CECIL COLLEGE | ONE SEAHAWK DRIVE, NORTH EAST MD 21901 | BOX OFFICE: (410) 287-1037
2022 FILM FESTIVAL SCHEDULE
DAY ONE - FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11TH, 2022
| 12NOON - 3:30PM FILM FESTIVAL PASS PICK-UP |
| 3:30 - 4PM FILM FESTIVAL KICK OFF |
4 - 5:30PM FILM FESTIVAL BLOCK #1 - SOCIAL MEDIA MONSTER
* The Social Media Monster | Filmmaker: Peter John Ross | Location: St. Joseph, MI | Run time: 90 Minutes
- When Matthew came to St. Joseph Missouri, no one knew how he would use social media to disrupt the lives of so many people. This documentary looks at how people can get away with doing incredible amounts of damage with little to no consequence. Even when they threaten to commit acts of terrorism at nuclear facilities.
| 5:30 - 6PM SESSION BREAK |
6 - 8PM FILM FESTIVAL BLOCK #2 - LOCAL & DOMESTIC SHORTS #1
* April & After | Filmmaker: Shaun Dougherty | Location: Wilmington, DE | Run time: 4 Minutes, 27 Seconds
- "April & After" is a ballet written by musician, Shaun Dougherty. It tells the tale of a tormented composer who tries to rebuild his life after the death of his father while fighting his own demons; all the while searching for his one true love.
* Full Circle | Filmmaker: Brian Kennedy Brown | Location: Baltimore County, MD | Run time: 8 Minutes, 9 Seconds
- After inventing a device allowing her to see into the future, Victoria Rhodes grows increasingly paranoid about what she sees.
* Prom Night | Filmmaker: Carolin Harvey | Location: Towson, MD | Run time: Four Minutes, 59 Seconds
- A high school girl gets ready for prom, but discovers something is off about her friend and mother.
* The Social Medium | Filmmaker: Marshall Logan Gibbs | Location: Baltimore, MD | Run time: 6 Minutes, 56 Seconds
- A psychic claims he can text the dead through a cursed laptop... but is the dead really checking their notifications?
* Persistence | Filmmaker: Christian Smooth | Location: Baltimore, MD | Run time: 18 Minutes, 5 Seconds
- After a night of celebration Alan drunkenly tells his wife Michelle. The dark origin behind their love
* A Quarantween Music Video | Filmmaker: Samantha Pickett | Location: Woodstock, MD | Run time: 3 Minutes, 21 Seconds
- A tween sits down to write a song for an art competition about changing the world, but time seems to slow down as she checks her text messages instead.
* A Good Night's Rest | Filmmaker: Abdul Tejan Sesay | Location: Maryland | Run time: 6 Minutes, 11 Seconds
- A couple tosses and turns in bed, due to a menacing disturbance in their room, which they try to control but can't.
* Copper & Wool | Filmmaker: Tyler C. Peterson | Location: Los Angeles, CA | Run time: 12 Minutes, 24 Seconds
- The week before her Orthodox Jewish wedding, Elisheva escapes to a rented room in the hills outside of Los Angeles to clear her head. While dodging calls from her mother and fiancé, Elisheva begins to form a life-changing bond with Meredith, the eccentric divorcee who owns the house she’s staying in.
* Noir | Filmmaker: Benjamin Scott Bagrowski | Location: Rising Sun, MD | Run time: 13 Minutes, 57 Seconds
- When long-time private eye Joe receives a mysterious call from a mysterious client, his normal day turns into a manhunt. Along the way, he encounters confusion, a chase, and a significant amount of candy cigarettes.
* Bury Me Beneath The Whiskey Rose | Filmmaker: Mike Cunningham | Location: Richmond, VA | Run time: 7 Minutes, 42 Seconds
- A small town lawyer stumbles across a murder mystery when trying to deliver a will to a grieving widow whose only dream was to open an opera house in the west.
* Crisis Counselors | Filmmaker: JV Torres, Kevin Kimball | Location: Maryland | Run time: 13 Minutes, 23 Seconds
- A violent disturbance occurs at a residence and two crisis counselors are called to assess the situation. This, in an effort to decrease police involvement, has severe consequences as the crisis counselors find themselves in an absurdly dire circumstance.
* Delimerence | Filmmaker: Stanley Wong | Location: Los Angeles, CA | Run time: 8 Minutes, 40 Seconds
- A couple meets up for Valentine's Day despite breaking up days before.
