The 2013 Maryland Film Festival Beatles and Bikes and the Old By and By

Deragh Campbell as Taryn

This year’s Maryland Film Festival, anchored at the Charles Theater, will be screening some 50 feature films and 75 short films this weekend in downtown Baltimore. The festival began the night of Wednesday, May 8 and runs through Sunday the 12^th.

“It’s always a fun time,” said Debra D. Dorsey, director of the Baltimore Film Office. “I’m looking forward to two films shot in Baltimore – Lofty Nathan’s “12 O’Clock Boys”

Tomorrow – Saturday, May 11^th – Dorsey said, the winners of the Baltimore Screenwriting Competition will be announced at the festival. At 11 a.m. Saturday, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni will introduce the 1981 Paul Newman/Sally Field feature, “Absence of Malice.”

One of the staples of each year’s festival is a silent film accompanied by live music. This year’s silent entry is “The Lost World,” a 1925

writer/director Matt Porterfield

release based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 novel of the same name.

As pictures of dinosaurs walking the Earth side-by-side with modern man unspool – sort of a Jurassic Park of the Coolidge era – music will be supplied by the Alloy Orchestra of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“It’s an older score we wrote when they released the movie on DVD about a decade ago,” said clarinetist Ken Winokur, who also uses scrap yard junk, ala Tom Waits, for percussion. “We’ve been playing the Maryland film festival every year for the past 10 years. I think our most memorable show [in Baltimore] was the world premier of our new score for the Phantom of the Opera” at MICA in 2005.

Many memorable shows at this year’s festival will be screened at MICA’s Brown Center, 1301 West Mount Royal Avenue and the Wind-Up Space, 12 West North Avenue in addition to the Charles Theater, just north of Baltimore’s Penn Station.

One of the most anticipated is Porterfield’s “I Used to Be Darker,” an 89-minute story of love and despair (are there any others?) in which an 18-year-old comes home from her first year of college and is dropped into the middle of her parents’ divorce.

          The film stars a pair of real-life musicians – Ned Oldham and Kim Taylor – as Mom and Dad. Their daughter – Abby – is played by Hannah Gross. The film earned a grand jury prize for Porterfield, 35, at this year’s Atlanta Film Festival. The family’s struggles are observed by a young relative from Northern Ireland, a woman named Taryn, the actress Deragh Campbell.

“Variety liked it, the Hollywood Reporter hated it,” said Porterfield, who co-wrote the script with Amy Belk, a 2007 graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. “This is more plot-driven than my earlier films, a story a little beyond the art-house crowd. I think the original music [performed by Taylor and Oldham] helped.”

“I Used to Be Darker” screen twice at this year’s film festival: the Baltimore premier on Saturday, May 11^th at 8 p.m. at the Charles and again on Sunday the 12^th at 2 p.m., also at the Charles.

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Original music factors heavily in two festival documentaries, each made by Baltimoreans. They are “Good ’Ol Freda,” the story of the

“By and By: New Orleans Gospel at the Crossroads”

Beatles’ long-time secretary, produced by Institute of Notre Dame graduate Kathy McCabe; and “By and By: New Orleans Gospel at the Crossroads.”

“By and By” was produced by Matthew T. Bowden and Joe Compton. The director of photography is David “Butchie” Morley of Baltimore’s Lauraville neighborhood.

“By and By is an exploration of a multi generational gospel group called The Crownseekers,” said festival director Jed Dietz. “We’re excited that [members of] the Crownseekers will be here for the screenings.”

McCabe, who will introduce her Beatles’ film at the festival – “Freda” screens noon Sunday at MICA’s Brown Center – is a life-long Baltimorean who was mad for the Fab Four in 1964 and used to buy Beatles magazines from crotchety Abe Sherman the news dealer at Park Avenue and Mulberry Street.

Freda Kelly, secretary of the world-wide “official” Beatles fan club, wrote a monthly article in one of the magazines. McCabe wrote to Kelly asking for a Liverpool pen pal, a faithful correspondent to this day.

“I met Freda over the years during my many trips to Liverpool which has become like a second home to me,” said McCabe. “It’s very much like Baltimore …”

To which the only sane response is: “HELP!”

This year’s festival – the 15^th annual – closes at 7:30 p.m. Sunday night, May 12^th with a screening of “Mother of George,” both directed and presented here in Baltimore by Andrew Dosunmu. It continues the filmmaker’s study of African immigrants in 21^st century United States.

Dosunmu and screenwriter Darci Picoult developed the script at the Sundance Labs and in 2005 won the Maryland Filmmakers Fellowship. The film is, said the New York Times, “visually splendid.”