You don't have to buy a plane ticket to Park City, UT, or Cannes, France, to attend a highly regarded film festival. All you need to do is head down the JFX to several Baltimore locations that will host screenings during the Maryland Film Festival this Thursday through Sunday, May 5-8.
This is the 13th year that the festival has brought films and videos from all over the world to audiences in Maryland. In some cases, the filmmakers themselves will attend to present their work.
The festival's website says that thousands of people buy tickets each year to see features and shorts, documentaries, animated pieces and everything in between at venues like The Charles Theater, MICA's Brown Center and the Windup Space.
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With so many screenings, it’s hard to pick out the highlights, but a crowd-pleasing place to start is the festival’s annual visit from filmmaker, visual artist, author and Baltimore native John Waters, who will present the French coming-of-age film Domaine at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, is also on the presenters list this year. She’ll host a screening of Sergio Leone’s legendary spaghetti western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, starring Clint Eastwood, at 2 p.m. Saturday. While we won’t know exactly why she chose that film until she tells her audience at the screening, organizers have a hunch that Alsop picked the film because of its well-known score.
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On Sunday at 11 a.m., the Alloy Orchestra will perform original scores for a collection of silent film classics, Charlie Chaplin’s Easy Street, Fatty Arbuckle’s Backstage and Buster Keaton’s One Week. Later on Sunday, at 7:30 p.m., the festival will wrap with a screening of the documentary Sing Your Song, with the film’s star, Harry Belafonte, on hand for a Q&A.
An all-access festival pass can be purchased for $200 online. Tickets to individual events and screenings may also be purchased online through the film festival schedule page. You can also visit missiontix.com and search for “Maryland Film Festival.”
A look at the schedule at missiontix.com shows that most screenings cost $10 per ticket, except for the opening-night shorts ($40), the Alloy Orchestra performance on Sunday ($15), and the closing night film ($25). Email tickets@mdfilmfest.com for more information.
