MIFF 2011 Program Highlights

MIFF to present Mid-Life Achievement Award to actor Malcolm McDowell
The 14th Annual Maine International Film Festival is thrilled to announce that this year’s Mid-Life Achievement Award honoree is Malcolm McDowell. A versatile and prolific actor with a career spanning over forty years, McDowell is probably best known for his starring role as the infamous Alex DeLarge in Stanley Kubrick’s, A Clockwork Orange. Malcolm McDowell will accept his award on Saturday, July 16 at Colby College’s Given Auditorium. A screening of O Lucky Man!, directed by Lindsay Anderson and starring a young McDowell, will be held in conjunction with the ceremony. To further celebrate McDowell’s achievements as an actor, Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, Mike Kaplan’s Never Apologize and Karen Shakhnarazov’s Assassin of the Tsar will also screen throughout the festival.

Discussion of Russian Films, July 17
After the screenings of Assassin of the Tsar (12:15) and Silent Souls (3:30), MIFF attendees are invited to join a discussion of these Russian films over dinner at the Thai Bistro (147 Main Street) starting at 5:15 pm. The discussion will be led by Elena Monastireva-Ansdell, Assistant Professor of Russian at Colby College whose field is Russian cinema and who teaches courses on contemporary Russian film. Direct questions to: Julie de Sherbinin, jwdesher@colby.edu, 207-313-2894.

Re-Discoveries
MIFF has always been committed to honoring cinema classics - the films that have inspired filmmakers around the world to pursue the art of filmmaking and dazzled generations of film-lovers. This year we have truly outdone ourselves with our most spectacular re-discovery section to date. Our selections include beautiful, newly restored prints of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist, arguably two of the most powerful and influential movies ever made, the classic 3:10 to Yuma, and R.W. Fassbinder's long lost, ahead of its time 1973 German sci-fi masterpiece, World on a Wire. Add rare archival prints of The Quiet Man, Madame Butterfly, Battleship Potemkin, and two classic 1930s documentaries, A Bronx Morning and The City, and you've got a program of re-discoveries that celebrates decades of filmmaking excellence across a variety of genres and aesthetics.

Special Guest Karen Young
If the world didn’t know—and it should!—that Karen Young is one of the best actresses on its surface, her brave, nuanced, complex, impassioned performance in Warrior Woman should serve notice once and for all. But great performances are nothing new to Karen, who’s given them in everything from big budget Hollywood films like Daylight with Sylvester Stallone and Heat with Burt Reynolds to key American indies like The Wife and Handsome Harry to foreign productions like Heading South and Bonne Annee to some of the best TV ever made like The Sopranos and Law and Order. And we know her at MIFF—this is her fourth visit to Waterville. We’d like to claim her as ours, but the truth is this extraordinary actress is simply her own incredible woman, as the three films of hers at this year’s MIFF—two of them brand spanking new—gorgeously show. Screening at MIFF 2011: Warrior Woman, The Green, and Heading South.

World Premiere of In Good Time, The Piano Jazz of Marian McPartland, a documentary film by Huey
Jazz legend, Marian McPartland, now 93, is documented in this film that explores her life and career as a pioneering woman jazz musician, composer, and host of NPR’s Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz. A native of England, McPartland arrived in America in 1948 with her husband Jimmy McPartland and went on to establish herself as one of the leading musicians in the jazz world. McPartland tells her own story through interviews filmed over 4 years. She is seen performing in concerts and clubs and recording her radio show. The film features McPartland’s own musical compositions and improvisations rich with harmonic inventions and lovely melody lines.

Making it in Maine Day, Saturday, July 23
Sponsored by the Maine Arts Commission and the Maine Film Office

34th Maine Student Film and Video Festival
The Maine Student Film Video Festival is open to Maine residents 19 years of age and younger. The movies submitted to the Festival are judged on the basis of originality, content, style, and technique. Movies are reviewed by categories: Pre-Teen Division, grades K–6; Junior Division, grades 7–8; and Senior Division, grades 9–12. All film genres are accepted and usually are entered from animation, documentary and narrative. Each year finalists’ and winners’ movies are selected for screening at the Public Screening and Awards Presentation held in conjunction with MIFF. A Grand Prize winner is selected each year and receives a $2,500 scholarship to the Young Filmmakers Program, donated by The Maine Media Workshops, Rockport, ME.
12:30 p.m., Railroad Square Cinema 1, Admission is free

Making it in Maine Reception, 5:00-6:30 p.m.
Tree Spirits Winery & Distillery, 152 Fairfield Street (Oakland)
Join us for a tasting of local spirits and complimentary hors d’oeuvres. Network with other filmmakers as well as representatives of the Maine Film Office, Maine Public Broadcasting Network, and Maine Arts Commission.

Maine-themed and Maine-made film screenings:
Falcons & Terrorists: A Political Wildlife Story, 1:00 p.m., Given Auditorium (Colby College)
The American Folk Festival, 3:15 p.m., Railroad Square Cinema 2
Ends in Themselves, 3:00 p.m., Railroad Square Cinema 3
Maine Shorts Showcase, 6:15 p.m., Railroad Square Cinema 2
An Uncommon Curiosity: At Home and in Nature with Bernd Heinrich, 3:30 p.m., Railroad Square Cinema 1
Dreaming the Quiet Man, 6:00 p.m., Railroad Square Cinema 3

Parties & Receptions

Party for Malcolm McDowell
Saturday, July 16, 9:30 p.m.
Apollo’s Bistro, 91 Silver Street, Waterville

Party for Karen Young
Monday, July 18, 8:30 p.m.
Riverside Farm Market, 291 Fairfield Street, Oakland

Sponsors & Filmmakers’ Reception*
Tuesday, July 19, 5:00 p.m.
Colby College Museum of Art Lobby, 4600 Mayflower Hill, Waterville
* invitation only

Student Filmmakers’ Reception
Saturday, July 23, 2:30 p.m.
Jorgensen’s Café, 103 Main Street, Waterville

Closing Night Party
Sunday, July 24, 9:30 p.m.
Mainely Brews Brewhouse & Restaurant, 1 Post Office Square, Waterville