VTIFF 2012 is offering a unique opportunity for filmmakers to benefit from the expertise of Internationally renowned speaker and story consultant Fernanda Rossi, the Doc Doctor, with these two unique presentations!

In this workshop, Caitlin Boyle will present strategic and practical steps necessary for rallying a motivated audience around your film while earning distribution revenue and contributing to social change.

Film director Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed) and musician/composer Ryan Miller (Guster) in conversation about the relationship between a film director and the composer/sound designer of the film’s score. A must for musicians, composers and filmmakers alike.

A romantic comedy that starts with a vasectomy and climaxes with rock’n‘roll rabbis. A professional gambler, divorced father, and a ladies’ man declares himself through with love then runs into an old college flame. Needless to say, she will call his bluff.

Opening Night Film!

Sandra Forman, Boston entertainment attorney, conducts this roundtable Q & A and discussion with filmmakers on production legal issues including collaboration agreements, acquisition of literary and life story rights, production agreements, rights clearances, and fair use.

Featuring: Story of Cholera & We Have to Talk About Hunger.

Featuring: Welcome to Vermont, followed by party at Mira’s.

Three-Michelin-stars French chef Michel Bras decides to hand his restaurant over to his son, who has been working with him for 15 years. This is the story of extraordinary dishes prepared by a father and a son, in the hilly landscape of Aubrac region. We follow this gastronomic transmission, and enter intimately in their family ties.

Azarbayjani is a filmmaker from Iran who should be closely watched. This is her narrative debut featuring the first Iranian transgender character (played by Shayesteh Irani – leading actress in Panahi’s Offside). It is the story of how an unlikely friendship develops between two women from opposite backgrounds. This is an uplifting drama enthusiastically received by critics and audiences at numerous festivals.-M.N.

Featuring: Soldiers of Peace.

Featuring: Last Day at Doughboys, We Will Forget, Shape of Things to Come.

Featuring: Mad River Rising, Midnight, Exit 7A, and Stations.

Featuring: Johnny Get the Christmas Tree, A Ninth Life, Steel Rendezvous.

This clandestine documentary, shot partially on an iPhone and smuggled into France in a cake for a last-minute submission to Cannes, depicts the day-to-day life of acclaimed director Jafar Panahi (Offside), one of Iran’s leading filmmakers who was banned from making films and confined to his apartment. Panahi turns this restriction on its head with a highly charged historical narrative and a twist at the end.

Includes: Short film All She Needs.

Taking as its starting point the story of Friedrich Nietzsche’s 1889 encounter with a peasant beating his horse that marked the beginning of his 10-year descent into madness and silence, Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse is a film of unparalleled cinematic power. A rare opportunity to experience on a big screen a film that has already been hailed as a contemporary masterwork.

BFS Presentation; Sponsor VTIFF

The Vermont International Film Festival, in partnership with CCTV Center for Media & Democracy, RETN and VCAM presents a major event that examines the work and legacy of George Stoney, a leading documentarian and teacher who died July 12, 2012.

Part of Stoney Tribute Panel, in the presence of co-director Judith Helfand

An uplifting film about a women’s basketball team in the American University of Iraq made up of all ethnicities: Arab, Kurd, Christian, Sunni and Shiite. They came from all over Iraq, but can’t tell their families. The story is told through the filmmaker’s camera and by the personal video diaries made by the young women themselves.

Five Cuban intellectuals who live on the island, a filmmaker, a musician, two writers and a university professor, discuss censorship as a historical, political and social phenomenon. Their discussion is about the limits that this scourge has provoked in artistic creation throughout time and throughout the world.
w/filmmaker Karel Ducasse

Karel Ducasse is brought to the USA by the Americas Media Initiative whose mission is to present Cuban filmmakers and their work in the US. As an Afro-Cuban filmmaker, Ducasse has a unique perspective regarding filmmaking and life in Cuba. He will be presenting his film Zone of Silence and other shorts. Screening sponsored by UVM Film & TV Studies Program.

Sushi, formerly found only in Japan, has become an international industry. You can get sushi at football games in Texas. The film shows sushi masters at work through some fabulous footage – the sequence on knife sharpening alone is worth a trip to the cinema. But its popularity has led to the depletion of tuna, potentially upsetting the ecological balance of oceans.

Includes: Short film A Fish Factory in Astrakhan.

I Am Eleven focuses on eleven year olds from 15 countries, each speaking directly to the camera about their thoughts on issues such as love, war, global warming, music, terrorism, culture, family, happiness, religion and the future. It captures the essence of the worlds children at a pivotal moment in their lives and in the future of the world.

Three-Michelin-stars French chef Michel Bras decides to hand his restaurant over to his son, who has been working with him for 15 years. This is the story of extraordinary dishes prepared by a father and a son, in the hilly landscape of Aubrac region. We follow this gastronomic transmission, and enter intimately in their family ties.

