Chesapeake Film Festival 2009 Artistic Director Doug Sadler and Programming Director Tom McCall, CFF board members with Talbot County roots, know something about pictures. Sadler's award-winning film "Swimmers" followed his 2002 debut "Riders" and was declared by one critic to be "the most poignant and moving film I saw at Sundance 2005." He has been described as "the Eastern Shore's Barry Levinson." McCall is a world traveler and professional still photographer with an acclaimed artistic bent whose work has appeared in many publications.

The two journeyed to Utah last January to check out the celebrated Sundance Film Festival, the largest independent film festival in the country and the de rigueur showcase setting for new and creative indie cinematography.

They answer a few questions about CFF 2009.

By some counts, there are more than 500 film festivals in the United States alone. What makes the Chesapeake Film Festival stand out from the others?

Doug Sadler: Our location. Our community. And quite frankly, the unique ties to the film industry on the CFF board as well as in the area. Every film festival I've been to is a unique alchemy of audience and place. At their best, film festivals allow an impassioned give-and-take between filmmakers and film-lovers. As CFF is situated in a stunning place that happens to have a deep interest in the arts, we are uniquely positioned to create an engaged community around film. Our location an historic, walking-friendly downtown in a beautiful rural area on the Chesapeake Bay combined with intelligent, engaged audiences makes us a refreshing stop for filmmakers more familiar with the traditionally urban festival circuit.

Additionally, film festivals are an increasingly important part of how interesting, different films get seen. The great gift of a festival like CFF is that in the span of a few days and a few films you can travel the globe, gain insight into some of the world's pressing problems, laugh, cry, encounter new and different work, and engage in spirited dialogue with friends, neighbors and filmmakers from across the country.

Tom McCall: We have several speakers who are coming to do Q&A sessions with the audience after the films. We have a National Geographic writer, Tom O'Neill, who did a cover story on North Korea, to speak after "Kimjongilia." We have members of the team from "That Evening Sun," which is a drama starring Hal Holbrook. We have a survivor of the Holocaust coming to tell us how he was spared at the camps as a young boy because he was a virtuosic violinist. He's in the film "The Legacy." We have two Maryland filmmakers, Kurt Kolaja and Matthew Portfield, who are going to give us a sneak preview of their latest projects. John Bryant, the director of the hilarious, sibling-rivalry-gone-mad film "The Overbrook Brothers," is also coming. These guests allow the sort of dialogue and energy that is unique to a festival and very exciting.

Picking the right mix of films for a CFF audience must be a daunting task. How did you do it?

Sadler: This year, with Tom as programming director, we've greatly expanded our film recruitment efforts. We personally scouted premiere film festivals like Sundance and engaged in long-range outreach to films and filmmakers across the country. We've also assembled a film advisory board which includes active filmmakers, industry players and academics as well as established film festival directors.

McCall: Doing the "homework" of the festival never felt like a chore. There are literally hundreds of wonderful films that never make it to theatrical release. Some do the festival circuit and disappear. Out of the thousands of entries that a big festival like Sundance gets every year, only about 50 even get into the festival. Between us, we saw more than 100 films.

What are some of this year's festival highlights?

McCall: We have several fascinating documentaries. "Art and Copy" is about the history of advertising. It goes into the launching of the iPod campaign and the Got Milk? campaign. "Herb & Dorothy" is about a postman and a librarian who amassed one of the largest contemporary art collections in the world. It is a funny film about a married couple who stuffed their New York apartment so full of art that people couldn't come over to visit. I love to laugh and we have a doozy with "The Overbrook Brothers," a bawdy comedy about two brothers who, at age 40, are searching for their birth mothers after they find out they've been adopted.

Sadler: At CFF 2009, you can visit Afghanistan, North Korea and Iran, and explore the unique history and pressures of those places. "Afghan Star" in particular I found inspiring. It opens a window into the humanity and dreams of Afghanis in a very entertaining, inspiring way. It's the sort of film that lifts your soul and increases your appreciation of freedom and sense of common humanity. You can meet mystics from the great religious traditions in "With One Voice" or, in "Beaches of Agnes," explore the artistic life of Agnes Varda, the still-inspiring female member of the great French New Wave of filmmaking in the 1960s. There's just so much this year. The mind-blowing environmental documentary "End of the Line" will be playing in Oxford and St. Michaels. Oh, and I'm also very excited about our new partnership with the New York International Children's Film Festival those should be fun!

CFF encourages its audience to be more than passive viewers. How so?

