By Anthony DeAngelis
Correspondent

PORTSMOUTH — Are you looking to catch a glimpse of the latest in cinema without having to break the bank?

If so, make your way to Portsmouth this weekend for a chance to catch some of the finest films handpicked from around globe as the Maine International Film Festival showcases eight films at The Music Hall of Portsmouth.

The cinematic adventures kick off this Friday and run through Sunday, as attendees are treated to exclusive viewings of eight films, complete with seminars and guests, all from one of New England’s most renowned film festivals.

“It’s an opportunity to see something you may only get to see in a place like New York,” said Chris Curtis, film and outreach coordinator at The Music Hall. “It’s kind of like opening Christmas presents all weekend long.”

For the first time in its 12-year history, the Maine International Film Festival will premiere a select number of feature films outside of its usual site for the festival in Waterville, Maine. This year’s event, which started July 10 and will run until July 19, showcases 100 films and 50 filmmakers, representing some of the best American independent and international cinema around.

“These are films that are not going to be at the multiplex down the street,” said Shannon Haines, director of the Maine International Film Festival. “We are focused on the films and the experience. That’s what makes us different.”

The festivities open up in Portsmouth on Friday with the Henry King film “Carousel.” It continues on Saturday, beginning with “Weather Underground,” followed by “Ghost Bird,” “Pachamama” and “Bonne Annee.”

The weekend of cinema is capped off on Sunday with “Historias Extraordinarias,” “Shooting Beauty,” and “Necessities of Life.”

“These are films that most people will never hear about, unfortunately, but a lot of these titles are just gems,” Curtis said. “These are films for people who really appreciate cinema.”

The festival also allows cinema lovers the chance to meet and talk with some of the people behind the movies, including directors, producers, writers and musicians. Such honored guests, along with fellow visiting filmmakers, will host panel discussions as well as informal question and answer sessions, giving the audiences a chance to hear about the art of film from those involved.

Mark Rudd, political activist, math professor and author of the new autobiography, “Underground: My life in SDS and the Weatherman,” headlines the group as he introduces the films on Saturday, with a seminar that will be free of charge to pass holders and ticket holders for “The Weather Underground.”

Also on Saturday, actress Karen Young and director Alexander Berberich will introduce the film “Bonne Annee” and lead a post-film discussion immediately following the movie. On Sunday, George Kachadorian and producer Courtney Bent will lead a post-film discussion following the conclusion of their film, “Shooting Beauty.”

“I think there is a film here everyone can enjoy, and if not, what do you have to lose?” Haines said. “I say be adventurous - chances are you are going to have a great time and see something you have never seen before.”

All tickets and passes for the Maine International Film Festival at The Music Hall of Portsmouth must be purchased through The Music Hall box office by phone at 603-436-2400 or online at www.themusichall.org.

If You Go
What: Maine International Film Festival at the Music Hall of Portsmouth.
When: Friday, July 17 to Sunday, July 19.
Where: The Music Hall of Portsmouth, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth, N.H.
Tickets: Individual film tickets are $11 ($9.50 for members). For a weekend pass which includes preferred seating to all eight feature films, the cost is $82 ($70 for members). For a festival pass, which includes priority seating for all films and special events, the cost is $120 ($110 for members). All tickets and passes are available through The Music Hall box office at 603-436-2400 or online at www.themusichall.org

WEEKEND SCHEDULE

Friday, July 17

• 7-9:15 p.m.: “Carousel” (128 minutes) with “Restoring Cinemascope 55″ (7 minutes).

• 9:15 p.m.: Opening Night Reception in Founders Lobby (open to all pass holders and “Carousel” ticket holders).

Saturday, July 18

• 10:30-11:30 a.m.: Seminar: “A New Century - A New Activism” (Mark Rudd). Seminar open to all pass holders and “Weather Underground” ticket holders). Mark Rudd to introduce films, lead post-film discussion and sign his new book.

• Noon-1:45 p.m.: “Weather Underground” (93 minutes) with “Clear Glasses” (4 minutes).

• 3:30-5 p.m.: “Ghost Bird” (85 minutes).

• 6-7:45 p.m.: “Pachamama” (104 minutes). Actress Karen Young and director Alexander Berberich introduce film and lead post-film discussion

• 8:45-10:30 p.m.: “Bonne Anne” (105 minutes).

Sunday, July 19

• “Historias Extraordinarias” (245 minutes).

• 11 a.m.-12:20 p.m.: 1st part (80 minutes) .

• 12:35-1:55 p.m.: 2nd part (80 minutes) .

• 2:10-3:35 p.m.: 3rd part (85 minutes).

• Director George Kachadorian and producer/subject Courtney Bent lead post-film discussion.

• 4:30-6 p.m.: “Shooting Beauty” (62 minutes) with “I Am A Man” (27 minutes).

• 7:45-9:30 p.m.: “Necessities of Life” (103 minutes).

