Getting caught up on the Web
Online film fest puts focus on Boston natives
Once upon a time, you could count on a film festival to take place at, you know, a theater of some kind. People got out of their houses and got together to see interesting works, maybe talk with a filmmaker afterward.
Bur there are an increasing number of online-only film festivals, and perhaps what's most surprising is how long some of them have been around.
For instance, the Arts Engine's Media That Matters Film Festival is celebrating eight years as an online showcase. This year's crop of short films with a social-action focus went online last month and two of the 12 are directed by Boston natives.
"Diana," by Melissa Krodman and Brynmore Williams, shows us two sisters, ages 20 and 24, who are living with HIV. The work was produced by Project: Think Different, a Boston nonprofit educational group and video production company with offices on Beacon Street.
"The Countdown," by Rene Dongo, presents spoken-word artist Sofia Snow. It was produced by ICA Fast Forward Boston, a project of the Teen New Media Program at the Institute of Contemporary Art. Dongo's movies have shown at the Cloud Place Youth Fusion Film Series and at the Roxbury Film Festival, where he won "Best Youth Filmmaker" in 2006. He is a film major at Emerson College.
At a ceremony at the New York headquarters of HBO in May, Krodman and Williams were given the festival's Empowerment Award. Dongo was given an Emerging Artist Award.
The mini movies are online at mediathatmattersfest.org/8. Each short is paired with "Take Action" links. The links for "Diana" send viewers to websites for the International Women's Health Coalition and Population Services International, which has information about Youth AIDS. The links for "The Countdown" point to the American Immigration Law Foundation, www.outreachworld.org, and an international directory of poetry slams.
The festival "really engages audiences and makes them feel part of something bigger, whether you're participating at home or at a screening," says Katy Chevigny, cofounder and executive director of Arts Engine.
Festival sponsors include
GLASS ON THE BIG SCREEN: Composer Philip Glass has certainly played a part on the Boston-area art scene; in 2003, his "The Sound of a Voice," which set Asian and Western instrumentation to stories by David Henry Hwang, got its world premiere at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, and his "In the Penal Colony," based on a Franz Kafka novel, was performed at Boston Lyric Opera in 2000.
Glass turned 71 this year, so it seems only proper that he's finally been given the profile treatment on film. Director Scott Hicks, best known for the 1996 movie "Shine," which starred Geoffrey Rush as pianist David Helfgott, took on the task.
"In 1997, while I was editing 'Snow Falling on Cedars' I used a track of Philip's music," Hicks writes in his director's notes. Hicks contacted Glass's publishing company about licensing the music and got to know Glass's manager, Jim Keller. "Early in 2005, Jim reminded me over dinner that Philip would be turning 70 in 2007. He asked what I felt about making a documentary about him. I decided right away to do it, without any thought of how or when."
He continues: "From the outset, I thought of the structure being in 12 parts - like an hourglass or the calendar - a 'Year in a Day' with Philip as it were. Of course, there's the obvious tongue-in-cheek tribute to his seminal work 'Music in Twelve Parts' as well as a passing reference to 'Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould.' Ultimately, each 'part' became a portal into the past, or into Philip's process, or some other facet of his life seen through the prism of the present."
"Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts" is getting a 15-show engagement at the Museum of Fine Arts starting Thursday at 1:45 p.m. It also plays this week on Friday at 4:45 p.m. and Saturday at 11 a.m. Other dates and times are posted at mfa.org/film. A trailer is online at glassthemovie.com.
OTHER SCREENINGS OF NOTE: The Coolidge Corner Theatre is honoring actor, producer, and director Sydney Pollack, who died last month, with presentations of "Michael Clayton," which he produced, on Monday at 7 p.m., and "Out of Africa," which he directed, on June 30 at 7 p.m. (617-734-2500 and coolidge.org).
"The Tracey Fragments," starring Ellen Page ("Juno") as a troubled teen who leaves her small town to look for her missing younger brother, gets its exclusive area premiere at the Brattle Theatre for one week starting Friday. The film's soundtrack is by the Canadian band Broken Social Scene (617-876-6837 and brattlefilm.org).
The locally-made "On Broadway" - which tapped Joey McIntyre for a leading role before he returned to the New Kids on the Block - plays at 8 p.m. on Friday at the Regent Theatre in Arlington. The evening features a live performance by local rock guy Bill Janovitz, who composed the score, and a post-screening Q&A with director Dave McLaughlin (781-646-4849 and regenttheatre.com).
Leslie Brokaw can be reached at lbrokaw@globe.com.
