27th Annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival, “Imagine Better,” Begins Feb. 26

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The Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies at UMass Amherst announces the 27th annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival, “Imagine Better,” opening its spring season on Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 7:30 p.m. in the Flavin Family Auditorium in the Isenberg School of Management, room 137. Weekly screenings will happen on Wednesday evenings through April 22 in the same location.

The imaginative, entertaining and provocative selection includes documentaries, narrative feature films, shorts and digital television productions from Iceland, Japan, Israel, Palestine, Mexico and the U.S. It includes the New England premiere of a charming Japanese film about family, food, love and loss and the East Coast premiere of four exclusive independent online television episodes from the Chicago-based, award-winning Open Television intersectional digital television platform.

The program also features Emmy-award winning UMass alumna Lindsay Van Dyke’s return to campus to share four recent short films she has made. Filmmakers, producers and scholars will be present throughout the season for critical introductions and discussion; all events are completely free and open to the public.

The festival opens with “Keyholes,” a program of short films made between 2007 and 2019 by Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers that, collectively, are funny, poignant, provocative and consistently surprising. This event is co-sponsored by the department of Judaic and Near Eastern studies and the Psychology of Peace and Violence Program at UMass. 

The next week, Wednesday, March 4, features the Icelandic film “The Juniper Tree,” a poetic and atmospheric interpretation of the Brothers Grimm fairytale, starring the musician Björk in her first on-screen performance, screened in collaboration with the University Museum of Contemporary Art’s solo exhibition of Roni Horn’s photographic essay on life in the Arctic Circle, “Pi.”

On March 11, Maine-based filmmaker Ian Cheney will be present to answer questions about his environmentally themed documentary, “Thirteen Ways.” In this film, Chaney has invited thirteen different people, from various professions, backgrounds and interests, to visit the same patch of Maine wilderness and comment on it from their perspective. Through these multiple perspectives the film allows viewers to see the land through the eyes of scientists, naturalists, hunters, farmers, children, dancers and daredevils.

The March 25 screening, a New England Premiere from Japan, will feature the bright, fanciful, yet touching “Bento Harassment.” In this film, a single mother struggles to connect with her teenage daughter until she sneaks a cute character bento box into her daughter’s school lunch. The battle of wills between mother and daughter that ensues brings the family together in unexpected, moving and funny ways.

In conjunction with the Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival, on April 1 the festival will screen the compelling documentary “Lives Well Lived,” in which 40 people, aged 75 to 100, collectively representing 3000 years of life experience, reflect on their lives and consider, based on all their experiences, what it takes to live a meaningful life.

On April 8, the founder and head of development and research at Open Television (OTV), an online platform for intersectional television, Aymar Jean Christian, will be present to introduce and discuss the exclusive East Coast premiere of four new independent, digital television episodes in which a range of characters encounter life, love, triumph and disappointment across diverse communities, provoking critical conversations about identity, united by intersectionality. Programs include “Code-Switched,” “Sex is a God Thing,” “Sweaty Scales,” and “Conspiracy Theorist.” This event is co-sponsored by the department of communication.

On April 15, the festival welcomes the return of UMass Amherst alum Lindsay Van Dyke,  an Emmy-award winning documentary filmmaker and director, who will share four recent short film projects she has made, including the award-winning documentary “Zero Tolerance” and her short fiction film, “Rejectors.” Her films together take us from Guatemala, to Mexico, to Florida as her compelling storytelling urges us to reimagine what we think we know about the borders we cross and the roles we play.

The festival closes on April 22 with a visit by filmmaker Alex Rivera and a screening of “The Infiltrators,” a hybrid of cinematic approaches, combining familiar documentary form and scripted narrative to take us inside an Obama-era immigration detention center. Based on true events, this film is both a suspenseful account of a high-stakes mission undertaken by young activists fighting to preserve their community and an emotionally charged portrait of the impact of our immigration system on real people. This event is cosponsored by the Five College chapter of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MACLS).

The Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival is directed by Shawn Shimpach and presented by the Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Festival screenings are free and open to the public.

Unless otherwise noted, all screenings are held in the Isenberg School of Management Flavin Family Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday evenings. For full listings and up-to-date changes please consult our festival website.