Industry News

This Month

The Portland Public Library and Maine Jewish Film Festival host comic strip creator Ben Katchor (Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer and The Cardboard Valise) along with a screening of Pleasures of Urban Decay, a documentary short about his work, on September 5th, 5 pm at the Portland Public Library.   

A long list of Boston-area artists helped bring director Kate Churchill’s yoga doc Enlighten Up! to the big screen.  Churchill will be present at five screenings, slated between September 12-14, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  A reception follows the opening night show on Sept 12th.  Or catch it at Kendall Square Cinema, September September 19-25.  

Nancy Porter and Harriet Reisen’s literary documentary, Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women, screens at the MFA September 17th - October 18th.   

Martha's Vineyard International Film Festival runs September 11-14.

The 2008 Boston Film Festival is supposed to run September 12-18.

In Newport September 13-14?  See the second annual Southern New England Independent Film Festival. 

The next New Hampshire Film and Television Industry Roundtable, presented by the New Hampshire Film and Television Office, will take place September 17th from 12-3 pm in the auditorium of the Currier Museum of Art, 150 Ash St. in Manchester. 

Telluride by the Sea -- an annual program held at The Music Hall in Portsmouth, NH -- debuts six films “straight from their world premieres at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado,” September 19-21. 

Filmmaker, photographer, cartoonist, and designer Ken Brown will appear with a program of Pyschedelic Cinema, featuring experimental films he produced as the resident filmmaker for Boston’s Cinemateque and Rock Club, 1967-1969.  George Bragdon writes, “In their original context, they were joined by slides, strobes, and liquid projections, all of which formed a visual tapestry of light as a backdrop for countless concerts.”  Fittingly, live psychedelic music accompanies the program which was curated by the Balagan Film Series.  Check it out at the Coolidge Corner Theater on September 25th.

The Camden International Film Festival www.camdenfilmfest.org enters its fourth year, September 25-28, in Camden, Rockport, and Rockland, ME.  Opening night features a special work-in-progress of the Maine-inspired film, The Way We Get By by WGBH filmmakers in residence Gita Pullapilly and Aron Gaudet. September 27th showcases Ian Cheney's latest doc, The Greening of Southie, which chronicles the construction of Boston's very own green Macallen Building.  In addition on the 27th, a selection of shorts called Water in Maine: Short Films from the Collections of Northeast Historic Film will screen at The Farnsworth Art Museum; it includes the oldest surviving film shot in Maine.

Also showing September 26-28:  The Newburyport Documentary Film Festival, in Newburyport, MA.  Films with local ties include Bleeding Green, The Dhamma Brothers, Killer Poet, Secrecy, Today the Hawk Takes One Chick, and Waiting for Hockney. 

The Fifth Annual New Haven Underground Film Festival returns on September 27th with “a full-day slate of provocative, entertaining and just plain odd movies.”  The program will run from 12 noon to 7 pm at the University of Hartford in West Hartford, CT. 

Coming Soon

Normally Boston Film Night happens in September.  At press time plans were still underway, and Midnight Chimes is asking for films, so says the Internets.

The 2nd Annual Ruff Cutz Indie Film Conference will be presented in Boston November 14-16 at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University.  Learn how to submit your film and see a complete schedule of events at www.rcifc.com. 

The LEF Foundation announced some major changes in their funding programs. The two most significant include increased funding for independent documentary film and the end of the Contemporary Work Fund.  New guidelines will be made public in November.  NewEnglandFilm.com will report in more depth this fall.

The Tribeca Film Festival (April 22 - May 3, 2009) opens its call for films on September 15th and its call for applications to the Tribeca Film Institute on September 22nd.   

Held Over

Audiences can’t get enough of Northampton’s Young @ Heart chorus, or the documentary about its way-hip elderly singers, so it returns to the The Music Hall, starting September 28th. 

Daniel Berman is looking for independent filmmakers to profile in half-hour segments on his show, A Time to Review, now entering its ninth season on Brookline Access Television.  He’ll give films that "fly under the proverbial radar" special consideration. 

According to the NH Filmmaker Notebook, the Portsmouth Peace Treaty Forum is seeking stories from those who participated in the 1982 production of Flags Over Portsmouth -- from actors, to extras, production assistants, drivers, and even caterers.  Contact www.portsmouthpeacetreaty.com.  

The Woods Hole Film Festival (held in August) announced the winners of this year’s New England Emerging Filmmaker awards: the feature Dribbles by Thomas and Heidi Tosi (NH), the documentary Traces of the Trade by Katrina Browne (MA), and the short Once Upon a Tide by Kathleen Frith (MA).  Adam Jones (NH) won Best Short Comedy for Nowhere Fast; Connor Simpson (MA) won Best Short Experimental for The Holomover and Hortense Gerardo (MA) took home the Best Cape Cod Section for Fourhand.  For a complete list of 2008 awards visit www.woodsholefilmfestival.org. 

A TV pilot by Boston comediennes Marty Johnson and Leah Gotcsik, made in collaboration with director Michael Kuell and producer Jennifer Cobb of JetPak Productions, has been accepted into the 2008 New York Television Festival (September 12-17).  Today’s Special follows the exploits Connie Roche and Marlene Mapplethorpe, stars of a regional New Hampshire home-shopping channel, as they fight for survival when a powerful rival network appears.

PS:  Do you know anyone who has plans to re-release her or his film?  We are working on a story about it and would like to hear your thoughts and experiences!

Screenings, festivals, meetings and other events at at www.NewEnglandFilm.com/events/

Related Image: Fluid fonts and psychic light characterize Brown's 8mm films from the late 60s