Montclair Film Festival opens a window on the world

Around the world — not in 80 days, but in 10. 

No, it's not supersonic transport. It's the 6th annual Montclair Film Festival — a magic carpet that can whisk you to the ends of the earth, to any country on the globe, without ever leaving North Jersey.

"Every time you buy a ticket, you can go around the world to other cultures and their stories," says Tom Hall, executive director of the festival. "It's all about understanding the world, starting a conversation."

The mere price of a movie ticket, $10 to $25 depending on the screening, can take you to Copenhagen ("The Commune," May 1 and 2) . Or Mexico ("Brimstone & Glory," May 6 and 7). 

It might be that India ("The Cinema Travelers,"  April 29, May 1),  Poland ("Afterimage," April 29,  May 1), or Paris ("Lost in Paris," April 29, May 3) are more to your taste. Or if you're truly the adventurous type, you could book passage to the war-torn middle east  ("Letters from Baghdad,"  May 2).

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And who knows? You might even want to visit Pittsburgh (the restored "Night of the Living Dead,"  April 29.) Just bring plenty of zombie repellent.

"It's been seen by everybody in these inferior prints," says Bob Feinberg, the festival's founder and chairman of the board. "This is our opportunity to show people the underlying quality. It's our way to share with a large crowd a new way of looking at something they've already looked at before."

Some 22,000 people, many local but some from out-of-state and even overseas, will be viewing 150 features and shorts in six venues over the 10-day event, which this year runs April 28 to May 7. Major stars will be speaking and appearing in panel discussions, including John Turturro, Bill Nye, and Stephen Colbert (he and his wife Evelyn, Montclair residents, have deep ties to the festival; Evelyn Colbert is president). At many screenings, filmmakers and talent will be present for post-film Q&A's.

Since its first year, 2012, when the festival offered 45 films in four venues over seven days, MFF has grown prodigiously. It's now one of the major regional film festivals, a high point in the town's yearly calendar, a driver of the local economy, and an important whistle stop for independent films on their way to major distribution, or even the Academy Awards.

"I think that's the beauty of a festival this size," Feinberg says. "Because of our reputation, we have access to real quality filmmaking from around the world."

The festival's plush new $3 million headquarters at 505 Bloomfield Avenue, the Investors Bank Film & Media Center, opened to the public at the beginning of the month. It contains a 65-seat movie theater, Cinema505, that will show films not only during the festival but year-round, as well as classrooms where aspiring filmmakers can take courses in cinematography, directing, editing, and screenwriting. 

"It's a really great regional film festival; we're very proud of it, "Hall says. "We have films for all different types of people."

A key goal of the festival, Hall says, is to shine a light on neglected areas of the human experience, in forgotten corners of the globe. "Windows on the World" was the name of old restaurant on top of the late, lamented Twin Towers. It might almost be this festival's mission statement.

"We have films that cover a broad range of topics, because we have such a diverse community and so many different interests here," he says.

So yes, expect 10 days of globe-trotting adventure. What the Montclair Film Festival does not offer — emphatically — are Carnival Cruises: the kind of superficial excursion where you visit exotic scenes and come back none the wiser.

The more than 180 filmmakers, producers, and actors who are participating in this year's festival mostly aim their cameras at the world's trouble spots. Poverty and injustice and exploitation, shocking abuses and deep cultural rifts, all the things that a conventional tourguide would steer clear of, are the very stuff of independent and documentary films. Mostly, these films are not a vacation from reality. They're a call to action.

"That's an intentional choice, we go out of our way to do that," Hall says. "[This year] we have films about the Syrian conflict, like 'City of Ghosts,' and films about the African-American experience like 'Whose Streets?' 'For Ahkeem,' 'Strong Island' … We have L.G.B.T.Q. films, a lot of fun films about Paris, films about corruption in Eastern Europe. We have a wide range of topics." 

The festival's globalist perspective is nothing new. But this year, it's had an unintended side-effect.

You might be forgiven for thinking the 2017 Montclair Film Festival seems at times like a big custard pie aimed at the Trump administration. It wasn't planned that way, Hall says.

Most of the narrative and documentary films in the 2017 festival were chosen before the new president was elected, and with no special political agenda in mind. They were picked because they did what independent films are supposed to do: tell stories that haven't been told, make viewers more aware of other cultures, bring the the most distant parts of the world within reach of any ticket-buyer with an inquisitive mind and 90 minutes to spare. 

But the world, arguably, is just what the wall-building, refugee-banning new administration wants to shut out.  In that context, some of these films can't help but seem like rebukes.

"The filmmakers are only responding to what they see," Hall says. "[We have] no agenda. This year, in particular, filmmakers are responding to the world. For whatever reason, a lot of the filmmakers and these films have a strong point of view this year."

For instance, "Bending the Arc," ( April 29, 30) about a crusade to provide affordable health care in poor countries, has nothing to do with Obamacare, Trumpcare, or other heath care controversies in the U.S. But you just might see a connection.

Likewise, it would be understandable if you viewed "The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson"  (May 4 and  7) about the "Rosa Parks of the modern transgender movement," through the lens of the North Carolina bathroom bill, the subject a lawsuit dropped this month by the Trump administration.

"Through the Repellent Fence: A Land Art Film" (May 6 and 7) is about an art instillation along the US/Mexico border, not the "big beautiful wall" the 45th president promised to put there — but one might naturally make you think of the other.  And "Stranger in Paradise" (April 29, May 3) about the European refugee crisis, has nothing to do with the president's executive orders banning immigration from certain countries. Does it?

"Many of the non-fiction films, many of the documentaries, are about small issues, but many tackle — as documentaries often do — larger political and socioeconomic problems," Feinberg says. 

In fairness, it's also true that Montclair, with its self-composting trash bins, Whole Foods supermarket, and diverse population, is a town that prides itself on being — to use the current phrase — "woke." This is by and large a town of progressives, and its festival reflects that. Several programs spotlight the new crop of African-American filmmakers who are transforming the cinema landscape ("Emerging Black Voices," 1 p.m. May 6; "American Black Film Festival Alumni: The Rise to Success after ABFF," 1:30 p.m. May 7). And there are overtly political offerings: for instance, "True or False? The Challenges of Reporting in the Fake News Era" (April 30), a symposium on the current media climate that also has relevance for "issue-oriented" and documentary filmmakers.

"This is a town full of journalists," Hall says. "It's an audience that's media-savvy, and terrifically engaged in that kind of thing."