The Allegany Arts Council is excited to announce the inaugural Mountain Maryland Film Festival, scheduled to take place November 8-9, 2024!
About the Festival
In anticipation of our upcoming initiative, MusicTown Maryland, the inaugural festival will focus on a musical theme in 2024, featuring screenings of well-known films along with a shorts competition, inviting filmmakers to submit works 15 minutes or less for cash prizes.
Along the way, there will be live music and surprises, too! A complete schedule, ticket details and program announcements are coming soon!
We are proud to partner with Loft 129 to host this exciting weekend of films and fun!
Our Jurors
Ty DeMartino is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter residing in Frostburg, Md. For the stage, Ty penned the book to the country jukebox musical Ticket to Nashville and later wrote the film adaptation (A Nashville Wish). Ty was named “Playwright of the Year” by The Baltimore City Paper for his political work The Blessed Mothers of War. His father-son drama, Finding Fossils, was named Best Production of the Baltimore Playwrights Festival and was later produced by The Road Theatre in Hollywood where it was honored as “Outstanding Production” by Stage Scene L.A. For the screen and TV, Ty wrote the short film, The Exhibit, which was an official selection of the 2024 IndieX Film Fest, as well as the features Tulsa (co-writer, 2020 ICFF “Best Feature/Audience Award”), The Pledge and A Christmas Tree Miracle. He has recently written scripts for two episodic TV projects for GKg Productions in Los Angeles and Pryor Entertainment in Atlanta.
Griffin Detrick is a 2005 graduate of Bishop Walsh School, and a 2010 graduate of Frostburg State University where he majored in accounting. He is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in the state of Maryland. Griffin has helped produce several short films in the Baltimore film community, one of which he wrote and directed and was accepted into several film festivals. He also serves as Treasurer for AHEC West and is a co-founder of the Western MD Chapter of Toastmasters International. In his downtime, he enjoys hanging out with friends, his wife Karen, and their three rescue dogs, Barney and Lady, and Grover.
Dave Romero is an engineer by training and an artist by worldview. After two decades in the semiconductor industry as an engineer and strategic marketing executive, in 2001 Dave launched his production company, Vibrant Image Productions. His small production team works with companies, non-profits, and government to communicate their stories and big ideas through a creative fusion of visual media including, but not limited to film.
Contest Timeline:
Deadline for submission: September 20, 2024
Filmmaker Notifications: October 11, 2024
Mountain Maryland Film Festival: November 8-9, 2024
Prizes:
Best Short: $500
2nd Place Short: $250
3rd Place Short: $100
Audience Favorite: $250
Submit below for your chance to have your film featured!
Our Films
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,
In addition to the film screening, we will be joined by the documentary's producer and director for a live discussion.
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.
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.
