Marking itself as one of the most compelling regional documentary fests in the United States, the Camden International Film Festival, which takes place on the central Maine coast, has announced its 2013 program.
Highlights among the fest‘s lineup include opening night film “Cutie and the Boxer” from Zachary Heinzerling and “Pandora’s Promise,” the festival’s closing night film Robert Stone. “Cutie” tells the story of the courtship and present-day life of married artists Ushio and Noriko Shinohara; “Pandora’s Promise” has reinvigorated discussion about the United States’ pursuit of nuclear power.
With a grant from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, CIFF will host two special programs: “Then and Now pairs classic documentary films and
filmmakers with new, visionary work from emerging non-fiction filmmakers. This
program celebrates the current state of the documentary form by honoring its
exceptional past and affirming its connections to the future. Additionally,
CIFF will present Process, a curated program of documentaries from
the past and present focusing on artists, their work and the creative process.”
In addition to the film screenings, the festival also hosts the Points North Forum for filmmakers, which will feature a New York Times Op-Docs live pitch, its own pitch featuring documentary’s biggest movers and shakers, and a robust slate of panels and talks.
CIFF runs from September 26-29.
Here’s the lineup:
A WILL FOR THE WOODS
Amy Browne, Jeremy Kaplan,
Tony Hale, Brian Wilson | United States
| 2013
Psychiatrist and musician
Clark advocates for natural burial – and plans his own – while battling
lymphoma. Capturing the genesis of a revolutionary social and environmental
movement, this film is a life-affirming portrait of people coming to terms with
death by embracing its central place in nature.
THE ACT OF KILLING
Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine
Cynn, Anonymous | Denmark, Indonesia
| 2012
In a country where killers
are celebrated as heroes, the filmmakers challenge unrepentant death squad
leaders to dramatise their role in genocide. The hallucinatory result is a
cinematic fever dream, an unsettling journey deep into the imaginations of
mass-murderers and the shockingly banal regime of corruption and impunity they
inhabit.
BENDING STEEL
Dave Carroll | United States | 2013
BENDING STEEL is a moving
documentary which follows Chris Schoeck, an endearing yet unassuming man as he
trains to become a professional oldetime strongman. While preparing to perform
incredible feats of strength publicly, Chris privately struggles to overcome
crippling fears and inhibitions. For the first time in his life he is compelled
to confront his own social awkwardness, unsupportive parents, and an
overwhelming fear of failure. What unfolds is one man’s inspirational quest to
find his place in the world.
BIG MEN
Rachel Boynton | United States | 2013
In Ghana, a small American
energy company fights to hold onto its discovery of oil just as a new
government comes into power.With unprecedented access and an unflinching eye,
BIG MEN takes us deep into the African oil industry in Ghana and Nigeria,
delivering an exposé on the ambition, greed and corruption that threaten to
exacerbate Africa’s resource curse and leave more of its citizens behind.
CAUCUS
AJ Schnack | United States | 2013
CAUCUS tells the story of the
2011-2012 campaign in Iowa as eight Republicans fight to become their party’s
standard-bearer and take on Barack Obama. But to win, each must first navigate
state fairs, town hall meetings and agitated questions from the increasingly contentious
GOP base. A revealing look at the difficulty of running for office,
particularly the Presidency, and features private, human moments of very public
figures.
CRASH REEL
Lucy Walker | United States | 2013
Snowboard legend Kevin Pearce
crashed on a Park City half-pipe, and ended up fighting for his life. Now all
Kevin wants to do is get on his snowboard again, even though medics and family
fear it could kill him.
CUTIE AND THE BOXER – Opening Night Film!
Zachary Heinzerling | United States | 2012
A reflection on love,
sacrifice, and the creative spirit, this candid New York tale explores the
chaotic forty year marriage of famed boxing painter Ushio Shinohara and artist
Noriko Shinohara.
CUTIE AND THE BOXER screens as part of PROCESS
DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE
Hubert Sauper | France, Austria, Belgium | 2004
DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE is a tale
about humans between the North and South, about globalization, and about fish.
Some time in the 1960’s, in the heart of Africa, a new animal was introduced
into Lake Victoria: the Nile Perch, a voracious predator, who extinguished
almost the entire stock of the native fish species. However, the new fish
multiplied so fast, that its white fillets are today exported all around the
world. Huge hulking ex-Soviet cargo planes come daily to collect the latest
catch in exchange for their southbound cargo… This booming multinational
industry of fish and weapons has created an ungodly globalized alliance on the
shores of the world’s biggest tropical lake.
DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE screens as part of THEN AND NOW.
ELENA
Petra Costa | Brazil | 2013
Elena, a young Brazilian
woman, travels to New York with the same dream as her mother, to become a movie
actress. She leaves behind her childhood spent in hiding during the years of
the military dictatorship. She also leaves Petra, her seven year old sister.
Two decades later, Petra also becomes an actress and goes to New York in search
of Elena. She only has a few clues about her: home movies, newspaper clippings,
a diary and letters. Gradually, the features of the two sisters are confused;
we no longer know one from the other. When Petra finally finds Elena in an
unexpected place, she has to learn to let her go.
EXPEDITION TO THE END OF THE WORLD
Daniel Dencik | Denmark, Sweden | 2013
A grand, adventurous journey
of discovery to the last uncharted areas of the globe. Yet no matter how far we
go, and how hard we try to find the answer, the ultimate meeting is with ourselves
and our own transience. On a three-mast schooner packed with artists,
scientists and ambitions worthy of Noah or Columbus, we set off for the end of
the world: the rapidly melting massifs of North-East Greenland. Curiosity,
grand pathos and a liberating dose of humour come together in a superbly
orchestrated film where one iconic image after the other seduces us far beyond
the historical footnote that is humanity.
THE GENIUS OF MARIAN
Banker White, Anna Fitch
| United States | 2013
THE GENIUS OF MARIAN is a
visually rich, emotionally complex story that follows Pam White in the early
stages of Alzheimer’s disease as her son, the filmmaker, documents her
struggles to retain a sense of self.
HARLAN COUNTY U.S.A.
Barbara Kopple | United States | 1977
HARLAN COUNTY, USA is an
Oscar-winning documentary film covering the “Brookside Strike,” an effort of
180 coal miners and their wives against the Eastover Coal Company’s Brookside
Mine and Prep Plant in Harlan County, southeast Kentucky in 1973.
HARLAN COUNTY U.S.A. screens as part of THEN AND NOW.
HEARTS AND MINDS
Peter Davis | United States | 1974
Peter Davis’s Oscar-winning
documentary unflinchingly confronts the United States’ involvement in Vietnam.
Using a wealth of sources—from interviews to newsreels to documentary footage
of the conflict at home and abroad—Davis constructs a powerfully affecting
portrait of the disastrous effects of war.
HEARTS AND MINDS screens as part of THEN AND NOW.
THE KILL TEAM
Dan Krauss | United States | 2013
THE KILL TEAM looks at the
devastating moral tensions that tear at soldiers’ psyches through the lens of
one highly personal and emotional story. Specialist Adam Winfield was a
21-year-old infantryman in Afghanistan when he attempted to alert the military
to heinous war crimes his platoon was committing. An intimate look at the
personal stories so often lost inside the larger coverage of the longest war in
US history.
LAST DREAM (SIDSTE DRØMME)
Estephan Wagner | Denmark | 2013
LAST DREAMS follows three
women during their last month of life. We follow their relationship with
doctors, nurses, priests and family members, and through them we get an
intimate and honest picture of what it means to be close to death – stories of
solitude, reconciliation and love during the process of saying goodbye.
THE LAST STATION (EL ESTACION ULTIMA)
Cristian Soto, Catalina
Vergara | Chile, Germany | 2012
Under the competitive look of
a camera, the life and moments some old people face in their last stage are
portrayed in an atmosphere of solitude and abandonment. These homes, and their
long lasting passage of time, are the last station in life before setting out
on the inevitable journey to death.
MAIDENTRIP
Jillian Schlesinger | United States | 2013
14-year-old Laura Dekker sets
out—camera in hand—on a two-year voyage in pursuit of her dream to be the
youngest person ever to sail around the world alone. In the wake of a year-long
battle with Dutch authorities and global media scrutiny, Laura finds herself
far from land and family, exploring the world in search of freedom, adventure,
and distant dreams of her early youth at sea.
MOON RIDER
Daniel Dencik | Denmark | 2013
Moon Rider is a coming-of-age
story about the bike rider Rasmus Quaade. The film follows young Rasmus’
struggle to become a professional rider, a rough and winding road through hell
and back.
