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.
The Martha's Vineyard Film Festival's four-day event featured 20 movies. In between screenings, filmgoers walked around, mingled with one another and sipped on Chilmark Coffee Company java.
The Martha's Vineyard Film Festival opens on Thursday, March 13, with over 20 films, including features and documentaries, being shown during the weekend. The opening night film to be screened at the Edgartown Cinema's is Fading Gigolo produced by West Tisbury summer resident Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte.
Author Robert Putnam in his book Bowling Alone, published in 2000, examined trends in American society and concluded that the country was growing apart due to lack of community involvement. His thesis pointed to a disengaged populace that was more isolated and therefore less likely to be empathetic. The traditional outlets for bringing a community together were no longer thriving, he said, from bowling leagues to PTA meetings, and as a result the country as a whole was suffering.
The common room of the Chilmark School rustled with popcorn bags and whispers on Friday afternoon as the entire school, kindergarten through fifth grades, prepared to become the audience for their own animated films. The projector screen lit up and animated puppets hula-hooped, built forts, played four square, shared snacks and engaged in lively dialogue about conflict, compromise and cooperation.
Next weekend, moviegoers will gather at the Chilmark Community Center for the 13th Annual Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival. They will sit on bales of straw in the Hay Café and eat chef Chris Fischer’s home-cooked meals. But mostly, they will seat themselves in the cozy main room of the Chilmark Community Center, ready to get lost in the onscreen worlds of the 14 films in this year’s lineup.
