MNFF10 is in the news! Last week, Jim Lowe published a piece about the 10th Anniversary Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival and its Opening Night Film, Super/Man: The Cristopher Reeve Story, in the Rutland Herald. You can read the full article below, or through the Rutland Herald’s website: https://www.rutlandherald.com/features/vermont_arts/10th-middlebury-new-filmmakers-festival-celebrating-christopher-reeve-a-superman-even-in-vermont/article_b1281060-4f70-11ef-8604-9ba2bfc6d6b6.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=vermont-arts&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline.
10th Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival: Celebrating Christopher Reeve, a superman even in Vermont
By Jim Lowe, Staff Writer
Announcing the death of film star Christopher Reeve in 2004, the Rutland Herald told the story of a woman who had been injured in a car accident in Burlington in 1986. She looked up at the man standing next to the nurse taking her vital signs and said, “Oh, my God, it’s Superman!”
Actually it was the actor Reeve who was en route to campaign for then-senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and the nurse was Leahy’s wife, Marcelle. Reeve made several appearances on behalf of Leahy’s campaign for a third term that year because of the actor’s admiration for the senator’s work supporting human rights issues and his efforts to end hunger, according to the story by reporter Claude R. Marx.
“He was a selfless advocate for the causes he worked on and was wonderful to everybody he talked to,” Leahy said on the occasion of Reeve’s death. “He never traveled with an entourage and whenever he came to my office, he always said ‘hello’ to the people in the mailroom and was the same when dealing with senators as with people who ran the elevators. I really feel like I’ve lost a good friend.”
Reeve also helped round up support for the proposal by the late Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., to increase the lifetime caps on insurance policies for people with serious illnesses or medical conditions.
“His passion for life and for improving the lives of all Americans serves as an inspiration to all of us,” Jeffords said on the Senate floor after hearing of Reeve’s death. “He may have played the character of Superman in the movies, but he lived the role of a superman through his life.”
The 10th annual Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival will open with the New England premiere of “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” Aug. 21 at Middlebury College’s Dana Auditorium. In addition, the festival will present 120-plus films by first and second-time filmmakers Aug. 21-25 at five locations around Middlebury, as well as panels, parties and special guests.
Directed by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” traces the career of the actor, with his meteoric rise to fame through his stunning and acclaimed performance in “Superman” (1978), and compassionately details his life following the tragic horse-riding accident that rendered him a quadriplegic until his passing at age 52 in October 2004.
In addition to the political, Reeve and his family are full of Vermont connections. Reeve and his wife, Dana Morosini, gave the commencement address in 2004 at Middlebury College. She was a 1984 graduate of Middlebury. Reeve’s father lived in Vermont for a long time and Christopher’s half-brother, Jeff Johnson, was a teacher and coach of boys hockey and girls softball at Mount St. Joseph Academy in Rutland. And in 2014, Reeve and Morosini’s youngest son Will Reeve graduated from Middlebury College.
“The film itself is a voyage through Christopher Reeve’s life and the almost unanticipated success that the ‘Superman’ movie produced for him and the aftermath of that,” explains Lloyd Komesar, the festival’s producer. “And of course, his unbearably tragic accident, and what was his life as a quadriplegic? There’s a nobility in his years as a quadriplegic.”
Warner Bros. actually donated the screening to the festival.
“As far as I can tell, after Sundance, this film played maximum only three other times, so we have, I believe, the New England premiere,” Komesar said. “They’re allowing us to have our primary screening at Dana Auditorium, and a secondary at the Marquis Theatre. It is being moved from Town Hall Theater because it doesn’t have the necessary projection equipment.”
Coming of age
Komesar and Jay Craven, the festival’s artistic director, founded the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival in 2014, but this is Komesar’s last as producer.
“We are thrilled to be celebrating the 10th anniversary,” Komesar said. “We started with one mission, essentially to support and showcase the work of first and second-time filmmakers around the world. And we’ve never wavered.”
To take up most of Komesar’s duties beginning in September — Komesar is sticking around — the festival has named Caitlin Boyle as executive director. She moved to Mount Holly recently, coming from a long career in New York.
“She had her own company called Film Sprout, which she founded and ran for 10 years, which was a very nurturing distributor,” Komesar said. “I think her biggest claim to fame — and it’s legit totally — is she’s probably taken about 400-plus films from conceptual stage to actual completion and release. She’s gotten them out in the marketplace and found festivals that will embrace these films. That kind of impact is rare.”
Komesar is handing over the torch to what has become an important festival in today’s film world.
“In our 10th year, I think it is fair to say that the number of submissions that we get, the quality of the submissions that we get, and the filmmakers who really come from all over the world, have elevated us to the point that we are a significant festival now — in terms of the number of films we show, the number of filmmakers who come, and the significance of the festival circuit that we have cultivated over the last 10 years,” he said.
The film selection process begins largely with FilmFreeway, the dominant platform worldwide that connects filmmakers with festivals and boasts some 600,000 filmmakers who upload their films for consideration.
“We create a Middlebury New Filmmakers page on FilmFreeway. We buy marketing from them to promote our festival,” Komesar said. “And then we open our window the first week of January and keep it open for five months.”
This year, there were a record 585 submissions. The small application fee pays the screeners, eight this year, including Komesar (only the other seven are paid).
“We make our selections, we send them to Jay, and he makes the final decisions on what he wants to take.”
But, for Komesar, it’s as much about the filmmakers as the films.
“I derive tremendous joy from filmmakers who come and have a bang-up good time here,” he said. “All of them stay in the homes of families who open their doors to them; it creates new friendships; they work like crazy while they’re here. And there are many stories of filmmakers who come to Middlebury and end up working on films of a colleague they met here.
“It’s a camaraderie that develops out of being in a small-town as opposed to a big city festival.”
It’s all about community
For all of its 10 years the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival has been supported enthusiastically by the locals.
“We’re very indebted to the community for all the support they have given us — financially, socially, culturally. They’ve just embraced us over these years,” Komesar said.
A substantial number of tourists attend the festival stoking the local economy. Among many examples, the Middlebury Inn sells out, the Swift House Inn sells out, and the restaurants are packed.
“But it is this community that sees us doing our thing all year round,” Komesar said. “In addition to the festival, we do our Select Series in the winter; we take our films on tour. So I think they see us building film culture here and they support it.”
More than that, the festival has contributed to Middlebury’s place as an arts destination, both statewide and nationally.
“We’ve taken our place with Town Hall Theater and the other arts-driven nonprofits in creating a collective, I’d say ‘critical mass,’ of the arts in a small town,” Komesar said. “We’re glad to be an event that is memorable, but also if you’re an arts buff, we’re here for you, we’re doing the work.”
Craven will remain artistic director while Komesar will continue on the board and assist with fundraising and “everything else I’m good at.”
“We’ve created something good here, something solid, something lasting,” Komesar said.