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Posts Tagged 'Tom Hall'

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

Published February 20, 2013 Uncategorized 1 Comment
Tags: Explosion the Aquarian, Jed Dietz, Jodi Wille, MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series, THE SOURCE FAMILY, Tom Hall, WYPR

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!

MFF presents next MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series film: THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE on 1/16!

Published December 18, 2012 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series, THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE, Tom Hall

MFF is pleased to present a special screening of Ken Burns, David McMahon and Sarah Burns’ award-winning documentary THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE on Wednesday 1/16 at the MICA Brown Center, 7pm.

MFF presents THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE
Wednesday, 1/16
7:00pm
MICA Brown Center
1301 West Mt. Royal
Baltimore, MD
$10/free for FOFs!

Want to see this movie for free? Join Friends of the Festival today and enjoy this and many other year-round membership benefits!

THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE will screen as part of the MFF/WYPR Spotlight Series. The Spotlight Series showcases the best in current independent cinema. Each screening features a conversation between the filmmaker/guest presenter and WYPR Maryland Morning host Tom Hall. (Click here for past Spotlight Series interviews with Kurt Schmoke, former Baltimore mayor and special guest for our 12/13 screening of THE HOUSE I LIVE IN, as well as interviews with Lucy Alibar, screenwriter for 2012 Sundance winner BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD and Steve James, director of THE INTERRUPTERS).

In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers were arrested and charged with brutally attacking and raping a white female jogger in Central Park. News media swarmed the case, calling them a “wolf pack.” The five would spend years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit before the truth about what really happened became clear. With THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE, this story of injustice finally gets the attention it deserves. Based on Sarah Burns‘ riveting book and co-directed by her husband David McMahon and father, the acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, this incendiary film tells the riveting tale of innocent young men scapegoated for a heinous crime, and serves as a mirror for our times.

Critic A. O. Scott of The New York Times said of the film, which he ranked as the fifth best documentary of 2012: “A notorious crime – the rape of a jogger in Central Park in 1989 – is revisited in this painful, angry, scrupulously reported story of race, injustice and media frenzy.”

MFF presents THE HOUSE I LIVE IN with special guest Kurt Schmoke, former Mayor of Baltimore and General Counsel for Howard University, on 12-13!

Published December 5, 2012 Uncategorized 3 Comments
Tags: Eugene Jarecki, Kurt Schmoke, The House I live in, Tom Hall, WYPR Spotlight Series

Maryland Film Festival is pleased to present a special screening of Eugene Jarecki‘s award-winning documentary THE HOUSE I LIVE IN with special guest former Baltimore mayor and General Counsel for Howard University Kurt Schmoke on Thursday, December 13th at 7pm at the MICA Brown Center.

After a more than sold out screening with the Open Society Institute last month, this is your chance to see the full film and also hear Kurt Schmoke be interviewed by WYPR’s Tom Hall after the screening!

This will be the next in the MFF/WYPR “Spotlight Series” showcasing the best new independent film titles with conversations between WYPR host Tom Hall and filmmakers whose movies are being shown over the course of the year by the festival. The interviews are aired on WYPR’s Maryland Morning the week following the screening. (Click here for the podcast of Tom Hall‘s interview with Lucy Alibar, screenwriter for 2012 Sundance winner BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD).

Maryland Film Festival presents THE HOUSE I LIVE IN
With special guest Kurt Schmoke
Thursday, December 13th
7:00pm
MICA Brown Center
1301 West Mount Royal Avenue
Baltimore, MD
$5/Free for FOFs!

Shot in more than twenty states, THE HOUSE I LIVE IN tells the stories of individuals at all levels of America’s War on Drugs. From the dealer to the narcotics officer, the inmate to the federal judge, the film offers a penetrating look inside America’s criminal justice system, revealing the profound human rights implications of U.S. drug policy.

Want to see this for FREE? Join Friends of the Festival today to get access to this sneak preview and dozens of other FREE screening opportunities year-round, including special access at our upcoming festival, May 8-12, 2013!

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!