The Woods Hole Film Festival

Why Go: Enjoy a picturesque resort town and catch a few movies while you’re there.

Festival Website: http://www.woodsholefilmfestival.org/

Dates: 8 days at the beginning of August

Programming: Begun in 2001, the festival features American indie films with an emphasis on documentaries and emerging filmmakers.

Filmmaker Turnout. Good. The 2010 event featured documentarian Barbara Kopple among numerous other guest moviemakers.

Venues: The  main venues are the Old Woods Hole Fire Station, the Community Hall, Lilly Auditorium and Redfield Auditorium. In 2015 screenings at Falmouth Academy were added. All except Falmouth Academy are in or near the center of town. The Redfield Auditorium is new with excellent screening facilities and good sight lines, but the OWHFS  and the Community Hall feature hard folding chairs in small auditoriums with poor sightlines and no projection booths. The Lilly Auditorium has a projection booth and banked seating with good sightlines, but wooden chairs, inadequate legroom and a poor sound system detract from the experience. The Falmouth Academy enjoys good sightlines but also features hard folding chairs, except in the back row where improvised cushioned seating is available.

Getting around: Once you find a place to park, which may not be easy, you can walk to most of the venues. Parking is easy at the Falmouth Academy.

Restaurants

• Landfall Restaurant: Fresh seafood served in a waterfront setting. Redfield Auditorium is across the street and the Firehouse is a block away. Free valet parking. 2 Luscombe Avenue, Woods Hole, MA 02543-1014. Phone: (508) 548-1758  http://www.woodshole.com/landfall/

The Festival Year by Year

2010

Best Film I Saw: Stonewall Uprising. Kate Davis and David Heilbroner’s documentary features a dramatic event and an engaging case of characters–not least of whom is the police officer who led the famous raid.

2011

Best Film I Saw: A Good Man. A penetrating examination of the complexities of the creative process which documents the travails of  renown choreographer Bill T. Jones as he stages a multimedia performance in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday for Chicago’s Ravinia Festival. Kartemquin veteran Gordon Quinn  shares directing credit with Bob Hercules.

2013

2013 Festival Poster

Best Film I Saw. The Forgotten Kingdom. Using the magnificent scenery of the little-seen African country of Lesotho as a backdrop, writer-director Andrew Mudge has crafted a moving coming-of-age tale which makes the most of the picturesque and folkloric motifs of what Manthia Diawara has called calabash cinema.

2014

Unexpected Pleasure: Wonderful footage of wolves in Marni Zelnick’s wilderness drama Druid Peak.

2015

Best Film I Saw: Bob and the Trees. Diego Ongaro’s debut feature occupies the outer reaches of neo-realism with rustic characters playing themselves in a story about the hardscrobble existance of loggers in Western Massachusetts that is closer to documentary than fiction.

2016

Best Film I Saw: Shooting Stars. So glad I got to see this extraordinary first film by British director Anthony Asquith, which I was able to fully appreciate on second viewing (I first saw it in Bologna). A masterpiece in every respect.

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