Movies, Movies, Movies: MIFF Brings the World to Waterville!

by Gregor Smith

On Friday, July 12, the twenty-second Maine International Film Festival begins its ten-day run. With films spanning nine decades and six continents, there's something for nearly everyone, as long as one is not into car chases, explosions, or superheroes. Rather, MIFF offers quieter fare, where substance trumps special effects. It is for the armchair explorer who wants to travel the world from the comfort of a padded, reclining seat in an air-conditioned movie theater.

With at least five dozen features and two dozen shorts, there's plenty to choose from. The highlights of this year's festival include three Maine-connected feature films, an award for a long-time festival supporter, a tribute to a different longtime supporter who recently died, a jazz film and concert, five current films from Argentina, and a selection of classic films from cinema's earlier decades. All festival screenings will take place at Railroad Square Cinema or the Waterville Opera House.

The festival opens at 6:30 Friday at the Waterville Opera House with Blow the Man Down. (In case you can't make it, there will be a repeat screening eight days later at the same time and place.) Shot in and around Harpswell in midcoastal Maine, Blow the Man Down "is not your ordinary everyday Made-in-Maine movie, if there is such a thing," according to the MIFF website, as it "was shot in late winter, not midsummer," and mostly under gray skies. The film offers an "amazing combination of dark humor, suspense, saltiness (in all the meanings of the word) and just plain originality."

We meet sisters Priscilla and Mary Beth Connolly after the death of their mother from a long illness. MIFF's online summary picks up the story: "They need a break … but they won't get one. A dead body, three seriously busybody friends of their mom's (played by great actresses Annette O'Toole, June Squibb, and Marceline Hugot), and a friendly but inquisitive young local cop combine with towering local inn-keeper — okay, it's actually a brothel — Enid (the unforgettable Margo Martindale) to make the Connolly sisters' lives complicated."

Saturday at 12:30, Railroad Square will host the world première of this year's second Maine-related feature, an animated musical written and directed by Brian Zemrak of Winslow and produced by his California brother Derek. Suitable for all ages, Bongee Bear and the Kingdom of Rhythm is the only full-length animated movie in this year's festival. The MIFF broadsheet describes the film: "In a land known as The Kingdom of Rhythm, a young orphan bear, Bongee becomes the life-long friend of the young Princess Katrina and tries to protect her from the evil witch Bandrilla…, who casts a spell on the people of the kingdom. Bongee sets out, with the aid of his wacky friend Myrin … and the wise owl Mindy, to break the spell and return singing and dancing to the land." The film's vocal talent includes the inimitable Ruth Buzzi as Bandrilla, the late Dom DeLuise as Myrin, and nonagenarian June Lockhart as Mindy. The film will have a repeat screening on Sunday at 12:30 at the Opera House.

(The festival's third and final Maine feature, In the Moon's Shadow, will also have two screenings, but not until MIFF's second weekend. We'll have an extended article about the making of that film, which co-stars Belgrade actress Debra Lord Cooke and was partly shot in that town, in next week's issue.)

On Sunday evening, MIFF will present its Mid-Life Achievement Award to New York City screenwriter and director Hillary Brougher following a 6:30 screening of her newest film, South Mountain, at the Waterville Opera House. An associate professor at the Columbia University School of the Arts, she chairs its Film Division.

Each year, MIFF presents a Lifetime or Mid-Life Achievement Award — the designation depends on the age of the recipient — to an actor, director, screenwriter, or other professional filmmaker. Last year's honoree was French actress Dominique Sanda; previous winners include actors Lauren Hutton, Michael Murphy, Glenn Close, Keith Carradine, Malcolm McDowell, John Turturro, Ed Harris, Peter Fonda, and Sissy Spacek; directors Robert Benton and Jonathan Demme; and writer Terrence Malick.

Brougher first came to MIFF in its first year (1998) to introduce her first film, The Sticky Fingers of Time (1996). She returned with that sci-fi film noir about a time-jumping, 1950s pulp-fiction author for MIFF's twentieth anniversary in 2017. The film will be shown again on Monday at 3:30 at the Opera House.

