Massachusetts Independent Film Festival

D1B1 - 2:10pm

A house fly delivers a lecture on the relative merits of the human species and its own, Musca domestica.

dir. Susan Chasen

World Premiere

Filmmaker will be in attendance

D1B1 - 2:10pm

The Lost Mariner is an animated interpretation of Dr. Oliver Sacks’ case study found in his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. It uses photographs to visualize the rare memory condition of patient Jimmie G.

dir. Tess Martin

MA Premiere

D1B1 - 2:10pm

This film is a portrait of my daughter, Cecilia. The camera works as my eye, looking to her in her childhood. I look to her with the delicate balance between the intimacy of knowing and the distance of being the observer.
I have collected these images in film like photographs. In these fleeting moments, I reflect on the passing of time and how it quietly moves over us. This piece is a poem to her and to our bond. It is both a celebration of her childhood and an ode to my own.

dir. Maura Wendelken

D1B1 - 2:10pm

A Chinese teenager is left alone in a Community Center where he encounters a handsome man which leads to a discovery that shatters his innocence.

dir. Raymond Yeung

MA Premiere

D1B1 - 2:10pm

Little Stars tells the surprisingly life-affirming stories of young people living with life-limiting illnesses. Against the odds these youngsters are making the most of every moment thanks to the support of their loved ones, working in harmony with passionate 'palliative care' teams.

dir. Mike Hill

World Premiere

*Filmmaker will be in attendance

D1B2 - 3:45pm

'Batman & Jimbo' follows two low-life guys, Johnny and Jimbo, who pretend to rob/save the local store in an effort to win back Johnny's ex-wife however the situation turns horribly wrong when they soon find an actual robbery taking place.  

dir. Angus Mullane

D1B2 - 3:45pm

When aging gangster Vick risks it all to quit the life, he discovers his young protege has been keeping a secret of his own -- one that plunges them both into a deadly cat and mouse game over the course of one car ride.

dir. Jason Tostevin

MA Premiere

D1B2 - 3:45pm

An escaped convict travels towards an unknown destination.

dir. Mark Battle

D1B2 - 3:45pm

After two years spent as a student in Boston, a 22-year-old visits his native Moldova. It is April 2009. People gather in the streets of Chisinau, the call having spread through social networking sites. They are demonstrating against the communist authorities who falsified the election results. They seize and plunder the parliament and presidential buildings. The demonstrators carry away documents, furniture and office equipment. Our protagonist is coming from a friend's home carrying his own computer monitor. He is mistaken for a demonstrator, brutally beaten up by the police and taken to the police station. His interrogator is an experienced major. The authorities can do anything. Based on real events, the film asks questions about freedom, justice and the price of human life.

dir. Anatol Durbala

US Premiere

D1B3 - 5:40pm

At an age when many people think about retirement, Marcy Neville started a farm.

dir. Chris Danforth

MA Premiere

*Filmmaker will be in attendance

D1B3 - 5:40pm

Carmine Ametrano is one of the few remaining farmer practicing traditional wine-making on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius in southern Italy. It’s a technique that goes back to the ancient civilisation of Pompeii. By following Carmine through the course of a year’s harvest, this documentary will explore the inherent hard work and beauty of his wine making. Carmine is just a one craftsman whose tradition is in danger of disappearing. This film will act as a representation of all dying traditions across the world.

dir. Noriko Sugiura

D1B3 - 5:40pm

DREAM ON investigates the perilous state of the American Dream after decades of rising income inequality and declining economic mobility. In an epic road trip, political comedian John Fugelsang retraces the journey of Alexis de Tocqueville, whose study of our young country in 1831 came to define America as a place where anyone, of any background, could climb the ladder of economic opportunity. Following in the Frenchman's footsteps, Fugelsang asks whether the optimistic spirit of the American Dream that Tocqueville popularized is alive and well in the twenty-first century, or whether George Carlin was right when he famously quipped, 'It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.' 

dir. Roger Weisberg

MA Premiere

Filmmaker will be in attendance

D1B4 - 7:50pm

Lucie, a thirty-year-old graphic designer, has been disconnected from her life since her boyfriend left her. She is uneasy, out of sorts. She doesn't see what's in front of her... until her day of lucidity.

dir. Emilie Barbault

MA Premiere

D1B4 - 7:50pm

Based on a true story, GIRL ON THE EDGE is a powerful drama from the writer of BLUE VALENTINE and the Executive Producer and Co-Creator of A&E’s THE CLEANER following the journey of a young girl struggling with post-traumatic stress, the toll that it takes on her family, and how she finds the strength to overcome it in the most unlikely of places.

dir. Jay Silverman

MA Premiere

D1B5 - 10:10pm

Summer Breeze follows Rachel, a young mother addicted to heroin, through her Cape Cod town, with her son in tow. Terrified of facing withdrawals, Rachel will stop at no cost to get high. Meanwhile, her son, Richard does his best to escape the world his mother has sucked him into.

dir. Peter Horgan

World Premiere

*Filmmaker will be in attendance

D1B5 - 10:10pm

Neighbours in an apartment complex awake to find their doors and windows completely sealed shut. When strangers in hazmat suits infiltrate their building and begin snatching residents, tempers fray and fear takes over.

dir. Neil Mcenery-West