BRATTLEBORO — The fourth annual Brattleboro Film Festival (BFF) begins Friday, Oct. 30 at the Latchis Theatre on Main Street, kicking off a 10-day cinematic feast of 31 features, animated movies, short-subject films, dramas, comedies, and documentaries.
The festival, which runs through Sunday, Nov. 8, is known for its strong lineup of outstanding and award-winning films, which offer “viewpoints and characters we don't often see in mainstream media,” says BFF President Merry Elder.
The films are complemented by a series of events to enhance the experience and “offer more opportunities for audiences to interact with filmmakers, actors and community leaders,” Elder said.
Events this year include fuller post-screening discussions, an opening reception, and a “Night in Havana” fundraising dance party that celebrates Cuba programming at this year's festival and the recent thaw in Cuba-U.S diplomatic relations.
BFF this year expands its policy of free admission for high-school students, and middle-school students will be offered free admission as well throughout the film festival for all age-appropriate films.
Opening night
BFF opens Friday, Oct. 30 at 5:30 p.m. with a free reception for all in the Latchis Hotel lobby, where a continuous loop of coming attractions for the festival will be shown continuously.
Reception guests can hobnob with festival organizers and their fellow cinephiles prior to the opening-night films, a special pre-Halloween screening of The Wizard of Oz at 6:30 p.m., and The State of Marriage, which begins at 8:30 p.m.
Showings at 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. continue every evening throughout the 10-day festival with noon, 2 p.m., and 4 p.m. showings added on weekends.
The 1939 MGM classic and Best Picture Academy Award winner The Wizard of Oz offers a whole new generation of children (and their parents) the chance to see the groundbreaking classic film on the big screen for the first time. Moviegoers are encouraged to don Oz costumes and sing along to the much-loved familiar soundtrack that is engrained in American consciousness and culture.
The film was first shown at the Latchis in 1939, when the theater was just one year old, according to Latchis Arts Executive Director and BFF Adviser Jon Potter.
Following opening night's second feature, The State of Marriage, a legal thriller and the untold story of a decades-long struggle, is a discussion with Shap Smith, the speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives, and Bill Lippert, a legislator and LGBTQ activist who helped pass Vermont's landmark Marriage Equality Act in 2009.
'Night in Havana' and other Cuba programming
The fest features the Vermont premiere of Conducta (Behavior), a drama of a troubled boy and a wise teacher set in Havana. Actress Idalmis Garcia will join audiences for a question-and-answer session in the Latchis Hotel lobby immediately after the screening on Saturday, Nov. 7, at 6:30 p.m.
The session will be followed by “A Night in Havana,” a fundraiser for the festival, from 8:30 p.m. until midnight, at 118 Elliot, at 118 Elliot St. The public can celebrate the thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations and their own Cubanismo dancing to local Cuban bandleader William Rodriguez and the band De Lomas y Sones.
The fundraiser will also feature Tropicana-style frivolities with New England Center for Circus Arts pro-track students, a cash bar with Whetstone Station tap beer, wine, and specialty mojitos, and Cuban finger-food.
Tickets are $15 available at the BFF website (brattleborofilmfestival.org), at Everyone's Books at 23 Elliot St., or at the door. Festival organizers strongly recommend advance purchases.
“Documentary Film in Cuba Today,” a talk with Alexandra Halkin, director, Americas Media Initiative and Cuban Documentary Filmmaker Lazaro Gonzalez will take place on Sunday, Nov. 8 at noon.
The talk will contain excerpts from recent documentaries, including Gonzalez's new short, Máscaras (Masks), about drag queens in Cuba.
Entrance is by donation at 118 Elliot, 118 Elliot St.
Panel discussions and visiting filmmakers
As always, BFF offers a full plate of documentaries exploring current themes.
Peace Officer gives audiences an inside look at the increasing militarization of American police on Saturday, Nov. 7, 4 p.m. The film will be followed by a panel discussion with Michael Fitzgerald, Brattleboro chief of police; Curtiss Reed Jr., executive director of the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity; and Allen Gilbert, executive director of the ACLU of Vermont.
BFF organizers are especially honored to present a question-and-answer session with filmmaker Kelly Nyks. The Q and A follows his Requiem for the American Dream, which spotlights the soaring intellect of MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, who traces the roots of today's economic inequality while looking back on his own life of activism and political discourse on Sunday, Nov. 1 at 6:30 p.m. (The film - the only one to be scheduled twice in this festival - repeats Saturday, Nov. 7, at 8:30 p.m. without a Q & A.)
BFF is discounting Requiem tickets to $5 for college students with student ID.
Check the BFF website for many more discussions and events with filmmakers and special guests.
Expanded family fare
While many of this year's BFF films are great for young people, special BFF family programming includes a KID FLIX MIX, a selection of 12 of the best short films included in the 2015 New York International Children's Film Festival on Sunday, Nov. 8, at noon at the Latchis Theatre.
All films are either in English or without dialogue and are recommended for youth ages 3–8.
Annual Gallery Walk screening
On Friday, Nov. 6, at 6:30 p.m., BFF offers its annual Gallery Walk Art Screening. This year's program: The Art of Christine Triebert and Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson.
Triebert, one of the Brattleboro area's most celebrated local artists, will attend a post-screening reception in the lobby of the Latchis Hotel and will exhibit a pop-up gallery of selected pieces created during the making of the film. Her show “Christine Triebert: Through a Glass Dimly” runs through Nov. 1 at Mitchell-Giddings Fine Arts at 183 Main St.
Best in Fest countdown
The festival will close Sunday, Nov. 8 with the audience-chosen Best in Fest award and Countdown to Best in Fest films as voted by festivalgoers.
The countdown films begin at 2 p.m. with repeat screenings of the top three runners-up at 4 and 6:30 p.m., giving moviegoers a second chance to see (and bring their friends to) festival favorites.
The Best in Fest rescreens at 8:30 p.m. Sunday night to close the festival. Results will be announced by midnight on the BFF website and Facebook page.
Tickets and passes
BFF tickets are $10 per film, $8 for seniors, $5 for children 12 and younger, and they can be purchased the day of screenings at the Latchis Theatre box office. High-school and middle-school students enter free.
Packs of five tickets for $40 (a $10 savings) and the $140 all-festival passes and tickets to the Nov. 7 Night in Havana fundraising party are available prior to the festival at Everyone's Books and during festival theater hours at the BFF desk in the Latchis lobby.