Maryland Film Festival

Some of the brightest lights of Baltimore's independent film scene will be featured at Highlandtown's Creative Alliance next week. "Solo Cinema: Independent Visions in Film" will highlight the work of five directors whose art is both highly personal (thus the Solo Cinema moniker) and internationally acclaimed. The festival kicks off with Lynne Sachs, whose Investigation of a Flame opened the 2001 Maryland Film Festival. "I Am Not a War Photographer" (7:30 p.m. Thursday) is an informal talk, with film clips, in which Sachs discusses her films, which have taken her to war zones in Vietnam, Bosnia and the Middle East.

Festivals are fun, unless you're organizing one. But Jed Dietz, director of the Maryland Film Festival for nine years, says it's still fun. Seriously. The man is confident. ("It's going great.") And well he should be. This year's event runs May 3-6 and is set to be bigger than ever, including a first-time filmmaker tent village across the street from the Charles Theatre. "There will be interactions with filmmakers, panels, workshops, screenings and all of that is free," says Dietz, 59, a father of three who lives in Roland Park with his wife, Dr. Julia McMillan, a Johns Hopkins University pediatrics professor.

Baltimore will soon join cities from Cannes to Park City in having its own film festival, organizers will announce today.The Maryland Film Festival will unspool over four days beginning April 22, festival founder Jed Dietz said recently at the festival's office on East Read Street. Dietz, a producer and fixture on the Baltimore film scene, said the impulse for the festival came from the city's burgeoning film industry, which has grown from the occasional John Waters or Barry Levinson movie to a more coordinated, year-round economic development effort.

For a brief moment this summer, Baltimore filmgoers may have thought they were seeing things. The Charles Theatre, the venerable art house that had recently added four screens, was playing such big studio movies as "Summer of Sam," "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut" and "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me."Meanwhile, the 17-screen General Cinema megaplex in Owings Mills was showing "Limbo," the latest low-budget feature from independent filmmaker John Sayles.Was there something wrong with this picture?

Introducing "The Godfather," at the first annual Maryland Film Festival yesterday at the Charles Theatre, was an offer Mayor Kurt Schmoke couldn't refuse.In 1982, when he ran for state's attorney of Baltimore, Schmoke watched "The Godfather" instead of the election coverage on television. He won. Since then, it's become an election night ritual. Not "Godfather II," not "Godfather III." The original."If it worked once, it might work again," Schmoke explained.As for the festival itself, the question was, would it work the first time.

IT IS quite miraculous what imaginative architects can do. At the Charles Theater, thanks to stadium seating, they were able to cram four additional screens into the space where the Famous Ballroom used to be -- plus a concession area, restrooms and other amenities.A star-studded ribbon cutting today will celebrate the result of months of reconstruction. Guests will have five films to choose from, champagne, popcorn and live music.Over the next four days, the Charles will be among the locations used by the Maryland Film Festival.

Fear and filmmakers were the big attraction at a sold-out benefit screening of "The Blair Witch Project" at Baltimore's Charles Theatre. The filmed-in-Maryland fright flick certainly threw a scare into the audience members, but they loved every minute of it.(For more on the movie's fright quotient, see the "Around Town" item on this page.)After the screening, the movie's makers, Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick, chatted with the audience about how they created their hair-raising yarn. Then the 450 freaked-out film fans got back to a more rosy reality at a post-show reception.

The hometown went Hollywood for the opening of the Maryland Film Festival. About 600 cinephiles swarmed to the historic Senator Theatre to see local-boy-done-really-good Barry Levinson present his documentary in progress, "Diner Guys."The audience included local filmmakers John Waters, Steve Yeager, Dan Rosen, Paul Zinder and Elizabeth Holder; film festival founder Jed Dietz; festival consultant Gabriel Wardell; Dr. Sylvan Feldman and Dr. Larry Becker, two of the "Diner Guys"; casting director Pat Moran; CBS-TV reporter Vicki Mabrey; Dr. Lovell Smith, an assistant professor at Loyola College; performance artist David Sawyer; Mike Styer, Maryland Film Office director.

After an impressive debut during the Maryland Film Festival, the Charles Theatre has booked some don't-miss movies this week.In addition to Majid Majidi's tender drama "Children of Heaven," the theater has brought in three seminal documentaries by the legendary Maysles Brothers, which will be shown this weekend: "Salesman" (1968), about a group of Willy Loman-esque Bible salesmen; "Grey Gardens" (1976), about Edith and Edie Beale, a mother and daughter living in eccentric squalor on a crumbling Long Island estate, and, Friday and Saturday only, "Gimme Shelter" (1970)

The Maryland Film Festival will present a Barry Levinson marathon Sunday at the Charles Theatre in anticipation of the release next week of "Liberty Heights," the fourth installment of Levinson's Baltimore cycle.The day starts at 9: 45 a.m. with doughnuts and coffee from the Hollywood Diner (where "Diner" and parts of "Liberty Heights" were filmed). "The Original Diner Guys," Levinson's documentary about the real-life group of friends that inspired his debut film, follows at 10: 30."Diner" will be shown at 12: 15 p.m. Boxed lunches will be served at 2 p.m., followed by a screening of "Tin Men" at 2: 30; "Avalon" will be shown at 4: 30 p.m.After a dinner break at 6: 30, there will be a screening of a "mystery movie" at 7: 30 p.m. A $45 marathon pass includes admission to all the films (only pass holders will be admitted to the mystery screening)

SATURDAY BARRY LEVINSON, DAVID SIMON AND JOHN WATERS: Baltimore's film and TV VIPs come together for the first time for an open conversation about the film industry and filming in Maryland at Maryland Institute College of Art, 1300 Mount Royal Ave. The event, a fundraiser for the Maryland Film Festival, is moderated by film critic Elvis Mitchell. The evening starts for all-access pass holders with a cocktail reception at 5:30 p.m. followed by dinner with the filmmakers at 6:30 p.m. Doors open at 7 p.m. for conversation and auction-only ticket holders.

