Presenter of the Martha's Vineyard
International Film Festival
6-9 Sept. 2012
Watch
Festival Video
Summer Movies on
Tuesdays at the historic Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs
Civil War
Film Series
with MV Museum
at
KCT
Remember, any amount helps: $50, $100, $1000 or more.
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Us!
Become a member.
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A Film?
Contact Us
Critically
Acclaimed Films this Winter on
Martha's Vineyard...(please scroll
down for movie listings)
We have a rare opportunity to create a state-of-the-art film center that will serve as the permanent home of the Film Society, its International Film Festival, and also provide other uses for our community. But before we break ground we must have in hand the funds sufficient to create a modern digital theatre within the building architect/builder Sam Dunn is planning at the Tisbury Marketplace.
We need to raise $300,000 in our Capital Campaign in order to proceed with the project.
Please review our proposal, peruse the drawings, and ask us any questions you might have about the project and our plans to establish the non-profit film center. A Pledge Card can be downloaded below as a PDF. But if you can't contain yourself, by all means call me now and make your pledge (774-392-2972) or email me at rich@mvfilmsociety.com.
Remember, any amount helps: $50, $100, $1000 or more. We also have naming rights and a special "Founders Circle" contribution level with lots of special benefits. All levels are tax deduction charitable contributions.
I know our film-loving community can make this happen--if we all pull together.
Thanks in advance for your help and support over the years.
See you at the movies!
Richard Paradise, Executive Director
P.S. All donations should be mailed to MV Film Society, P.O. Box 4423, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568 or call for details on how to make a donation using a credit card.
Download our Development Proposal or Call Richard at 508-696-9369 for more information.
20 Reasons to Support the MV Film Center
Download our Pledge Form
Download Naming Rights and other ways you can put your mark on the Film Center
MV Times Article - Click for Link
THE WAY
Director: Emilio Estevez
Featuring: Martin Sheen
"A heartfelt project, scrappy and engaging, The Way has its way with audiences despite, not because of,
its sentimentally."
- Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer
"A sensuous, expansive hymn to travel and transformation in a movie that honors earthly pleasures as readily as it contemplates higher things."
- Ann Hornaday, Washington Post
"It's a sweet and sincere family pilgrimage. Audiences seeking uplift will find it here."
- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
"There's a contemplative loveliness to The Way, an affecting personal project both for Emilio Estevez, who wrote, directed, and plays a small role, and for his father, Martin Sheen."
- Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
THE WAY is a powerful and inspirational story about family, friends, and the challenges we face while navigating this ever-changing and complicated world. Martin Sheen plays Tom, an American doctor who comes to St. Jean Pied de Port, France to collect the remains of his adult son (played by Emilio Estevez), killed in the Pyrenees in a storm while walking the Camino de Santiago, also known as The Way of Saint James. Rather than return home, Tom decides to embark on the historical pilgrimage to honor his son's desire to finish the journey. What Tom doesn't plan on is the profound impact the journey will have on him and his "California Bubble Life."
THE WAY, written and directed by Emilio Estevez, was filmed entirely in Spain and France along the actual Camino de Santiago.
USA/France/Spain * 2011 * Drama, Adventure, Comedy* 115 minutes * Rated PG-13
LE HAVRE
Director/Writer: Aki Kaurismäki
"I wanted to cry for joy at this funny and good-hearted film. I would normally be wary of a film that anyone describes as heart-warming but this is the real deal."
-Barbara Scharres, Chicago Sun-Times
“A stylized and sentimental fairy tale about the way the world might be, grounded in a
frank recognition of the way it is.”
-A.O. Scott, New York Times
“Aki Kaurismaki carves out another comically enchanted movie oasis from the real world where people can rise to the occasion and do the right things.”
- Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter
WINNER, FIPRESCI Prize, 2011 Cannes Film Festival
In this warmhearted portrait of the French harbor city that gives the film its name, fate throws young African refugee Idrissa (Blondin Miguel) into the path of Marcel Marx (André Wilms), a well-spoken bohemian who works as a shoeshiner. With innate optimism and the unwavering support of his community, Marcel stands up to officials doggedly pursuing the boy for deportation. A political fairy tale that exists somewhere between the reality of contemporary France and the classic cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville and Marcel Carné, Le Havre is a charming, deadpan delight.
In sum, Aki Kaurismäki's "Le Havre" is a simple, human tale that remains light and pleasant while brushing on topics of illegal immigration and the illness of a loved-one. It's a soulful film that mixes smart humor with true emotion, without ever feeling artificial.
France * 2011 * 93 minutes * Drama Comedy * Not-Rated * French with English subtitles
PROJECT NIM
Director & Producer: James Marsh
"Mr. Marsh, by allowing those closest to Nim plenty of room to explain themselves, examines the moral complexity of this story without didacticism."
- A.O. Scott, New York Times
"Project Nim" is practically irresistible. The story keeps getting odder and richer and more complicated.
-Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
"Project Nim" is practically irresistible. The story keeps getting odder and richer and more complicated."
- Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
"A very absorbing film"
- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Short-listed for 2011 Oscar for Best Documentary
Equal parts hilarious, poignant, and heartbreaking, Project Nim not only tells a compelling story masterfully, but also raises the flag on the darker side of human nature.
From the team behind Oscar winner MAN ON WIRE comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim's extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, the film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human. What we learn about his true nature - and indeed our own - is comic, revealing and profoundly unsettling.
MELANCHOLIA
Director & Writer: Lars von Trier
Featuring: Kirsten Dunst, Alexander Skarsgård, Kiefer Sutherland, and Charlotte Gainsbourg
"Melancholia is a remarkable mood piece with visuals to die for (excuse the pun), and a performance from Dunst that runs the color spectrum of emotions."
- Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer
"It's a planet that can't come soon enough for her, but one that I kept willing away. Not, I'm a little embarrassed to say, to save humanity from Melancholia, but simply to stay in this remarkable movie's presence just a little longer."
- Bob Mondello, NPR
"A masterwork of grandeur, millennial angst and high romantic style, "Melancholia" takes themes that have marked the best films of 2011 and spins them into a blast of cosmic sparkle dust."
- Ann Hornaday, Washington Post
"We are alone, and yet Melancholia dares to imagine (and insist we do as well) the one event that might bring us all together."
- J. Hoberman, Village Voice
WINNER, Best Film & Cinematography, European Film Award
WINNER, Best Actress, Kirsten Dunst, Cannes Film Festival
Winner, Best Picture, National Society of Film Critics
In this beautiful movie about the end of the world, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) are celebrating their marriage at a sumptuous party in the home of her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland). Despite Claire’s best efforts, the wedding is a fiasco, with family tensions mounting and relationships fraying. Meanwhile, a planet called Melancholia is heading directly towards Earth… MELANCHOLIA is a psychological disaster film from director Lars von Trier.
SING YOUR SONG
Filmmaker: Susanne Rostock, Harry Belafonte
"a man whose story should be told for generations to come"
--
Robert Redford
"Moving and Enlightening"
--
Variety
"A motivational look at an important figure in history who inspired change".
--
L.A. Times
"It is a quiet, beautiful song of protest from a man who is still trying to change the world."
--
Yahoo Movies
SING YOUR SONG is an up close look at a great American, Harry Belafonte. A patriot to the last and a champion for worldwide human rights, Belafonte is one of the truly heroic cultural and political figures of the past 60 years. Told from Harry’s point of view, the film charts his life from a boy born in New York and raised in Jamaica, who returns to Harlem in his early teens where he discovers the American Negro Theater and the magic of performing.
From there the film follows Belafonte’s rise from the jazz and folk clubs of Greenwich Village and Harlem to his emergence as a star. However, even as a superstar, the life of a black man in 1960s America was far from easy and Belafonte was confronted with the same Jim Crow laws and prejudices that every other black man, woman and child in America was facing.
Among other things, the film presents a brief look at the Civil Rights Movement through the eyes of an insider, someone who despite his high profile, wasn’t afraid to spend time in the trenches.
From Harlem to Mississippi to Africa and South Central Los Angeles, Sing Your Song takes us on a journey through Harry Belafonte’s life, work and most of all, his conscience, as it inspires us all to action!
Join - and reap the benefits!
Join as a new member at any one of this month's incredible shows, and you'll get in FREE that night.
Already a member or need to renew? Make an extra donation, or raise your membership level, and you too get in FREE! Or Bring a Friend that Joins - and You get in Free also.
The Martha's Vineyard Film Society is the Island's only year-round venue providing the best in independent cinema. But this all-volunteer non-profit group needs its members to keep going. (You might not know: a large portion of all ticket sales revenue goes to the off-Island film distributors. BUT membership dues stay on the Island!)
Join at the box office door, and you'll receive:
-one or two free admissions that night (depending on level);
-member discount prices at year-round film screenings and the
MV International Film Festival September 6-9, 2012;
-the satisfaction of knowing that because of you, one of the Vineyard's foremost cultural institutions will remain fiscally healthy.
Thanks for your continued community support!
September 6-9, 2012
Thanks to all of our dedicated volunteers and sponsors, the 2011 International Film Festival broke our previous record, over 3500 admissions sold for films and events over four days, and 12% increase in box office (and that's without any changes in pricing for the last three years). Next step, making the MV Film Center at the Tisbury Marketplace a reality for our 2012 festival.
Presented by the Martha's Vineyard
Film Society
Supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Martha's Vineyard
Cultural Council, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the MV Savings Bank Foundation, and "You", our film-going public.
For additional information about the Martha's Vineyard
Film Society or upcoming films, please contact Richard Paradise at 508-696-9369
or e-mail to rich@mvfilmsociety.com
