Maryland Film Festival

Maryland Film Festival

Location	Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Founded	1999
Language	International
Website	http://www.mdfilmfest.com

The Maryland Film Festival is an annual five-day international film festival taking place each May in Baltimore, Maryland. The festival was launched in 1999, and presents international film and video work of all lengths and genres.

Each U.S. feature screened within the festival is hosted by one or more of its filmmakers. The many internationally known filmmakers who have presented their work within Maryland Film Festival include Barry Levinson, David Simon, Kathryn Bigelow, Melvin Van Peebles, Lena Dunham, Lisandro Alonso, Bobcat Goldthwait, and Jonathan Demme.

In addition to forty or more new features and fifty or more new short films, each Maryland Film Festival includes one favorite film selected and hosted by legendary filmmaker and MFF board member John Waters. The films presented by John Waters within Maryland Film Festival have ranged from Joseph Losey's Boom! to Gaspar Noé's I Stand Alone.

Major names in contemporary music have presented favorite films within the festival, including Dan Deacon, Branford Marsalis, Marin Alsop, Ian MacKaye, Will Oldham, Jonathan Richman, Bill Callahan, and members of Animal Collective.

Additionally, personalities ranging from Harry Belafonte to Cal Ripken, Jr. have appeared at the festival alongside documentaries about their lives and work.

Each festival also includes a vintage 35mm 3D film and a silent film with a live score by Alloy Orchestra.

The festival also programs film events in and around Baltimore year-round, including the film component of Baltimore's annual summer Artscape festival and many events for its membership support group Friends of the Festival.

The 15th annual Maryland Film Festival took place May 8–12, 2013 in downtown Baltimore, using all five screens of the historic Charles Theatre as its anchor venue. The 16th annual Maryland Film Festival took place May 7–11, 2014 using seven screens in and around the Station North Arts and Entertainment District.

Festival history

The first Maryland Film Festival screening took place Thursday, April 22, 1999, with an Opening Night presentation of Barry Levinson's documentary Diner Guys (about the real-life inspirations for his first feature film, Diner) at the historic Senator Theatre.

Full programming began April 23, 1999, using all five screens of the historic Charles Theatre. These screenings were the first public use of the newly renovated Charles, which had expanded from one to five screens.

In 2002, the festival dedicated its Opening Night to a collection of short films, and has done so each year since 2004.

In 2009, the festival expanded its offerings of international films, with the stated goal of expanding the scope of international films brought to Baltimore, and in future years bringing a filmmaker to host each foreign feature film screening as the festival does with all U.S.-made feature films.

In 2013, the festival announced its expansion to 5 days, shifting its Opening Night to Wednesday, May 8, 2013. Previous opening nights had taken place on Thursdays.

The festival currently employs a staff of five year-round, with several hundred volunteers working during each festival and in the weeks leading up to them.

The festival's feature-film programming has emphasized independent films represented by their filmmakers, as well as international works handled by such art-house and specialty film distributors as The Cinema Guild, Oscilloscope Laboratories, Factory 25, Milestone Films, Strand Releasing, and Kino.

The Parkway Theatre

In December 2013, the festival announced its plans to restore The Parkway Theatre, located at North Avenue and North Charles Street in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District, for use as its year-round venue. The Parkway was built for film exhibition in 1915, and became one of Baltimore's first art-house movie theaters in the 1950s, operating under the name Five West, but has not been in regular use as a movie theater since the late 1970s. Maryland Film Festival's plans for the Parkway will restore the original auditorium, and build two smaller screens in an adjacent space.

The Parkway restoration project is scheduled for completion on or around the theatre's 100th anniversary in the Fall of 2015.

Closing night films

Year	Film	Hosted By
2003	Standing in the Shadows of Motown	members of The Funk Brothers
2004	BAADASSSSS!	Mario Van Peebles and Melvin Van Peebles
2005	Swimmers	Doug Sadler
2006	The Eagle with live score by Alloy Orchestra	Alloy Orchestra
2007	Rocket Science	Jeffrey Blitz
2008	Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha	Melvin Van Peebles
2009	The Hurt Locker	Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal
2010	Mother and Child	Rodrigo García
2011	Sing Your Song	Harry Belafonte
2012	Dark Horse	Todd Solondz and Jordan Gelber
2013	Mother of George	Andrew Dosunmu and Bradford Young
2014	Little Accidents	Sara Colangelo

John Waters picks

Within every Maryland Film Festival since its launch in 1999, filmmaker and Maryland Film Festival board member John Waters has selected one film to present to an audience. His selections have ranged from vintage cult and camp titles to contemporary ribald comedies and art-house dramas.

