| The Silver Screen goes International in Fort Myers |
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| March 28, 2008 |
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Do you feel like you are missing out on seeing the best international independent and experimental film and video? Well, you can rejoice. They've been found and will be showing soon in Florida. Save April 11-12 for a trip to Fort Myers.
A juried selection of 50 award-winning films and videos will light up the silver screen the at the Thomas Edison Black Maria Film Festival in Fort Myers on Friday, April 11 and Saturday, April 12.
This is the second time the International Film Festival returns to Fort Myers since it began its seasonal national tour of colleges and museums in 1981. The Black Maria Film Festival is named after Thomas Edison's motion picture studio - the world's first motion picture studio.
More than 30 films will be shown over two days.
On April 11, starting at 7:30 pm. the Edison & Ford Winter Estates will host the festival outdoors along the Calhoosahatchee River at the Ford Estate (the Edison and Ford estates are side by side in historic Fort Myers). But it is still movie night, even though outdoors, and of course, there will be popcorn and beverages at the Ford's winter home "The Mangos."
Fourteen films will air Friday night. You may be watching a future Academy Award winner. The Black Maria is recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as an Academy Awards qualifying festival for short films. And I mean short - from two to 15 minutes.
Subjects cover the waterfront - some examples - "The Closing Work" is a six-minute look at the impact of America's first Transcontinental Railroad. Vignettes, including the famous "Golden Spike", the last spike driving to connect the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific. The old films are inter-cut with text to make a meditation on time, space and connectivity. A two-minute film called "Type A" is an animation about frustration - for all of us who have had to adjust our lives to live with digital technology.
The longest film, 15 minutes, is "Rooftop Bees", a documentary about a retired resident of Manhatten who raising bees on his rooftop.
Saturday, April 12, 7:30 p.m., the Festival moves indoors to the Rauschenberg Gallery at Edison College. Films include "Energie!", five minutes of Mother Nature working up a storm with lightening and thunder and "Field of Green', an eight-minute film where an artist goes through a sketchbook of images he made as an American soldier in Vietnam. All the films are short and packed with a variety of subjects.
Tickets are $10 per evening and may be bought in advance at the Estates, 2350 McGregor Blvd., Fort Myers. For more information call (239)-334-7419 or visit these Web sites: Edison & Ford Winter Estates, or Edison College and also Black Maria Film Festival.
While movies and popcorn take up your nights, save the daylight time for visiting the two estates - Ford and Edison, and leave time to visit nearby Sanibel Island to sift some sand between your toes. Sounds like a plan. |
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| 2007 Black Maria Film Festival at the Estates in Fort Myers |
| Credit: Photo supplied by Edison & Ford Winter Estates |
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