Sheilah Kast | Maryland Film Festival Blog

Posts Tagged 'Sheilah Kast'

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

Published February 25, 2015 Documentary Film , Film Screening Closed
Tags: Darius Clark Monroe, EVOLUTION OF A CRIMINAL, MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series, Sheilah Kast

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.

This 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)

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

Published February 4, 2014 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: AFTER TILLER, Martha Shane, MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series, Sheilah Kast

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.

SCREENING 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.

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD Opens Today in New York and Los Angeles to Rave Reviews!

Published June 27, 2012 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin, Lucy Alibar, Sheilah Kast, Tom Hall

Maryland Film Festival and WYPR 88.1FM have teamed up to bring a new Spotlight Series of highly-anticipated, critically-acclaimed independent films to Baltimore, followed by a radio interview of the filmmaker(s) with WYPR’s Tom Hall. These 10-minute radio interviews follow the film screening and are recorded in front of the live audience, to be played on 88.1FM’s Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast radio show.

The first film in our Spotlight Series was Benh Zeitlin‘s epic BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, which was screened on June 5th at MICA with special guest screenwriter Lucy Alibar. This was an exclusive Friends of the Festival sneak preview.

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD opens in theaters today in New York and Los Angeles, and opens at the Charles Theater on Friday, July 13th, the day that Tom’s interview with Lucy Alibar airs on WYPR’s Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast.

Check out this excerpt of a review of BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD in today’s Los Angeles Times:

Director Benh Zeitlin and his co-writer Lucy Alibar, a playwright whose “Juicy and Delicious” was the inspiration, have created characters that are wondrously indelible, distinctive of voice and set them inside a story that will unleash a devastating hurricane, and a flood of emotions, before it is done.

This is a remarkably skilled first feature for the filmmakers and its fusion of fable and soulful reality has been widely embraced on the festival circuit starting with Sundance in January, where it won the top prize. Last month it added the prestigious Camera d’Or at Cannes, marking it essentially the best of the best, and no doubt more notice will deservedly follow.

-Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times

Click here for the complete Los Angeles Times review!

Also, check out this excerpt of a review of BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD in today’s The New York Times:

This movie is a blast of sheer, improbable joy, a boisterous, thrilling action movie with a protagonist who can hold her own alongside Katniss Everdeen, Princess Merida and the other brave young heroines of 2012.

– AO Scott, The New York Times

Click here for the complete The New York Times review!

Stay tuned for more films to be announced in the MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series, coming soon!