2015 Featured Films & Documentaries

2015 Featured Films/Documentaries | 2015 Short Films | 2015 Youth Films

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2015 Featured Films

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Buen Dia, Ramon 
(Guten Tag, Ramon)

Director: Jorge Ramirez Suarez (Mexico, Germany, 120 min.)

A young man from a small Mexican town travels to Germany to find work to support his family - and becomes stranded without shelter or money. Help comes in a surprising way. A timely look at the human face of immigration.

(12 noon, Sunday, Oct. 25, Greenbelt Theatre)

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I am REVA
Director: Naures Sager (Sweden, 30 min.)

The USA is not the only country where immigrants seek a new life and are pursued by authorities. The disturbing story of undocumented migrants living a double life in Sweden.

View trailer (program starts 2pm Saturday, Oct. 24, Greenbelt Arts Center)

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Legend of Amba
Director: Kaelan Strouse (USA, 35 min.)

A group of childhood friends reunite under mysterious circumstances. While hiking together, they encounter a magical force that reveals what they truly feel about themselves, each other, and the world at large. Q & A with director follows.

View trailer (program starts 4pm Saturday, Oct. 24, Greenbelt Arts Center)

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Psycho
Director: Alfred Hitchcock (USA, 109 min.)

This classic horror film is presented by Utopia in the spirit of the impending Halloween holiday. Extremely scary on the widescreen of the historic Greenbelt Theatre.

(program starts 10pm Saturday, Oct. 24, Greenbelt Theatre)  

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The Birds
Director: Alfred Hitchcock (USA, 120 min.)

The birds are coming and they’re not canaries. Another Hitchcock horror classic.

(program starts 10pm Friday, Oct. 23, Greenbelt Theatre)

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The Z-Nail Gang
Director: Anton Steel (New Zealand, 86 min.)

When mega-mining threatens residents of a New Zealand coastal town, a David-Goliath battle ensues in this funny drama. Inspired by actual - and unbelievably crazy - events in the 1980s.

View trailer (program starts 7:30pm Saturday, Oct. 24, Greenbelt Arts Center & 4pm Sunday, Oct. 25, Greenbelt Arts Center)

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2015 Documentaries

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American Road
Directors: Kurt Jacobsen, Warren Leming (USA, 109 min.)

One critic describes American Road as “an exploration of the artistic, musical, and literary resonances of the mystique of the road - and especially of going off the beaten path - in American lore. The westward expansion, the Dust Bowl era, hobos, post-war suburbanization and its Beat critics, hitchhiking, and the current generation of backpackers clutching their Lonely Planet and Rough Guides are all explored. American Road ultimately probes the meaning of what it is to be an American, not just a wayfarer.”

View trailer (program starts 7:30pm Saturday, Oct. 24, Greenbelt Theatre)

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Art Bastard
Director: Victor Kanefsky (USA, 80 min.)

Art Bastard is the rousing tale of a rebel who never fit into today’s art world… yet has become one of its most provocative, rabble-rousing characters nevertheless. At once a portrait of the artist as a young troublemaker, an alternate history of modern art and a quintessential New York story, ART BASTARD is as energetic, humorous and unapologetically honest as the uncompromising man at its center: Robert Cenedella. A contemporary of Warhol who set himself up in the 60s as the anti-Warhol, Cenedella has always been in search of authenticity – and from his story of battling family secrets, the money-fueled art establishment and his own demons, emerges a picture of creating a life on one’s own terms.  

(program starts 1pm Saturday, Oct. 24, Greenbelt Theatre)

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Broken Hearts & Butterflies 
Director: Kimberley Williams (USA, 63 min.)

Hali McGrath, neglected daughter of a single hippie-gypsy mother, grew up on the road, hitch-hiking and living in communes. When Hali, then 14, was abandoned by her parents, a Washington State farm family took her in for five idyllic years. Then her beloved foster family itself fell apart, and Hali was once again on her own. Filmmaker Kimberley Williams - a daughter of that family - uses vintage home movies, photos, interviews and her own memories to explore what constitutes a family, and how love and perseverance can help see us all through life's perils.

(program starts 12pm Saturday, Oct. 24, Greenbelt Arts Center) (filmmaker Q&A after screening)

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Brookeville: Capital for a Day
Director: Mark Hildebrand (USA, 57 min.)

