Midday at the Movies: A Maryland Film Festival Preview

It's Midday at the Movies.The 20th annual Maryland Film Festival kicks off tonight at the SNF Parkway Theater here in Baltimore. More than 120 local and international filmmakers from around the world will gather at the newly restored theater on Charles Street to screen their latest work, and to discuss the many facets of their art in panel discussions and workshops. Between Wednesday May 2 and Sunday, May 6, audiences will be treated to a buffet of over 40 narrative films and documentaries, plus 10 series of short films. Today, a preview of the Maryland Film Festival, with its director and founder, Jed Dietz.Tom also talks with a group of film artists with past and present links to the festival, including Baltimore director Matt Porterfield, and actor Jim Belushi, the co-star of Porterfield's new film, Sollers Point, which is premiering at this year's festival. Filmmaker and Maryland Historical Society curator Joe Tropea joins us to discuss his new documentary about the history of film censorship in America, Sickies Making Films. And joining us by phone today from Los Angeles is filmmaker Erik Ljung. His powerful documentary film, The Blood Is at the Doorstep, about a police killing of an unarmed black man in Milwaukee four years ago, has won kudos since its world premiere at the 2017 South-by-Southwest Festival in Austin, and its screening last year at the Maryland Film Festival, and it returns to follow the festival the Parkway theater next week. Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.