SNEAK PREVIEW
We can't reveal the title of the new film starring our Mid-life Achievement Award Winner, but we can tell you that it's highly anticipated, locally relevant, and something indeed to look forward to in a big way.
7/7-7:00-OH
A.J.'S DOGUMENTARY
A hilarious excursion into the world of Southern California dogs and dog owners, from doggy day care and acupuncture to psychics and Prozac. Shown with THE SKUNK WHISPERER.
7/8-5:00-RR1, 7/10-5:00-RR1
Films listed by day: KEY  RR1 - Railroad Square Cinema screening room #1 (150 seats) RR2 - Railroad Square Cinema screening room #2 (90 seats) OH - Waterville Opera House (940 seats) All times are PM unless otherwise stated. Individual tickets available at venues shortly before show times. Passholders receive priority seating, subject to availability.
Ex. (7/12 - 9:30 - RR1) reads July 12, 9:30 PM at Railroad Square Cinema Screening Room #1
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Some of the most exciting young actors in American film — including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Kline, Phoebe Cates and John C. Reilly — in a serio-comic look at a loose group of L.A. friends.
7/8-7:00-RR1
THE BIG ANIMAL
Based on a screenplay by Krzystof Kieslowski, a quietly comedic parable about the price of individuality in a story about a Polish
couple who adopt a camel.
7/7-7:15-RR1, 7/10-9:30-RR1, 7/13-7:15-RR1
BIG EDEN
A burgeoning gay New York artist returns to his native Montana in a warm comedy about love, friendship and family. A Best Film audience award winner at many festivals.
7/14-7:00-RR1, 7/15-1:00-RR1
THE BUFFALO WAR
The dramatic and emotional battle between environmentalists and Native Americans on one side and Montana ranchers on the other over the last free roaming buffalo herd.
7/12-5:15-RR1, 7/13-5:15-RR1
CARRIE
Sissy Spacek achieved stardom in her role as an innocent, tormented high school student who enacts supernatural revenge on her tormenters. Based on a Stephen King novel and featuring a pre-stardom John Travolta.
7/9-7:00-OH
C.R. LAWN'S KEYNOTE SPEECH AT THE MOFGA COMMON GROUND COUNTRY FAIR
A rousing and thought-provoking exploration of the issues raised by genetic engineering and the threat to human health and ecological balance posed by world corporate control of nutritional resources.
Shown with SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE.
7/8-1:00-OH, 7/10-9:15-RR2
CHAIN CAMERA
10 L.A. high school students are given a camera and a week to film their lives; then they pass the camera on to a classmate. The result is a frequently hilarious, always compassionate and above all, completely honest portrait of young people today.
7/7-7:00-RR2, 7/8-1:15-RR2, 7/9-7:15-RR2
COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER
with presentation of award before the screening
Spacek won a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of country singer Loretta Lynn over several decades, singing the songs herself. Co-starring Tommy Lee Jones and nominated for 7 other Oscars including Best Film.
7/8-7:00-OH
DAUGHTERS OF THE SUN
A poor father disguises his daughter as a man and sends her to work in a weaving workshop, where another young woman falls in love with her. A beautiful, deeply felt and resonant film from Iran.
7/13-5:00-RR2, 7/14-7:00-OH
THE DAY I BECAME A WOMAN
Three loosely intertwined, richly poetic tales of women in contemporary Iran, spanning adolescence, womanhood and old age.
7/11-7:00-RR2, 7/14-5:00-RR1
DOWN FROM THE
MOUNTAIN
A joyous celebration of the roots American folk music featured in the soundtrack to O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?, captured live at a one-time concert by the soundtrack's musicians, including Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Ralph Stanley and others.
7/15-7:30-OH
EL REY DE ROCK 'N' ROLL
With songs like "You Ain't Nothin' But a Chihuahua," El Vez, "the Mexican Elvis" links popular culture and popular issues. Showing with ROAD SONGS: A PORTRAIT OF ROBBIE ROBERTSON.