John Waters, Barry Levinson and David Simon aren't just appearing on stage for the first time together for the Maryland Film Festival benefit on Nov. 14. They're also throwing their support behind the event in advance. "I think we'll be good!" says Waters. "We won't be the Three Stooges, but we will be the Three Musketeers of extreme Baltimore behavior. ... I can make a movie about a Towson soccer mom who is a serial killer ["Serial Mom"], Barry can make a really moving movie about anti-Semitism in the Baltimore of his youth ["Liberty Heights"]

"The Band That Wouldn't Die," Barry Levinson's documentary on his native city's astonishingly resilient Colts-cum- Ravens marching band, will get its U.S. premiere Oct. 6 at M&T Bank Stadium. "We were very touched and honored that world-famous producer and director Barry Levinson would produce something like this about the Marching Ravens," said band president John Ziemann. "It not only represents Baltimore and Maryland, but it represents every person who is a professional football fan in this city and state."

Anyone who wonders why jazz and the movies are often called the quintessential American arts should check out Bruce Broder's exhilarating documentary about high school jazz bands, "Chops," at the Charles Theatre this weekend. It's a swinging, exuberant depiction of a Jacksonville, Fla., ensemble that makes it to the Essentially Ellington competition sponsored by Jazz at Lincoln Center. On one level, "Chops" simply demonstrates once again that the cinema is our aesthetic melting pot, capable of absorbing every form of pictorial, verbal or musical expression.

Will hip audiences who packed the house at the Charles for "Bruno" show up for a Korean film that's actually younger in spirit? Will older art-house audiences support an oddball comedy simply because it's novel entertainment? The Maryland Film Festival has bet "yes" on "Daytime Drinking," Noh Young-seok's no-budget road movie about a recent college graduate who tries to drown a romantic breakup in gallons of booze as he lurches from one misfired getaway to another across a snowy, underpopulated landscape.

The acclaimed new comedy Humpday takes its gimmick from a grass-roots Seattle porn celebration, but the creative epiphany that made the movie possible occurred at the Maryland Film Festival. In Humpday, writer-director Lynn Shelton riffs on the Seattle sex-film festival HUMP!, which has been showcasing home-made sex movies since 2005. She came up with an attention-getting hook: Two heterosexual guys decide to grab the grand prize at "Humpfest" by making gay love while insisting that they're straight.

Preschool power grabs. The psychedelic undead. Fruit-eating trees. Mermaids. Richard Nixon and George Wallace. Mr. Magoo. Anything can happen to anyone in short films, those brief bursts of creative cinema that put a premium on originality and adventurousness, where the tried and true need not apply. More than 30 such works, ranging in length from about one minute to 13, will be part of Artscape this weekend, screening for free at the Charles Theatre courtesy of the Maryland Film Festival.

Alt-rockers Cake, R&B legend Dionne Warwick and pop crooner Robin Thicke will be the headline musical acts at this year's Artscape, organizers announced Wednesday. Warwick, whose smooth, jazz-influenced vocals have made her one of the most successful female singers of the past 50 years, will take to the stage at 8 p.m. Friday, July 17. The Sacramento, Calif.-based Cake, whose area concert appearances always draw large crowds for their hybrid mix of rock, ska and other musical styles, is slated for 6:30 p.m. Saturday, July 18. The Grammy Award-winning Thicke, who has sold more than 2 million albums, is scheduled to perform at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 19. Also playing on the festival's main stage, alongside the Maryland Institute College of Art, will be the soul group Robert Randolph & the Family Band (8:30 p.m. July 18)

Coming off a rousing screening of his "film essay" PoliWood at New York's TriBeCa Film Festival, Barry Levinson is psyched to bring it to the Maryland Film Festival on Sunday. Levinson considers this multifaceted look at politics and Hollywood an ideal festival attraction "because it's the kind of piece that opens up discussion. It's full of ideas." With a cast of real-life characters ranging from New York Gov. David Paterson and Republican pollster Frank Luntz to Susan Sarandon, Josh Lucas and Anne Hathaway, the movie depicts the dangerous yet also humorous confluence of politics, celebrity and media.

FILM 'Star Trek' : Lost creator J.J. Abrams takes the classic series back to square one, and the results are kind of cosmic. It's an adrenaline rush of action and adventure with just enough nostalgia. Finally relieved of the original cast, it boldly goes where no Trek has gone before. In theaters Friday. POP MUSIC 'White Lies for Dark Times': : by Ben Harper ... : The folk rocker switches up his sound and his backup band. With White Lies, we get a harder, louder edge and the Relentless 7 in lieu of the Innocent Criminals.