Caroll Spinney is in the spotlight with the release of the documentary I Am Big Bird, which chronicles his life and career playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street. He was recently on the Vineyard for a film screening and puppet-making workshop.

The Martha's Vineyard Film Festival once again brought filmmakers and the Island community together for an overflow of riches.

The children’s programming has long been an essential component of the spring film festival, and for the summer series, too. This year there are numerous family films, including a series of animated short films on Saturday at 9 a.m.

On a recent spring-like afternoon in downtown Chilmark, as the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival staff walked from their offices on South Road to the Chilmark Community Center, the sun burst through a patch of Beetlebung trees.

It isn’t Kansas, but Owen Park in Vineyard Haven will work nicely for the outdoor screening of The Wizard of Oz at 8 p.m. on Friday, August 15.

The final dinner and a movie offering for the summer season of the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival at the Chilmark Community Center will be Wednesday, August 20.

The best sports stories are the ones that toe the line of improbability — the ones that unfold in real life without direction yet seem scripted in their narrative, as though they were written for a Hollywood studio.

By the time the lights came up after the screening last Wednesday of Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine, most of the audience was in tears. The film tells the story of Matt Shepard, an openly gay student at the University of Wyoming who was brutally murdered in 1998.

In 2010 Cutter Hodierne decided to tell the story of a band of Somali pirates who commandeered a Ukrainian ship, the Faina. But he realized that the only way to do it right was to travel to Africa and use Somali actors.

This year's Martha's Vineyard Film Festival will be the biggest in its history, with screenings taking place around the Island.