7/7-5:00-RR1, 7/9-7:00-RR1, 7/12-9:15-RR1
EMPRESS OF CARNIVAL
Explores the making and history of one of the world's most dazzling, sound-and-sight-filled events, Rio de Janeiro's Carnival parade.
7/12-7:15-RR1, 7/13-9:15-RR2, 7/14-1:00-RR1
EROTIC TALES
Three half hour erotic films, some sensual, some funny, some both, from directors Susan Seidelman ("The Dutch Master," an Oscar nominee featuring Mira Sorvino), Hal Hartley ("Kimono") and former MIFF Mid-Life Achievement Award Winner Jos Stelling ("The Gas Station").
7/6-9:30-RR1, 7/9-5:15-RR2, 7/10-7:00-RR1
EUREKA
"There's every reason to predict that EUREKA will become one of the landmarks of world cinema" — Kevin Thomas, L.A. Times. Immense (3 and 3/4 hour) Japanese film about the internal process of healing for three survivors of a bus hijacking.
7/12-7:00-RR2, 7/15-3:15-RR2
GEORGE WASHINGTON
David Gordon Green's film (which has nothing to do with our founding father) about a group of young
people in a rural North Carolina town has been universally acclaimed: "Original in every atom
of its being" (Roger Ebert); "The best film of the year; goes against almost every trend that is
popular in contemporary film culture" — Armond White.
7/8-3:15-RR2, 7/12-7:00-OH
THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE RUSSIAN
Based on Willis Johnson's book and set in the Russian expatriate community of Richmond, Maine in the 1970s, where a group of White Russians remember their former lives but adapt to a new land.
7/11-7:00-OH, 7/14-3:15-RR2
DER GOLEM
With live, original piano accompaniment by Doug Protsik. A newly restored sequence is featured in the 1915 classic of German Expressionism, based on a Jewish folktale about a rabbi who conjures up a clay man.
7/13-7:00-OH
I LOVE BUDAPEST
Refreshing, vivacious and inventive first film about a bright but naive young country woman who comes to the city to experience excitement and romance.
7/14-9:15-RR1, 7/15-1:15-RR2
I WILL SURVIVE
Vibrant new Spanish film about a young woman dealt some low blows by the indignities of life who finally finds love with a charming, handsome, loving man . . . who happens to be gay.
7/6-9:30-RR2, 7/8-7:15-RR2
JUMP TOMORROW
An awkward young man from Nigeria falls for a Spanish beauty. But in this quirky cross-cultural adventure, each is promised to another, and only a very strange road trip can bring them together.
7/6-7:15-RR2, 7/8-5:00-RR2
LAKEBOAT
From David Mamet's screenplay, a remarkable and nearly all-male cast including Charles Durning, Peter Falk, Denis Leary and Robert Forster, deliver a film about storytelling, the nature of man and the nature of men, set on a freighter on the Great Lakes.
7/11-9:15-RR2, 7/13-7:00-RR2, 7/14-9:15-RR2
THE LAST LAUGH
F.W. Murnau's (NOSFERATU) silent-era classic about a proud doorman who struggles to keep his dignity when he is arbitrarily fired. New lab print.
7/11-5:15-RR1
LONESOME
Set and shot in central Maine (including Damariscotta and the Blistered Fingers Bluegrass Festival in Sidney), where a teenage New York runaway encounters a laconic but compassionate country-singing cowboy.
7/9-9:00-RR1, 7/11-5:00-RR2
MAINE STUDENT FILM & VIDEO AWARDS SCREENING
Short films and excerpts of works by Maine's most talented young film and videomakers.
7/7-1:00PM-RR1
MAINE FILMMAKERS' SHOWCASE
Explore the range of fine Maine filmmaking, from documentary (STAN'S, about a general store in Township 16, Range 4) to animation (EL CHOKO) to personal (DEUX LANGUES, DEUX PERSONNES, in which a young woman rediscovers her Franco-American heritage) to sci-fi spoof (THEY CAME TO ATTACK US).
7/7-3:00-RR1
THE MISSION
From Johnny To, the director of THE HEROIC TRIO, comes a lean, tough, quietly very funny tale of honor among hitmen. Perhaps the best Hong Kong film in years.