8 - 9PM - FILMMAKER MEET & GREET
Filmmakers and Film Lovers will gather in the Milburn Stone Theatre lobby in hopes of making connections and sharing ideas
9 - 11PM FILM FESTIVAL BLOCK #3 - CREAM OF THE CROP
* Cream of the Crop | Filmmakers: Douglas B. Maddox, JoAnn Dawson | Location: Cecil County, MD | Run time: 90 Minutes
- Jodi Stafford, a high school Ag Science teacher, meets Mike Jared, a commercial real estate marketing specialist during her struggle to save her family's ailing dairy farm.
DAY TWO - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12TH, 2022
11AM - 1PM FILM FESTIVAL BLOCK #4 - DOCUMENTARY SHORTS
* Our Town | Filmmaker: Doug Lehmann | Location: Nashville, TN | Run time: 11 Minutes, 50 Seconds
- Our Town is a short Documentary film about a public art project that took place in Nashville, Tennessee. An artist collective seeks to make a portrait of Nashville using the citizens of the city as artists themselves.
* Muse: The Love Stories | Filmmaker: Jeff Vargen | Location: Martinez, CA | Run time: 17 Minutes, 18 Seconds
- Legendary photographer Dean Fidelman opens the vault and shares the very personal stories behind some of his iconic photographs.
* Entrepreneurs of color | Filmmaker: Sami Haraketi | Location: Portugal | Run time: 34 Minutes, 38 Seconds
- This short film elevates the stories of several entrepreneurs of colour in Lisbon, as well as individuals who support them and are passionate about the cause for diversity. The documentary style film highlights their view of the Lisbon entrepreneurial ecosystem, showcasing their wins and their challenges within the ecosystem. The goal of the short film is to inspire entrepreneurs of colour in Europe and to inspire change in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
* Fresh Memories | Filmmaker: Christian Hyoungju Lee | Location: Alpharetta, GA | Run time: 5 Minutes, 45 Seconds
- "fresh memories" features Terry and Eddy, cousins and co-owners of For Good Tea. By making their own boba and boiling milk tea every morning, they hope to inspire and unite the next generation of Americans with just a simple drink.
* The Man Talking To Stones | Filmmaker: Bulent Boral | Location: Turkey | Run time: 30 Minutes
- This documentary film tells the story of an eighty years old warden working in a castle in the province of Van, Türkiye for sixty years called Mehmet KUŞMAN who was able to learn Urartian cuneiform script with his own effort and who is among the twenty people who can read this cuneiform and also who is the only person that can write this same cuneiform. Mehmet KUŞMAN is a person who learned the Urartian language of the Urartian people, which is a civilization that vanished 2600 years ago from present day, in between the rubbles and only with his determination and own effort. Mehmet KUŞMAN is a person who made the stones talk. The documentary is about the challenging life struggle of Mehmet KUŞMAN and his process of learning Urartian language.
* Two Cartoonists | Filmmaker: Bruno Teixeira | Location: Portugal | Run time: 10 Minutes, 26 Seconds
- António Antunes and Vasco Gargalo are two Portuguese cartoonists born in Vila Franca de Xira.
In “Two Cartoonists”, their work meets together. One works on a traditional manner, the other works with digital methods.
In this documentary we witness both their work methods as they give their views on the art of cartoon. At the end, we visit CartoonXira that serves as a final stage for the public to see their works.
* Total Disaster | Filmmaker: Kelu Orion Troisi | Location: United States | Run time: 11 Minutes, 28 Seconds
- Armed with realistic bird puppets, trickster environmental activists pretend to be oil company Total—staging a satirical press conference to introduce "RéHabitat," a program to rescue animals from the East African Oil Pipeline by relocating them to “more sustainable” habitats. Using humor and mischief, they expose a deadly ecological disaster in a zany effort to help #StopEACOP.
1 - 2PM FILMMAKER ROUND TABLE
2 - 4PM FILM FESTIVAL BLOCK #5 - LOCAL & DOMESTIC SHORTS #2
* Money Talks | Filmmaker: Marshall Gibbs | Location: Maryland | Run time: 6 Minutes, 24 Seconds
- After many days alone in a safe-house guarding a large sum of money, one Man starts to question his sanity.
* It’s Still Not About Me | Filmmaker: Debbie Camper | Location: Reistertown, MD | Run time: 47 Minutes, 17 Seconds
- A young woman and her disconnected family must pull together when her younger brother/ their youngest son goes missing.
* Greed | Filmmaker: Richard Brown | Location: Takoma Park, MD | Run time: 48 Minutes, 1 Second
- An aggressive, adulterous husband is plotting to murder his wife for her life insurance and family money. Will he succeed in carrying out her demise?