Comedy about five long-time friends (Jane Fonda, Geraldine Chaplin, Claude Rich, Pierre Richard, Guy Bedos), decide to move in together. Under the watch of their younger caretaker, an anthropology student, they confront hidden issues from their shared past while struggling to cope with ageing. U.S. Premiere!

Azarbayjani is a filmmaker from Iran who should be closely watched. This is her narrative debut featuring the first Iranian transgender character (played by Shayesteh Irani – leading actress in Panahi’s Offside). It is the story of how an unlikely friendship develops between two women from opposite backgrounds. This is an uplifting drama enthusiastically received by critics and audiences at numerous festivals.-M.N.

A behind the scenes film about Vermont filmmaker David Giancola’s doomed attempt at making a science fiction film starring Anna Nicole Smith. Anna Nicole died of an over-dose midst filming. With Vermont locations and non-professional actors, you will enjoy playing spot the person or place. Filmmakers Giancola and producer John James will attend the screening.

Includes: A discussion with filmmakers David Giancola & John James.

Presented by the Burlington Film Society and co-sponsored by the Vermont International Film Festival and Champlain College.
Does the death of film spell the end of independent theaters? The fate of small town theaters in Vermont in the wake of the “convert or die” ultimatum, and what this all means for local filmmakers and film audiences, will be the subject of a panel discussion. Free to the public.

The story of an unlikely cross-generational friendship between a porn star, 21 year-old Jane played by Dree Hemingway, (Ernest Hemingway’s great-granddaughter and Mariel’s daughter), and an 85 year-old widow, Sadie played by Basedka Johnson in her startling screen debut.

Sure to be one of VTIFF’s most talked-about films The World Before Her dramatizes the tension between traditional and modern views of Indian women as they clash in two very different realms: the Miss India pageant and Durga Vahini, the women’s wing of the fundamentalist Hindu movement.

An uplifting film about a women’s basketball team in the American University of Iraq made up of all ethnicities: Arab, Kurd, Christian, Sunni and Shiite. They came from all over Iraq, but can’t tell their families. The story is told through the filmmaker’s camera and by the personal video diaries made by the young women themselves.

Shot on location in Havana, this zom-com is stylish and truly funny. But its political message elevates it to another level. A cult film in Cuba, it has now emerged from underground venues. Director’s statement: “Cuba is a country that has been preparing itself for a confrontation with the United States during the last 50 years. So, what if instead of that, we have to confront zombies?” Halloween Special

Joint Panel Presentation: Nora Jacobson, Louise Michaels, Dorothy Todd, Nat Winthrop & Rob Koier of Freedom & Unity: The Vermont Movie and Vic Guadagno of Vermont Energy Independence Day. Moderator: Allan Nicholls. Film is a collaborative art form, despite the fact that there is usually only one director. Freedom and Unity: The Vermont Movie was set up as a collaboration between many directors. Vermont Energy Independence Day is set up as a crowd-sourced film. How have Nora Jacobson and Vic Guadagno found their own separate ways to create a cohesive whole and what difficulties did they encounter or do they foresee?

This may well be one of the best films in VTIFF this year, balancing themes of loneliness and disconnection with an absurd comic tone reminiscent of the films of Aki Kaurismaki or Jim Jarmusch. In the center is a lonely pawnbroker whose life changes radically when someone abandons a baby on his bed. He turns to his neighbor, a devotee of October’s feast of our Lord of the Miracles, for help. Avoiding all melodramatic traps, the Vada Brothers craft an emotionally rich and stylish fresh look at contemporary Lima.-M.N.

Screening of the 2012 Award-winning Vermont films:Welcome to Vermont (Ben & Jerry Award), Shape of Things to Come (Goldstone Award); We Have to Talk About Hunger (Footage Farm USA Award); Steel Rendezous (Best screenplay); Stations (Best cinematography); Steel Rendezvous (Best Acting).

Following last year’s success, once again we are closing the festival with Sleepless in Burlington – a 24-hour filmmaking competition, wherein teams of five students from four area schools (the University of Vermont, St. Michael’s College, Burlington College, and Middlebury College) confront the challenge of conceiving, casting, shooting, and editing a film incorporating required elements (dialogue, locations, themes, local celebrities) under the pressure of a 24-hour production deadline.

Joint Panel Presentation: Nora Jacobson of Freedom & Unity: The Vermont Movie and Vic Guandango of Vermont Energy Independence Day. Moderator: Allan Nicholls. Film is a collaborative art form, despite the fact that there is usually only one director. Freedom and Unity: The Vermont Movie was set up originally as a collaboration between many directors. Vermont Energy Independence Day is set up as a crowd-sourced film. How have Nora Jacobson and Vic Guandango found their own separate ways to create a cohesive whole and what difficulties did they encounter or do they foresee?