7/7-9:30-RR2, 7/10-7:15-RR2, 7/14-3:00-RR1
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CHICKEN
From the director of CANE TOADS, the hilarious and moving true stories of people and their chickens, including Harpswell's Janet Bonney, who revived her frozen fowl with mouth-to-beak recussitation.
7/7-9:30-RR1, 7/8-3:30-RR1, 7/14-5:30-RR2
PRINCES AND PRINCESSES
From the director of KIRIKOU AND THE
SORCERESS, a charming, sly and beautiful series of folk tales from around the world told through silhouette and shadow animation.
7/8-9:30-RR2, 7/14-1:00-OH, 7/15-3:30-RR1
RECYCLED CINEMA
Strange and wonderful things
happen when thieves, scavengers, hunters and gatherers of old "found" film footage turn their
discoveries into new films. A
program of 8 exploratory short films.
7/11-9:15-RR1
ROAD SONGS: A
PORTRAIT OF ROBBIE ROBERTSON
The musical life
of the legendary guitarist/singer of The Band is profiled by MIFF favorite Bruce McDonald. Showing with EL REY DE ROCK 'N' ROLL.
7/7-5:00-RR1, 7/9-7:00-RR1, 7/12-9:15-RR1
SANDSTORM
A drama so incendiary it's been banned in its native India. A Rajasthani woman bravely challenges the Indian caste and legal system when she seeks justice for a rape.
7/7-12:45-RR2, 7/10-4:45-RR2
SHADOW GLORIES
Set and shot in Lewiston, Ziad Hamzeh's resourceful, sleek indie film focuses on a retired kickboxer who wishes to pass his hard won knowledge about life to his protege, a fierce female kickboxer who wants to take on the vicious world champion.
7/10-7:00-OH, 7/14-1:00-RR2
SPIRITS OF HAVANA
Jazz sax/flutist Jane Bunnett visits Cuba. A high-spirited celebration of political, cultural and musical interaction.
7/12-5:00-RR2, 7/14-7:15-RR2
THE STRAIGHT STORY
David Lynch's hugely successful film about an aging farmer who drives his tractor across several states in a quest to see his estranged brother features a small but brilliant performance by Spacek as his impaired daughter.
7/8-1:00-RR1
SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE
Exploring a movement that speaks to both ecological concerns and economically feasible farming in Maine, Richard Searles' film draws on interviews with local organic farmers. Shown with C.R. LAWN'S KEYNOTE ADDRESS.
7/8-1:00-OH, 7/10-9:15-RR2
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE
"THE documentary account of the first great political democratic struggle of the 21st century" (Robert McChesney), the anti-WTO protests in Seattle. Shown with "!?" a new short film about the Quebec City protest. Discussion to follow.
7/8-9:30-RR1, 7/9-5:00-RR1
THE TURANDOT PROJECT
Conductor Zubin Mehta and director Zhang Yimou combine forces to stage a spectacular version of Puccini's opera Turandot in the Forbidden City in Beijing, China.
7/11-7:00-RR1, 7/15-1:00-OH
VENGO
The director of LATCHO DROM and GADJO DILO takes us to Andalusia for a spectacular, sun-seared excursion into Gypsy music and culture, half folktale, half concert.
7/6-7:00-RR1, 7/7-3:15-RR2, 7/9-9:15-RR2
VISIONS
5 truly magnificent short films, each powered by a director's strong and absolutely unique vision, including Guy Maddin's THE HEART OF THE WORLD, Devon Damonte's CATSICLE and Nancy Andrews' brilliant Maine-made HEDWIG PAGE,
SEASIDE LIBRARIAN.
7/13-9:15-RR1
THE WEIGHT OF WATER
Set on Smuttynose Island off the coast of Maine, a murder mystery that takes place in both the distant past and the present, starring Sean Penn and Elizabeth Hurley, from director Kathryn Bigelow (STRANGE DAYS,
NEAR DARK). Rated R for violence and sexuality.
7/6-7:00-OH, 7/7-1:00-OH