* The Settler | Filmmaker: Zara Mirzaei | Location: Baltimore, MD | Run time: 19 Minutes
- 'The Settler' follows the story of a Latino man named Juan, who has left his family behind and immigrated to the US in the hopes of a better life. While He's working hard and is bent on building his future, he faces social and emotional struggles.
| 4 - 5PM DINNER BREAK |
5 - 7PM FILM FESTIVAL BLOCK #6 - LOCAL & DOMESTIC SHORTS #3
* Cat Sick Blues Sick Blues | Filmmaker: Jeremiah Rosario | Location: Saint Cloud, FL | Run time: 13 Minutes, 42 Seconds
- A horror film critic receives a late-night last minute submission -- Cat Sick Blues.
After becoming infatuated with both it and the director, his ties to reality begin to unravel; and with his family abandoned, his only remaining source of joy, is more Cat Sick Blues. It isn't long after when another opportunity to feed his unhealthy obsession presents itself, this time in the form of a candid eye-opening interview with the film's director, Dave Jackson. This particular slice of the Cat Sick Blues experience, is one he may never recover from.
* Stray | Filmmaker: John D Lofton | Location: United States | Run time: 10 Minutes, 57 Seconds
- Mourning wife and Mother Gina struggles to cope with the loss of her husband who died in a tragic accident 2 years ago. One day while continuing to drown her sorrows with alcohol; a stray dog appears and seems to be trying to show her something important.
* The Wife Just Doesn’t Understand | Filmmaker: Dave Musolf | Location: Sewaren, NJ | Run time: 17 Minutes, 22 Seconds
- A traveling salesman makes one stop too many
* Viral | Filmmaker: Michael Rich | Location: North Hollywood, CA | Run time: 13 Minutes, 22 Seconds
- An overworked auto repairman fights to survive the night after hitting an unknown entity in the road.
* Happy Anniversary | Filmmaker: Brian C Smith | Location: Wilmington, DE | Run time: 12 Minutes
- In a cabin trying to put the fire back into their relationship, a couples plans for some alone time is interrupted when Wes brings a man back to the cabin and who just happens to be a werewolf who’s being pursued by his own angry wife hell bent on revenge for turning her into a werewolf herself.
* Monkey See, Monkey Do | Filmmaker: Tyler Saito | Location: United States | Run time: 3 Minutes, 31 Seconds
- A young woman finds a toy monkey left at her apartment door, but strange things begin to happen when she brings it inside.
* Cicada: I was a Teenage Horror Movie! | Filmmaker: Keil Orion Troisi | Location: Pennsylvania/United States | Run time: 13 Minutes, 22 Seconds
- In 1997, awkward pre-teens with a VHS camera struggle to make an ambitious vampire movie, each playing multiple roles, spilling dimestore blood in a slew of murder scenes, and testing testicular limits with a homemade zip-line setpiece. Now edited as a comedy, it is at once a bloody twist on vampire lore and an endearing portrait of young filmmakers coming of "rage."
* Boxanne | Filmmaker: Brian Wild | Location: Wilmington, DE | Run time: 39 Minutes, 21 Seconds
- Living under the shadow of a curse proclaimed by Edgar Allan Poe, Dane Werther (Patrick Ruegsegger) is the manager of a couples boutique where he falls in love with a sex doll after he names it and she comes to life... or at least in his own head.
Filmed in Delaware during Covid-19 , funded by government relief checks, "Boxanne" is a wildly outrageous rom-com by filmmaker Brian Wild with screenplay by Christy Wall and cinematography by Brian T. Skinner.
Cast includes Patrick Ruegsegger as the everyman Dane Werther. Gabrielle Rambo as the loveable co-worker. Luke Nasty plays the sage like Panhandler and Angela Marie- Teague is the voice of Boxanne as well as several other characters.
NSFW! This movie contains a killer soundtrack, strong sexual humor, adult language, drug use and mannequin boobies. Well deserving of a R rating.
| 7 - 8PM SESSION BREAK |
8 - 11PM FILM FESTIVAL BLOCK #7 - YES, YOUR TIDE IS COLD AND DARK, SIR
* "Yes, Your Tide is Cold and Dark, Sir." | Filmmakers: Chris Malinowski | Location: Newark, DE | Run time: 125 Minutes
- In September of 2011, 63-year-old RUDY “CLAY” CLAITONOWSKY, a rogue guitar instructor, and three of his teenaged pupils disappeared without a trace into the sand dunes of Cape Henlopen, Delaware. Ten months later, Clay’s estranged, stock broker son CLIFF makes an emotional pilgrimage to the coastal town, which he abandoned twelve years prior following the death of his mother. Amending his past and that of his father, Cliff begrudgingly forges relationships with mirthful barfly JACK, his father’s closest friend, the elderly MERRILL, his mother’s one-time hospice nurse, and restaurant owner, JACEY, Clay’s former mistress and mother of CARL TULLIVAN, one of the missing teenagers. Looming beyond Cliff’s ambivalent quest is the presence of shady real estate mogul RICK TULLIVAN, Jacey’s ex-husband and father of Carl, and a spectral assemblage of reserved, faceless men, with grim ties to Clay who threaten Cliff nocturnally. As Cliff becomes mired in the unrequited love of his father and an elusive female other, the missing teenagers re-appear, one by one, with a single phrase on their listless lips: “Yes, your tide is cold and dark, Sir.”
