Category: Art & Theater

The Manchester International Film Festival celebrates local filmmakers and the wider world

By Zachary Lewis
[email protected]

The 2024 Manchester International Film Festival takes place on Friday, Aug. 9, and Saturday, Aug. 10, at the Rex Theatre. Warren O’Reilly, the Festival Director since the beginning in 2022, is pumped for the third year of the event.

“We’re very excited to bring it back to continue a legacy of film in Manchester,” O’Reilly said.

“We started three years ago with a goal of paying homage to the Rex Theatre’s roots as a movie theater. Back in 1949 it opened as a movie theater, and the lobby of the Rex has classic movie posters from the time period.”

The festival will bring films from near and far.

“What we wanted to do was be a small, independent film festival that allowed people that live in downtown Manchester the ability to see independent film from New Hampshire, emerging New Hampshire filmmakers, actors and artists, and a sampling of the international films that are happening throughout the rest of the festival circuit every year,” he said.

“There’ll be a red carpet and a step and repeat so people can take photos in front of our marquee. Everyone walks the red carpet to get in.” An afterparty at City Hall Pub will be held each night as well.

Friday, Aug. 9, festivalgoers will be treated to three different blocks of film. The first block is Animation, the next is New England Short Film, and the third block is the premiere of That Alien, Sound, from director, writer and producer Brando Topp. The doors open at 6:30 p.m. with a program start time at 7 p.m.

“Our main goal is to amplify local talent. Amplify local filmmakers and give everybody [the opportunity to] watch the stuff they’re working on displayed in a professional theater with 4K video, great sound, and be able to sit in a movie theater and watch their film on a big screen, eat popcorn and meet fellow filmmakers,” O’Reilly said.

In a statement about the film, Topp said, “Mia Danelle and I produced this from the jump. Her acting inspired the character, and our mutual commitment empowered us to step into roles we’ve both dreamt about for some time. Our family of friends and creatives who joined us made this movie shine.”

There will be a Q&A when the lights turn up at the end of the feature presentation with Topp, who is originally from New Hampshire, and Mia Danelle, who stars in the film and is a producer as well. Danelle had a recurring role as Cielo in the FX series Mayans.

Before the feature, the first block of the night is for Animation and will show Nemesis Battlefield Volume 16, Within the Crystal Hills, Bad Dog, A Dog’s Purpose, The Sweet Order and Ovo.

Griffin Hansen, the director of Within the Crystal Hills, spoke to the Hippo a couple months ago about his craft (find that story in our June 13 issue online).

The next block centers on New England Short Film and will be screening The Sins of Salem, Odessa, Kill That Man and Mars Hill Bait and Ammo.

“You’ll be able to see a bunch of short film and a feature film, a lot of them with New Hampshire roots.”

Saturday, Aug. 10, follows a similar structure with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. with the films starting at 7 p.m. The night’s focus is on LGBTQ+ film, International Short Films, and Ireland Film Focus with selections presented by the Irish Film Board.

The LGBTQ+ films include The Paradise Road, A La Carte, and The Space Between. Next up are the International Short Films, which are Segreto di Natale from Italy, ! (Exclamation Mark) from Ukraine, In Absentia from the United Kingdom, and Archipelago from Australia.

“It’ll be a great opportunity to see some short films from all those countries,” O’Reilly said.

Last but not least are the Irish Film Board selections, which include the films Movers and Shapers and Two For The Road, which is shot on Kodak Film.

“Two nights of film is a really good thing in the middle of summer. I think the city of Manchester deserves a great film festival. There’s a great film community, there’s a great community of people who really love film, there’s an unbelievable amount of talent in New Hampshire,” O’Reilly said.

Film is art for everyone.

“No, you don’t have to be a film buff,” O’Reilly said. “A lot of these pieces could later be sold to streaming services. Some of them are already available on various platforms, so it will be a really great opportunity for people to see a whole bunch of different things in one night…. We have a group of volunteers and judges that help us whittle down so that we find something that will appeal to everybody.”

Manchester International Film Festival
Friday, Aug. 9, and Saturday, Aug. 10
The Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
$20 each night
Doors at 6:30 p.m., showtime at 7 p.m.
palacetheatre.org/film

Featured image: Courtesy photo.

Goffstown holds its annual Uncommon Art on the Common

By Zachary Lewis
[email protected]

The 15th Annual Uncommon Art on the Common in Goffsotwn takes place Saturday, Aug. 3, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nina Duval, Main Street Art Team representative to the Goffstown Main Street Program, is excited for this yearly community artistic event.

“It’s basically an open air thing, it’s free to the public … a lot of people on Main Street really get into it, which is a cool thing.”

The event features the works of more than 50 area artists and artisans with booths along Main Street and the local shops and restaurants will also be open for attendees to grab a drink or a bite to eat while scoping out all the local art.

Duval is an artist as well and will be showcasing upcycled plastics. “I’ve made rugs and totes and stuff from upcycled plastic shopping bags,” she said, but every year is a different medium for her.

She is not the only recurring artist.

“A lot of people come back year after year. We have some people who have been here almost since the beginning.”

Art is the name of the game so everything will be “strictly art, fine craft. We have a few local authors…. It’s just high-quality work. We have a lot of really good, wonderful artists and artisans. It’s definitely worth the trip.”

What types of artists? These include painters, illustrators, photographers, woodworkers, jewelry artisans, metalworkers, home décor crafters, writers, ceramic makers, potters and more, according to their press release.

“Everything going up in any of these tents is for sale. Seventy-five percent of the purpose is for local artists to show their work and sell, make some connections with people … we try to bring new things in every year,” Duval said.