During the bitter war of 1812, the President of the United States was on the run - and a devout Quaker community in the Maryland countryside protected him.

View trailer (program starts 12pm Sunday, Oct. 25, Greenbelt Arts Center) (film participant talk after screening)

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Docs in Progress 
Directors: Annabel Park, Eric Byler (USA, 120 min.)

Docs in Progress, a non-profit organization that assists documentary filmmakers with their projects, invites you to join filmmaker Annabel Park for a screening of her forthcoming film, "Story of America." The documentary, co-directed by Ms. Park and Eric Byler, explores America's racial and political issues, and the challenges to true racial reconciliation. As part of the program, you'll have a chance to talk with the director in a Q & A session.


(program starts 10am Sat. Oct. 24, Greenbelt Arts Center)

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Far Afield 
Director: Jennifer Tennican (USA, 35 min.)

A boy from the mean streets of New Jersey discovers the two great loves of his life: nature, and his wife Meg. Drawn to the natural beauty of Jackson Hole, WY, the couple fosters a community of wildlife-lovers and teaches others to be citizen-scientists.

View trailer (program starts 4pm, Sunday, Oct. 25, Greenbelt Theatre)

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Graveyard of the Great Lakes
Director: Eric Seals (USA, 50 min.)

Thousands of ships have been lost in America’s Great Lakes - and 74-year-old David Trotter is determined to find as many of them as he can. Trotter has spent half his life sailing and searching for the history that lies on the bottom of the lakes. Join him in the stories behind three of those sunken vessels.

View trailer (program starts 3pm Saturday, Oct. 24, Greenbelt Theatre) (filmmaker talk after screening)

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Lesson Plan: The Story of the Third Wave
Director: Phillip Neel, David Jeffery (USA, 76 min.)

A controversial 1967 social science experiment in authoritarianism threw a Palo Alto, CA, high school into panic mode. A provocative and chilling work that raises troubling questions. One of the experiment's original participants, who helped produce the film, will take audience questions afterward in a Q & A session.

View trailer (program starts 4pm Saturday, Oct. 24, Greenbelt Theatre)

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Mr. Besley’s Forest
Director: Cheryle Franceschi (USA, 23 min.)

This film, part of a Docs in Progress presentation at a previous Utopia, details the career of Maryland’s first State Forester, Fred W. Besley, and his efforts to promote conservation. Q & A with director follows.

(program starts 4pm, Sunday, Oct. 25, Greenbelt Theatre)

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One River, Many Relations 
Director: Stephane Mclachlan, Michael Tyas (Canada, 62 min.)

Fort Chipewyan in Canada's Alberta province is a remote community fighting industrial pollution which some believe is causing cancers, sickening wildlife and degrading traditional territories. This documentary is a collaborative effort of 33 interviews with local Cree, Dene and Metis tribal members, getting to the heart of their concerns as tar sands oil extraction creeps northward.

(program starts 2pm, Sunday, Oct. 25, Greenbelt Arts Center)

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Psychedelic Mysticism: The Good Friday Experiment and Beyond
Director: Susan Gervasi (USA, 56 min.)

In a Boston church on Good Friday, 1962, Dr. Walter Pahnke gave a powerful psychedelic substance to 10 theology students. A group of pioneering psychologists and theologians wanted to investigate whether the drug could spur authentic mystical experiences, as some claimed. Watch as researchers and participants recall that remarkable day, and find out how in 2001, Johns Hopkins University scholars picked up where Pahnke left off - with stunning results. After the screening, Hopkins psilocybin investigator Dr. William Richards will discuss the Hopkins research and his forthcoming book “Sacred Knowledge.” 

View trailer (program starts 2pm Sunday, Oct. 25, Greenbelt Theatre)

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UnSlut: A Documentary Film
Director: Emily Lindin (Canada, 38 min.) 

Why is the sexual shaming of girls and women still so prevalent in the United States and Canada? This searing film explores the often tragic effects of public shaming.

View trailer (program starts 4pm Saturday, Oct. 24, Greenbelt Arts Center)

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2015 Featured Films/Documentaries | 2015 Short Films | 2015 Youth Films