Bringin’ it all back home

The PFWC tries to put Portland on the movie map

By Mike Miliard

The Portland Festival of World Cinema runs October 10 through 14. Log on to www.filmmaine.com, or call (207) 772-6600, for more information.

AWARD WINNER:: Mick’s antics in Gimme Shelter help Albert Maysles garner the John Ford Lifetime Achievement award.

Film festivals these days are as common and ubiquitous as barnacles on a hull. In the last year alone, I’ve reviewed the Boston Irish Film Festival, the Boston Jewish Film Festival, and the plain ol’ Boston Film Festival. I’ve done The New England Film aný Video Festival. I’ve sat through the Rhode Island School of Design Film/Animation & Video Festival and the Providence Women’s Film Festival. This summer I had the pleasure of covering both the Maine International Film Festival and the Northeast Silent Film Festival right here at home (missed the Maine Jewish Film Festival, but you get the idea). All of them are fine events. Still, the question must be asked: do we need another? In the case of MovieMaker magazine’s Portland Festival of World Cinema, the answer would seem to be yes.

First published nine years ago in Seattle, then L.A., MovieMaker relocated to its current Exchange Street offices last year when its editor and publisher, Maine native Timothy E. Rhys, came back to raise his kids. Sure, Maine is a perfect place to raise a family. But isn’t it a less than ideal locale for a magazine about the film industry? It is, says festival coordinator Steven Jones. And that’s exactly why they’re putting this thing on.

“I lived in California for 20 years,” he explains. “That’s a very film-rich environment. And I love Maine — you couldn’t blast me out of here. But we are a small market. A lot of independent films and films that don’t get a wide distribution don’t get shown in Maine. And that’s not our fault.”

The other reason MovieMaker is able to operate 3000 miles from Hollywood is that it’s not a magazine about Hollywood, nor is it exclusively devoted to the burgeoning independent cinema movement. It is, in Jones’s words, a magazine about “good film,” more specifically, the act of making good-film. So it should come as no surprise that the festival’s organizing principles are two-fold.

“We decided that not only would the festival be a competition, with a call for entries from around the world,” Jones says. “But we’d use it as a vehicle to screen things you wouldn’t normally see around here.” Thus, not only will the films screening variously at the Movies on Exchange, the State Theater, the Portland Museum of Art, the Center for Cultural Exchange, and the St. Lawrence Performing Arts Center include the best of more than 180 indie entries from Maine and the rest of the USA, Canada, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Switzerland, and elsewhere, but organizers have also put together specialized genre-specific “sidebars.” The sidebar of classic Italian cinema, for instance, features Vittorio De Sica’s gritty, wistful The Bicycle Thief — considered by many to be one of the best films of all time — and Roberto Rossellini’s neo-realist wartime drama Open City. The film noir sidebar includes edge-of-your-seat classics like Billy Wilder’s steamy Double Indemnity and Jaques Tourneur’s stylish Out of the Past.

For the kids, the fest includes a program of classic children’s cinema — Red Balloon, Revenge of the Red Balloon (a new movie wherein the helium filled protagonist of the original 1956 film exacts revenge on those who would have it popped), and Paddle to the Sea — shown on Saturday morning. It’s hoped that this is an event that will resonate even after the fest has closed up shop. Says Jones, “We want to go back to the idea of kids going to the movies on Saturdays.” (Underscoring just how rare these films are becoming, organizers were forced to procure prints from the Harvard Film Archive in Cambridge and from the Canadian Film Board; those were the only places they could be found.)

And what would a film fest be without special guests? To wit: Lloyd Kaufman (Troma studios founder, indie film trailblazer and auteur of the hilariously grotesque) comes to town with his film Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger Part 4. The Polish Brothers, Mark and Michael, who garnered so much attention with their bizarre-but-beautiful 1999 debut Twin Falls Idaho, will be on hand to screen their latest, Jackpot. Legendarily versatile character actress Karen Black will journey aboard Casco Bay Lines to the Peaks Island Lions Club for the screening of Karen Holly’s short “Ms. Representation,” in which she stars. The ubiquitous Stanley Tucci (Big Night, Joe Gould’s Secret) will be there, too. He has no movie to flog, but he’s coming anyway, because the whole thing looks so fun. “He’s gonna be our all-around guy,” Jones jokes.

A very special guest is Albert Maysles — called “the Dean of American Documentaries” by Jones. First, he’ll be there to introduce his classic films, Gimme Shelter (which documents the Rolling Stones’ 1969 tour, culminating in the infamous, chaotic mayhem at Altamont) and Salesman, a doc that unflinchingly depicts the “quiet desperation” endured by its title characters. More momentously, the legendary filmmaker will be bestowed with the first-ever John Ford Lifetime Achievement Award.

Indeed, Portland’s famous son looms large over the festivities. One of the festival’s most intriguing panel discussions focuses on the man whose statue sits imposingly at Gorham’s Corner. In “The Legacy of John Ford,” fans and scholars — including former mayor Jack Dawson, Brandeis professor Thomas Doherty, Bowdoin professor Tricia Welsch and, natch, Bowdoin Football Coach Emeritus Howard Vandersea — will discuss various aspects of the life and career of this massively prolific and hugely influential director; a man whose career, Jones reminds us, encapsulated “the cinema of 20th century.”
Another locally relevant panel discussion, and one that speaks to the festival’s expressed aims of encouraging new Maine filmmakers, is called, naturally enough, “Making Your Movie in Maine. Members of the Maine Film and Video Association will discuss their experiences, give advice, and inspire attendees to make films in the Pine Tree State. “It’s meant to be a passionate interface between filmmakers and the audience,” Jones says, adding, “the filmmakers are great. They really give of their time. This is a really a great thing.”

Other panels include “Truth in Film: A Discussion on Documentary Moviemaking” and “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Movies . . . But Were Afraid to Ask.” All are free and open to the public.

On a different note, as if a reminder was needed that the tragedies of September 11 affected all of us in some way, the festival will also take time out to honor Herman Sandler, a long-time spiritual and financial booster of MovieMaker, who lost his life on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center. “He loved the magazine and was an early supporter,” says Jones. “He’ll be acknowledged.”

Part of that tribute will be the screening of Avi Nesher’s Rage and Glory (Za’am V’Tehilah). Made in 1985, it tells the story of the Lehi, an Israeli terrorist group that resisted the British occupation of Palestine during World War II. Originally banned by the Israeli government, it has only now been allowed to screen for the public. Director Avi Nesher will be in attendance, says Jones, and will speak about the motivations of terrorism. Shown twice, the proceeds from one screening will go entirely to the World Trade Center Fund.

So there you have it. For five days at least, film buffs in “small-market” and “venue-starved” Portland are spoiled for choice. If MovieMaker stays true to its vision, perhaps the idea of Maine becoming a film capital aren’t as far-fetched as they may seem. So, can we expect this to be an annual occurrence? “Absolutely,” says Jones. “We’re already planning the second year.”

Mike Miliard can be reached at mmiliard@phx.com.