FILM DESCRIPTIONS

‘CAROUSEL’
Director: Henry King

Screenplay: Henry Ephron, Phoebe Ephron, based on the play “Lilion” by Ferenc Molnar

Producer: Henry Ephron

Cast: Shirley Jones, Gordon MacRae, Barbara Ruick, Cameron Mitchell

The newly restored classic musical “Carousel” dazzles in a sparkling 35mm. Set on the northern New England seacoast (and shot largely in Boothbay Harbor, Maine), this wondrous turn-of-the-century fantasy has been newly restored in this pristine archival print by Martin Scorsese’s restoration organization, The Film Foundation, and the result is a wonder to the eyes, ears and heart. Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae star in Henry King’s lustrous and emotionally complex tale, set to one of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most memorable scores.

‘THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND’
Directors: Sam Green, Bill Siegel

Producers: Carrie Lozano, Sam Green, Bill Siegel, Marc Smolowitz

Narrated by Lili Taylor

With Bernadine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, David Gilbert and ‘CLEAR GLASSES’

Director: Sam Green

Mark Rudd, political activist, math professor and author of the new autobiography “Underground: My life in SDS and the Weathermen,” will introduce Oscar nominee “The Weather Underground,” in which he is a principal figure, and a new short, “Clear Glasses,” by “Weather Underground” co-director Sam Green, in which he is the central figure. In the ‘60s, Rudd embodied student protest as one of the leaders of the famous student rebellion at Columbia University, and in the ‘70s, was a fugitive from the law as a member of the Weathermen and Weather Underground, who sought to overthrow the government of the U.S. “The Weather Underground” is a riveting and thought provoking chronicle of the group, and perhaps the greatest film ever made about the ‘60s in general, while “Clear Glasses” is a ruefully funny meditation on an artifact of the era. This should be a memorable afternoon, as Rudd, whose perspective is honest and contemplative, yet true to the era’s ideals, will share his unique perspective on more-timely-than-ever questions of how best to accomplish social change.

‘GHOST BIRD’
Director, Producer: Scott Crocker

The true story of an extinct giant woodpecker, a small town in Arkansas hoping to reverse it misfortunes, and the tireless odyssey of bird-watchers and scientists searching for the Holy Grail of birds, the elusive Ivory-billed woodpecker. Although considered extinct 60 years ago, bird watchers refused to accept its passing. Then, scientists from Cornell announced that it had been found … but had it? Scott Crocker’s new documentary, hailed in its recent World Premiere at Hot Docs as “comic, mesmerizing and deeply poignant. This investigative doc is reminiscent of the work of Errol Morris in the way it casts a spell while telling a story and building a case” (Maclean’s).

‘PACHAMAMA’ (El Regalo De La Pachamama)

Director, Producer, Screenplay: Toshifumi Matsushita
With Christian Huaygua, Luis Mamani, Faniy Mosques

In Bolivia, 13 year old Kunturi for the first time accompanies his father as he leads a traditional, colorfully outfitted llama caravan along the ancient “ruta de la sal” (salt route). The journey begins at their home on the salt plains where the blocks of salt are harvested and leads to the increasingly remote villages of the Andes where the grateful villagers barter corn and pumpkins for the essential salt and ends with the Tinku Festival where Kunturi meets his future wife. “Pachamama” has been correctly compared to “Latcho Drom” and “Postmen in the Mountains”: all three could be called ethnographic road movies with big hearts and eyes for beauty. “Named after the Queeha earth goddess, the pic portrays a vanishing way of life yet emerges as a delightful celebration of it.” Variety.

‘BONNE ANNEE’ (Happy New Year)
Director: Alexander Berberich

Screenplay: Alexander Berberich, Benjamin Banks, Todd Morris

Producers: Alexander Berberich, Benjamin Banks, Thibaut Landier

Cast: Benjamin Banks, Thibaut Landier, Karen Young, Jennifer Dizgun

“Bonne Annee” takes place during the course of one fateful night in an unnamed Latin American city. It is New Year’s Eve, and two hit men, one American, one French, ponder the night and their lives in this stylish and unconventional thriller. The film begins with the end of the evening’s story, then retraces the events that lead there in a series of beautifully composed, continuous “long take” shots averaging 10 minutes each. This technique, pioneered by Alfred Hitchcock in “Rope” but almost never used since, is stunningly effective. “Bonne Annee” is the first full length film by Alexander Berberich and features an assured and radiant performance from Karen Young, who’s dazzled as a leading lady in a range of great films from the international (Laurent Cantet’s “Heading South”) to the American independent (Tom Noonan’s “The Wife”) to the Hollywood (”Daybreak”, “Heat”) to upper case TV series (”The Sopranos,” where she appeared regularly as Agent Robyn Sanseverino.)

