Upcoming Bethesda Film Fest Showcases Local Filmmakers
April 16 marks the 9th annual Bethesda Film Fest, a documentary film festival featuring the works of local filmmakers, uncovering stories of the DMV and beyond.
First on the lineup is Isabelle Carbonell’s “A Mirror of the Earth.” Carbonell is an award-winning documentary filmmaker from Rockville. Her film’s subject is a small mining town in Southern Spain riddled with cancer from open-pit mining and tells “the larger story of capitalism’s cumulative effects on an environment over time.”
Next on the list is “The Good Candidate” by 5Doc Productions, a collective of seven filmmakers who started the film as their final project for the 2020 George Washington Institute of Documentary Filmmaking. The short documentary follows the 2020 Virginia Republican Primary election and its aftermath.
Bethesda Film Fest offers free screening access to seven documentaries
Films by area filmmakers include GayBash doc Lipstick and Leather.
Last October, Reel Affirmations included Amy Oden’s documentary
Lipstick and Leather in one of its virtual shorts programs.
A look at the iconic alt-drag party GayBash along with its drag founder Donna Slash and regular performers Jane Saw and Ana Latour, the 20-minute short features poignant, pre-pandemic footage of the queens giving their all on stage for a boisterous crowd at home venue Trade back when all that was possible and routine. Oden’s film has now returned to the virtual festival realm with its selection in the 9th annual Bethesda Film Fest.