Here in the Valley, movie lovers are lucky to have a relative wealth of options when looking for a night out. That’s especially true for those who live in the Northampton/Amherst area; with the multiplex at the mall, art-house fare at Amherst Cinema, and free movies at local colleges and venues like Easthampton’s Platinum Pony, only the pickiest of filmgoers would come up dry.
But the Valley is a big place, and not everyone wants to get on Route 91 just to see a movie. Which is why it’s so great to see film scenes thrive in other areas along the 91 corridor. To the south, Hartford’s Real Art Ways has been going strong for nearly 40 years, mixing live events with offbeat and adventurous film programming (as I write, they’re showing 20,000 Days on Earth, the under-screened documentary about Australian musician/writer Nick Cave, among other films; see their current schedule at realartways.org). And to the north, Brattleboro—and especially, the town’s historic Latchis Theatre—has proved to be a hotbed for a wide variety of film events. This week, it gets even busier.
That’s due to the opening of the third annual Brattleboro Film Festival, which runs this year from Friday, Oct. 31 through Sunday, Nov. 9. The 10-day festival will bring 31 films to the town’s screens, along with a schedule of filmmaking workshops, Q&A sessions, and visits from some of the featured films’ directors.
The all-volunteer effort gets underway on Friday with a free 5 p.m. reception at the Latchis, where organizers will show, on a continuous loop, trailers for all of the films screening this year—a great way for filmgoers to get familiar with the full slate of films, which is traditionally a big hurdle for festivals. At 6:30, the lights go down for Pride, the 2014 drama from U.K. director Matthew Warchus that tells the story of a mineworkers’ strike in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, and the gay and lesbian activists who bypassed reluctant union leaders to bring aid directly to miners in need. The night’s second feature is Johanna Hamilton’s oddly current political documentary 1971, which tells the tale of a group of activists who broke into a Pennsylvania FBI office and stole a trove of classified documents that exposed the Bureau’s illegal surveillance of American citizens. In a time before Watergate and the Pentagon Papers, and over a decade before Edward Snowden was even born, the actions of that small group led to the country’s first congressional investigation of our own intelligence agencies. Never caught, the burglars reveal themselves for the first time in the film in order to share their story.
After that, there is still over a week of great film and film-related activity to take in. For the full schedule of events, visit brattleborofilmfestival.org, but highlights include free tickets for high school students, a screenwriting workshop with Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut), and a clutch of animated films including Ernest & Celestine, the 2012 French film that capped off Lauren Bacall’s storied career.
Also keep an eye—or an ear—open for the “live reading” of subtitled film Horizon Beautiful, a soccer drama set in Ethiopia. Designed to assist children and adults who can’t—or simply would rather not—read subtitles, these special screenings feature a live presenter (in this case professional actress Janine Hamilton) who reads the subtitles aloud as the film is playing. It’s an unusual sort of screening, and probably not for everyone, but it’s the exact sort of thing that can help make a festival something special, and it has the potential to reach filmgoers in a way no other assisted screening has yet. And that—even if you have no interest in attending the screening yourself—is something worth supporting.•
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.