Festival Year	Film Title	Film Director	Year of Release	Notes
1999	Boom!	Joseph Losey	1968
2000	Clean, Shaven	Lodge Kerrigan	1995
2001	Baxter	Jérôme Boivin	1989
2002	Fuego	Armando Bó	1969
2003	I Stand Alone	Gaspar Noé	1998	Waters also joined in the MFF 2003 presentation of Noé's Irréversible.
2004	Dog Days	Ulrich Seidl	2001
2005	Porn Theater	Jacques Nolot	2002
2006	Head-On	Fatih Akın	2004
2007	Sleeping Dogs Lie	Bobcat Goldthwait	2006
2008	Story of Women	Claude Chabrol	1988
2009	Love Songs	Christophe Honoré	2006
2010	United 93	Paul Greengrass	2006
2011	Domain	Patric Chiha	2009	Waters was joined in his presentation by director Patric Chiha.
2012	Wanda	Barbara Loden	1970	This screening took place from UCLA's restored 35mm print on the evening of Friday May 4, 2012.
2013	Paradise: Faith	Ulrich Seidl	2012	This screening took place the evening of Friday, May 10, 2012. Waters was joined in his presentation by star Maria Hofstätter. This marked the first time Waters has repeated a director in making his selections since the launch of MFF in 1999.
2014	Abuse of Weakness	Catherine Breillat	2014

Guest-host presentations

In addition to forty or more new features and a favorite film presented by John Waters, each Maryland Film Festival has invited guest-hosts to present a favorite film. Guest hosts have generally been known best for work outside the world of film and have frequently been musicians, but have also included politicians, athletes, authors, journalists, activists, and visual artists. The guest-host program has also included some film directors hosting revival screenings of their earlier works.

Festival Year	Guest Host	Film Title	Film Director	Notes
1999	Kurt Schmoke	The Godfather	Francis Ford Coppola
1999	Marc Steiner	The Cool World	Shirley Clarke
2000	Jonathan Richman	Cyrano de Bergerac	Michael Gordon
2000	Joyce Scott	The Long, Hot Summer	Martin Ritt
2000	Taylor Branch	One-Eyed Jacks	Marlon Brando
2000	J.D. Considine	The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle	Julien Temple
2000	Scott Erickson	Predator	John McTiernan
2001	Will Oldham	The World's Greatest Sinner	Timothy Carey
2001	Herschell Gordon Lewis	The Gore Gore Girls and 2,000 Maniacs	Herschell Gordon Lewis
2001	Martin O'Malley	Into the West	Mike Newell
2002	Julian Bond	Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song	Melvin Van Peebles	Bond was joined in his presentation by director Melvin Van Peebles, who delivered his own print of the film for the screening.
2003	Barry Levinson	On the Waterfront	Elia Kazan	This screening was the Opening Night selection for MFF 2003, held in the historic Senator Theater.
2003	Margaret Carlson	Notorious	Alfred Hitchcock
2004	Marc Steiner	The Battle of Algiers	Gillo Pontecorvo
2005	Dorothy Hamill	Mary Poppins	Robert Stevenson	The audience was encouraged to sing along with the songs for this screening.
2005	Harvey Pekar	The Bicycle Thief	Vittorio De Sica
2005	Barbara Mikulski	To Kill a Mockingbird	Robert Mulligan
2006	Branford Marsalis	The Scent of Green Papaya	Tran Anh Hung
2007	Lodge Kerrigan	A Sense of Loss	Marcel Ophüls
2007	Henry Rollins	Maxed Out	James Scurlock
2009	Ian MacKaye	Nina Simone: La Légende	Frank Lords	The famed post-punk musician (of Minor Threat, Fugazi, The Evens, and Dischord Records) presented a rare screening of this 1992 French documentary about Nina Simone.
2009	Laura Lippman	Funny Bones	Peter Chelsom
2010	Bill Callahan	Faces	John Cassavetes	Callahan (formerly known as Smog), read an original, poetic appreciation piece for this landmark 1968 independent film. He was joined in his presentation by Al Ruban, the film's cinematographer and frequent Cassavetes collaborator.
2010	Dan Deacon	Total Recall	Paul Verhoeven	This screening led to a subsequent year-round Maryland Film Fest series called Gunky's Basemement featuring 35mm prints of films selected and hosted by Dan Deacon and Jimmy Joe Roche.
2011	Marin Alsop	The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly	Sergio Leone	A 35mm presentation of this 1966 Sergio Leone spaghetti western noted for its Ennio Morricone score, hosted by the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
2011	members of Animal Collective	The Boxer's Omen, aka Mo	Chih-Hung Kuei	Avey Tare, Deakin, and Geologist hosted this 1983 Shaw Brothers production, and noted that another favorite film of the group was House.
2013	Frank Bruni	Absence of Malice	Sydney Pollack
2014	Matmos	Barbarella	Roger Vadim	The Baltimore-based electronic-music duo will present the film from which they derived their band name.
2014	DJ Spooky	Putney Swope	Robert Downey, Sr.
2014	Slava Tsukerman	Liquid Sky	Slava Tsukerman	This repertory screening will be presented by the director from his own 35mm print.

