Green Mountain Film Festival

Green Mountain Film Festival

The first Green Mountain Film Festival took place in Montpelier, Vermont in 1997. In March 1999, a second festival was held and it has been an annual March event ever since. In 2010 the festival was extended to include a series of satellite screenings in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

The program focuses on new work from around the world together with a few classic films. Around half the films shown are documentaries. There are also screenings of shorts and student films. Screenings are often followed by informal discussions often involving the filmmakers themselves. The festival also features special appearances by established film critics and filmmakers. Recent guests have included critics Kenneth Turan, Molly Haskell, Phillip Lopate, David Thomson, Gerald Peary, and Matthew Hays. Filmmakers have included the screenwriter and director, Robin Swicord, actor/director Giancarlo Esposito, actor Michael Murphy, producer Christine Vachon,and documentary makers Albert Maysles, Les Blank and Ralph Arlyck.

In 2011 two competitions were introduced, the annual Margot George Short Film Competition, and the Green Mountain 48 Hour Film Slam.

The critic Stuart Klawans, writing in The Nation, described the 2003 Green Mountain Film Festival as "a cinephile's utopia: a festival organized and supported by an entire community of local moviegoers."[1]

Matthew Hays, the Montreal-based film critic, called the 2006 festival "incredible ... a mind-bendingly fascinating diet of movies."

Every year volunteers help run the festival and host special events at numerous venues across Montpelier, Vermont.

History

Films in Earlier Festivals (2006)

  • After Innocence
  • After the Fog
  • Ballets Russes
  • The Boys of Baraka
  • Campfire
  • Commune
  • Duma
  • The Education of Shelby Knox
  • Elevator to the Gallows
  • Le Grand Voyage
  • Hawaii, Oslo
  • Homeland
  • I Like Killing Flies
  • Intimate Stories
  • Isn't This a Time!
  • Live and Become
  • Living the Autism Maze

10th Festival 2007

The 10th Green Mountain Film Festival ran from 16 to 25 March 2007. Guests included Albert Maysles, Ralph Arlyck, Rob Mermin and Kenneth Turan. The films shown were:

Avenue Montaigne
Beauty in Trouble
Been Rich All My Life
Black Gold
El Carro
The Cave of the Yellow Dog
Climates
C.R.A.Z.Y.
Family Law
Flock of Dodos
Following Sean
Gimme Shelter
Gobi Women's Song
Grey Gardens
Gypsy Caravan
Holding Our Own
The Host
Into Great Silence
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
Land Mines: A Love Story
The Light Ahead
Living on the Fault Line
Men at Work
Meredith Holch: Homegrown Animation
Molly's Way
Our Daily Bread
El Perro
The Refugee All-Stars
The Ritchie Boys
The Rules of the Game
Salesman
Shakespeare behind Bars
Sisters in Law
Suite Habana
Ten Canoes
Today's Man
Wondrous Oblivion

11th Festival 2008

The 11th Green Mountain Film Festival was held from 21 to 30 March 2008. Notable films shown were:

12th Festival 2009

World Premiere - The Brother Who Sent His Sister to the Electric Chair (2009) World Premiere - Numen: The Nature of Plants

13th Festival 2010

The festival added a new venue at the Pavilion Auditorium, and also a three-day series of satellite screenings in Vermont's North East Kingdom.

World Premiere - The Summer of Walter Hacks (2010)

14th Festival 2011

The festival inaugurated the Green Mountain 48-Hr Film Slam, a film-making competition, and announced the Margot George Short Film Competition, both initiatives aimed at fostering emerging film-making talent.

The 14th festival was the largest event yet. Guests included Phillip Lopate, David Amram, Roy Prendergast and Jonathan Katz.

References

  1. ↑ The Nation, March 29, 2004

External links