THE MAINE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Of all the regional film festivals in New England, far and away the best curated festival is The Maine Internatiional Film Festival which is a l0day festival that has run for 10 years in mid-July in Waterville, Maine. Although Waterville is hardly a destination (there's a nice river and Colby College, and an indesernable night life), there are Ken and Beth Eisen.
The Eisens operate the 3-screen Railroad Square Cinema, Waterville's version of the Kendall Square, so, over the years, the theatre itself has built a following. The Eisen's also run Shadow Distribution, a small film distribution company which had handled such great documentaries as LATCHO DROM and THE WILD PARROTS OF TELEGRAPH HILL. They also attend festivals (I first met them in Toronto. In other worlds, they are immersed in every phase of the art house/independent film scene. They know - and LOVE film, and their festival shows it. Going to their festival is unique. Waterville is hardly a destination, but over the years they have brought people like Terence Malick, Sissy Spacek, John Pierson, Ed harris, Lily Taylor, Rebecca miller, and this year Bud Cort. But the atmosphere is hardly a celebrity one.
Since the Eisenbs have built such a personal following over the years, it fvells a little bit like some old friends inviting you over to their house to share with you some film that they really love. People there know them so well that they don't even bother to introduce themselves to the audience.
Unlike other festivals, they don't use submissioins (no Without a Box here0. Usually the only films that apply are films made in Maine. And, to be sure, there are some films that the distributors that Ken works with want to have shown to do market testing.
Nevertheless, there was in impressive array of films.. In addition to the independents and the usual Eastern films (Ken must be a closet Buddist), there was a retrospective of the works of the great French filmmaker Jacques Rivette (three shows of the 3-1/2 hour CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING with good attendance). They also shows an amazing film from l988, a Swiss film called MACAO, that is one of the great undiscovered films, that has a narattive structure that would make Charlie Kaufman envious. For Bud Cort, they not only showed tje usual MASH, HAROLD AND MAUDE and BREWSTER MCCLOUD, but they unearthed a video of Bud Cort's favorite film, I DANCE ALONE, a film within a film about the daughter of Nijinski/
They also showed two great films that are not going to get commercial distribution, C.R.A.Z.Y., a disfunctional family film from Montreal that spans thirty years and has a great sound track (Patsy Cline, Jim Morrison, the Rolling Stones, etc. - that's the reason the film won't get distribution - the myusic rights are too expensive), and FOUR MINUTES, a German film that won as many German Oscar equivalents as THE LIVES OF OTHER, but there is only one print and it is playing mostly in gay and lespbian festivals before coming out on DVD. Then ther was GIRLS RCK, a documentatry that Shadow is distributing about a rock and roll camp for girls from age 7-17, that has the same appeal as MAD HOT BALLROOM and SPELLBOUND, but goes deeper and more imaginatively into the issues that face girls in that age range.
finally on the local front, there was KNEE DEEP, a documentary about a Maine man who tried to kill his mother when she sold the family farm from under him = a fascinating variation a BROTHERS KEEPER, with some of the tone of a Christopher Guest film. It will be seen outside of Maine.
So, in spite of Waterville itself, one ought to consider a journey there. Nearby Belgrade Lake is truly beautiful and restful. But it is the festival itself that one experiences a genuinely shared experience.
The Eisens operate the 3-screen Railroad Square Cinema, Waterville's version of the Kendall Square, so, over the years, the theatre itself has built a following. The Eisen's also run Shadow Distribution, a small film distribution company which had handled such great documentaries as LATCHO DROM and THE WILD PARROTS OF TELEGRAPH HILL. They also attend festivals (I first met them in Toronto. In other worlds, they are immersed in every phase of the art house/independent film scene. They know - and LOVE film, and their festival shows it. Going to their festival is unique. Waterville is hardly a destination, but over the years they have brought people like Terence Malick, Sissy Spacek, John Pierson, Ed harris, Lily Taylor, Rebecca miller, and this year Bud Cort. But the atmosphere is hardly a celebrity one.
Since the Eisenbs have built such a personal following over the years, it fvells a little bit like some old friends inviting you over to their house to share with you some film that they really love. People there know them so well that they don't even bother to introduce themselves to the audience.
Unlike other festivals, they don't use submissioins (no Without a Box here0. Usually the only films that apply are films made in Maine. And, to be sure, there are some films that the distributors that Ken works with want to have shown to do market testing.
Nevertheless, there was in impressive array of films.. In addition to the independents and the usual Eastern films (Ken must be a closet Buddist), there was a retrospective of the works of the great French filmmaker Jacques Rivette (three shows of the 3-1/2 hour CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING with good attendance). They also shows an amazing film from l988, a Swiss film called MACAO, that is one of the great undiscovered films, that has a narattive structure that would make Charlie Kaufman envious. For Bud Cort, they not only showed tje usual MASH, HAROLD AND MAUDE and BREWSTER MCCLOUD, but they unearthed a video of Bud Cort's favorite film, I DANCE ALONE, a film within a film about the daughter of Nijinski/
They also showed two great films that are not going to get commercial distribution, C.R.A.Z.Y., a disfunctional family film from Montreal that spans thirty years and has a great sound track (Patsy Cline, Jim Morrison, the Rolling Stones, etc. - that's the reason the film won't get distribution - the myusic rights are too expensive), and FOUR MINUTES, a German film that won as many German Oscar equivalents as THE LIVES OF OTHER, but there is only one print and it is playing mostly in gay and lespbian festivals before coming out on DVD. Then ther was GIRLS RCK, a documentatry that Shadow is distributing about a rock and roll camp for girls from age 7-17, that has the same appeal as MAD HOT BALLROOM and SPELLBOUND, but goes deeper and more imaginatively into the issues that face girls in that age range.
finally on the local front, there was KNEE DEEP, a documentary about a Maine man who tried to kill his mother when she sold the family farm from under him = a fascinating variation a BROTHERS KEEPER, with some of the tone of a Christopher Guest film. It will be seen outside of Maine.
So, in spite of Waterville itself, one ought to consider a journey there. Nearby Belgrade Lake is truly beautiful and restful. But it is the festival itself that one experiences a genuinely shared experience.
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