Mendocino Film Festival Sneak Preview of Coming Home was a success

The festival featured a sneak preview of Coming Home: From Shadowland to Spirit World, about a Kashia Pomo tribal elder seeking the return of coastal land, preceded by two short films. (Contributed)The 19th Annual Mendocino Film Festival presents a compelling lineup of more movies than ever before, along with special events, live music, and lively Q&A discussions with filmmakers from around the globe descending upon Mendocino.

This year’s Mendocino Film Festival, May 28-31, celebrates achieving new records: the most films ever (80), the most short film programs (5), the most Sundance selections (10), and the most films directed by women (43).

Of the total 80 films, 35 are features, and 46 are shorts. Fifty filmmakers and industry guests will attend for the 19th year. The festival offers something for all tastes: films on the arts, environmental and social justice films, and stories from over 35 countries around the globe represented in our programming line-up.

Musical fare includes You Got Gold: A Celebration of John Prine, a star-studded tribute to the legendary songwriter. The movie will play on Friday, May 29, at 7:30 pm and will be followed by live music from local Americana band, Sweet Root.

The following day, Saturday, May 30, at 7:30 pm, the festival offers a special treat for lovers of choral singing, featuring the Mendocino Music Festival Chorale, following the screening of the uplifting New Zealand documentary Tina, about a scrappy children’s choir.

Also on Saturday, two culinary treats await. At 10 am, come for the film Pieowa, celebrating the myriad ways pie is woven into Iowa’s – and America’s – culture, and stay for pie. Then at 4 pm, take a trip to the “Olympics of Cheese” with the documentary The Big Cheese, followed by a locally sourced wine and cheese pairing event.

On Sunday, May 31 at 1 pm, the festival offers its Fifth Annual Native Cinema event, one of the fest’s most popular screenings. This year, the festival features a sneak preview of Coming Home: From Shadowland to Spirit World, about a Kashia Pomo tribal elder seeking coastal land return, preceded by two short films.

As usual, the natural world plays a big part in the coastal film festival. The Last Forests Project shows the tragic kelp forest decline and highlights collaborative restoration efforts led by scientists and local communities, including the Mendocino Coast. The Keeping it Wild short film program includes a hopeful collection of land conservation and rewilding topics presented with the Mendocino Land Trust. Nuisance Bear follows a polar bear forced to navigate a human world of tourists and hunters.

No festival would be complete without sociopolitically themed documentaries. This year If I Could Stay/Si Pudiera Quedarme tells two undocumented mothers who enter churches to evade deportation. Steal This Story, Please! follows independent journalist Amy Goodman and her daily news show Democracy Now and be sure to stay for a lively panel discussion about media today after the film.

The festival has movies that wowed audiences at the Sundance Film festival including Hot Water, See You When I See You from Jay Duplass, the California Premiere of How to Divorce During the War, American Pachuco, Cookie Queens, and Give Me the Ball, about tennis legend and trailblazer Billie Jean King – to name a few!

Focusing on art films has always been an integral part of the festival and this year in a sneak preview of ACTING LIKE WOMEN, we follow a collective of artists who reshaped the cultural landscape at the foundational art space, the Woman’s Building. Maintenance Artist shows us what happens when art meets trash – when the New York City’s Department of Sanitation welcomes an artist in residence.

Hometown filmmaker, Will Geiger, who now lives in Italy, returns with his new feature GLASS BEACH, about a Sicilian fisherman. Other local filmmakers will also be highlighted at the REEL MENDO short film program, a festival favorite.

For family viewing, the free Children’s Program will be screening charming short films for ages 5+ from the New York International Children’s Film Festival, on Saturday, May 30 at 10:00 am with a free bicycle giveaway.

Tickets go on sale April 30 at MendoFilm.org/tickets or can be purchased at Festival Headquarters: Mendocino Film Festival Office, 45062 Ukiah Street.

For more information, and to peruse this year’s complete program, please visit mendofilm.org