A block of North Charles Street was turned into a cinematic playpen over the weekend, as thousands of movie lovers ventured to the Charles Theatre and its environs to sample everything from a 90-second short celebrating gnats to the latest film from Oscar-winning documentary director Alex Gibney.
The 10th annual Maryland Film Festival launched with a shorts program Thursday evening and wrapped last night with a new work from blaxploitation film pioneer Melvin Van Peebles.
In between, nearly 50 features and 80 short films were shown. Although final figures are not yet in, ticket sales were "significantly up" from last year's total of 17,000 tickets, festival head Jed Dietz said.
FOR THE RECORD
An article in Monday's editions on the Maryland Film Festival misspelled the name of one of the attendees interviewed. His name is Michael Gamerman.
The Sun regrets the error.
Variety was key to the weekend's success, as the range of offerings was wide enough to satisfy even the most discerning - or, perhaps better said, demanding - taste.
Augustine Cook, who works in Kent County's office of economic development and was hoping to drum up some filmmaker interest in shooting on the Eastern Shore, enjoyed the scope of Luke Wolbach's Row Hard No Excuses, a documentary on a trans-Atlantic rowboat race. "I liked the way the two main rowers, how [the director] went back and showed us something about their families, about what they had to go through to even be in the race."
For filmmaker Sean Donnelly, in town to show his documentary about obsessive fans of pop-singer Tiffany, I Think We're Alone Now, watching Mary Bronstein's Yeast, a drama of roommates who often seem barely able to tolerate one another, proved something of a revelation. He likes films, it finally dawned on him, with unlikable characters.
"Most people like movies only if they have likable characters," he said, doodling in a sketchbook while waiting for his own film to finish screening, "but I felt like I could relate to these characters very well. As awful as one of them was, I felt I could really relate to her."
Michael Gamer, who works in an auto-parts warehouse but aspires to success as a songwriter, enjoyed a break from the faux reality of TV. He praised Nanette Burstein's American Teen, following a group of adolescents being themselves at an Indiana high school, as "the anti-Laguna Beach."
