Films

In the inaugural year of the Mountain Maryland Film Festival, the weekend will include the screenings of documentary work, well-known major motion pictures, and juried entries from our first-ever shorts competition.


Jackson Glisan

As part of M2F2's shorts competition, we welcome filmmaker, Jack Glisan, who has been juried into the competition, with his film, "Jason Ingrodi: Strings".

About Jack

I'm Jack Glisan, a senior at Frostburg State University studying Mass Communication. Outside of college, I help RL Productions LLC as a production assistant and cameraman. I got really interested in filmmaking at a young age when my parents let me use our home handheld camcorder to film whatever I wanted around the house without rhyme or reason. As I grew up, I started getting my friends and cousins involved in skits and short videos, learned how to edit and export simple videos, and started uploading stuff to YouTube around 2009. I eventually decided I would study digital video production in college, and that led me down the path that inspired the production of my short documentary on local guitar maker Jason Ingrodi! He's a really talented guy and I'm super grateful he gave me his time to tell his story through this short documentary.

Maria Hite

As part of M2F2's shorts competition, we welcome filmmaker, Maria Hite, who has been juried into the competition, with her film, "Megan Jean's Secret Family".

About Maria

Maria is currently a student of the Emerging Media program at Frostburg State University, and has worked in video production for years. After finishing her Associates Degree from Allegany College of Maryland, Maria began an internship with CareFirst as a Media Specialist. Most recently, she worked on the set of "The Peppermint Twist" as a camera assistant, and has been an assistant director and camera operator for Delevision, the video crew for DelFest Music Festival, for nine years. Filming live music has been a major part of Maria's life, and she is thrilled to be able to share her vision to a wider audience.

Ethan Romaine

As part of M2F2's shorts competition, we welcome filmmaker, Ethan Romaine, who has been juried into the competition, with his film, "Mountain Punk Arts".

About Ethan

Born and raised in rural Appalachia, Brooklyn-based filmmaker Ethan Romaine seeks to use the sum of his experiences to tell human stories that show us all what we have in common rather than what sets us apart.

Beginning with his NYU Tisch Thesis, "Lovers Leap," Romaine's indie miniseries 301 Stories has screened at festivals around the country, including the Maryland Film Festival, Cinema on The Bayou (Audience Award), and NYU First Run (Craft Award for Producing and Acting). In addition to his narrative work, Ethan directs and edits commercial and marketing content for brands and companies nationwide. His latest project is, "Mountain Punk Arts," a short documentary about a non-profit Punk rock art organization in a rural mountain town, which is premiering at the Mountain Maryland Film Festival.

Firebird: Built to Burn

A sense of communal identity is often a casualty during hard economic times, and that makes it increasingly difficult for communities everywhere to revitalize. The restoration of this shared identity is the solution, and the healing power of collective art is the best pathway to a renewed sense of place.

The documentary, Firebird: Built to Burn, produced and directed by Colleen Brady and Charlie Hudson, follows a group of volunteers in resurgent Phoenixville, PA, as they orchestrate their town’s most treasured collective art event: the building and burning of a giant wooden phoenix. Starting in 2024, this now two-decades old tradition, Firebird Festival, annually spreads a message of rebuilding community through artmaking.

The film has received widespread recognition in 2024, including Best Director and Cinematography at the Northeast Pennsylvania Film Festival, Director’s Circle at the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival, and winner for Best Director at the Atlanta Docufest, in addition to a nomination for Best Editing at the DocUtah International Film Festival.

American Graffiti

American Graffiti is a 1973 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by George Lucas and produced by Francis Ford Coppola.

Set in Modesto, California, in 1962, the film is a study of the cruising and early rock ‘n’ roll cultures popular among Lucas’s age group at that time. Through a series of vignettes, it tells the story of a group of teenagers and their adventures throughout a single night.

While Lucas was working on his first film, THX 1138, Coppola asked him to write a coming-of-age film. The genesis of American Graffiti took place in Modesto in the early 1960s, during Lucas’s teenage years. He was unsuccessful in pitching the concept to financiers and distributors but found favor at Universal Pictures after every other major film studio turned him down. Filming began in San Rafael, California, but the production crew was denied permission to shoot beyond a second day. As a result, production was moved to Petaluma, California.

The film is the first movie to be produced by his Lucasfilm production banner.

Saturday Night Fever

Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 American dance drama film directed by John Badham and produced by Robert Stigwood. It stars John Travolta as Tony Manero, a young Italian-American man who spends his weekends dancing and drinking at a local discothèque while dealing with social tensions and disillusionment in his working class ethnic neighborhood in Brooklyn. The story is based on “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night”, a mostly fictional 1976 article by music writer Nik Cohn.

A major critical and commercial success, Saturday Night Fever had a tremendous impact on the popular culture of the late 1970s. It helped popularize disco around the world and initiated a series of collaborations between film studios and record labels. The film showcases aspects of the music, dancing, and subculture surrounding the disco era, including symphony-orchestrated melodies, haute couture styles of clothing, pre-AIDS sexual promiscuity, and graceful choreography.

The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, featuring songs by the Bee Gees, is one of the best-selling soundtrack albums worldwide.