The Woods Hole Film Festival Winter Film Series 2011-12 has ended for the season.  Please check back soon about additional venues for Spring 2012 and important information about 2012-13 season beginning November 2012.

Thank you for a superb season!
 
Dinner & a Movie offers elegant dining with superb independent film at the Captain Kidd Restaurant located at 77 Water Street Woods Hole.  For $25 per person, select from a preset menu of sumptuous food prepared specially for the evening.  The price includes entree and movie, but does not include beverage, dessert, tax or tip.


For more information about Dinner & a Movie, contact the Woods Hole Film Festival at (508) 495-3456 or info@woodsholefilmfestival.org.  The schedule is posted online at www.woodsholefilmfestival.org.

2011/2012 film slate

CIRCUS DREAMS

Feature Documentary | 2011 | 82 min. by Signe Taylor
Offering an extraordinary window into the only traveling youth circus in the United States, Circus Dreams tells a heartwarming story about kids digging deep to pursue their passion. The vibrant feature documentary opens as a group of sweet, funny and extremely bendy 12 to 18-year-olds audition for Circus Smirkus, the holy grail of circus kids. The film captures the lucky chosen ones moving onto a 3-week rehearsal period in Vermont, where they are coached by performers from Ringling, Big Apple and Cirque Du Soleil. It then follows them all the way through their exhilarating and exhausting 70-performance tour through five states. Circus Dreams immerses viewers into the lives of these kids, capturing their intense work ethic, passion for performance, deep friendships and budding loves.

PROJECT NIM

Feature Documentary | 2011 | 91 min. by James Marsh
Nim is the chimpanzee who in the1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim's extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, the film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human. What we learn about his true nature, and indeed our own, is comic, revealing and profoundly unsettling.

FEED THE FISH

Feature Romantic Comedy by Michael Matzdorff, starring Tony Shalhoub (Monk, Cars), Barry Corbin (No Country for Old Men), Kathryn Aselton, Ross Partridge
Feature Romantic Comedy | 2009 | 92 min., USA
Joe Peterson, is a burned-out kids book writer who's approaching his mid-life crisis. With his career at a standstill and his relationship in shambles, he leaves town with his best buddy to do the Polar Bear Plunge in the dead of winter in northern Wisconsin in an attempt to reignite his fire. On his quest he meets: Axel, an inspirational mentor; The Sheriff, obsessed law enforcement professional; and Sif, his muse and a hockey player. Good thing they're all related! Joe finds his lost passion, survives an assault by his obsessed ex-girlfriend, and tries to stay out of the way of the law. He pulls it together and finally gets the girl, and thank goodness, publishes again. But not before testing the icy waters of Lake Michigan.

RAISING RENEE

Feature Documentary | 2011 | 81 min. by Jeanne Jordan and Steven Ascher
RAISING RENEE tells the story of accomplished artist Beverly McIver and her casually delivered promise to take her mentally disabled sister Renee when their mother dies. The promise comes due just as Beverly's career is exploding. Filmed over 6 years by Oscar nominees Jeanne Jordan and Steven Ascher, RAISING RENEE explores deep themes of family, race, class, disability and art. Intimate, humorous and candid, the film sees an act of care-giving - something that's becoming central to a generation - through the eyes of a character unafraid to reveal the conflicted feelings that come with the job. Through the interplay of painting, cinema and everyday life, the film provides a complex view of a unique group of women, the tenacity of family bonds and the power of art to transform experience into something beyond words.

CHARLOTTE

Feature Documentary | 2010 | 96 min., Jeffrey Kusama Hinte
CHARLOTTE is a film about the extraordinary boatyard, the Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway, located on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Ross Gannon and Nat Benjamin established the boatyard in 1980 with the purpose of designing, building, and maintaining traditionally built wooden boats, and in the process they transformed Vineyard Haven harbor into a mecca for wooden boat owners and enthusiasts. After a long career of designing and constructing boats for others, Nat embarks on building a 50 foot gaff rigged schooner for use by his family and friends - her name is Charlotte. The film emerges as a meditation on tradition, craftsmanship, family, community, our relationship to nature, and the love of the sea.

WE STILL LIVE HERE

Feature Documentary | 2010 | 56 min. by Anne Makepeace. WE STILL LIVE HERE: As Nutayunean tells the amazing story of the return of the Wampanoag language, the first time a language with no Native speakers has been revived in this country. Although Americans celebrate 'the Indians' every year at Thanksgiving, few know that their descendants are still on their homelands in Southeastern Massachusetts. Spurred on by an indomitable linguist named Jessie Little Doe, the Wampanoag are bringing their language and their culture back.

CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS

Feature Documentary |2011| 90 min. by Werner Herzog. This film is a breathtaking documentary from the incomparable Werner Herzog which follows an exclusive expedition into the nearly inaccessible Chauvet Cave in France, home to the most ancient visual art known to have been created by man. This unforgettable cinematic experience that provides a unique glimpse of pristine artwork dating back to human hands over 30,000 years ago -- almost twice as old as any previous discovery.

THE CITY DARK

Feature Documentary | 2011 | 83 min., Ian Cheney
After moving to NYC from rural Maine, filmmaker Ian Cheney asks a simple question - do we need the stars? Exploring the threat of killer asteroids in Hawaii, tracking hatching turtles along the Florida coast, and rescuing injured birds on Chicago streets, Cheney unravels the myriad implications of a globe glittering with lights - including increased breast cancer rates from exposure to light at night, and a generation of kids without a glimpse of the universe above. Featuring stunning astrophotography and a cast of eclectic scientists, THE CITY DARK is the definitive story of light pollution and the disappearing stars.