The Maryland Film Festival reinvents itself every year, thanks to programming that includes new filmmakers working with new actors, sometimes even in new genres. No doubt, that thrill of discovery helps keep audiences coming back year after year.
But the MFF has its mainstays as well. Joe Swanberg, for instance, has been bringing his movies to the festival, the 2015 edition of which opens Wednesday, since 2006, beginning with his second feature, "LOL." Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait has been an MFF regular since 2007, when his delightfully disgusting "Sleeping Dogs Lie" suggested heretofore unimagined levels of puppy love.
Both will be back this year — Swanberg with a new star-studded drama, "Digging for Fire" (the cast includes Rosemarie DeWitt, Anna Kendrick, Orlando Bloom, Brie Larson and Sam Elliott), Goldthwait with his first documentary, a visit with friend and stand-up comic Barry Crimmins titled, with a dose of irony, "Call Me Lucky."
They'll be joined by dozens of first-timers, filmmakers whose work will be brand spanking new to most Baltimore audiences. They include Stephen Cone, whose seventh feature, "Henry Gamble's Birthday Party," is getting its world premiere here in Baltimore.
We asked festival director Jed Dietz to talk about why filmmakers like Swanberg and Goldthwait keep getting invited back, while director of programming Eric Allen Hatch give us some idea what to expect from newbie Cone.
Bobcat Goldthwait
When John Waters presented Bobcat Goldthwait's "Sleeping Dogs Lie" at the 2007 MFF, few suspected the festival and filmmaker were forming a bond that would still be going strong eight years later.
Especially when Goldthwait couldn't make it to the screening.
But it was a back injury, not lack of interest, that kept Goldthwait away. And he's more than made up for his absence since. This year's screening of "Call Me Lucky" marks the fifth Goldthwait film to play Baltimore, and the fourth time he'll be here to introduce his work.
"As a storyteller, he has a unique way of telling stories," says Dietz, applauding Goldthwait for making films that range from outrageous comedy ("Sleeping Dogs Lie" and "God Bless America") to insightful comedy-dramas ("World's Greatest Dad") to straight-out horror ("Willow Creek") and now documentaries.
"No one's told him he should only work in certain genres," Dietz says. "He's not working from a set of rules about how you succeed as a filmmaker. He's just working from what he wants to do."
That, plus Goldthwait has turned into one of the festival's biggest fans. "I think he's engaged with what we're doing in a very special way," Dietz says. "He's friendly, he's unpretentious. He loves going to other people's movies, he hangs out with other filmmakers when he's here, he goes to the filmmaker gatherings."
Goldthwait, in New York working as a director last week, acknowledges that Maryland, one of his first festivals, remains one of his favorites. Not least because of a friendship he made here early.
"I just have these crazy fond memories of developing a friendship with John Waters," he says. " I'm just starting to be able to talk around him; I still get kind of tongue-tied."
"Call Me Lucky" will be screened at 10:15 p.m. Saturday and 4:30 p.m. Sunday at MICA's Brown Center, 1301 W. Mount Royal Ave.
Joe Swanberg
Joe Swanberg is a filmmaker "we've watched from very early on," says Dietz.
That attention has paid off. Ever since his first visit to the festival nine years ago with "LOL," Swanberg has been a constant at Baltimore's annual celebration of all things cinematic. Audiences have watched him grow, from his early days as a key figure in the "mumblecore" movement — low-budget films with no-name actors, heavy on naturalistic dialogue — to directing medium-budget films with big-name casts, like "Digging for Fire."
"We've seen him grow, to working at a very accomplished level," Dietz says, "Joe's still not working with great big budgets and all that stuff, but actors who are in very, very high demand want to work with him."
(And Joe's not the only Swanberg who's become an MFF mainstay. His wife, Kris, has also directed and acted in numerous films over the years. She, too, will be in Baltimore, for a screening of her latest, "Unexpected.")
"The me from 10 years ago that made 'LOL' was challenging every single aspect of traditional feature filmmaking," Joe Swanberg says over the phone from his home in Chicago. "Having recently graduated from film school, I was really trying to rebel against the kind-of traditional narrative storytelling features. What you would find with 'Digging for Fire' a decade later is that I am now attempting to totally embrace those traditional storytelling features and push the experimentation into different area."
As for the MFF, "it's kind of unmissable for me," he says. "I never have a better time than those weekends in Baltimore."
"Digging for Fire" screens at 9:45 p.m. Thursday at MICA's Brown Center, 1301 W. Mount Royal Ave., and 4:45 p.m. Saturday at MICA's Gateway Building, 1601 W. Mount Royal Ave.
Stephen Cone
Seven features into his directing career and Chicago-based Stephen Cone is finally showing at the Maryland Film Festival. His newest film, "Henry Gamble's Birthday Party," is getting its world premiere here Thursday night.
Eric Allen Hatch, the festival's director of programming, thinks audiences are in for a treat.
Cone's films, Hatch says, most of which are set in religious communities, deal with "the pressures in contemporary Christian communities to regulate behavior, while in the midst of that are people who are struggling with their own sexuality." In essence, he says, Cone's movies are "community portraits that combine with coming-of-age stories."
What was perhaps most unexpected, Hatch says, is that Cone's film was entered through the festival's normal submission process. Often, established filmmakers are invited to have their work shown at the festival, instead of going through the standard submission process.
"It's really rare to find a film in the 'call for entries' that feels so fully formed," he said.
Cone, speaking over the phone from Chicago, said it was a matter of happenstance that his film's premiere lined up with this year's festival. Still, he said, "it was on our list of possible premieres, and we were thrilled that it worked out that way.
"I've heard it's one of the most filmmaker-friendly festivals in the country," he said. "I've heard that it's low-key in the best of ways, that it's sort of a neighborhood hangout. I've heard that it's just great fun, and a great party."
"Henry Gamble's Birthday Party" screens at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive, and 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Single Carrot Theatre, 2600 N. Howard St.
If you go
Maryland Film Festival programming runs Wednesday through May 10 at venues in and around the Station North Arts District. Tickets are generally $12 per film (all-access passes are $375). For a full schedule and more information: mdfilmfest.com.