Offscreen Notes
Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival
Festival Runs at the American Museum of Natural History from November 12-15, 2009
“The Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival is the longest-running, premiere showcase for international documentaries in the United States, encompassing a broad spectrum of work, from indigenous community media to experimental nonfiction. The Festival is distinguished by its outstanding selection of titles, which tackle diverse and challenging subjects, representing a range of issues and perspectives, and by the forums for discussion with filmmakers and speakers.”
Highlights of this year, taken from the festival’s official website ‘news and press’ include: “a series of films presented in conjunction with the Museum’s exhibition Traveling the Silk Road – including Cooking History (Péter Kerekes in person, NY Premiere), an exploration of the customs and conflicts of food on the frontlines, from serving up savory blinis to Soviet soldiers fighting off Nazi armies to feeding French forces during the Algerian War and Hair India (Raffaele Brunetti and Marco Leopardi, NY Premiere), a stirring tale about a destitute family’s religious sacrifice of hair that is processed and ultimately sold for profit.
Other Festival highlights include Babaji, an Indian Love Story (Jiska Rickels in person, US Premiere), a captivating tale about a centenarian man who has dug a grave next to his late wife’s and descends into it each morning to await death; Beyond the Game (Jos de Putter in person, US Premiere), a behind-the-scenes look at the tight-knit and competitive community of cybergamers that follows the top players of Warcraft III, the most popular game globally, on their way to the professional world championships; Blind Loves (Juraj Lehotsky, NY Premiere), an innovatively told story of four non-sighted subjects as they reveal their passions and anxieties while managing independent lives.”
