Maine International Film Festival

The 20^th edition of the Maine International Film Festival will reflect the same distinctive mix of premiering new American and international features and documentaries, innovative shorts programs, films made in Maine and rediscoveries and retrospectives—only this year’s very special program will be all that even more strongly than ever before.

This special year:

• we honor actress and cultural icon Lauren Hutton with our annual Mid-Life Achievement Award!
• we inaugurate the Karl Struss Legacy Award, named in honor of Maine pioneering cinematographic genius Karl Struss, to be given to legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins!
• we welcome back numerous past guests as part of our "Returning Guests Present" special section!
• MIFF audiences will have the chance to explore 100 great new films and restorations and revivals from around the world and close to home, including premieres of features and shorts from here in Maine and every other continent!

See below for program highlights and visit www.miff.org for the full program and to purchase tickets.

The Sounding with Opening Night Celebration

Spectacularly shot on Monhegan Island off Midcoast Maine, The Sounding is a film that speaks to all of us as it tells its haunting story of a woman who chooses to speak only in her own way. Raised on a remote Maine island by her grandfather Lionel, Liv (stunningly played by The Sounding’s multi-talented director and writer, Catherine Eaton) has never spoken. When Lionel discovers he’s dying, he calls aformer protégé, Michael, to the island and asks him to protect Liv’s independence. That night, as Lionel is reading to Liv, his voice fails him. Liv picks up the book of Shakespeare he’s been reading to her and begins: first reading, then weaving a language from Shakespeare’s words, which become her means of communication. More info...

Friday, July 14, 7:00 p.m., Waterville Opera House

Followed by an Opening Night Party in Castonguay Square featuring outdoor projection by LumenARRT! and live music by Muddy Ruckus!

Prisoners with Karl Struss Legacy Award presentation to Roger Deakins

“The wages of sin, guilt, vengeance and redemption weigh heavy on the characters of Prisoners, a spellbinding, sensationally effective thriller with a complex moral center that marks a grand-slam English-lingo debut for the gifted Québécois director Denis Villeneuve. Powered by an unusually rich, twisty script and career-best performances from Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, this tale of two Pennsylvania families searching for their kidnapped daughters sustains an almost unbearable tension for two-and-a-half hours of screen time, satisfying as both a high-end genre exercise an a searing adult drama of the sort Hollywood almost never makes anymore.”—Variety More info...

Monday, July 17, 6:30 p.m., Waterville Opera House

Followed by a Party for Roger Deakins at Riverside Farm Market, Oakland

Bambi followed by a conversation with Academy-award winning animator John Canemaker

75^th Anniversary Screening! 35 mm Academy Archive print!

Was Bambi, the Disney classic that made the woodlands feel like home to generations of young children as it is to the film’s animated deer, set in Maine? The movie itself never explicitly tells us, but Bambi has several significant Maine connections including the deer that the animators based the characters on, who were Maine animals shipped to Hollywood. If not literally set here, Bambi could well have been: the classic Felix Salter story provides the basis for this near-perfect Disney animated feature, one Disney itself has been trying to equal for 75 years. More info...

Wednesday, July 18, 6:30 p.m., Waterville Opera House

Associated event: Bambi and the art of Tyrus Wong: A Talk by John Canemaker
Tuesday, July 18, 12:00 p.m. at the Colby College Museum of Art

American Gigolo with presentation of Mid-Life Achievement Award to Lauren Hutton

“A slick Los Angeles callboy finds love and redemption in Paul Schrader’s ultra-stylish drama. High-living prostitute Julian Kay (Richard Gere) has it all: the Mercedes, the clothes, access to Beverly Hills’ swankiest establishments, and a stable of rich, older female clients. But it all falls apart after he does a favor for his former pimp (Bill Duke) and the trick turns up dead a short while later. Julian’s actual client won’t give him an alibi, and police detective Sunday (Hector Elizondo) doesn’t believe the gigolo’s denials. The one person who can help him is frustrated politician’s wife (and sole non-paying bedmate) Michelle (Lauren Hutton), if only Julian could let down his defenses and accept her gesture of love.” —TV Guide More info...
Thursday, July 20, 6:30 p.m., OH

Followed by a Party for Lauren Hutton at Amici's Cucina, Waterville

Returning Guests Present

For MIFF’s twentieth year, we’ve invited some of our favorite guests from our first two decades to come back to Waterville and share a film with us, be it one they were directly involved in or one that they simply loved and wanted to present to MIFF’s audiences. Each screening should be a one-of-a-kind journey with a great film and a great filmmaker! Returning guests include Arshak Amirbekyan with Miriam's Day Off (pictured left), Verna Bloom with The Immigrant, Hilary Brougher with The Sticky Fingers of Time, Jay Cocks with A Matter of Life and Death, Nora Jacobson with Delivered Vacant, Mike Kaplan with The Whales of August, Sean Martin and Louise Milne with Charlie Chaplin Lived Here and several other short films, Michael Murphy with Double Indemnity, Jim Stark with Factotum, and Karen Young with Carnival of Souls. More info...

The Maine International Film Festival is a project of the 501(c)(3) Maine Film Center. Become a member of the Maine Film Center and support not only MIFF but also the year-round programming of Railroad Square Cinema and other special film programming. Already a member? Show your membership card at either MIFF venue and get a special MFC Member Button! Click here to become a member today!