When I left Pittsburgh in 2011, I was a movie lover who worked in a library. By the time I moved to Baltimore in 2012 (following a transitional year in Westminster, Maryland), I had become a librarian who loved movies. The distinction is subtle, but important: whereas I reorganized my entire life to facilitate seeing as many films as possible at the Three Rivers Film Festival each year, the Maryland Film Festival was always an event that I scheduled around my obligations to work and, starting in 2016, family. I actually haven’t seen many films at the festival at all since I started serving as a volunteer in 2013: the theater captain shifts I typically signed up for each represented a six- to eight-hour commitment, so I had to choose whether each day of the festival was going to be one I worked or one where I watched, since as a parent I didn’t have time to do both.
This year’s MDFF is my last as a resident of Baltimore because (as I announced on Twitter earlier this month, but have not yet mentioned on this blog) I am moving to Ithaca, New York in June to begin a new job at Cornell University. To celebrate, I’ve decided to treat myself to an old school festival experience: I’m going to devote an entire day to seeing as many movies as I can. So as not to completely shirk all of my parental duties, I now (updating another recent Twitter post) plan to split this day up into two parts: I’m going to attend movies during the day on Friday and at night on Saturday, with one Thursday screening thrown in for good measure. As I did in days of yore, I’m posting my tentative schedule here. Please let me know if you think I should reconsider any of my choices, or if you’ll be in town and would like to meet up along the way! The full film guide can be found here. Without further ado:
Thursday, May 9
Two films in the last time slot on Thursday jump out at me: Mickey and the Bear, which is part of the ACID lineup at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and Premature. Stephen Saito saw the former at SXSW and the latter at Sundance and hailed both for their acting. This will probably be a game-time decision.
Friday, May 10
I should be able to see three movies on Friday. The first time slot features an impossible decision between Donbass and Manta Ray. Both have already spent some time on the festival circuit, where each of them picked up some impressive endorsements. Daniel Kasman saw Donbass at Cannes last year and described it as “the kind of film [the] festival should embrace, one which attacks the distress of the present with a virtuosic anger and desire to communicate experience.” Steve Dollar saw Manta Ray at New Directors/New Films earlier this month and said that it “has deep affinities with the work of Thailand’s better-known Apichatpong Weerasethakul, while inscribing the screen with its own uncanny grace.” Ray & Liz is also playing during this time slot. Daniel Kasman saw it at Locarno and called it “one of the few new films here I haven’t been able to stop thinking about,” but others who caught it there or at the New York Film Festival have been less enthusiastic, so I think I’m going to pass.
I’m leaning toward Fig Tree for my second film of the day. Ethiopia is a part of the world I’d like to know more about, and according to Michael Sicinski director Aäläm-Wärqe Davidian “is successful at generating an all-enveloping atmosphere of panic and confusion as she recreates 1989 Addis Ababa and the Ethiopian Civil War.” I am also intrigued by One Man Dies a Million Times, which Steve Dollar saw at the American Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland [note to self: research this event further!] and described as exerting “a hypnotic pull into its imagined world […] that is difficult to shake off once the lights come up.”
For my last film of the day I’ll likely either see Mickey and the Bear if I haven’t already or take a flyer on Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, which hasn’t yet been reviewed much, but is about media preservation, a topic that as a librarian obviously interests me.
Saturday, May 11
As a rule I always try to see at least a few short films at every film festival I attend, so that will definitely be a part of my Saturday viewing schedule. Candidates include the “Character Study,” “Altered States,” and “WTF” programs. Depending on which one(s) I go with, I might also see American Factory, which documents the opening of a Chinese factory in Dayton, Ohio or South Mountain, which Beatrize Loayza described as one of the highlights of SXSW.
The Prodigal Cinephile 