MMFF ARCHIVE
2012 “Intersections: Fiction/Non-fiction”
The 19th Annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival headlines award-winning narrative features and documentaries from France, Iran, Germany, Mexico, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Australia, Finland, Guatemala, Palestinian Territory, and the USA. Our lineup showcases several New England premieres and hosts five acclaimed women filmmakers and video artists who will be present for discussion. This season explores the hybrid interconnections and boundaries between documentary and fiction, beyond and across borders and genres—geopolitical, transnational, generational, artistic, cultural and historical—offering a wealth of visual pleasure for every taste. [More...]
2011 “Migrations”
The 18th Annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival highlights interconnections among cinema, migration, war and memory in the context of contemporary cultural and ethno-national landscapes, screening award-winning documentary and feature films from South Africa, Bosnia, Russia, Israel, Mauritius, Iran, Palestine, Spain, Mexico and the U.S. From February 2 to April 27, this season explores the primordial role played by filmmakers working in partnership beyond and across borders, whether geographical, psychological, socio-economic, cultural or historical. [More...]
2010 “Cinematic Cities”
The 17th Annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival explores the dynamic, reciprocal connections between cinema and cities, showcasing newly restored silent and documentary films, international co-productions and the latest award-winning feature films from France, Brazil, the U.K., Germany, Afghanistan, Israel, Jamaica, Portugal, Italy and the U.S. In thirteen events, from February 3 to May 5, this season’s films invite us to consider how urban culture, architecture, and the moving image open new spaces for transnational connections, cultural development and debate. [More...]
2009 “Beyond Walls”
The 16th Annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival showcases innovative major studio releases and independent films exploring life in the post-socialist, post-communist era since 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Soviet Union and its satellite East bloc regimes, and the opening of China. In fourteen events from February 11 to May 6, 2009, we feature provocative and entertaining films from Romania, Hungary, Russia, Cuba, Hong Kong, Israel, Lebanon, Korea, Germany, Turkey, China, and the Czech Republic. With a special focus on children and youth, several world and national premieres, visiting filmmakers, and a distinguished lecture, the Festival promises to engage audiences in lively debate and discussion. [More...]
2008 “Africanicities: Conflict and Community”
The 15th Annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival turns the spotlight on Africa and the African American diaspora, bringing to the screen brave and challenging films addressing human suffering, resilience, creativity, and the global struggle for justice. Beginning with a tribute to the great Senegalese filmmaker, Ousmane Sembene, we invite our audiences to experience new cinema and modes of storytelling from Chad, Mali, Cameroon, and the Americas that explore the Black experience today. Our special mini-series – "Landscapes of Violence" – features provocative films from Bosnia, Darfur, Indonesia and the U.S on the problematics of war and terrorism. Accompanied by conferences, introduced by visiting filmmakers and scholars, the 2008 MMFF invites you to thirteen weeks of cinema that will engage students, faculty and the wider community in lively debate and discussion. [More...]
2007 “Encuentros/Encounters: New Cinema of Latin America & Spain ”
The 14th Annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival “Encuentros/Encounters” showcases innovative new works of feature and documentary filmmakers from across Latin America, Cuba, Mexico, and Spain. We invite our audience to encounter the remarkable achievements of both well-established and young, first-time filmmakers many of whom collaborate across national boundaries to give us insight into new social movements, vibrant musical traditions, complex histories, and evolving constellations of identity, culture and politics. With over sixteen films introduced by our guest scholars, filmmakers, and curators, “Encuentros/Encounters” proposes a rich and diverse cinematic exploration of crossings and encounters of many kinds — across lines of race, class, language and religion — provocative and engaging.
2006 “World Cinema Now”
The 13th Annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival showcases the brilliant accomplishments of feature and documentary films by independent filmmakers worldwide, featuring innovative productions from Canada, Cameroon, India, Mexico, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Palestine, Russia, People’s Republic of China, Tibet, and the U.S.A. We invite our audience to consider the remarkable achievements of contemporary filmmakers who overcome the daunting challenges of production outside traditional film industry structures and whose works encounter increasing difficulty in finding U.S. distribution and exhibition. Through visiting residencies by two of contemporary world cinema’s most dynamic and challenging figures—Jean-Marie Teno and Ferzan Özpetek—the festival offers a powerful tribute to independent filmmakers who experiment with ingenious formal and narrative strategies that expand the horizons of motion pictures.
2005 “New Faces of Documentary”
The 12th Annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival opened its spring season on February 9, presenting the best of new international cinema beyond the Hollywood paradigm. This year's focus is on documentary, experimental, non-fiction and biographical films, bringing to the Valley a dynamic group of directors, screenwriters, and scholars eager to engage our audience in lively debate and discussion. Curated by the Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the Festival screenings are free and open to the public on Wednesday evenings, February 9-May 4 at the University and in the Five Colleges. Unless otherwise noted, all screenings are in the Isenberg School of Management Flavin Family Auditorium (SOM 137) at 7:30 p.m. For the first time, the Festival's theme spotlights a single category of filmmaking--documentary , a genre as old as cinema itself. Whether making ethnographic, propagandistic, or educational films, documentarians traditionally have aspired to some form of objectivity. Recently, however, new kinds of documentary have emerged in which the filmmaker may also become the subject of the work, and the boundaries between truth and fiction are blurred. Whether chronicling family history, sexual identity, or a personal or social world, some in this new generation of nonfiction filmmakers have embraced autobiography. Others, including recent large-scale Hollywood films, have focused on biography and the "bio-pic". Our festival focuses on examples of these new approaches, including such non-traditional practices as the essay film and the video confession, broadening definitions of what counts as documentary and exploring issues at stake in that expansion. The films we have selected foreground intersections of the personal and political, considering how memory and the media complicate questions of identity, oppression, and resiliency.
2004 “The Global Lens”
2003 “Film and the Arts”
2001 “Border Crossing: Cinema and Video at Century's Turn”
2000 “Filmmaking Out of Place: Human Rights and the Millennium”