McCall: One of the best parts of seeing a film is talking about it afterwards. One of the best parts about going to Sundance was talking to all the other film-lovers about what they had seen and liked or hated! Come to CFF. It is going to be great. A whole team of volunteers has worked really hard to bring Talbot County the best independent films that we could find for 2009. The point is that going to CFF is different than just going to a movie. It is sort of like a circus of really talented and creative people that comes to town for the weekend.

Sadler: We encourage questions and dialogue in every way we can, and this year we're fanning out into the community with more events to bring filmmakers, their subjects and audiences together. Although we are small, audiences will find that CFF offers the best in current film from the festival world, along with the unique mix of topics, filmmakers and guests necessary to spark a dialogue. Come out! Watch, listen and raise your hand!

'That Evening Sun' to open festival, a classic to close
Published: Friday, September 11, 2009 4:44 AM CDT

Opening Night

Winner of six film festival awards, "That Evening Sun" is the CFF 2009 Opening Night Gala centerpiece. Starring Hal Holbrook, Raymond McKinnon, Walton Goggins, Mia Wasikowska and Carrie Preston, the tale of family betrayal, dignity and loss is Scott Teems' directorial debut.

Photographed beautifully in rural Tennessee, the film pits the headstrong 80-year-old Abner Meecham (Oscar-nominee Holbrook) against formidable foes as he tries to reclaim an isolated farm he once called home. Fueled by stubbornness and a steadfast loyalty to his land, he moves into an old shack on the property and declares that he won't leave until the land is rightly his again. New tenant Lonzo Choat (McKinnon) refuses to give in and animosities flare, but the abusive Choat's booze-ridden threats don't frighten the old man. Guns are fired, beer cans thrown and tensions rise as they come head-to-head on the Southern landscape.
The evening begins with a reception in the Tidewater Inn's Crystal Room at 6:30 p.m. and continues across the street at 8 p.m. in the Avalon Theatre. Sponsored by the Talbot County Office of Tourism, the screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the filmmakers. Guests include writer-director Scott Teems, producer Laura Smith and cinematographer Rodney Taylor. Tickets for this event are $75 and reservations are required. Film-only tickets are $25; reservations required.

Closing Night

Nick and Nora Charles, Maryland-born novelist Dashiell Hammett's most unforgettable characters, return to the big screen for CFF 2009's Closing Night Ceremony in a selection from the popular "The Thin Man" series, which attracted large movie-house audiences in the 1930s and 1940s.

The night's feature, "After the Thin Man," is the sequel to the first of the series and was released in late 1936.

Nick and Nora Charles, played unforgettably by William Powell and Myrna Loy, hope to spend the evening together quietly. But chances of that happening fade quickly when the couple is compelled to help keep a scandal from engulfing a family member.

The comedy-mystery also features a young James Stewart.

Christopher Orr, the widely-respected online film critic for The New Republic, will lead a Q&A session following the screening, which is sponsored by Susan and Jack Stoltz. Orr has written and edited for a number of publications, including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Mother Jones and U.S. News & World Report.

2nd annual Chesapeake Film Festival is Sept. 18-20
Published: Friday, September 11, 2009 4:44 AM CDT

EASTON Building on the immediate success of last year's debut, Chesapeake Film Festival 2009 is set to reaffirm Easton as the Delmarva Peninsula's preeminent center of arts and culture.

Already well-known as a venue for gallery walks, plein air competitions, arts fairs, stage productions, musical performances, starlight cinema and fine dining, Easton will transform itself into Tinseltown-by-the-Chesapeake during the three-day, big-screen extravaganza replete with parties and panel discussions set this year for Sept. 18, 19 and 20.

With more than 25 films included in this year's roundup, CFF is set for a gala opening with the award-winning "That Evening Sun," starring Hal Holbrook, on Friday evening, Sept. 18, and will close with a retro selection, one of the best from "The Thin Man" series on Sunday evening, Sept. 20. (For more details about these special events, please see the separate aticle on page 12.)
"The festival is enhancing the arts community, both for visitors and residents," said Marie U'Ren, CFF board director and one of the area's most indefatigable community volunteers. "These are movies you wouldn't normally see on the big screen."

U'Ren said last year's Festival, featuring 21 films and 25 screenings, attracted more than 1,600 people from at least 35 locations outside the county. The reception exceeded expectations. "We got fabulous feedback," she said. "Of all the events I've worked on, this had the most universal appeal."

Jack Gerbes, director of the Maryland Film Office, agreed: "Last year's inaugural Chesapeake Film Festival was a wonderful success." He said the state office, which again is one of this year's sponsors, looks forward to a continuing success. "We are excited to once again be associated with this festival, which brings an interesting and diverse slate of films to Talbot County. And it showcases the beauty of Maryland's Eastern Shore to visiting filmmakers and festival-goers."

