My 2013 Maryland Film Festival Experience

It's been over a month since the 2013 Maryland Film Festival (May 8-12th) and it was a doozy. LOL. In pictures and words my weekend was:

For the record:

Starting in 1999, the Maryland Film Festival is an annual four-day event that takes place the first weekend of each May, presenting top-notch film and video work from all over the world. Each year the festival screens approximately 50 feature films and 75 short films of all varieties -- narrative, documentary, animation, experimental, and hybrid -- to tens of thousands of audience members.   

 In 2013, for its fifteenth anniversary, the festival expanded to five days. 

Celebrity guest hosts from outside the world of film are also invited to present favorite films, including musicians such as Harry Belafonte, Ian MacKaye, Branford Marsalis, Will Oldham, Jonathan Richman, and Bill Callahan.

This year was the 15th Annual Maryland Film Festival. Usually there are four days of the festival, but this year there was FIVE. That means an extra day to see as many films as I could. LOL.

Because the festival expanded, my weekend started early on Wednesday with the festival’s Opening Night Shorts & Party.

Every year the festival opens with a bunch of short films and then a party. This year I wanted to repeat my full festival experience so I wanted to attend all five days and I DID! In reality the only day I spent the whole day at the festival was the last day, Sunday.

Even though I’ve been going to the MFF for nine years this was the best ever!

It started with my favorite poster design for the festival ever. As an artist I appreciate art in all its forms and I thought this design was fantastic! It really encompasses their "Film for everyone" slogan!

2013 MFF poster design. Graphic by Post Typography
(in collaboration with photographer RaRah and 3-D illustrator Jeremy Martin). 

Then I saw this announcement in one of their emails:

Maryland Film Festival (May 8-12 in downtown Baltimore) is proud to announce that acclaimed cinematographer Bradford Young will co-host our 2013 Closing Night screening, presenting Oscilloscope Laboratories' Mother of George alongside director Andrew Dosunmu.  

So a filmmaker whose work I really idolized was going to be at the festival this year and hopefully I would get a chance to meet him! Did I? I wrote a separate post about that here

Again this year during the festival I also shared my experience with the people who follow ‘Nother Brother on our social networks.

Even though the stuff I tweeted is lost in the thousands of tweets in the “Twitterverse” a lot of what I posted , including pictures, are still on the ‘Nother Brother Facebook page, including ALL of my reviews EXCLUSIVELY. Well all except the BEST film I saw which for the first time was posted on Indiewire’s Shadow & Act! Indiewire is a daily news site for the independent film community and a leading source of information on independent films.

From my review of that “Best Film” from the 2013 Maryland Film Festival, “it wasn’t just the best picture I saw at the MFF this year; it is the best picture I’ve seen this year thus far. Really.” Even though my review of the "Best film" is at Shadow & Act, I did write a special epilogue for this blog and it's linked at the bottom.

Other than that “Best film” all the other reviews, some other really good films, are on the ‘Nother Brother Entertainment Facebook Page EXCLUSIVELY including the great Baltimore shot documentary 12 O’clock Boys.

Still from 12 O'clock Boys

I’ve been attending the Maryland Film Festival since 2005 and between the Best Graphic Ever, the opportunity to meet one of my filmmaking idols, some really good films spread over five days and “the best picture I’ve seen this year” I can definitely say that 15th Annual Maryland Film Festival of 2013 was the indeed the BEST EVER!

All links go to Facebook DRAMA SHORTS Several dramatic short films. More description at the link.(DRAMA) OPENING NIGHT SHORTS Several short films of varying genres. More description at the link. IT FELT LIKE LOVE Fourteen-year-old Lila is experiencing a boring Brooklyn summer when she decides to pursue a tough older boy at the expense that her desperation and posturing will carry her too far into unfamiliar territory and she may be forced to confront reality. (DRAMA)  16 ACRES The dramatic inside story of the monumental collision of interests at the Ground Zero in the decade after 9/11 (DOCUMENTARY) A TEACHER When a high school teacher in Texas has an affair with one of her students, her life begins to unravel as the relationship evolves. (DRAMA) 12 O'CLOCK BOYS Pug, a wisecracking 13 year, has one goal in mind: to join The Twelve O’clock Boys; the notorious urban dirt-bike gang of Baltimore. (DOCUMENTARY) VHS 2 Searching for a missing student, two private investigators break into his house and find collection of VHS tapes. Viewing the horrific contents of each  cassette, they realize there may be dark motives behind the student's  disappearance. (HORROR) ZERO CHARISMA A gamer geek feels threatened when a neo-nerd hipster joins his group of gamers and he feels like he will lose his identity as the Game Master. (COMEDY) _________________________________ As stated above here on the 'Nother Brother Entertainment blog you can read more about the... Click the graphic above to read it! See more of my photos from the 2013 Maryland Film Festival here

Related Links
You can see ALL of our posts about the Maryland Film Festival HERE