Two film events at Southern Maine Community College’s Jewett Hall this month promise to challenge and entertain the most sophisticated of audiences. The screenings, which are free to the public, include an international showcase of animated shorts and a collection of suspense and horror films produced in Maine by local filmmakers.

19^th Annual Animation Show of Shows

The Animation Show of Shows graces Jewett Hall’s big screen on November 15^th at 6:00-7:30 pm. Despite premiering in 2017, the 19^th installment of this program explores themes that resonate keenly with these strange and troubling times. Founder and curator Ron Diamond said, “Because animation is such a natural medium for dealing with abstract ideas and existential concerns, the Animation Show of Shows has always included a number of thoughtful and engaging films.” Nevertheless, the shorts showcased in the Animation Show of Shows rely on vastly different storytelling approaches.

Paul Julian and Les Goldman’s restored 1964 classic, The Hangman, is a good example. The 11-minute film inhabits the darker side of allegorical cinema. An adaptation of a Maurice Ogden poem, the film tells the story of a town whose citizens allow each other to be executed one by one. The themes of persecution and personal responsibility, where bystanders fail to stand up for their neighbors, gives form and motion to the banality of evil. Although it’s a story that must be told and retold, its screening at Jewett Hall this Wednesday could not be timed better. 

Niki Lindroth von Bahr’s The Burden explores another sort of darkness. The film is set within the unremarkable, late-night recesses of a few businesses in the shadow of an unnamed highway. As the musical story unfolds, a series of stop motion vignettes communicate the characters’ deep sense of isolation, disappointment, and resignation. Amid this dark theme, von Bahr uses the unlikeliest of characters and the situations they find themselves in—bathrobe-clad stickleback hotel guests, mole rat fast-food chain workers hoofing their way through a tap routine, and a lonely canine who stocks mega-mart shelves, among others—to provide balance. In doing so, the animal avatars who breathe life into The Burden emerge as survivors by retaining their humanity, grace, and a little humor.

Damnationland

On November 30^th from 6:00 – 7:00 pm Maine’s much beloved one-night festival of horror, suspense and weirdness comes to the Jewett after a series of extra screenings were scheduled to meet continued demand. For 13 years Damnationland has showcased the genre-defying works of Maine-made films meant to frighten and shock the hardiest of audiences. This year’s darkly surreal offerings include six main films with shorter “interstitial features” between each.

Even the darkest of storylines benefit from a little humor, and Sarah Kennedy’s Miss Blueberry Beauty Pageant piles on the antics over its 12 minutes of runtime. Set in 1984, the taffeta wearing finalists find themselves in a different sort of competition. Like the professionals they are, the remaining finalists soldier-on with clenched smiles despite the onstage dismemberments and other assorted gore. Miss Blueberry Beauty Pageant stars Mackenzie Bartlett, Thomas Ian Campbell, Joanna Clarke and Hannah Elaine Perry.

Another example of Damnationland’s offerings is Caroline O’Conner and Everett Bunker’s Syrup, which clocks-in at a bit less than 11 minutes. Set in a hyper-realistic version of the 1950s, the film pairs beautifully crafted cinematography with a provocative theme that positions Maine’s favorite breakfast sweetener front and center. The fun starts when the only two characters—a handsome couple that shares no dialogue—taste the syrup the male lead harvested from a maple tree. The immediate visions each of them experiences provide escape from the cultural strictures of the day and blissful release into their personal fantasies. This is not your average neurological response to ingesting the sap of Acer saccharum, but it’s put to good use in Syrup. And in typical Damnationland fashion, things get delightfully weirder for the remainder of the roughly 11-minute film. I’ll never again look at a stack of pancakes in the same way. The film stars Anna Gravel and Ranin Brown.

Brought to Jewett Hall by Southern Maine Community College’s Communications and New Media Studies (CNMS) Program, the two screenings bring a welcome touch of culture to the South Portland campus. Likewise, SeaWolves pride is alive, well, and onstage as five of Damnationland’s six main films were created by alumni of SMCC’s CNMS Program: they are Anthony Wheeler, Taylor Hunter, Hannah Shepherd-Perry, Emily & Rebecca Myshrall, Bodhi Ouellete, Ben Rooker and Sami Quirion.