MY ARCHITECT
Nathaniel Kahn | United States | 2003
World-famous architect Louis
Kahn had two illegitimate children with two different women outside of his
marriage. Son Nathaniel always hoped that someday his father would come and
live with him and his mother, but Kahn never left his wife and died when
Nathaniel was only 11. Nathaniel travels the world visitng his father’s buildings
and haunts, meeting his father’s contemporaries, colleagues, students, wives,
and children.
MY ARCHITECT screens as part of PROCESS.
NARCO CULTURA
Shaul Schwarz | United States | 2013
From war photographer Shaul
Schwarz comes NARCO CULTURA, an explosive look at the drug cartels’ pop culture
influence on both sides of the border as experienced by an LA narcocorrido
singer dreaming of stardom and a Juarez crime scene investigator on the front
line of Mexico’s Drug War.
NIGHT LABOR
David Redmon, Ashley Sabin
| Canada, United States | 2013
Sherman lives in a remote and
unknown place. By day, he digs for clams; by night, he works alone in a factory
that we find hard to imagine is ever empty. A moment, as commonplace as it is
lyrical and mysterious, unfolds through a combination of the powerful image and
sound, minimal use of narration and a personality with exceptional traits. War
approaches; but some people have already lost.
OUR NIXON
Penny Lane | United States | 2013
OUR NIXON is an all-archival
documentary presenting home movies for the first time from White House aides,
H.R Halderman, John Ehrlichman and Dwight Chapin. Along with other rare footage
seized by the FBI during the Watergate investigation, the film creates an
intimate and complex portrait of the Nixon presidency as never seen before.
PABLO’S WINTER (EL INVIERNO DE PABLO)
Chico Pereira | Spain, UK | 2012
Set in Almadén, Spain, the home of the most
productive mercury mines in the world’s
history, PABLO’S WINTER tells the story of Pablo, a retired seventy year old miner who is trying to stop
smoking. With the mines closing 15 years
ago, the film is a profound reflection on past and present, the traditional and the new. It is a moment of historical importance for the town and it’s older generations,
as well as a moment of hope and opportunity
for the young to reinvent themselves and
create a new identity for the town.
PANDORA’S PROMISE – Closing Night Film!
Robert Stone | United States | 2013
The atomic bomb and meltdowns
like Fukushima have made nuclear power synonymous with global disaster. But
what if we’ve got nuclear power wrong? PANDORA’S PROMISE asks whether the one
technology we fear most could save our planet from a climate catastrophe, while
providing the energy needed to lift billions of people in the developing world
out of poverty.
PUBLIC HEARING
James N. Kienitz Wilkins
| United States | 2012
PUBLIC HEARING is the
verbatim re-performance of a rural American town meeting from a transcript
downloaded as publicly available information. Shot entirely in cinematic
close-up on black-and-white 16mm film, a cast of actors and non-actors read
between the lines in an ironic debate over the replacement of an existing
Wal-Mart with a super Wal-Mart.
REMOTE AREA MEDICAL
Jeff Reichert, Farihah Zaman
| United States | 2013
Over three days in April
2012, Remote Area Medical, the pioneers of “no-cost” health care clinics,
treated nearly 2000 patients on the infield of Bristol, Tennessee’s massive
NASCAR speedway.
RUNNING FROM CRAZY
Barbara Kopple | United States | 2013
RUNNING FROM CRAZY examines
the personal journey of model and actress Mariel Hemingway, the granddaughter
of Ernest Hemingway, as she strives for a greater understanding of her family
history of suicide and mental illness. Through stunning archival footage of the
three Hemingway sisters and intimate verite moments with Mariel herself, the
film examines the remarkable though often heartbreaking Hemingway legacy.
SEE
Bo Bartlett, Betsy Eby, Glenn
Holsten | United States | 2013
Artists Bo Bartlett and Betsy
Eby set off to make a film about seeing, traveling the country stumbling upon
art sites, characters and luminaries. But then the unexpected happens sending
their adventure into unforeseen territory. A moving meditation, SEE delivers
the beauty of America through the eyes of artists determined to see art in the
everyday.
SEE screens as part of PROCESS.
SUITCASE OF LOVE AND SHAME
Jane Gillooly | United States | 2013
Tender, erotic and pathetic,
this reconstructed narrative examines the obsession to chronicle the details of
an adulterous affair. SUITCASE OF LOVE AND SHAME is a mesmerizing collage woven
from 60 hours of reel-to-reel audiotape discovered in a suitcase purchased on
eBay.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS MAY APPLY
Cullen Hoback | United States | 2013
Terms and Conditions May
Apply is a documentary that shows the outrageous and downright scary things
that happen when you click I Agree.