CFF 2009's cinematographic fare is a virtual tour of places both geographical and spiritual. Think of a movie ticket as a passport, suggests Debbi Dodson, director of the Talbot County Office of Tourism and one of the central movers behind the festival, and prepare to explore the world, from a patch of green in urban California to a one-bedroom apartment in New York City, from North Korea to South Africa, to the American South, the Middle East, Europe and even out onto the world's oceans. CFF 2009 is also a journey into the human struggles that tie people together, break them apart, and make them laugh and cry.

Although it may not be apparent to the casual viewer, this year's festival is heavily influenced by the Utah-based Sundance Film Festival, where a number of Easton-bound movies caught the attention of two CFF board cinephiles, Doug Sadler and Tom McCall.

In addition to U'Ren, Dodson, Sadler and McCall, this year's CFF board includes Todd Albrecht, Jim Chance, Corrie James, Liza Moore Ledford, Mark Mangold, Dan O'Toole, Margaret Tessier and Paul Wenger.

For up-to-date information about film schedules and special events associated with CFF 2009, refer to the organization's Web site at www.chesapeakefilmfestival.com.

Sequel tops first run
Chesapeake Film Festival weekend continues today
By GREG MAKI Entertainment Editor
Published: Sunday, September 20, 2009 7:34 AM CDT

EASTON "Well, here we are again," Doug Sadler said Friday evening at the Avalon Theatre, kicking off the second Chesapeake Film Festival.

The weekendlong celebration of movies began with a cocktail party at the Tidewater Inn, then moved across the street to the Avalon for the opening night screening of "That Evening Sun," followed by a question-and-answer session with some of the filmmakers.

The festival is primarily in Easton, with screenings at the Avalon, Academy Art Museum and Historical Society Auditorium. The film lineup includes documentaries, dramas, comedies, shorts and more.
Interaction with filmmakers is one of the prime opportunities a film festival offers, creating the "unique dialogue that can occur when you have a film on an interesting topic and the person who invested their time and life in that topic, in that issue, there to speak with you," said Sadler, the festival's artistic director.

"Take this opportunity to experience what film can be in this sort of setting," he said.

A volunteer board of directors, in partnership with a host of sponsors (the list is four pages long), organized the festival.

"We all believe passionately in film," said Marie U'Ren, the festival's director. "(My) own personal family used to spend Christmas and New Year's at the movies when the kids were growing up."

"It was an idea we had a few years ago," said Debbi Dodson, director of the Talbot County Office of Tourism and a key member of the festival board. "We had no idea we'd be where we are today."

Guests at opening night included Jack Gerbes, director of the Maryland Film Office; Jed Dietz, director of the Maryland Film Office; John E. Bryant, director of "The Overbrook Brothers," and his co-writer, Jason Foxworth; "Stop-Loss" writer Mark Richard; National Geographic writers Tom O'Neill and So-Young Lee, who participated in a Q&A after the Saturday afternoon screening of the documentary "Kimjongilia"; and Kurt Kolaja of Chestertown, who showed his work-in-progress, a documentary called "Band Together," about the Kent County Community Marching Band.

Sadler said "That Evening Sun" came to his attention through its cinematographer, Rodney Taylor, who also shot his films "Riders" (2002) and "Swimmers" (2005) and participated in the post-film Q&A, along with writer-director Scott Teems and producer Laura Smith.

Teems heaped praise on Sadler, saying "Swimmers" helped inspire him to make his movie the way he did. "I hope you recognize and appreciate the document you have of a community," he said.

"As we were driving in, I immediately recognized this place and that's what you want a film to do, is to evoke a place and a community," he said, and that is what he wanted to accomplish with "That Evening Sun."

Set in Tennessee and filmed in the Knoxville area over 22 days in summer 2008, "That Evening Sun" stars Hal Holbrook, now 84 years old, as Abner Meechum, who packs his bags, leaves the nursing home and returns to the family farm. To his supreme disappointment, he finds his son (Walton Goggins) has leased the farm to the unsavory Lonzo Choat (Ray McKinnon). So Abner takes up residence in the old tenant house, refusing to leave. Their dispute, comic at first, soon becomes something else entirely.

The cast also includes Australian actress Mia Wasikowski as Lonzo's 16-year-old daughter Pamela. She will be seen next spring in the title role of Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland."

Quoting Orson Welles, Sadler said, "A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.

"In this film, I think that applies."

The Chesapeake Film Festival continues today with screenings and panel discussions at the Avalon Theatre and Academy Art Museum. It wraps with a reception and closing night screening of the classic "After the Thin Man."

For tickets and other information, visit www.chesapeakefilmfestival.com or stop by Coffee Cat at 1 Goldsborough St. in Easton.