The Woods Hole Film Festival offers year-round programming geared toward filmmakers, screenwriters and the general public. These programs, such as Dinner & a Movie, the Workshops and screenings at the Cotuit Center for the Arts and others help fulfill the mission of the organization and support the film community on Cape Cod and throughout New England.

Upcoming Events: Cotuit Center for the Arts

Cotuit Center for the Arts and the Woods Hole Film Festival are pleased to present a new monthly series of film screenings in the Center’s main theater.  Consistent with our mission, the Festival collaborates with other organizations to expand the community support for film on Cape Cod.  The Woods Hole Film Festival and Cotuit Center for the Arts are thrilled to be collaborators and look forward to bringing important independent film programming to this great space throughout the year.

The films selected for the series include an array of award-winning narrative and documentary films.  The critically acclaimed films were made by top independent filmmakers.  Each screening will be hosted and will include a post-screening reception in the gallery. When possible, the filmmakers will attend the screening.  Ticket prices are $12.

Upcoming Events: Dinner & a Movie

Dinner is served from 5:30 pm – 7:00 p.m. and the screening begins at 7:30 pm.  Reservations are required.  Call (508) 548-8563 for reservations.   When possible, the filmmakers will attend the screening. Woods Hole Film  Festival patron discount available.  Dinner & A Movie gift certificates make great gifts. For more information about Dinner & a Movie, contact the Woods Hole Film Festival at (508) 495-3456 or info@woodsholefilmfestival.org.

Dinner & a Movie – upcoming

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10TH

THE LIST

THE LIST tells the story of Kirk Johnson, a modern-day Oskar Schindler who is fighting to save Iraqis whose lives are in danger because they worked for the U.S. government and military to help rebuild Iraq. Perceived as traitors, their fates are sealed, and they are systematically hunted—killed, kidnapped, and forced into lives on the run. Frustrated by a stagnating government bureaucracy in the U.S. that fails to protect U.S.-affiliated Iraqis, Kirk begins compiling a list of their names and works with a team of lawyers to get them out of harm’s way. Bound by a sense of moral responsibility and honor, Kirk sets out to redeem a nation that has largely betrayed its Iraqi allies. Feature Documentary by Beth Murphy

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SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17TH

TRASH DANCE (SNEAK PREVIEW)

Sometimes inspiration is found in unexpected places. Choreographer Allison Orr sees beauty and grace in garbage trucks — and in the men and women who pick up our trash. She joins city sanitation workers on their daily routes to listen, learn, and ultimately to try to convince them to collaborate in a unique dance performance. Hard working, often carrying a second job, their lives are already full with work, family and dreams of their own. But some step forward, and after months of rehearsal, two dozen trash collectors and their trucks perform an extraordinary spectacle. On an abandoned airport runway, thousands of people show up to see how in the world a garbage truck can ‘dance.’ Feature Documentary by Andrew Garrison.

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Cotuit Center for the Arts – Upcoming

Friday, November 16th

A Good Man feature documentary by Bob Hercules and Gordon Quinn

Feature Documentary | 2011 | 86 min., USA

A Good Man follows acclaimed director/choreographer Bill T. Jones (Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Still/Here, FELA!) as he and his company create their most ambitious work, an original dance-theater piece in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s Bicentennial. Through two tumultuous years, we witness raw moments of frustration as Jones struggles to communicate his vision to his dancers and collaborators, as well as moments of great exhilaration when movement transcends the limitation of words. Jones and his company come face to face with America’s unresolved contradictions about race, equality and the legacy of our 16th President. Premiering on the heels of Jones’s Tony Award for FELA! and 2010 Kennedy Center Honor, A Good Man is a window into the creative process and, indeed, the creative crisis of one of our nation’s most enduring, provocative artists as he explores what it means to be a good man, to be a free man, to be a citizen.

Tuesday, December 18th
Becoming Santa feature documentary by Jeff Myers and Jack Sanderson

Feature Documentary |2010 | 82 mins.,USA

When Christmas rolled around again after his father’s death, Jack Sanderson realized he was not looking forward to the holiday. It seemed to Jack that Christmas had become a burden. He had only two choices, avoid it entirely or dive into the deepest part of the Christmas pool. In such a commercial culture, avoiding it seemed impossible so Jack decided the best way to get through Christmas was to be the eye of the Christmas Season storm. Jack would become Santa Claus and do as many of the things Santa is asked to do as possible.

For the documentary “Becoming Santa”, director Jeff Myers followed Jack on his journey to become Santa which entailed getting a custom Santa suit from Adele Saidy of ‘Adele’s of Hollywood’, attending the ‘American Events Santa School’ taught by Susen Mesco in Denver, Colorado and then Santa jobs. Along the way, Santa Jack rides in the 57th Annual Quincy Christmas Parade, rings a bell on a street corner in New York City for Volunteers of America and appears on the Susquehanna Railroad’s ‘Polar Express’ in Phillipsburg, New Jersey.

At Mesco’s School, Jack learns that there is a lot more to being a good Santa than a great suit and an excellent ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’. Susen Mesco teaches her novice Claus’ how to answer really tough questions from children (Can you get my parents back together?), the right way to pose for pictures, how to handle screaming babies and petulant parents and proper make-up techniques for Santa.

Rachel Weinstein, at Volunteers of America, dresses Jack in their version of Santa’s suit and sends him out to the streets of New York on the coldest day of the year to ring a bell. John Stocker, a Conductor on the Susquehanna Polar Express, guides Jack through six grueling hours of Santa visits on a moving train. In Quincy, MA, Parade Organizer, George White sacrifices an unsuspecting Santa Jack to a crowd of a hundred tots and then puts him atop a fire truck in a position of dubious safety.

Wrapped around Jack’s journey into Christmas, like the red stripe around a candy cane, are interviews with professional Santas, Santa aficionados and historians who provide the fascinating little known history of Santa Claus in America and how the Civil War helped to shape the Christmas holiday as we know it today.