This weekend’s 22nd annual Utopia Film Festival presents Greenbelt with 44 films. They range from a five-minute U.S. short directed by a middle schooler to an 88-minute Paraguayan feature about a search.
“Our motto is seeking a better world through film, and since 2005, that’s what we aim to do,” said Frank Gervasi, the festival’s manager of operations. “We try to do whatever we can to make it better for everybody.”
Films to be screened focus on politics, war and this year especially art, according to Gervasi, who has been a producer in the film industry since he went to art school in the ’60s. For instance, She Is Not Here is an Iranian film directed by Saeed Seiri, following a young girl using art to cope after seeing her mother arrested by the government. They also tie back to Greenbelt with documentaries like Lenore: Sculpting a Life, directed by Susan Gervasi, Frank’s wife and the deputy director of the festival, following radical Greenbelt artist Lenore Thomas Straus.
Films are ranked and selected by a committee, and are mostly collected through the site FilmFreeway. According to Gervasi, the festival places an emphasis on independently-made films, providing visitors with a new and personal cinema experience.
“People have a vision they want to share, and to me, that’s utopian,” Gervasi said.
The festival also aims to be accessible to everyone. Films will be shown throughout the weekend in the Greenbelt Cinema Screening Room, Municipal Building and New Deal Café. Some films, such as People vs. Politics and Rose, will be shown more than once. According to Susan Gervasi, 24 of the films are subtitled and those films are indicated by an asterisk (*) on the website schedule.
“We’ve always used the New Deal Café because it’s the only place with Zoom capability. So, we’ve had filmmakers from overseas who will Zoom in,” Gervasi said.
Compared to when the festival first started, the staff now has the budget to break even between donations and ticket sales, according to Gervasi. He said fees were waived for some festival filmmakers, such as students.
Attendees can purchase tickets at the door or at the festival’s website, utopiafilmfestival.org.
“We try to put together a real variety of stuff you’ll never see anywhere else,” Gervasi said.
Rachel Kebler is a University of Maryland student at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism interning with the Greenbelt News Review.
