Berkshire Bound

NewEnglandFilm.com offers highlights on films with New England ties, screening this month at the Berkshire International Film Festival.

By Amy Murphy

Breaking Pattern.  [Click to enlarge]

As in past years, the 2008 Berkshire International Film Festival boasts a broad line-up of docs, narratives, features and shorts.   The festival also honors special guest Kevin Bacon with the annual Achievement in Film Award on Friday May 16^th. 

The festival, which runs from May 15-18 at theaters in Great Barrington, MA, also features several films with regional ties.  According to Kelley Vickery, festival founder and director, both the underwriters and producers of a documentary about the international relief nonprofit, Doctors Without Borders, have strong connections to the Berkshire area.  Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders will have its world premiere at 7 pm on May 17th.  It screens again on May 18^th at 11:15 am. 

Douglas Trumbull, who lives in the Berkshires, will be present with a screening of Blade Runner.  Trumbull was the special effects supervisor for the 1982 Ridley Scott film, as well as classics such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Star Trek:  The Motion Picture.  Vickery calls him an industry icon. “He created some of the effects still used today,” she said. 

Three short films made in the region, Breaking Pattern, Return to Labradoria, and Love and Class in Connecticut, will also screen this year.  NewEnglandFilm.com had the chance to view these shorts in advance of the festival and provide the following reactions: 

Return to Labradoria.  [Click to enlarge]

Ryan Kampe’s beautifully filmed Breaking Pattern opens with lush, vivid colors.  It is summer in New England.  There is a mother with a baby.  All seems right with the world.  But before long it is obvious that the beautiful colors belie the bleakness of the characters’ lives.  In the short span of 15 minutes, Breaking Pattern gives us suspense, violence, social commentary, and a love story, or two.  Shot on location in Western Massachusetts with an all-local cast, the complex situations in Breaking Pattern give insight into life in small New England towns. 

Thomas Posson and Diego Ongaro’s Return To Labradoria is bizarre and enchanting.  (Diego Ongaro is a resident of Sandisfield, MA.)  The impossibly cheerful and completely unsuccessful wood salesman, Jacques, pines for his childhood dog, John John.  His love for John John interferes with his ability to interact normally in his day-to-day life.  A plot twist involves a space ship and a trip to Planet Labradoria...  Return to Labradoria is a film for anyone who has ever loved a pet.  I kept my dog by my side for the rest of the day.  It might make you want to run out and get a dog, or a goldfish, or a python, so you too can have the type of love Jacques shares with John John.  

Love and Class in Connecticut.  [Click to enlarge]

Susan Cinoman and Douglas Tenaglia’s Love and Class in Connecticut is a highly charged drama.  The acting, directing, and dialogue are so riveting that the viewer may not even notice: the whole movie takes place in one room.  An old story of family conflict told in a refreshingly contemporary way, this film shows us that families are complicated and someone else’s may even be more complicated than yours.  The entire crew is from Connecticut.  

Each of these shorts, so different from each other, shares an essential quality -- the ability to involve the viewer completely in the lives of those in the film.  Unlike a feature film, which can tell the whole story, these shorts show a vignette of a life, enough of the story to keep the viewer hooked but not enough to stop the viewer from wondering, “What happens next?” Each packs a punch that will stay with this viewer long after the credits role.  

The Berkshire International Film Festival runs May 15-18. 

Amy Murphy lives in and writes about film from the Boston area.

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