The 19th Annual Utopia Film Festival will be held on Saturday, October 21 and Sunday, October 22, with 36 independent works at the New Deal Café, the Greenbelt Cinema and the Municipal Building.
The Festival, a project of Greenbelt Access Television (GATe) since 2005, offers features, documentaries, shorts and animation from independent filmmakers around the world, across the nation and throughout the D.C. metropolitan region. This year’s many subjects include environmental threats, stories about complex human relationships, the psychological impact of Covid-19, the Vietnam War, the drama of “coming out” to one’s traditional family and a fight over some controversial New Deal murals.
Town Destroyer (4 p.m. Saturday, New Deal Café) documents a bitter 2019 battle over the fate of 13 Depression-era murals in a San Francisco high school. Images of slave-holding President George Washington, those he enslaved and defeated Native Americans raised hard questions for the city’s school board: Did the murals glorify enslaver Washington? Were they a veiled critique of American history? Should they be painted over or protected?
American history is also examined in An Afternoon at My Khe (1:30 p.m. Saturday, New Deal Café), as three Vietnam War soldiers on an R&R break discuss their futures ‒ which may include death. Other Utopia films explore the complexities of human relationships and how determination to succeed can overcome obstacles. Interception: Jayne Kennedy, American Sportscaster (4 p.m. Saturday, Greenbelt Cinema) is the tumultuous story of the first African American female sportscaster on network television and her path to that achievement.
The Pink Lagoon (11 a.m. Sunday, New Deal Café) explores the estrangement between 20-something Mariana – who enjoys her life despite the challenge of having Down syndrome – and her hard-charging brother Arturo. Can the siblings find a way to reconnect? Another poignant film about siblings, Wish You Were Here (4 p.m. Sunday, Greenbelt Cinema), is a brother’s letter to his late sister which explores how grief manifests even decades after a loved-one’s passing.
The challenge of human reconnection after the prolonged isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic spurred a unique Cleveland, Ohio, film project. Eighteen Tuesdays (1:30 p.m. Saturday, Greenbelt Cinema) documents a series of 2022 “music-based” group bike rides intended to bring local people together. A short film by Greenbelt artist and filmmaker Sally Davies, Rise Above (4 p.m. Saturday, Greenbelt Cinema), also looks at the virus’s impact through a time-lapse portrait of a woman who suffered long-Covid symptoms for over a year, as it evokes the uncertainty and isolation felt by millions during the pandemic.
The mystery, magic and endangered fate of the world’s rivers is investigated in several documentaries. Tales of the Boiling River looks at a legendary Amazonian rainforest river said to have spiritual and healing properties, while Two Rivers examines how two courageous women – a Honduran feminist and a Guatemalan community leader – are working to save their territorial rivers. The program including both films starts at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Municipal Building.
Another river film, Shantyboat – Rediscovering a River Way of Life (1:30 p.m. Sunday, New Deal Café) explores the history of a vanished Louisville, Ky., houseboat community on the Ohio River – river workers’ floating “shanty boats” – as it documents an artist’s epic 1940s shanty boat river trip.
The Utopia Festival takes its name from Greenbelt’s origins as an FDR-era “utopian” town, idealistically planned to foster community civic involvement. Each year, an all-volunteer committee evaluates submissions from independent filmmakers to choose works aimed at the Festival’s mission to help build “a better world through film.” See utopiafilmfestival.org.