday 3/27 at the MICA Brown Center, 7pm.

After the screening, WYPR’s Tom Hall will have a conversation with special guests photojournalist Harry Mattison, filmmaker Patrick Wright and MFF Director Jed Dietz that will be recorded and aired on WYPR at a later date.  This will be followed by a Q & A with the audience.  Click here for the archive of past Spotlight Series conversations.

MFF Director Jed Dietz was in attendance at the world premiere of this film at this year’s Sundance, along with Hetherington’s parents, Sebastian Junger and James Brabazon, a journalist who worked with Hetherington and was with him when he died.  Click here for Jed’s notes on this experience on the MFF blog.

The MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series presents
WHICH WAY IS THE FRONT LINE FROM HERE?
THE LIFE AND TIME OF TIM HETHERINGTON
Wednesday 3/27
7:00pm
MICA Brown Center
1301 West Mt. Royal Avenue
Baltimore, MD
$10/Free for Friends of the Festival, MICA and JHU Students (with ID)

Come early for dinner at Two Boots Pizza (located one block from the Brown center at 1203 W. Mt. Royal Avenue) and get 10% off your order when you mention “Maryland Film Festival!” They are making a special pizza just for this event, you won’t want to miss it!

Photojournalist and filmmaker Tim Hetherington (1970-2011) photographed the experience of war from the perspective of the individual, mostly in West Africa and the Middle East. His film RESTREPO, which he co-directed with Sebastian Junger about a platoon of soldiers in Afghanistan, was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2011 for Best Documentary Feature.

Hetherington’s footage of time he spent with the rebel army during Liberia’s civil war and in Libya prior to his untimely death from a mortar blast in 2011 conveys a rare sense of intimacy in sharp contrast to the violence surrounding him. Although he spent most of his time traveling to the epicenter of war zones, he was seeking the truth, rather than adventure. That is Hetherington‘s enduring gift.

In WHICH WAY IS THE FRONT LINE FROM HERE? THE LIFE AND TIME OF TIM HETHERINGTON, director Sebastian Junger gracefully weaves together footage of Hetherington at work and moving interviews with his family, friends, and colleagues to capture his compatriot and friend’s unique perspective, compassion, and intense curiosity about the human spirit.

Photo from the MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series Screening of THE SOURCE FAMILY

Published February 20, 2013 Uncategorized 1 Comment
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L to R: WYPR's Tom Hall, Jodi Wille, Explosion the Aquarian, and MFF Director Jed Dietz.

Left to Right: Tom Hall, Jodi Wille, Explosion the Aquarian and Jed Dietz.

Last night the Maryland Film Festival/WYPR Spotlight Series returned with THE SOURCE FAMILY (MFF 2012), with special guests co-director Jodi Wille and Source Family member Explosion the Aquarian.  The event took place at the MICA Brown Center’s Falvey Hall.

The MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series showcases the best of independent film and unites filmmakers with audiences. Each Spotlight Series film features a conversation between WYPR 88.1FM’s Tom Hall and the filmmaker, followed by a Q & A with the audience. Past titles in the series include BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, THE HOUSE I LIVE IN, THE INTERRUPTERS and THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE.

Click here for an archive of past Spotlight Series interviews.

We will be announcing our next MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series title shortly; stay tuned for details!

Next MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series Film: THE SOURCE FAMILY on 2/19!

Published February 1, 2013 Uncategorized 1 Comment
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The Source Family. Photo courtesy of THE SOURCE film website.

The Source Family. Photo courtesy of THE SOURCE FAMILY film website.

Maryland Film Festival is pleased to announce the next MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series Film, THE SOURCE FAMILY, which will screen on Tuesday 2/19 at the MICA Brown Center, 7:30pm, with special guests director Jodi Wille and Source Family member Explosion the Aquarian.  THE SOURCE FAMILY, directed by Jodi Wille and Maria Demopoulos, was an official documentary selection of the 2012 Maryland Film Festival and we are thrilled to bring it back to Baltimore for this special-event screening.

The MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series showcases the best of independent film and unites filmmakers with audiences.  Each Spotlight Series film features a conversation between WYPR 88.1FM’s Tom Hall and the filmmaker(s), followed by a Q & A with the audience .

MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series presents THE SOURCE FAMILY with special guests director Jodi Wille Source Family member Explosion the Aquarian
Tuesday, 2/19
7:30pm
MICA Brown Center
1301 W. Mt. Royal Ave.
Baltimore, MD
$7/Free for FOFs! 

The Source restaurant on the Sunset Strip, LA. Photo courtesy of THE SOURCE film website.

The Source restaurant on the Sunset Strip, LA. Photo courtesy of THE SOURCE FAMILY film website.

SYNOPSIS:
You’ve heard of the psychedelic-era spiritual family The Source, even if you don’t think you have. Their Sunset Strip restaurant was an L.A. mainstay for decades, a favorite of celebs like John and Yoko, and the setting of a crucial scene in ANNIE HALL. The family’s psych-rock band Ya Ho Wha 13 self-released dozens of LPs, now Holy Grails to record collectors and cutting-edge musicians. But these points of intersection with pop culture are just the public tip of an intensely private iceberg, finally unveiled in this brilliantly assembled documentary.

Central to their story is patriarch Father Yod, aka YaHoWha. A former marine, jujitsu expert, and stuntman born Jim Baker, by the 1950s he’d reinvented himself as a beatnik and pioneering vegetarian restaurateur. In 1969 he opened The Source restaurant, instantly a gathering place for hippies and other cultural outsiders. This community coalesced into a close-knit family that increasingly hung on Yod‘s every word, with results all at once beautiful, insular, and tragic. And for Yod, who’d already morphed from man of violence to spiritual guru, there was one major twist yet to come.

Throughout it all, members of the family rigorously documented their private and public moments alike. Maria Demopoulos and Jodi Wille have fused the cream of this rich self-documented history with ample archival context and eye-opening contemporary interviews. The result is, simply put, one of the major documentary events of the year, a riveting account of a group of people who forged their own stranger-than-fiction path.  (-2012 MFF Program Guide)

ABOUT JODI WILLE: Jodi Wille is copublisher of Dilettante Press and Process Media, the latter of which published The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, YaHoWha 13, and The Source Family in 2007.  She conceptualized and copublished Gary Lee Boas’ book Starstruck: Photographs from a Fan, and published Pure Country: The Leon Kagarise Archives 1961-1971 and Dear Andy Kaufman, I Hate Your Guts!, a Gold Medal winner at the 2010 Independent Book Awards. She has also worked as a television producer, photographer and music video director. She specializes in collaborating with individuals who have amassed personal archives that document American subcultures, covering subjects such as John Sinclair and MC5, Roky Erickson and The 13th Floor Elevators, Moondog, and Ya Ho Wha 13.

Official site for THE SOURCE FAMILY: http://thesourcedoc.com/

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