‘HISTORIAS EXTRAORDINARIAS’ (Extraordinary Stories)
Director, Screenplay: Mariano Llinas

Producer: Laura Citarella

Cast: Klaus Dietze, Eduardo Iaccono, Walter Jacob, Mariano Llinas

This is the kind of cinematic discovery MIFF loves. This truly riveting four hour film from director Mariano Llinas and Argentina - which appears to be producing some of the most interesting cinema in the world today - roars by like a rushing locomotive, spinning out story on dazzling story as it interweaves the tales of three men on idiosyncratic, mysterious quests that lead in directions no one, including them, could ever expect. It’s been described as Thomas Pynchon meets Robert Louis Stevenson meets Jorge Luis Borges… but though all those literary references are apt, “Historias Extraordinarias” is a true cinematic original. In this adventurous experiment in storytelling, secret identities, missing persons, lost treasures, exotic beasts and desperate criminals are only a few of the elements woven into a grand tapestry of mysteries.

SHOOTING BEAUTY: Everyone Deserves a Shot
Director: George Kachadorian

Producer: Courtney Bent

With Courtney Bent, Tony Knight, Tom Herrick

Already the winner of Audience Awards from two film festivals, Emmy nominated filmmaker and Durham resident, George Kachadorian’s documentary film tells the story of aspiring fashion photographer Courtney Bent, whose career takes an unexpected turn when she discovers a hidden world of beauty at a center for people living with significant cerebral palsy and other disabilities. Courtney overcomes her own reservations and begins inventing accessible cameras for her new friends to take pictures of their world. Ernest ‘EJ’ James learns to snap photos with his tongue while dodging Boston traffic. Tom Herrick, who spent the first 18 years of his life confined to his bedroom, completely changes his self-concept - he ceases to be a person with a handicap and becomes a person with a camera. Mary Jo Chaisson may be the most infectious, joyful character ever captured on film. And Tony Knight, a handsome, well spoken Jamaican native uses his photography to ‘start the conversation’ with a public afraid to approach him. The group’s efforts snowball into an award winning photography program called “Picture This” - and become the backdrop for this eye-opening story about romance, daring, loss and laughter that will change what you thought you knew about living with a disability - and without one.

Playing with: ‘I Am a Man’: From Memphis, a Lesson In Life

Director, Co-Producer: Jonathan Epstein

Screenplay, Co-Producer: John Hubbell

With Elmore Nickleberry, Alura Frazier, Willie Caldwell

In 1968, cameras captured thousands of African-American men, marching through the streets of Memphis, Tennessee, demanding overdue respect. Their signs read, ‘I Am a Man.’ In the long shadow of the slaying of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the stories of the average men and women who made one of the civil rights movement’s most pivotal, historic stands have been overlooked. Surrounded by the unique soul music that helped make Memphis world famous, ‘I Am a Man’ follows Elmore Nickleberry - one of the original 1968 protesters - who, at 77, is continuing to drive his trash truck through the streets of downtown Memphis. Memories of the city’s sanitation workers - filled with love, sorrow and laughter - are set against a present-day backdrop of Mr. Nickleberry’s route, life and family. More than just history, Elmore Nickleberry offers a lesson in life. The families behind the 1968 strike speak out, some for the first time, telling stories filled with pain, determination and yes, laughter. The film introduces audiences not only to Mr. Nickleberry and his family, but to the principles which he and others adhered to as they faced seemingly insurmountable adversity, only to quietly change the course of history. More than just history, Elmore Nickleberry offers a lesson in life.

‘THE NECESSITIES OF LIFE’ (Ce qu’il faut pour vivre)
Director: Benoit Pilon

Screenplay: Bernard Emond, Benoit Pilon

Producers: Bernadette Payeur, Rene Chenier

Cast: Natar Ungalaaq, Paul-Andre Brasseur, Eveline Gelinas, Vincent Guillaume Otis

Winner of 4 Genies (the Canadian Oscar equivalent) including Best Actor, Director and Screenplay and 3 Jutras (the Quebecois Oscar equivalent) including Best Film, “The Necessities of Life” is a finely observed and beautifully filmed story of cross-cultural connection based on the tuberculosis epidemic that broke out in the Inuit population of far northern Canada in the 1940s and ‘50s. Natar Ungalaaq of “The Fast Runner” stars as a stricken man, diagnosed with TB when a medical boat docks during the brief summer in which his Baffin Island home is accessible to the outside world. Three months’ passage later, he lands in Quebec City, where everything seems alien - even the myriad trees that obstruct clear views (unlike the stark, wide-open vistas of home). While no one here speaks Inuktitu, Tivii does grasp that his treatment is expected to last as long as two years. Despairing, he’s nonetheless somewhat buoyed by the warm concern of fellow patient Joseph and nurse Carole. His outlook improves when she orchestrates the hospital transfer of Kaki, a similarly afflicted orphan who’s been away from his native culture for many months. That’s time enough to have learned French, so he can act as Tivii’s translator, while the latter takes a fatherly interest in stoking the child’s lapsed knowledge of traditional Inuk customs and myths.