Alloy Orchestra presentations

A recurring highlight within each Maryland Film Festival since 2003 has been a silent film presented with Alloy Orchestra performing their new, original scores for these vintage films. Alloy Orchestra has also presented films at Maryland Film Festival stand-alone events throughout the year; this list is limited to presentations within the annual festival weekend.

Festival Year	Film Title	Film Director	Year of Original Release
2003	The Black Pirate	Albert Parker	1926
2004	Speedy	Ted Wilde	1928
2005	Blackmail	Alfred Hitchcock	1929
2006	The Eagle	Clarence Brown	1925
2007	Nosferatu	F. W. Murnau	1922
2008	Underworld	Josef von Sternberg	1927
2009	Man with a Movie Camera	Dziga Vertov	1929
2010	Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness	Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack	1927
2011	"Masters of Slapstick" Shorts Program	Charlie Chaplin, Roscoe Arbuckle and Buster Keaton	1916-1920
2012	From Morning Till Midnight	Karlheinz Martin	1920
2013	The Lost World	Harry O. Hoyt	1925
2014	He Who Gets Slapped	Victor Sjöström	1924

Vintage 3-D film presentations

Beginning in 2002, each Maryland Film Festival has presented a vintage 3D film in the two-projector 35mm format. Each screening has been hosted by Baltimore Sun film writer Chris Kaltenbach.

Festival Year	Film Title	Film Director	Year of Original Release
2002	House of Wax	André de Toth	1953
2003	Creature from the Black Lagoon	Jack Arnold	1954
2004	Fort Ti	William Castle	1953
2005	Gorilla at Large	Harmon Jones	1954
2006	The Mad Magician	John Brahm	1954
2007	Man in the Dark	Lew Landers	1953
2008	Miss Sadie Thompson	Curtis Bernhardt	1953
2009	Inferno	Roy Ward Baker	1953
2010	Jesse James vs. The Daltons	William Castle	1954
2011	The Stranger Wore a Gun	André de Toth	1953
2012	Those Redheads From Seattle	Lewis R. Foster	1953

List of features played at the festival

Each Maryland Film Festival has presented forty or more feature films, with the screenings of each U.S. film hosted by one of its filmmakers.

