CAMDEN – The Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) announces the slate of features and shorts for its 18th edition, which will take place in person from September 15-18 in theaters in Camden and Rockland, and online from September 15-25. September for audiences across North America. Longtime sponsor SHOWTIME® returns as title sponsor and is joined this year by YETI, MSNBC Films, CNN Films and the RandomGood Foundation.
A program of Points North Institute, CIFF remains widely recognized as a major platform championing the next generation of non-fiction storytellers and one of the hottest documentary and industry festivals on festival calendars. and rewards. This year’s edition is the most international and formally adventurous to date and includes 34 features and 37 shorts from over 41 countries. Over 60% of the entire program is directed or co-directed by BIPOC filmmakers and this is the sixth consecutive program that the festival has achieved gender parity within the program and across all competitions.
Nearly half of the feature film program will be premieres in the United States or North America, including several freshly released new titles from Venice, Locarno and premieres at TIFF, as well as award-winning films from Sundance, Rotterdam, Cannes and Visions of the Real.
This year’s program celebrates the diversity of voices and forms in documentary and film non-fiction,” said Ben Fowlie, Executive and Artistic Director of Points North Institute and Founder of the Camden International Film Festival. “These films help us make sense of an ever-changing world and do everything we expect of great art – they ask provocative questions and interrogate form. This year’s program emphasizes the international that represents the “I” of CIFF and reminds us time and time again of the limitless creative potential and power of the documentary form. Just as we have been in each of the past 17 years, we are grateful to the filmmakers who made these works of art and shared these stories.
Highlights of the festival include the US premiere of Tamana Ayazi and Marcel Mettelsiefen’s new Netflix release, “In Her Hands,” a powerful film about Zarifa Ghafari, one of Afghanistan’s first female mayors filmed in the months following preceded the Taliban takeover in 2021; “Sr.”, an endearing portrait of the life and career of Robert Downey Sr. and his relationship with his son and the latest film from award-winning filmmaker Chris Smith; and a special preview of ‘My Imaginary Country’ by acclaimed director and documentary icon Patricio Guzman, which chronicles recent protests in Chile where millions took to the streets to demand democracy, dignity and a new constitution. . CIFF will also present two world premieres, an unlikely western set in the universe of American national cowboy poetry gatherings entitled “Cowboy Poets” by Mike Day and “This Much We Know” by Lily Frances Henderson.
The festival will feature seven North American premieres from some of the most inventive filmmakers working across the globe, including Jumana Manna’s “Foragers,” which will be one of two CIFF openers and recently won the Green Award. Dox at Dokufest Kosovo; the recent Locarno premieres “It Is Night In America” by Ana Vaz and “Matter Out Of Place” by award-winning director Nikolaus Geyrhalter; the winner of the prestigious Rotterdam Tiger Award “EAMI” by Paz Encina; “Polaris” by Ainara Vera, which recently premiered at the Cannes Film Festival; and “Herbaria” by Leandro Listorti, winner of the Special Jury Prize at Visions du Réel.
In honor of Diane Weyermann, much-loved industry veteran and former Chief Content Officer at Participant, who passed away last October, CIFF will screen many of the last films she produced. Films include Steve James’ ‘A Compassionate Spy’ which is due to premiere in Venice next month, ‘Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power’ by Geeta Gandbhir and Sam Pollard, and ‘Descendant’ by award-winning Margaret Brown. Sundance Prize. Last November, Points North established a memorial fund for Weyermann and is currently developing a filmmaker scholarship to honor her legacy and the impact she had on the global documentary community.
The star list also includes two alumni of Points North’s artist programs. Reid Davenport’s ‘I Didn’t See You There’, which won a directing award at Sundance, was developed through the organization’s Points North Fellowship and received a grant from the American Stories Documentary Fund . Jon-Sesrie Goff’s “After Sherman” was also part of the inaugural cohort of American Stories Fellows in 2020.
Storyforms, CIFF’s exhibition of immersive documentary experiences, will present a large-scale video installation of recent works from Mexico’s Colectivo Los Ingrávidos, whose films and artworks have been exhibited around the world, including at the Whitney Biennial.
The organizers also announced that CIFF will continue its Filmmakers Solidarity Fund for the third consecutive year. Established in 2020, the fund will offer a $300 honorarium this year to all feature and short film crews participating in the virtual festival. The Filmmaker Solidarity Fund is presented by Bright West Entertainment.
This year also marks the return of panels and in-person masterclasses as part of the festival’s Points North Forum program, which will include conversations on the ethics of film funding, an exploration of experimental climate cinema, a masterclass/performance with veteran editor Maya Daisy Hawke, and a special performance lecture on sensory cinema led by award-winning Iranian artist Maryam Tafakory. The forum program will conclude with a gathering of the documentary community after the screening of “Subject”, which will include participants from “Hoop Dreams”, “The Square”, a preview of the upcoming Documentary Accountability Working Group release. , “From reflection to dissemination: A framework for values, ethics and responsibility in non-fiction filmmaking.”
Again, the festival will run concurrently with Points North artist programs. Twenty-one projects will be supported through four grant programs, 15 Indigenous filmmakers will be present for a special gathering of alumni of the World Media Lab’s fourth collaboration with Nia Tero, and nearly 20 additional grantees on the ground through ongoing partnerships with Bay Area Video Coalition and Brown Girls Doc Mafia. Dozens of industry leaders will be on hand for Points North 1:1 programs, making CIFF weekend the most dynamic and intimate documentary market experience in the United States.
This year, the festival will be a hybrid model, offering in-person screenings at indoor and outdoor locations across the Midcoast as well as virtually for those who can’t attend in person or are hoping to catch up on things they missed at the festival by nobody.
All access passes grant access to the full festival experience; in-person and virtually with pre-screening registration, special engagement opportunities such as the Points North Pitch and Point North Forum events, access to the immersive Storyforms exhibit at the CMCA, and CIFF’s famous After Dark parties. They also benefit from services such as the CIFF shuttle making regular trips from Rockland to Camden.
Organizers also introduced a new six-pack of tickets for in-person screenings, reducing the individual ticket cost from $15 per screening to $10. Six-pack bundled tickets can be used by one to six people and can be applied to one screening or split across multiple screenings.
Individual tickets go on sale September 6. Ticket holders will be required to present their COVID-19 vaccine card at the door for each screening. Individual tickets for the in-person and online screenings are $15 each.
A full list of features and shorts in the program is available online at pointsnorthinstitute.org/ciff/.
A still from the movie “Cowboy Poets”. Courtesy of CIFF
A film from “Foragers”, directed by Jumana Manna. Courtesy of CIFF
An excerpt from the film “Geographies of Solitude”, directed by Jacquelyn Mills. Courtesy of CIFF
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