During this session we will also show Chris Malinowski's short films Jouissance and Confetti
DAY THREE - SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13TH, 2022
11AM – 12NOON FILM FESTIVAL BLOCK #8 - SWEET TASSA
Sweet Tassa: Music of the Indian Caribbean Diaspora | Filmmakers: Christopher L Ballengee | Location: Arnold, MD | Run time: 58 Minutes
- Brought to Trinidad by indentured laborers from India who first arrived in 1845, tassa drumming has become an important marker of Indian Trinidadian cultural identity. The film explores both musical and socio-political elements of tassa performance, focusing on the life and family of noted drummer Lenny Kumar. As the story unfolds, tassa emerges as a metaphor for Indian Caribbean culture, rooted in India while also thoroughly Caribbean.
| 12NOON - 12:30PM SESSION BREAK |
12:30 - 2:30PM FILM FESTIVAL BLOCK #9 - INTERNATIONAL SHORTS #1
* Apex | Filmmaker: Cándido Pérez de Armas | Location: Spain | Run time: 5 Minutes, 20 Seconds
- The soul is that which lives between sigh and fire.
* To Turn Off The Stars | Filmmaker: Margot Cavret | Location: France | Run time: 3 Minutes, 55 Seconds
- Everyday, Renard turns on and off his curious lamppost that seems to control the cycle of night and day. One day, his routine collapse, when he discovers that Louve and the moon have fallen in love. Should he accomplish his duty despite everything and force the lovers to separate, by triggering the break of day?
* Ups And Downs | Filmmaker: Shi Wei | Location: China | Run time: 3 Minutes, 17 Seconds
- The road of life is ups and downs, Yuanshi calm, floating indifferent! Between ups and downs, face it bravely
* Empty | Filmmaker: Jafar Pooyandeh | Location: Iran | Run time: 15 Minutes
- A chance comes to happen for a girl in order to reach her dream of being an actress. Things don't go on as she imagined.
* Border | Filmmaker: Anatael Perez | Location: Spain | Run time: 2 Minutes, 54 Seconds
- In a desert wasteland the figure of a boy crosses the horizon. Without a clear destiny, the boy is overtaken by the extraordinary.
* Nail | Filmmaker: Ana Fesser | Location: United Kingdom | Run time: 17 Minutes
- Dom lives tormented in the shadow of his father, a violent man who has spent a long time in prison. Obsessed with the search for his own identity and terrified at the idea of carrying the behaviors he hates so much from his father in his genes, he will now be forced to face reality when his father, recently released from prison, returns home.
* The Fall | Filmmaker: Rafael Larx | Location: Mexico | Run time: 5 Minutes
- "In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost." - Dante's Inferno
* Amerikan | Filmmaker: Oxana Nechaeva | Location: Russian Federation | Run time: 14 Minutes
- The life story of two men of different ages, but similar at first glance, fate. Alexander seems to have already lived the fate of Kirill, only in the distant past. Meeting with a casual acquaintance stirred up memories and brought back twenty years ago. Did Alexander want to go back to the past? While playing billiards, they have to find out if they are so similar. And who will be right.
* Bodies That Fight | Filmmaker: Catalina Ibanez | Location: Chile | Run time: 3 Minutes
- The meeting between the performance and the crowd. The idea embodied in everyone's gaze. Happiness by own judgment carried out. The meeting of the ideal with reality, embodied in the woman's body.
* Shadows | Filmmaker: Haslam Ortega | Location: Panama | Run time: 22 Minutes
- A veteran judge is nominated to the Supreme Court. His nomination divides liberals and conservatives, men and women. Amid growing accusations of misbehavior, Shadows from the past threaten to destroy everything, while new rumors keep adding fuel to the fire. What is the truth? Is anyone really spotless under scrutiny? Does it Matter?
* Director’s Cut | Filmmaker: Bruna Barreto Fontoura | Location: Brazil | Run time: 10 Minutes, 56 Seconds
- A insecure film student needs to make a movie in order to graduate, but hates all of her ideas.