South Mountain debuted at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, TX in March. According to the MIFF site, the film is "a meditation on a particular sort of love that grows in the wreckage of broken things. Lila (Talia Balsam) is an artist and teacher who has built a modest rural paradise in New York's Catskill Mountains in New York's Catskill Mountains with her writer/husband, Edgar (Scott Cohen). The two have been married for two decades. But then Edgar unexpectedly announces the birth of a child with another woman, and Lila tests her bonds to her best friend Gigi begins a friendship with a younger man. All is changing, or so it seems."

South Mountain will have a repeat screening on Friday, July 19 at 3:15 at Railroad Square Cinema. The festival will also show Brougher's second film, Stephanie Daley (2006), which stars Amber Tamblyn as a teen charged with murder after the death of her infant and Tilda Swinton as a pregnant psychologist who is tasked with discovering the truth. Those screenings will be held on Saturday, July 13 at 6:30 at Railroad Square and on Thursday, July 18, at 3:30 at the Opera House.

Later on Sunday, MIFF will present the first film in a two-film tribute to the late actress Verna Bloom. A frequent festival guest and part-year Maine resident, Bloom died in January in Bar Harbor at age 80. Her filmography includes such diverse roles as Marion Wormer in John Landis's National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), Mary, Mother of Jesus in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Sarah Belding in Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter (1973).

On Sunday at 9:30 at Railroad Square, one can see Bloom in Medium Cool (1969). Shot in Chicago during the riotous 1968 Democratic Convention where police beat anti-war protesters, the film is a "hybrid of fiction and incendiary documentary." Bloom plays an Appalachian woman who has an improbable romance with at television cameraman. The following day at 6:30 in the Opera House, Bloom will appear as June, "an unusual sculptress of unusual sculptures," in After Hours (1985). Both showings will be introduced by Jay Cocks, MIFF's 2010 Mid-Life Achievement Award winner and Bloom's husband of nearly 50 years.

At its Centerpiece Gala on Tuesday at 6:30 at the Waterville Opera House, MIFF will celebrate the "underrecognized jazz genius Horace Tapscott and the African American community around Leimert Park in South Los Angeles to which he devoted his life." The festival will give the world première of The Gathering: Roots and Branches of Los Angeles Jazz.

The film's director, Tom Paige, toiled on his "labor of love" for nearly fifteen years, starting with some 2005 concert footage of the group and adding "a wealth of priceless interviews and more recent live recordings." After the screening, three of the film's musicians — bandleader, composer, and woodwind player Jesse Sharps; pianist Bobby West; and cellist Pete Jacobson — will perform live on the Opera House stage.

As always, MIFF will reintroduce audiences to a select batch of classic films, some well known, some not. This year's eleven "rediscoveries," most of them in newly restored prints or digital versions, span five decades and four continents, from David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) to the 1928 silent French drama, The Passion of Joan of Arc. The latter will have a new jazz score composed by trumpeter Mark Tipton and performed live at the screening by his quintet, Les Sorciers Perdus ("The Lost Wizards"). Tipton and his ensemble also performed new scores to silent classics at the last two MIFFs as well.

This year's other "rediscoveries" are Chronicle of the Years of Fire (1975, Algeria), The Cranes Are Flying (1958, Russia), Detour (1946, USA), Enamorada (1946, Mexico), The Fate of Lee Khan (1973, Taiwan/Hong Kong), One More Spring (1935, USA), Sunny Side Up (1929, USA), Winchester '73 (1950, USA), and Wings of Desire (1987, Germany/France).

This year's festival will also have five recent films from Argentina, all of which are directed by women or have strong female characters: Cetáceos ("Cetaceans"), in which a marriage comes apart as he travels on business while she remains behind in their new apartment; Familia Submergida ("A Family Submerged"), wherein a middle-aged wife and mother has to adjust to the death of her sister; Los Miembros de la Familia ("Members of the Family"), in which an adult brother and sister in a shabby seaside resort try to carry out their late mother's bizarre final request; and La Omisión ("The Omission"), wherein about a young woman from Buenos Ares searches for a job — and herself — in the country's rural south.

