Documentaries Dominate at This Year's MIFF

by Gregor Smith

Besides Fighting Indians, this year's MIFF includes a wealth of other documentaries. They are listed in the order of their initial screenings. The film descriptions are shortened versions of those that appear on MIFF's website, and all quotations are from that site.

• The Self Portrait is a haunting documentary about Lene Marie Fossen, a gifted Norwegian photographer who documented her severe anorexia through her photographs. (Sat., 3:30, RR2 and Thurs., 7:30, RR2)
• Frank and funny, Rebel Dykes explores the lesbian and transgendered women's subculture of 1980s London. (Sat., 7:00, RR1 and Thurs., 3:00, RR1)
• Ailey is a biography of groundbreaking, gay, African-American choreographer and dance company founder Alvin Ailey. (Sun., 3:30, RR2 and Thurs., 7:00, WOH)
• Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain celebrates the late celebrity chef whose "outsize[d] personality, insatiable curiosity, and passion for food, travel, and culture tapped into a deeper humanity…" (Sun., 7:00, WOH)
• Sapelo follows two brothers as they come of age in the last enclave of the Saltwater Geechee people on an island off the coast of Georgia. (Mon., 3:00, RR1; Sat., July 17, 7:00, RR1; and online)
• Truth to Power: Barbara Lee Speaks for Me follows the career of the congresswoman from Oakland, California, a dogged and outspoken champion for social justice and the sole member of the House to vote against the resolution authorizing military force after the 9/11 attacks. (Mon., 3:30, RR2 and Wed., 7:30, RR2)
• More illegal border crossers have died in rural Brooks County, Texas than anywhere else in the U.S. As two families search for missing relatives, they meet "vigilante ranchers, humanitarian activists, Border Patrol search and rescue teams, and others locked in a proxy version of the national immigration debate" in Missing in Brooks County. (Mon., 7:00, RR1; Fri., July 16, 7:00, RR1; and online)
• Nueve Sevillas ("Nine Sevilles") plunges the viewer into the world of flamenco as it lyrically follows nine residents of Seville, Spain. (Mon., 7:00, WOH and Wed., 3:00, RR1)
• The Big Scary "S" Word explores the history of socialism in the U.S., an ideal that was perceived positively in the early 20^th century but is now a dirty word. (Tues., 3:30, RR2 and Fri., July 16, 7:30, RR2)
• Bread in the Bones takes the viewer on "an exploratory bread journey from France, Germany, Bulgaria, and beyond to Vermont…to…Central Maine!" The interviewees include Railroad Square co-founder Stu Silverstein. (Tues., 7:00, WOH; Thurs., 8:30, SDI; and Sun., July 18, 3:30, RR2)
• The Loneliness of the Bones tells of Rae Natalie Prosser de Goodall (1935 — 2015), an Ohio-born biologist who came to Tierra del Fuego, the inhospitable archipelago at the southern tip of South America, in the early 1960s, where she married, raised a family, and collected plant specimens and whale and dolphin bones for a museum. Hers is "a nearly forgotten story from another time and another astonishing part of the world that few ever see." (Wed., 7:00, WOH and Fri., July 16, 3:30, RR2)

Except where otherwise noted, screenings take place between Saturday, July 10, and Thursday, July 15. All times are p.m. The locations are Waterville Opera House (WOH), Skowhegan Drive-In (SDI), and Railroad Square Cinemas 1 & 2 (RR1 and RR2). Railroad Square's third and smallest theater will not be used during the festival.

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