Green Mountain Film Festival

The Green Mountain Film Festival is an annual film event and awards show in Vermont. The first festival took place in Montpelier, Vermont in 1997. In March 1999, a second festival was held and it has been an annual March event ever since. In 2010, the festival was extended to include a series of satellite screenings in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. In 2018, the festival also hosted screenings in Essex Junction at the Essex Cinema.

Background

The program focuses on new work from around the world together with a few classic films. Around half the films shown are documentaries. There are also screenings of shorts and student films. Screenings are often followed by informal discussions often involving the filmmakers themselves. The festival also features special appearances by established film critics and filmmakers. Past guests have included critics Kenneth Turan, Molly Haskell, Phillip Lopate, David Thomson, Gerald Peary, and Matthew Hays. Filmmakers have included the screenwriter and director, Robin Swicord, actor/director Giancarlo Esposito, actor Michael Murphy, producer Christine Vachon, and documentary makers Albert Maysles, Les Blank and Ralph Arlyck.

The critic Stuart Klawans, writing in ''The Nation,'' described the 2003 Green Mountain Film Festival as "a cinephile's utopia: a festival organized and supported by an entire community of local moviegoers."

Matthew Hays, the Montreal-based film critic, called the 2006 festival "incredible ... a mind-bendingly fascinating diet of movies."

Every year hundreds of volunteers help run the festival and host special events at numerous venues across Montpelier, Vermont.

The 21st Green Mountain Film Festival was held between March 16 and March 25, 2018, and featured 82 feature films and 75 shorts, hand- on workshops, a “coming of age” film short course, and the first Vermont Filmmakers Summit. Then-current director Karen Dillon spoke about the 21st anniversary saying that she wanted the festival to “feel like a party for everyone”.

In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival was held virtually and returned to in-person for the 2022 event.

History

Films in earlier festivals (2006)

*''After Innocence''
*''After the Fog''
*''Ballets Russes''
*''The Boys of Baraka''
*''Campfire''
*''Commune''
*''Duma''
*''The Education of Shelby Knox''
*''Elevator to the Gallows''
*''Le Grand Voyage''
*''Hawaii, Oslo''
*''Homeland''
*''I Like Killing Flies''
*''Intimate Stories''
*''Isn't This a Time!''
*''Live and Become''
*''Living the Autism Maze''
*''The Lizard, or Marmoulak''
*''"Music and the Movies" with Lloyd Schwartz''
*''Midnight Movies''
*''Mind Games''
*''Paradise Now''
*''The Real Dirt on Farmer John''
*''The Red Wagon''
*''A Sidewalk Astronomer''
*''The Singers''
*''Sir! No Sir!''
*''The Syrian Bride'
*''Tony Takitani''
*''Touch the Sound''
*''The Warrior''
*'Winterwalk''
*''The World Outside''

10th Festival 2007

The 10th Green Mountain Film Festival ran from 16 to 25 March 2007. Guests included Albert Maysles, Ralph Arlyck, Rob Mermin and Kenneth Turan. The films shown were:

*''Avenue Montaigne''
*'' Beauty in Trouble''
*''Been Rich All My Life''
*'' Black Gold''
*''El Carro''
*''The Cave of the Yellow Dog''
*''Climates''
*'' C.R.A.Z.Y.''
*''Family Law''
*''Flock of Dodos''
*'' Following Sean''
*''Gimme Shelter''
*''Gobi Women's Song''
*''Grey Gardens''
*''Gypsy Caravan''
*''Holding Our Own''
*'' The Host''
*''Into Great Silence''
*'' Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple''
*''Land Mines: A Love Story''
*''The Light Ahead''
*''Living on the Fault Line''
*''Men at Work''
*''Meredith Holch: Homegrown Animation''
*''Molly's Way''
*'' Our Daily Bread''
*''El Perro''
*''The Refugee All-Stars''
*''The Ritchie Boys''
*''The Rules of the Game''
*''Salesman''
*''Shakespeare behind Bars''
*''Sisters in Law''
*'' Suite Habana''
*''Ten Canoes''
*''Today's Man''
*''Wondrous Oblivion''

11th Festival 2008

The 11th Green Mountain Film Festival was held from 21 to 30 March 2008. Notable films shown were:

*'' Blame it on Fidel''
*'' China Blue''
*''Daratt''
*''Day for Night''
*''The Dhamma Brothers''
*''The Edge of Heaven''
*'' Everything's Cool''
*''For the Bible Tells Me So''
*'' Fraulein''
*'' Honeydripper''
*''I'm Not There''
*'' It's a Free World...''
*'' Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten''
*'' King Corn''
* Leonard Bernstein on '' Omnibus''
*'' Mother of Mine''
*'' Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037''
*'' OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies''
*'' Protagonist''
*''The Seventh Seal''
*'' The Visitor''

12th Festival 2009

World Premiere - ''The Brother Who Sent His Sister to the Electric Chair'' (2009)
World Premiere - ''Numen: The Nature of Plants''

13th Festival 2010

The festival added a new venue at the Pavilion Auditorium, and also a three-day series of satellite screenings in Vermont's North East Kingdom.

World Premiere - ''The Summer of Walter Hacks'' (2010)

14th Festival 2011

The festival inaugurated the Green Mountain 48-Hr Film Slam, a film-making competition, and announced the Margot George Short Film Competition, both initiatives aimed at fostering emerging film-making talent.

The 14th festival Guests included Phillip Lopate, David Amram, Roy Prendergast and Jonathan Katz.

References

External links

*

A Conversation w/ Donald Rae
nthWORD Magazine Shorts, July 2010

Planning a trip to the Green Mountain Film Festival

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Film festivals in the United States
Festivals in Vermont
Montpelier, Vermont
Tourist attractions in Washington County, Vermont