Year	Films
1999	Arlington Road, The Brandon Teena Story, The Cool World, Crime Wave, Divine Trash, Hands on a Hard Body, Lovers of the Arctic Circle, Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore, My Son the Fanatic, Radiohead: Meeting People Is Easy, The Saltmen of Tibet, Without Limits
2000	The Corner, Forbidden Zone, I Am Cuba, Kill by Inches, King Gimp, Panic, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, Wattstax
2001	The American Astronaut, Investigation of a Flame, Mutant Aliens, Plaster Caster, Portrait of Jason, Startup.com, Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise, Unfinished Symphony: Democracy and Dissent
2002	Blue Vinyl, Charlotte Sometimes, Cyberman, Derrida, The Execution of Wanda Jean, Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme, How to Draw a Bunny, Paperboys, Soft For Digging
2003	BaadAsssss Cinema, Capturing the Friedmans, Funny Ha Ha, Horns and Halos, Hukkle, Irréversible, L'Auberge Espagnole, Melvin Goes to Dinner, The Mudge Boy, Stevie, Unprecedented
2004	The Agronomist, BAADASSSSS!, Born into Brothels, High Tension, Imelda, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, The Saddest Music in the World, Saved!, Travellers and Magicians, Word Wars
2005	9 Songs, The Aristocrats, The Boys of Baraka, The Edukators, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Mad Hot Ballroom, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Murderball, Mutual Appreciation, Palindromes, Street Fight
2006	12 and Holding, Darkon, Head-On, The Guatemalan Handshake, Hamilton, LOL, My Country, My Country, We Go Way Back
2007	Brand Upon the Brain!, Crazy Love, Frownland, Great World of Sound, Hannah Takes the Stairs, I Don't Want to Sleep Alone, Killer of Sheep, The Last Days of Left Eye, Murder Party, My Nappy Roots, On a Tightrope, Quiet City, Silver Jew, Sleeping Dogs Lie, Syndromes and a Century, Viva, War/Dance, Zoo
2008	American Teen, At the Death House Door, Baghead, Bamako, Beautiful Losers, The Betrayal, Bi the Way, The Black List, Chop Shop, Goliath, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, I.O.U.S.A., Medicine for Melancholy, Momma's Man, My Effortless Brilliance, Nights and Weekends, Woodpecker
2009	Alexander the Last, The Beaches of Agnès, Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo, Daytime Drinking, Garbage Dreams, Greek Pete, The Hurt Locker, Lake Tahoe, Make-out with Violence, Modern Love Is Automatic, Munyurangabo, Nollywood Babylon, Not Quite Hollywood, Stingray Sam, Treeless Mountain, World's Greatest Dad
2010	12th & Delaware, And Everything Is Going Fine, Beijing Taxi, Casino Jack and the United States of Money, Cold Weather, Cyrus, Daddy Longlegs, Dogtooth, Freedom Riders, La Pivellina, Liverpool, Night Catches Us, The Oath, Putty Hill, Tiny Furniture, Until the Light Takes Us, Wheedle's Groove
2011	Better This World, The Catechism Cataclysm, The Color Wheel, The Dish & the Spoon, If a Tree Falls, The Interrupters, Last Days Here, Magic Trip, Meek's Cutoff, My Joy, Ne Change Rien, Nostalgia for the Light, Restless City, Septien, Silver Bullets, Terri, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, A Useful Life, Viva Riva!, Weekend, We Were Here
2012	Attenberg, Come Back, Africa, The Comedy, Compliance, Dark Horse, Ethel, Detropia, Gayby, God Bless America, Jeff, Kid-Thing, Love Free Or Die, Lovely Molly, LUV, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Oslo, August 31st, The Patron Saints, Pilgrim Song, Porfirio, Reconvergence, Save the Date, The Source Family, Sun Don't Shine, Supporting Characters, Tchoupitoulas, This Is Not a Film, The Turin Horse, Under African Skies, V/H/S, Vito, Volcano, Wild in the Streets, Wuthering Heights
2013	12 O'Clock Boys, 16 Acres, Aatsinki, After Tiller, Augustine, Before You Know It, Berberian Sound Studio, Bluebird, Boy Eating the Bird's Food, Butter on the Latch, By and By, Computer Chess, Downloaded, Drinking Buddies, Fill the Void, Good Ol' Freda, Here Comes the Devil, Hit & Stay, I Am Divine, I Used to Be Darker, If We Shout Loud Enough, It Felt Like Love, Leviathan, Mother of George, Museum Hours, Paradise: Faith, Paradise: Hope, Paradise: Love, The Pervert's Guide to Ideology, Pit Stop, Post Tenebras Lux, Prince Avalanche, The Rambler, Remote Area Medical, Swim Little Fish Swim, A Teacher, This Is Martin Bonner, Touchy Feely, V/H/S/2, Watchtower, We Always Lie to Strangers, White Reindeer, Willow Creek, Zero Charisma
2014	Abuse of Weakness, Actress, Approaching the Elephant, Appropriate Behavior, Art and Craft, The Auction, Baltimore in Black and White, Brewmore | Baltimore, Buzzard, Call Girl of Cthulhu, The Case Against 8, Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari, Club Sandwich, Deep City: The Birth of the Miami Sound, Everybody Street, Evolution of a Criminal, Faults, Fight Church, Fort Tilden, Freedom Summer, Glena, Happy Christmas, Hellion, The Hip-Hop Fellow, I Play with the Phrase Each Other, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, Manakamana, The Mend, The Militant, Moebius, Obvious Child, Ping Pong Summer, Point and Shoot, September, Positive Force: More Than a Witness, The Strange Little Cat, Stray Dogs, Summer of Blood, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga, Water Like Stone, Welcome to Deathfest, Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger, Who Took Johnny, Wild Canaries, Young Bodies Heal Quickly