She was not able to narrow down a favorite artist.

“To me, they’re all good. I have personal favorites but they’re all good so I’m not going to say, ‘go to this one or go to that one.’ Go to all of them because maybe something I think is really cool, some other person may be like, “well, that’s nice, but,” and then they’ll find someone else that’s like, ‘oh, this is great!’”

A couple of popular events will be returning to the Commons, and one of those is the Uncommon Bling project.

“This will be about the seventh or eighth year and it’s become pretty popular, especially amongst kids. They like to bop around and get their little bling…. People go to the Main Street table and they can get their ‘bling bag’ as we call it.”

Participating artists are given the choice to participate.

“If they choose to. It’s strictly voluntary. I think this year about half of the participants are doing this. They make a little bauble in whatever medium they work with so let’s say someone does pottery. They might craft like a little ceramic bauble to put on the cord.”

According to the press release, visitors can collect beads and handcrafted items at participating booths throughout the event to be strung on a necklace obtained from the Goffstown Main Street booth and that their kids craft tent will return again this year so remember to “have your kids swing by the craft tent to create a neat memento.”

It was a hit last year.

“This is the second year we’re going to have a kids’ craft area for kids to come in. We’re doing little lanterns, like a little hanging ornament…. It’s paper tubes that they decorate and they can do whatever they want with it,” Duval said.

The possibilities are limitless, but Duval offers a fine suggestion. “They could put it on the Christmas tree, it could probably be a cool Christmas tree ornament depending on how they decorate it.”

Attendees will be able to sign up for a raffle of collected goods at the Uncommon Art tent. “We have a number of artists who are donating work for that.” These also contain donations from local businesses. The donations will be raffled off by Uncommon Art on the Common to benefit the Goffstown Main Street Program, which puts on the fantastic art event. Raffle tickets sell at $1 a ticket or $5 for six tickets.

Duval and Goffstown are excited to show off its art. “Come on over, have fun, check it all out. Hopefully buy some art from someone.”

15th Uncommon Art on the Common
Main Street, Goffstown
Saturday, Aug. 3, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Free admission
goffstownuncommonarts.org

Featured image: Courtesy photo.

Furniture as art at The Fells

Running through mid-October, “Summer at The Fells” is an exhibition of work from more than a dozen members of New Hampshire Furniture Masters. Held at the John Hay Estate, it’s an event that should be attended more than once, as new pieces will be coming and going in the coming months. Many items will be available for purchase.

The venue befits the display. It was built in 1892 for John and Clara Hay as a place to summer — when that was a verb. The 83.5-acre property includes the 22-room Colonial Revival mansion, along with forest trails, lush gardens and shorelines. It is the only early 20th-century summer estate on Lake Sunapee that’s still intact and open to the public.

Some of the pieces on display were done by Ted Blachly, who’s been a Furniture Masters member since its inception in 1995. Blachly’s past work includes a sensuously curved chest made of curly sugar maple and rosewood, created in 2014 for the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester.

In a recent phone interview, Blachly said the makers at the Fells event range across several disciplines, like Dan Faya, who taught at the traditionally based North Bennet Street School in Boston. “He’s an expert carver, and his work is very clean,” Blachly said. “He has a chair up there that looks like an antique shield-backed chair, the carvings, that’s where his roots are.”

A distinctive room divider from relatively new member Lynn Szymanski blurs the line between form and function. “She has a more sculptural approach to making work,” Blachly said, “It’s a take on a three-panel screen that might be used in an old antique farmhouse; it has that feel about it. There’s a saw blade integrated in the top sections of the frame, and it’s kind of an interesting piece.”

Blachly began his road to furniture making in the early 1970s.

“It was during the back-to-the-land movement,” he said. “I fell into working on old houses with two really fussy carpenters, and I learned a lot. They saw that I had patience [so] they would often give me a fussy job or a pain-in-the-ass job, because they knew I would stick with it or work my way through it…. Having to solve odd problems, I think, really sort of helped me along.”

The following decade, he became part of a guild that included 17 furniture makers who would meet and discuss their work, and through that he met Jere Osgood, one of New Hampshire Furniture Masters’ founders. Osgood died last year.

“He was a world-renowned figure in the studio furniture field, a teacher and a very innovative maker,” Blachly said. “I ended up assisting him in his shop on an as-needed basis in 1993. I would go down there and help him with runs of chairs. Working for him at that level, I learned so much. It was a really wonderful part of my life. I stayed closely connected to him right up until he died. I worked on his stuff. I feel fortunate to have had that experience.”

Blachly’s Currier Chest is a testament to the painstaking discipline at his level of furniture making. From the initial curator outreach to completion, the elaborate piece took well over a year to finish. Made of sugar maple, Bolivian rosewood, white oak, quarter-sawn red maple and Sitka spruce, the piece is part of the Currier’s permanent collection.

“That was quite a woodworking adventure,” he said. “Through my work with Jere Osgood … his pieces are very sculptural with lots of curves — I had learned how to articulate and figure things with full-scale drawings and mock-ups [and] for that Currier chest I took it pretty far [and] a lot of the techniques or ways of figuring out how to do something was learning this stuff from Jere. It’s not something where you just take some wood and start hacking away and sawing away and get that. There’s all this other work that has to go in so you can build it.”

Summer at The Fells – NH Furniture Masters
When: Daily through Friday, Oct. 12, with a House Party on Thursday, Aug. 8, from 4 to 6 p.m.
Where: John Hay Estate at The Fells, 456 Route 103A, Newbury
More: Free, register at eventbrite.com

Featured image: Currier Chest by Ted Blachly. Courtesy photo.