And let us not forget La Flor ("The Flower"), the 14-hour epic about four women who continually re-imagine themselves as scientists, pop singers, and international spies. The film will be shown in four parts, but the festival broadsheet promises that one does not need to see all four parts or see them in order to enjoy them.

Please note that most of the Argentine films will be shown in Railroad Square's Cinema # 3, which, with only 50 seats, is the festival's smallest theater. Be sure to arrive early, lest the screening you want to see sells out!

Finally, MIFF will also present five collections of shorts. The short films can be either fiction or non-fiction, live action or animated. They range in length from a few minutes to half an hour, but the majority are between 10 and 20 minutes long. The two dozen shorts have been grouped thematically into four collections of five to eight films each: It's Rough Out There, International Shorts, Uncommon Visions, and Maine Shorts. This last collection includes "About John," the 13-minute documentary about Belgrade Lakes poet and woodworker John Willey that was described in last week's cover story.

To get descriptions of the individual shorts, please visit www.miff.org. To get descriptions and showtimes for the three dozen feature films NOT mentioned above, check the MIFF website or pick up a copy of its 17" x 32½" broadsheet at Railroad Square or elsewhere around the area, including many of the places where you can find Summertime in the Belgrades.

Admission to most screenings costs $10 per person; special events, e.g. the Opening Ceremony, the Mid-Life Achievement Award, the Centerpiece Gala, and The Passion of Joan of Arc, cost $15. One can buy advance tickets on the MIFF website 24 hours a day or in person at Railroad Square Cinema, 2:00 — 7:00, Mon. — Fri., and 12:00 — 7:00, Sat. & Sun.

If you want to see a lot of movies, you can buy a Partial Pass, which is good for ten admissions (one or two people per screening), including the special events; or a Full Festival Pass, which will admit the buyer to as many public festival events as he or she wishes to attend. A Partial Pass costs $95 and Full Pass, $200 — prices that haven't changed since 2015!

Top the Day With a Tasting at Tree Spirits

On a tree-lined road in Oakland, up a short driveway, there is a small building — like many in Maine originally intended for other purposes (a junk shop; sailboat storage) — that invites those in search of adventure, hospitality and refreshment to taste some unique wines and spirits and discover how local entrepreneur Bruce Olson — owner, brewer, bartender/host and raconteur — produces the best in locally-sourced and locally-brewed products, provides a fascinating product narrative, and wins international awards.

Specializing in wines and spirits made from local apples and pears (from The Apple Farm in Fairfield) and maple syrup (from the Bacon Farm in Sidney), Tree Spirits is unusual in being both a winery and a distillery. It also is unusual in being a distiller — the only one in New England — of absinthe, the "Green Fairy" that was outlawed for a century in Europe and the United States due to purported hallucinogenic properties. Using a recipe from the 1800s — ask Bruce to tell the story — the Tree Spirits absinthe must be tested and approved by the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

In addition to apple, pear, maple syrup, and pomegranate flavors, the distillery also offers a limoncello, Sicily's signature liqueur. Most popular, though, Bruce points out, is the absinthe.

Opening at noon, Tree Spirits offers regular tastings at $5 — choose up to five and keep the glass — or premium tastings at $6, which includes absinthe as one of the five.

The full range of wines, sparkling and table and after dinner/dessert, and of spirits are for sale at Tree Spirits and can be shipped to most other states.

Tree Spirits (465-3007) is located at 152 Fairfield Street (Route 23) in Oakland, a close drive from Interstate 95, Colby College, the Belgrade Lakes Region and the Maine International Film Festival.

Gone Fishin', Part II

by Rod Johnson

The fishing day came and the two men busied themselves loading the fish rods, bait pail, their own lunch boxes and so on into one of father Clifford's green Rangley rowboats that he normally rented to others. Lee always had use of them at will, but had asked Dad if we could use the one with the newest 5 horsepower Johnson, as it would idle really well for trolling slowly.

They had told me the day before to "put up a lunch "and more importantly, go fishing in Bill Pulsifer's boat house real early in the morning. They wanted me to bring along at least a half dozen small perch to use as bait after removing the skin and innards. More to come on that.

