Let’s face it: Americans can be a bit isolationist when it comes to media consumption, especially when it comes to film. This ethnocentric behavior is somewhat understandable. After all, Hollywood and American indie filmmakers produce a lot of great films, and international films aren’t as readily available as the home grown, big budget, smashy-smashy films we all love. It’s not as if TBS is going to show The 400 Blows, Mustang or The Salesman on a Sunday afternoon anytime soon.

Still from The Salesman (2016) Dir. Asghar Farhadi | Oscar Award Winner Best Foreign Language Film, 2017

The good news is New England, thanks to its many international film festivals, offers folks the opportunity to see some of the most vibrant, insightful, hilarious, and popular films made all over the world. Festival-goers can enjoy films and panel discussions in western Massachusetts, or head to New Hampshire to see a selection of documentaries and dramas still getting buzz from the Cannes Film Festival. Either way, New Englanders have plenty of opportunities to see something new and foreign all year. Here’s our list of the international film fests in New England you won’t want to miss.

Berkshire International Film Festival
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
June 1 – 4

BIFF is perhaps the most star-studded festival on our list. Last year’s fest boasted appearances by Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull (2001 A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blade Runner), cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and other living movie legends like Karen Allen and Meryl Streep. The film fest also gives filmmakers special attention for the sixth year in a row with its signature filmmakers’ summit.

Telluride by the Sea
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
September
In addition to a curated selection of contemporary international films on the cusp of popularity, Telluride by the Sea rediscovers “films and filmmakers hitherto forgotten or relegated to the dustbin of the ‘film buff,’” essentially using the notoriety of the film fest to revive these forgotten moments in film history through its Lost & Found program.

Camden International Film Festival
Camden, Maine
September 14-17

Still from The Happy Film (2016) Co-Dir. Hillman Curtis, Ben Nabors, Stefan Sagmeister | Screened at the CIFF in 2016

CIFF is currently accepting submission for films of all kinds, offering local and international filmmakers the chance to showcase their work to a larger audience. Like the other festivals on this list, CIFF features screenings, panels and events over the four-day run. What you won’t find at any other film festival in the region is a three-day crash course on VR filmmaking (done in collaboration with Maine Media College).

Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival
Providence, Newport and other Rhode Island venues
August 8-13

In addition to being one of the longest running film festivals in the region, Flicker, the organization that puts on RIIFF each year, programs other internationally-oriented film events throughout the year leading up to the big week of screenings, panels and post-show parties. Roving Eye Film Festival, held in April, screens international films with a theme of social change and additionally programs an international film festival for children residing in hospitals.

New Haven International Film Festival
November 12-14
New Haven, Connecticut

Though NHIFF is short relative to other international film festivals in New England, its content, genre exploration, and subjects are impressive and diverse. The festival features dedicated screenings of short films in four genres, as well as films from Iran, Pakistan, England, and France. Two can’t-miss docs showing at NHIFF: The Last Tear, a firsthand historical re-telling of the sexual abuse perpetrated by the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII, and Dog Days of Winter, a light-hearted look at the origin and advent of free skiing in the 1970s.

Vermont International Film Festival
October 20-19
Vermont

Featuring a wide range of international films and a showcase of local filmmakers, VTFF began as an anti-nuclear weapons movement in 1985, making it the oldest environmentalism-themed film festival in the nation. VTFF has since branched out to include other kinds of films, as well as year-round international film programming through the Global Roots Film Festival.

Top photo still from The Peace Agency (2016), Dir. Sue Useem | Screening at the New Haven International Film Festival

The post The 6 Best International Film Fests in New England appeared first on Take Magazine.

Western-Massachusetts-native-turned-fake-judge John Hodgman always says, “Specificity is the soul of narrative.” In other words, the more precise a story is, or the more unique the subject matter, the better. Through specificity of content and approach, artists can present audiences with unique characters, stories, and experiences.

The same logic applies to film festivals and the cinema they celebrate. In addition to the dozens of big film fests across the region, film junkies and industry folks alike have privileged access to niche New England film festivals in every state. Movie lovers can see everything from queer romance to cinema written, produced, starring, and directed by folks with hearing impairment. Some of these festivals are right around the corner, while others are still accepting submissions. All reveal subjects that are unique and satisfyingly specific.

AIP Film Festival
April 2 – April 8
Cinestudio
Hartford, CT

Hartford’s beautifully designed 1930s-era movie theater continues its yearly film fest for Francophiles, April in Paris, which goes beyond the French New Wave and into the realm of contemporary cinema. Prospective moviegoers have nine opportunities to see French films produced from 1982 to 2016, all of which examine the exceedingly relevant, “effects of crossing borders, from the political to the personal.”

Wicked Queer Film Festival
March 30 – April 9
Various venues
Boston, MA

Laverne Cox in Free CeCe! | Director Jac Gares, 2016

The 33rd incarnation of Boston’s film festival revealing and unpacking the queer experience through documentary, comedy, and drama will feature internationally renowned voices of the queer community and emerging artists alike. Queer film enthusiasts of all kinds have dozens of chances to see films across the city in a new neighborhood each night.

Maine Deaf Film Festival
April 28 – 29
University of Southern Maine
Portland, ME

The 15th annual Maine Deaf Film Festival is the longest-running and perhaps the only film festival of its type in the nation. Programmed and planned in collaboration with students and boasting content exclusively created by deaf folks across the region, MDFF skillfully solves some of the problems of underrepresentation of people with hearing impairments both in front of and behind the camera.

SENE Film Festival
April 25 – 29
Various venues
Rhode Island

With dozens of films ranging from experimental shorts to feature-length animated dramas, SENE provides attendees nearly endless opportunities to pick their vast or small corner of the world to explore. The Wednesday night screenings of experimental films and documentary features is both a can’t-miss evening and an excellent example of the range and specificity of topics explored throughout the festival.

New Hampshire Film Festival
October
Various venues
Portsmouth, NH

Still from All The President’s Heads | Director Adam Roffman, 2016

With the time for submissions still open, we can’t say for sure what niches the New Hampshire Film Festival will investigate. However, if last year’s programming is any indication, cinephiles will delve into some strange and specific topics. For example, All the President’s Heads, a film about a history devotee who saves two dozen, massive presidential busts from destruction after being displaced by the building of an Enterprise Rent-a-Car.

Independent Television Festival
October 11 – 17
Various Venues
Manchester, VT

Okay. . .this isn’t technically a “film festival.” However, was True Detective (the charcoal dark, riveting serialized HBO murder mystery disguised as a police procedural) a television show or more of a seven-and-a-half-hour movie split into manageable 54-minute chunks? As the line between prestige television and film blurs more each day, so will our categorizations for the sake of this list. Anyway, ITVFest still counts because it’s a moving image festival celebrating a niche part of a hulking industry, a section of the industry that often gets ignored in cinema as well; the independents.

Global Roots Film Festival
April 7 – 9
Contois Auditorium
Burlington, VT

Still from Ladies & Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen |
Directors Donald Brittain & Don Owen, 1965 | Presented by VT PBS and RETN

This niche film festival is brought to us by the Vermont International Film Foundation which also presents the yearly Vermont International Film Festival. The Global Roots Film Festival endeavors to bring Vermonters, “great films from the countries of many of the New American communities. . .to foster a greater understanding of our diverse cultures.” This year, Global Roots turns the lens towards contemporary films coming from Quebec.

Top image, still from Signature Move | Director Jennifer Reeder (2017)

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