Thursday May 5, 2011 marks the MFF kick-off with Opening Night Shorts, hosted by Ann Hornaday (MICA brown Center, 8PM). A weekend packed with great films, visiting filmmakers & personalities, and informative talks and demos follows.
You would be wise to check out the schedule and make a plan.

Of special interest on the schedule is the USA premiere (more or less) of the Jimmy Joe Roche and Dan Deacon short HILVARENBEEK. HILVARENBEEK is the product of Roche and Deacon’s three-week residency in the Netherlands, where they were participants in the Incubate Festival 2010. Roche describes the film as “experimental narrative.” It will accompany the dreamy feature doc CONVENTO, and the program will be hosted by Convento’s director, Jarred Alterman, and Roche.

I caught up with Jimmy Joe Roche (you just want to say his name over and over, don’t ya?) last week at WYPR’s Maryland Morning interview taping at the Windup Space. The Maryland Morning crew conducted the interview with the projected madman images of several JJR short films as backdrop.

Roche’s short films (call them experimental, surreal, psychedelic, whatever, if you need a label) do speak for themselves, and in their own language. The batch I saw (Roche is quite prolific, so I have more to see) were super cool messed up fun eye-ear-brain candy. Roche said he consciously constructed How To Make A ToothBeef Sandwich to be his first YouTube film, way back in 2006. That’s about a century in YouTube years, so it made for compelling historical context.

Ultimate Reality is a painstakingly crafted mash-up of pirated images from VHS captures and god-knows-what-all, sort of starring Arnold, buoyed by an excellent Dan Deacon score. Baltimore Shopping Network is a perfect expression of DIY Made in Baltimore meta commercial trash aesthetics. But wait, why am I talking about this? Go to his YouTube channel and see for yourself.

David Warfield