Film
Last month documentary filmmaker Len Morris of Vineyard Haven accepted the 2012 Iqbal Masih Award for the Elimination of Child Labor from the U.S. Department of Labor at a ceremony in Washington D.C. But Mr. Morris does not have the luxury of basking in the afterglow of the award ceremony. His Kenyan Schoolhouse program, now in its tenth year, is currently putting 34 former child laborers and street children through secondary school.
Slow Food Movie
Pledging food for the soul and stomach, Slow Food Martha’s Vineyard is presenting a documentary film called The Economics of Happiness along with a soup and bread dinner tomorrow, April 7, beginning at 6 p.m. at the Chilmark Community Center.
Film Society Goes Italian
This week’s feature film presented by the Martha’s Vineyard Film Society is Passion, directed by and starring John Turturro.
The project began when Mr. Turturro was approached with the idea of making a film about Neapolitan music. As an Italian-American who grew up listening to many of the swooning ballads of this he was at first intrigued. The more he explored the genre’s history the more enamored he became.
Health Care Movie Leads Film Festival
Tonight, March 16, at 6 p.m. the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival gets under way with an opening reception. Try out the comfy couches, sample food prepared by Chris Fischer of Beetlebung Farm and get ready for a weekend of the year’s best documentary and feature films, many of which cannot be seen anywhere else.
When speaking with Thomas Bena, the founder and creative director of the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival, there is no hesitation when he talks about his guiding principle. The films shown at the festival are always diverse in subject matter, a mixture of documentary and feature, and representative of many cultures. The common denominator is good storytelling.
The Vineyard in winter is a quiet corner of the world. Head up-Island to Aquinnah, say, and the outskirts of Lobsterville Beach. Most days all one encounters there are the wind, sand and stars. But surface appearances can be deceiving. Follow a certain dirt road, turn right at that old oak tree, left at the large bird’s nest, visible only in winter after the leaves have dropped, and one never knows who or what might be found tucked away in the woods.