Gunky's Basement Film series

Gunky’s Basement is an ongoing Maryland Film Festival series curated and hosted by musician Dan Deacon and video artist Jimmy Joe Roche. Each title has screened from a 35mm print and has been promoted in part with original screenprinted posters created by Baltimore-based artists.

Gunky’s Basement is a year-round extension of the Maryland Film Festival Guest-Host program, in which a person best known for work outside the world of film selects and hosts a favorite film. Prior to Gunky’s Basement, Dan Deacon was a guest host in Maryland Film Festival 2010, selecting Total Recall.

Date	Film Title	Film Director	Year of Release
October 21, 2010	The Thing	John Carpenter	1982
December 9, 2010	Repo Man	Alex Cox	1984
January 27, 2011	Alien	Ridley Scott	1979
March 3, 2011	Beetlejuice	Tim Burton	1988
April 21, 2011	Who Framed Roger Rabbit	Robert Zemeckis	1988
September 27, 2011	Starship Troopers	Paul Verhoeven	1997
October 25, 2011	Videodrome	David Cronenberg	1983
November 29, 2011	Dune	David Lynch	1984
December 13, 2011	Groundhog Day	Harold Ramis	1993
July 18, 2012	They Live	John Carpenter	1988
August 15, 2012	The Silence of the Lambs	Jonathan Demme	1991
December 4, 2012	Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me	David Lynch	1992
January 9, 2013	Manhunter	Michael Mann	1986
February 6, 2013	Die Hard	John McTiernan	1988
March 6, 2013	Dead Man	Jim Jarmusch	1995
October 30, 2013	In the Mouth of Madness	John Carpenter	1995
November 13, 2013	Point Break	Kathryn Bigelow	1991
December 4, 2013	Terminator 2: Judgment Day	James Cameron	1991
February 26, 2014	Batman	Tim Burton	1989

Night Zones with Jimmy Joe Roche

As an offshoot of Gunky's Basement, Maryland Film Festival and video artist Jimmy Joe Roche partnered for a series exploring Roche's love of horror films. As with Gunky's Basement, each title screened from a 35mm print in the Charles Theatre, and was promoted in part with original screenprinted posters created by a Baltimore artist.

Date	Film Title	Film Director	Year of Release
September 26, 2012	Lifeforce	Tobe Hooper	1985
October 31, 2012	The Texas Chain Saw Massacre	Tobe Hooper	1974
November 28, 2012	From Beyond	Stuart Gordon	1986

External links

• Official page for Maryland Film Festival
• The New Yorker's Richard Brody discusses Maryland Film Festival 2011
• "A Great Day in Baltimore" -- Filmmaker/Blogger Michael Tully discusses Maryland Film Festival 2011 for Indiewire
• New Yorker discusses Maryland Film Festival 2013
• "Weird and Wonderful" -- Artforum discusses Maryland Film Festival 2013