The Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival is thrilled to announce Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story as the Opening Night film for its milestone 10th Anniversary Fest. Directed by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, the film traces the career of actor Christopher Reeve, with his meteoric rise to fame through his stunning and acclaimed performance in Superman [1978], and it compassionately details his life following the tragic horse-riding accident that rendered him a quadriplegic until his passing at age 52 in October 2004.
As Variety film critic Owen Glieberman noted eloquently in his review of the film this past January, “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is a moving, wrenching, compellingly well-made documentary about Reeve’s life that inevitably ends up centering on his accident and its aftermath. (He died in 2004.) In the movie, we hear Reeve speak with intimate candor about how he felt when he first became conscious after the accident, and the days and weeks after that, and how he experienced it as a surreal nightmare that he could only gradually wake up from. “It dawned on me,” he says, “that I had ruined my life and everyone else’s.” What happened to Reeve was so horrific that it seemed — to him, and probably to a lot of us — like he was living out his own version of the Book of Job. The accident was a supreme test of faith, and as “Super/Man” shows us, it was, in the end, about the restoration of his faith, and the enlargement of it.”
The film will screen on Wednesday, August 21 at 7pm at Dana Auditorium on the Middlebury College campus. We will not be screening at Wilson Hall, as earlier stated on the MNFF website. Doors open at 6pm. Opening Night tickets have been selling briskly and are in limited supply, so act quickly if you want to attend. Limit is two [2] per purchase. A waiting list will be initiated, if necessary.
Directly preceding the screening will be a pre-recorded greeting from Will Reeve, Christopher’s son and Middlebury College 2014 graduate.
Following the screening, the Opening Night After/Party will be held at the home of Middlebury College President Laurie Patton at 3 South Street, from 9-11pm. The After/Party is open to Opening Night ticket holders only. Please be prepared to show your ticket when you arrive.
MNFF sincerely thanks our friends at Middlebury College for their wonderful generosity in providing facilities and support for these Opening Night events.