My secret wish came true when Lee and Elmer piled into the boat, settling in on the middle and bow seats. The operator's rear seat was left empty, and I quickly gathered that they had no interest in driving and both just assumed I was going to. I had been running up and down the stream for a couple of years with those rental boats and they apparently had no qualms about my age or ability.

After opening the gas tank to see that the old men had filled it, I pushed the primer a few times, set the speed lever on the start position and pulled on the starter cord. The well-tuned 5 Johnson fired right up. I spun the motor around and backed away from the old rickety dock. In those days the motors had no reverse gear and many brands would merely swivel around a 360° rotation. We got headed out the stream without incident.

Before long the two men were digging around in their tackle boxes getting out various leaders and hooks. I noticed that Elmer started gutting and skinning the small white perch I had caught earlier in the boathouse. Once we cleared the mouth of the stream into Great Pond, Lee spoke above the motor noise and told me to head north. Fortunately, he pointed as well, as I really was not aware of compass directions at the age of 8. (Who cared!) We slowly plowed up the shore toward Dry Point when Elmer, now puffing on a semi-crushed roll-your-own cigarette, pointed a subtle index finger telling me not to go inside the black and white flag just off Dry Point.

In those days the lake was marked with flags on posts or anchor lines, not buoys. A black and white flag meant don't go between it and shore. Solid red designated a single rock, and all white in a group of two or more meant a shoal inside the flags. The Belgrade Lakes Association hired the local guides to mark the lake and had been doing so since the early part of the century. The State of Maine took over marking the lake some years later and adopted the statewide inland water marking system that we use today.

We skirted the point with ease then the two men nodded to each other and told me to stop. I slid the throttle back to the stop detent and the 5 Johnson ceased running. The quiet actually was welcomed and our focus then seemed to be getting hooks baited and in the water.

This was one of the parts of the day that I knew I was going to be given a big secret. Lee had in his hand a wire leader with two hooks coming out of it about 3" apart. Elmer handed him a neatly skinned white perch, and Lee placed the hooked leader into the length of the little fish and then began to sew the belly closed with a tiny braided copper wire. Once completed he put a small curvature into the bait fish and attached the leader's eyelet to his lead core line. We were going to be fishing just off the bottom of the lake, probably four or five colors down.

Lee plopped the bait and a few feet of line overboard and told me to start the motor and proceed very slowly forward. After doing so, Lee watched the bait as it wobbled nicely a foot or so under water before letting out more line. He seemed pleased with the action of the baitfish and slowly fed the line overboard. Eventually Lee said he thought the bait had hit bottom and reeled in one color. This time of year the salmon tended to hang in the deeper and cooler water.

Elmer was nearly ready to get our second rig overboard and eventually we got three lines out. The deal was, if someone got a fish on, the others would reel in quickly to try and avoid a tangle underwater. After we'd settled in and were proceeding towards "under the mountain", I noticed that Elmer and Lee were passing a bottle of something back and forth a bit. I thought little of it, as I knew about the whiskey back at the shop. As long as I could drive the boat, I didn't care what they did.

It wasn't long before Elmer gave a mighty yank on his rod. He said loudly, "Reel 'em in, I got a good one on." Lee and I reeled in, no small job with four colors of lead core out and a bait fish on it too. Elmer worked his rod slowly keeping tension, but letting the fish run if it overcame to reel's drag setting. Lee picked up the big net and readied himself should Elmer get the fish close to the side of the boat. Before long, a silver flash only a few feet down made our excitement peak and Elmer talked to the fish saying all kinds of good things and a few not so good. The fish had tired itself and it wasn't long before Elmer reeled it in along side. Lee cautiously slipped the net under the fish and slowly lifted the net partially out of the water.

What appeared flopping in the net was definitely the biggest fish I had seen in my few years. Lee announced it was a salmon of around 6 pounds or better, and later the scales showed it to be a "touch" under 7 pounds. The elation ran high but soon it was back to business with fresh bait and hooks in the water. We were nearing the Lambert's boathouse and it was near time to have a sandwich. We did so as we made a big wide U-turn towards Hoyt's Island with lines still in the water then headed back towards the village.

