We Are The Best!
The 2014 Vermont International Film Festival, taking place for 10 days, October 24 to November 2 in downtown Burlington starts with a bang, Friday, October 24th with a screening of the Swedish film We Are The Best! Director Lukas Moodysson creates an invigorating portrait of teenage punk—that boisterous, rambunctious energy that’s re-fueled anew by each generation’s sense of righteous passion, impatient desire for independence and uneasy brew of angst, anger and ambition. We Are the Best! is a delightfully vivacious experience, brimming with infectious humanism, which perfectly captures the irrepressible spirit of youthful rebellion.
20,000 Days on Earth
The festival will wrap up with the closing night film, 20,000 Days on Earth on Saturday, November 1. 20,000 Days on Earth is a bold vision of one of music’s most mysterious and charismatic figures: Nick Cave. In their debut feature, directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard fuse drama and documentary by weaving a cinematically staged day in Cave’s life with never-before-seen cinéma vérité observations of his full creative cycle.
The festival will celebrate Vermont filmmaking with the annual Vermont Filmmakers’ Showcase™. The selected films will be screened at the Vermont International Film Festival and will be eligible for a range of awards.
2014 Vermont Filmmakers’ Showcase Selected Films:
Threshold
Experimental Documentary/2014/21 min
Director: Angus McCullough
We are often lulled into ignorance about the forces at work all around us. Banal environments are dominated by philosophies and conventions, whether man-made or “natural.” Threshold exists exactly between the cultural and the natural to bring either side of that gateway into sharper focus.
Green Mountain Dreamers
Documentary/2014/29 min
Director: Mt. Mansfield Media
A heartwarming documentary about Boston Red Sox fans; these Vermonters redefine what it means to ‘B Strong’. Enjoy their stories of passion, perseverance, and pride, inspired by a team that never gives up.
Loser’s Crown
Fiction/2014/105 min
Director: Colin Thompson
A 30-year-old man in crisis goes home to Vermont (from Los Angeles) for Christmas and finally realizes that trying to be cool is an exhausting waste of time.
Loser’s Crown
Fiction/2014/105 min
Director: Colin Thompson
A 30-year-old man in crisis goes home to Vermont (from Los Angeles) for Christmas and finally realizes that trying to be cool is an exhausting waste of time.
United We Ski
Documentary/2013/35 min
Director: Tyler Wilkinson-Ray
United We Ski examines the importance of small ski areas to the sport of skiing and New England life. The film looks at the rise and decline of the region’s small ski areas and tells the story of three surviving areas in Vermont–Hardack, Cochran’s, and Northeast Slopes– which rely on community support, volunteerism, and Yankee ingenuity to provide affordable skiing to local families.
We Are Small
Fiction/2014/11 min
Director: Jeremy MacKenzie
When a little girl is shunned for being “too small” by other kids in the neighborhood who are making a snowman, she is inspired by her doll collection to prove that smallness has its strengths, too.
All the Wonders
Fiction/2013/8 min
Director: Tim Joy
A man who is on the brink of suicide is visited by a magical being who gives him a new perspective on life.
Dark Legacy
Fiction/ 2014/8 min
Director: Daniel Sparling
A young boy is pulled into a fight for his life with a dark spirit who transforms her victims into pigs before she eats them.
11 Paper Place
Animation/ 2014/ 7 min
Director: Daniel Houghton
11 Paper Place is a love story about two 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper that magically transform into paper people as they are spit out of a malfunctioning printer into a recycling bin.
Do Not Disturb
Fiction/2014/11 MIN
Director: Matt Lennon
A man spends the last night of his life alone in a hotel room. Things don’t go as smoothly as expected.
Thaw
Fiction/2014/10 min
Director: Sheryl Glubok
On a winter weekend getaway, a woman picks up a musician who ignites her creative passion.
The North Star
Fiction/2013/5 min
Director: Rob Koier
Based on actual texts from fugitive slave memoirs transcribed in the 1830s, The North Star is a haunting recreation of a slave escaping from the South to New England.
Give In
Fiction/2014/10 min
Director: Benjamin Savard
A young woman struggling with anxiety sits down with a therapist after her self-destructive actions reach a boiling point.
Past Tense
Fiction/2013/91 min
Director: Robert Fritz
Elizabeth’s parents died in a car crash when she was 11 years old, and her visits to the cemetery, where she begins to do grave rubbings, open her eyes to the other gravestones and other past lives, and she starts to write their stories. Two important women in Elizabeth’s life, her therapist and her writing teacher, pull her in vastly different directions, especially when a spirit from one of her grave rubbings appears, asking for help.