Whether traveling aboard a wooden sloop, laden with climbing gear or carrying traditional aboriginal spears, films from around the world are about to arrive on the Vineyard. The 10th annual Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival officially begins on Thursday, Sept. 10.
In the projection room of the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center in Vineyard Haven there is one Mac computer on a desk and two small flatscreen Toshiba monitors mounted on a tall unit that controls film projection. On the floor and on a nearby table are several small crates, some orange and some muddy silver, all marked with return FedEx labels. Ship To: BURBANK, CA.
This weekend the Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival continues at venues throughout Vineyard Haven. The opening night ceremonies heralded in a new era as the first-ever film was screened at the new festival center located at 72 Beach Road in the Tisbury Marketplace.
The movie lineup continues through Sunday, at which point 22 films from around the world will have been showcased. A full schedule can be found online at mvfilmfest.com
This week, five downtown Vineyard Haven venues will become portals
to far off places like Chile, New Zealand, Bosnia, South Africa, France
and Iran. The mode of mental transportation: film.
Roughly 40 feature-length and short films from more than 15
countries will screen in three days and four nights during the
Martha's Vineyard International Film Festival - the first of
its kind on the Island.
Move over Cannes. Sundance, save your films for a rainy day. The second annual Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival was in town this weekend and the roster combined the best of festival award winners, local documentaries and Academy Award nominees.
“It was excellent,” co-director Navette Previd said. “The attendance was fantastic, the audiences were excited about the film selections and the parties were a smash success.”
When most people think of animation, they think of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Shrek, but the Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival’s Saturday evening Animation Lollapalooza aimed to dispel that misconception, showing a surprisingly adult selection including a meth-fueled teen sexuality, the systematic massacre of bubble-wrap bubbles, and a funny, amusing series about a girl trying to lose her virginity.
The standout project in Saturday’s Think Globally, Shot Locally — a mixed bag of a forum at the Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival — was Sara Nesson’s work-in-progress Iraq Paper Scissors, a documentary about Iraq War veterans participating in the Combat Paper Project.