Following this screening there will be a
panel with: Ben Wizner ACLU, Shahid Buttar, Bill of Rights Defense Committee and Amie Stepanovich, Electronic Privacy
Information Center
THESE BIRDS WALK
Omar Mullick, Bassam Tariq
| United States, Pakistan | 2012
Filmed over nearly three
years, THESE BIRDS WALK is portrait of
contemporary Pakistan is created through the eyes of an ambulance driver and a
runaway boy who call a humanitarian and his mission based organization home.
TO THE WOLF (STO LYKO)
Aran Hughes, Christina
Koutsospyrou | Greece, France, United
Kingdom | 2013
Set over four days of
unrelenting wind and rain in a remote village high up in the Nafpaktia
mountains in western Greece, the film follows the lives of two shepherd
families struggling for survival at a time of deep national crisis. TO THE WOLF
is both the reality and an unsettling allegory of modern-day Greece.
TOWN HALL
Sierra Pettengill, Jamila
Wignot | United States | 2013
An inside look into the lives of two Tea
Party activists from Pennsylvania as they fight to preserve their vision of
America. More than a political treatise,
Town Hall is a tone poem that paints a portrait of those who fear being left
behind by a nation’s transition.
WILLIAM AND THE WINDMILL
Ben Nabors | United States | 2013
WILLIAM AND THE WINDMILL is a feature-length
documentary about William Kamkwamba, a young Malawian who rescued his family
from famine by building a power-generating windmill from scrap parts. His
achievement leads to new opportunities and complex choices.
2013 CAMDEN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL SHORT FILMS
ART IS…
DeWitt Sage | United States | 1974
A STORY FOR THE MODLINS
Sergio Oksman | Spain | 2012
BRADLEY MANNING HAD SECRETS
Adam Butcher | United States | 2011
BREAKFAST
Wes Sterrs | United States | 2013
BRENDAN O’CONNELL IS BLOCKING THE BREAD AISLE
Julien Lasseur | United States | 2013
CATNIP EGRESS TO OBLIVION
Jason Willis | United States | 2012
CHOREOGRAPHY
David Redmon, Ashley Sabin
| United States | 2013
CONSTRAINTS
Eric Gulliver | United States | 2013
CORN MOTHER
Taylor Dunne | United States | 2012
DA VINCI
Yuri Ancarani | Italy | 2012
FLO
Riley Hooper | United States | 2013
GOWANUS CANAL
Sarah Christman | United States | 2013
GRANDPA AND ME AND A HELICOPTER TO HEAVEN (MORFAR OCH
JAG & HELIKOPTERN TILL HIMMELEN)
Johan Palmgren, Åsa Blanck
| Sweden | 2013
GREG PACKER: MOST QUOTED MAN IN AMERICA
Andrew David Watson | United States | 2013
JOSEPH FIORE – THE NATURE OF THE ARTIST
Richard Kane | United States | 2013
MAGNETIC RECONNECTION
Kyle Armstrong | Canada | 2012
NIAGRA’S FURY
Benjamin R. Taylor | Canada | 2012
NILE PERCH
Josh Gibson | United States | 2013
NOTES ON BLINDNESS: RAINFALL
Peter Middleton, James
Spinney | United Kingdom, Australia
| 2013
OH HOLY COW (Ô DIVIN BOVIN)
Alexandre Rufin | Canada, France | 2013
REVIVING THE FREEDOM MILL
David Conover | United States | 2013
ROUGAROUGING
Michael Palmieri, Donal
Mosher | United States | 2013
SKININGROVE
Michael Almereyda | United States | 2012
SLOMO
Josh Izenberg | United States | 2013
THE COUNTY
Chris Giamo, Kelsey Kobik,
Michael Ferry | United States | 2013
THE HORSEMEN
Glen Milner | United Kingdom | 2013
THE SEA [IS STILL] AROUND US
Hope Tucker | United States | 2012
WE WILL LIVE AGAIN
Myles Kane, Josh Koury
| United States | 2013
WHEN THE SONG DIES
Jamie Chambers | Scotland | 2012
WHEN THE ZOMBIES COME
Jon Hurst | United States | 2012
WOLF MOUNTAIN
Dan Duran, Brendan Nahmias,
Sam Price-Waldman | United States
| 2012
WORLD FAIR
Amanda Murray | United States | 2013
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