* YABÁ | Filmmaker: Rodrigo Sena | Location: Brazil | Run time: 12 Minutes
- In a fishing village whose ancestors came from Africa, enslaved, ancient ancestral beliefs and cults remain. Neide (Jari Nass) is a former resident looking for ways to save her business, threatened by the decline of fish due to the oil spill in the region. The relations between the old forms of fishing work and their beliefs are contrasted with the need for collective work.
* Be Visible | Filmmaker: Gul Yildirim | Location: Turkey | Run time: 3 Minutes, 5 Seconds
- The film condemns violence as the subject. This violence is not only against humans, but also against animals and nature. It encourages the people who remain as bystanders to all these events to take action and be visible.
* A Dialogue With Pandora | Filmmaker: Paul Green | Location: Canada | Run time: 5 Minutes, 56 Seconds
- The Story of Second Chances and forgiveness in a mystical-magical way.
Written by Multi-Award Winning Writer 15-year-old Esabella Strickland who has dyslexia, adhd and social anxiety
| 2:30 – 3PM SESSION BREAK |
3 – 4:30PM FILM FESTIVAL BLOCK #10 - INTERNATIONAL SHORTS #2
* Duas | Filmmaker: Ana Cavazzana | Location: Brazil | Run time: 20 Minutes
- "Duas" tells the love story of Maria and Julia who meet at the factory where they work. They fall in love and get married. But they see their lives changed in a fraction of a second. A lesbian drama, poetically told, with representation both artistically and technically. Based on true facts.
* Daughter | Filmmaker: Oxana Nechaeva | Location: Russian Federation | Run time: 10 Minutes
- A ten-year-old daughter is a victim of the selfishness of adults, everyone pursues their own interests, proving their rightness using the child, completely forgetting about him himself.
* Duppy Drum | Filmmaker: Jahday Ford | Location: Bermuda | Run time: 4 Minutes, 18 Seconds
- Duppy Drum is a visual and musical manifestation of Afro-Caribbean dance, drumming and spiritualism from the Islands of Bermuda and Trinidad & Tobago. The short aims to harness hundreds of years in this heritage through a special language formed by native percussive styles and characterised choreography.
* Sempiternal | Filmmaker: Ismael Martin | Location: Panama | Run time: 11 Minutes
- A young woman with anxiety issues, phobias and panic attacks faces the origins of what has so troubled her in life. A story about the profound consequences of mistreatment and psychological abuse.
* Why Bosnia and Herzegovina can be the number one travel destination in the world | Filmmaker: Robert Dacesin | Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina | Run time: 12 Minutes, 48 Seconds
- When people think about the most visited and popular travel destinations in the world, they probably first think of Italy, France, Spain or USA right? But what if I told you that there is a small and almost unknown country in the center of Europe, called Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose beauties and potentials are almost the same, if not greater than that of the countries I mentioned now? Well, you would probably think I am not talking seriously. I mean, it is not easy to even find us on a map, as we are that small. But you know, even though we are just 3 million people and live on a small territory, we are a country of many hidden gems. Did you know that we have more waterfalls than Italy, France, Spain, and the USA combined? Or that in our country you will find the biggest rainforest in Europe and the second biggest canyon in the world? Did you know that our churches, monasteries, and mosques have hundreds of years of rich history or that we have the biggest number of wild horses of any other country in the world, after Mongolia and Iceland? Well, that and much more you will discover if you visit Bosnia and Herzegovina, or if you just watch this video.
* Harbinger | Filmmaker: Steven Nathan Herdijaya | Location: Indonesia | Run time: 9 Minutes, 38 Seconds
- A street sweeper, The messenger of the red-blooded letter to the soldier found out it was abused. Responsible for the extermination of neutralists during the Gestok/Gestapu era in Bali.
* What a shitty day! | Filmmaker: Vanesa Romero | Location: Spain | Run time: 10 Minutes
- A shitty day narrates one of the most important days for Leti, where she is left absolutely devastated after her boyfriend stood her up at the altar. Leti wanders on the road and suddenly meets Noelia, a pilgrim on St. James Way. On the way, both women end up finding out what really a shitty day is.
| 4:30 – 5PM SESSION BREAK |
5 - 6:30PM FILM FESTIVAL BLOCK #11 - THE LETTERS
THE LETTERS | Filmmakers: Robbie Walsh | Location: Ireland | Run time: 90 Minutes
THE LETTERS tells the story of 3 women from different walks of life who have been given mere weeks to live due to the false results of their cervical cancer checks
| 6:30 - 7PM SESSION BREAK |
7PM AWARDS & GOODNIGHT