Listen up, film buffs – there’s a whole slew of film festivals coming up soon, the first of which is a road show of sorts.
On Saturday, the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival will make its first stop on its Best of the Fest New England Tour at Red River Theatres.
The festival, which is based in Middlebury, Vt., and held annually in August, is in its third year, and this will be the second time it has gone on tour. How it works is the winners of the previous year’s festival get to go on tour to all six New England states, where they’ll showcase their films.
“The plan is to have this happen every year after the festival concludes at the end of August,” said Phoebe Lewis, press manager for the festival.
“This will be the first time we’ll be hosted by Red River – I think – and the folks there have been fantastic, they’re a really great team,” she said.
The festival doesn’t really have a set theme or criteria, other than films submitted to the festival should really be the first or second attempt at filmmaking for the creator. In other words, you shouldn’t plan on seeing Quentin Tarantino or Ron Howard’s work at the next one.
As far as the content of the films, you never really know what you’re going to get. There is no limit or boundary to what the films can be about, and all genres are accepted.
“The films we get are a wide range of shorts, features, docs, narrative, experimental,” Lewis said.
The only requirement is that the films be complete, a rule many film festivals don’t have. “We don’t accept films that are works in progress.”
Although the festival is meant for first-time filmmakers, there is a little bit of wiggle room on that, Lewis said. The idea is to show films that represent something new from a creative standpoint, which doesn’t necessarily mean that the movie must be made by someone picking up a camera for the first time. For example, if somebody has made a short documentary before but now they want to make a feature-length drama, that would be acceptable. The idea is to get people thinking outside the box and stepping a bit out of their comfort zones.
“The really interesting thing about that is you get films from people from a wide range of backgrounds,” Lewis said. “You get veterans next to newcomers and it really creates an interesting rapport.”
Now, when you go to Red River on Saturday, the entire six-film program will be screened in a series of three double-bills with start times of 2, 5 and 8 p.m. The event will be hosted by the festival’s artistic director and filmmaker Jay Craven, alongside festival producer Lloyd Komesar.
Attending filmmakers will include Amy Geller and Allie Humenuk, co-directors of the MNFF Audience Award-winning feature documentary, The Guys Next Door, and Jesse Nesser, director of the MNFF Best Documentary, Walk With Me: The Trials of Damon J. Keith.
The winning films include three features and three shorts – an eclectic mix of documentary and narrative works that have collectively screened at Traverse City Film Festival, Denver Film Festival, NYC Docs, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and Nantucket Film Festival, among many others. So basically, these films are all legit and should definitely be on your radar.
And, as if that wasn’t enough to entice you, the whole thing will be shown in the swanky new room at Red River.
“The films will be presented in our recently renovated Simchik Cinema, with new 4K projection equipment, digital sound system, screen, seating and stylish decor,” said Red River programming specialist Barry Steelman.
All tickets are $12 and can be bought at redrivertheatres.org. For a full list of all the films, as well as detailed descriptions, go to the film festival website at middfilmfest.org.