Before we ended the fishing day, we had three nice salmon on board and also released several smallies. I now knew the big secret of how to troll with lead core line and sewed-on bait. After reeling in for the last time, Elmer announced that the sun was over the yardarm. He took a serious haul out the nearly drained whiskey bottle and passed the last of it to Lee.

After draining the Old Mr. Boston, Lee slurred, "Take us home." I followed orders and put the little 5 horsepower on "wide open" and we passed Dry Point for the second time that day. We were nearing the mouth of the stream with a south wind on our nose and the two old men had settled quietly against their chair backs with grins on their faces. I remember most the smell that wafted back to me. I now know it as a mix of cigarette smoke, whiskey, and old men's sweat. I also now know that I took them fishing as much as they took me.

Read Part I of "Gone Fishin'."

Heat and Humidity

by Dick Greenan

Well it looks like summer is finally here — along with the heat and humidity! I don't remember ever asking for the latter. With this heat, both Great and Long Ponds are losing about 3⁄10″ per day in evaporation, which in doing some research are actually normal evaporation rates. An interesting article by C.E. Grunsky entitled "Evaporation from Lakes and Reservoirs" going back to September 1931 suggests that the evaporation rate with an ambient outside temperature of 85°F is approximately 3⁄10″ per day. Add that to our camps still using lake water in addition to the slight seepage from our dams and we're now seeing our lake levels going down for the first time this summer. Two days ago, the level at the Wings Mill Dam was 3.84″ above full; today as I write this column we're down to just 1.56″ above, so you can see the direction in which we're headed. The good news is that we have been able to start the summer with higher water levels due to the June rains.

Weather Underground is forecasting just 0.93″ for the next 10 days so it looks like the heat and humidity are going to be around for a while. Scattered showers are always preferred over the gulley washers but we'll take just about anything at this point.

Great Pond is currently 2.04″ above full pond with one gate opened just 6″. Long Pond is right at 1.56″ above full with both gates now completely closed. Salmon/McGrath is currently holding its own at 1/10″ below full with its one gate opened the mandated 1 turn or 1 cfs. Now if you are vacationing on upper Long Pond, 9 miles from its Wings Mill Dam and are looking at your favorite rock for a hint of water levels, you will find that you are actually 4.75″ above full pond due to the lake being essentially tilted with the recent rain and the choke points at Castle Island and the Belgrade Stream keeping upper Long Pond even higher.

Up at Bear Spring Camps on Great Pond's North Bay you will be experiencing the same phenomena with higher water levels than what they have in Belgrade Lakes Village.

Enjoy this beautiful summer, weather and your vacation! And don't forget to stay hydrated!

Three Maine Poets, or Four!!!!

by Martha F. Barkley

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks…

From "Evangeline" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow came these words often repeated by my mom as we walked the woods together. The long evergreen needles turned golden and crunched beneath our feet. We walked together to the sound of this poetry. Try it by yourself or with a friend.

Portland has the museum childhood home of Longfellow in the center of town. Find his grand statue there as well, up the hill a block. Henry simply loved the walk from his home to Portland Head Light and back, quite the hike! I have not done that hike because of all the city traffic, but I have enjoyed seeing his home which was lived in by several more generations of Longfellows. Authentic original furnishings within.

We yearly spend a week on Little Lake Sebago and I discovered another poet's home in Raymond: Nathaniel Hawthorne vacationed there from Massachusetts in 1812 in his youth and commuted to Bowdoin College for those student years until 1825.

A lovely home remains in Raymond for museum visitors or strawberry festival lovers. He wrote poetically in his famed Scarlet Letter: "We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep". Maine fresh air, scented by pine, inspires writing that we can walk to in rhythm with the words, like poets ourselves.

I discovered a third Maine poet this summer, when we went to the Belgrade Town Office to register our boats in May. A long line gave me time to chat and also skim Discover Maine, Western Maine Edition, 2019. Did you see it this summer somewhere, too?

"Livermore Falls' Louise Marie Bogan: Our nation's 4^th poet laureate" was the article that caught my eye. Yes, she was born in our famous Washburn family's hometown. Like so many of the five Washburn brothers who moved away and made history elsewhere, so too did poet Bogan. Portland and Boston became her places of nurturing and literary development. Boston Girls' Latin School revealed to her a liking of Christina Rossetti, a favorite poet of mine, who wrote:

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

Try saying that as you walk through the breezes of summer by yourself or with a friend.

Our Maine-born poet laureate lived out her life in New York City after personal losses and traveling abroad and tragedy. Louise followed the well known Robert Penn Warren as our nation's poet laureate. Amazing to find more talent from little, rural Livermore Falls.

Jared, once again, borrowed for me through inter-library loan at Belgrade Library, a hand-stapled copy of Body of This Death Poems from the Maine State Library which houses all of Louise Bogan's works.

Her 1923 words were:

Build there some thick chord of wonder;
Then, for every passions sake,
Beat upon it till it break.

She died in 1970, not too long ago, in New York City, after a life of literary accomplishments.

How could I forget our neighbor in Gardiner, Edwin Arlington Robinson, winner of multiple Pulitzers? Robert Frost wrote that "[Robinson's] theme was unhappiness itself, but his skill was as happy as it was playful…His life was a revel in the felicities of language".

Thank goodness Laura Richards (from Merryweather Camp on Great Pond) helped Robinson through some rough patches and we have famous characters he created in "Richard Cory" et al., besides historic renditions of Lincoln and Rembrandt. I recommend the Penguin Selected Poems of "an unjustly neglected" Edwin Arlington Robinson.

Fishing, Hiking, and Kids Camps

by Pete Kallin

Suddenly summer is in full swing, and the [road] construction in the village is paused for a while. The new parking places are being tested and people are adjusting to walking on brick sidewalks and visiting the new Village Green. Exciting stuff.

Every year I am struck by how many of our visitors are here because of the youth camps, which bring in not only the kids but also their parents. Some of these camps have been on our lakes for more than a century (e.g. Pine Island Camp and Camp Runoia), and many of their alumni have retired here. Other camps include Pine Tree Camp on North Pond, Camps Matoaka and Manitou on East Pond, Camps Tracy and Modin on McGrath Pond-Salmon Lake, New England Music Camp on Messalonskee, and the Boy Scouts' Camp Bombazeen on Great Pond. Even camps that don't exist anymore such as the former tennis camp on Taconnet Island and former Camp Kennebec on Salmon Lake have sizeable populations of alumni that have settled permanently in our community with friends they have known for decades.

Good water quality is important to all these groups and they are all strong supporters of the local lake associations and other conservation organizations such as the 7-LA, formerly the BRCA and MLRC. Each of these groups brings a different wrinkle to our unique community and a slightly different sense of place but all help make our community a special place. I meet many hikers on local trails who first hiked here as campers many years ago.

I managed to get out hiking a bit on some of the 7-Lakes Alliance trails and met three generations of the Peaslee Family from Augusta hiking at French Mountain. Uncle Aaron works at Good Will Hinckley School and has led hikes by groups of their students on several 7-LA trails. On a day off last week, he took his mom, sister and assorted nieces and nephews hiking on French Mountain to introduce the kids to hiking.

My friend, Dick Greenan, had his son, Jason, daughter-in-law, Devon, and a couple of grandkids visiting for the week. The kids are enjoying a busy week of hiking, water skiing, sailing, kayaking and fishing. Eight-year old Sean proved you don't need teeth to catch a fish off Grandpa's dock or to eat ice cream at Lakeside Scoops. The fishing continues to be excellent, especially for bass, pike, and rainbow trout. I caught and released several fat rainbows early one morning.

This area offers some great outdoor recreation, whether you like to hike, bike, birdwatch, fish, sail, or paddle a canoe or kayak. Pick up a map of the local trails at Day's Store or from the 7 Lakes Alliance at the Maine Lakes Resource Center. Also, please check the 7-LA Facebook page for details on some interesting events scheduled this summer. Also keep an eye on the sign out front. And make sure you take a kid along on your next outdoor adventure.

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