MdFF 2019: The Maryland Film Festival Announces First Wave of Films

The first ten features screening at this year’s Maryland Film Festival have been revealed, which includes Rick Alverson‘s The Mountain, Jennifer Reeder‘s Knives and Skin, and Rashaad Ernesto Green‘s Premature to name a few.

The 21st annual Maryland Film Festival will take place from May 8 – 12 in Baltimore, more information can be found at mdfilmfest.com.

Take a look below for the full list of announced films and stay tuned for additional films to be revealed in the coming weeks.

Fig Tree
Director: Aäläm-Wärqe Davidian
Ethiopia, Israel, Germany, France
A startlingly confident feature directorial debut that tells the story of lives torn asunder by civil war. Set in Addis Ababa in 1989, Fig Tree follows a teenage girl’s harrowing coming of age.

Frances-Ferguson
Director: Bob Byington
USA
Frances is discontent. Like a lot of us, she does a bit of “acting out” and pays the price — an arrest, a trial, incarceration. And then a new identity, one that’s not terribly comfortable. Nick Offerman narrates this deviant comedy, based on actual events.

Ham on Rye
Director: Tyler Taormina
USA
A bizarre rite of passage at the local deli determines the fate of a generation of teenagers, leading some to escape their suburban town and dooming others to remain.

Knives and Skin
Director: Jennifer Reeder
USA
In rural Illinois, a young girl’s disappearance traumatizes the small town residents. Soon, secrets are revealed, destroying some relationships and strengthening others and further deepening the mystery.

Manta Ray
Director: Phuttiphong Aroonpheng
Thailand, France, China
Near a coastal village of Thailand, by the sea where thousands of Rohingya refugees have drowned, a local fisherman finds an injured man lying unconscious in the forest. He rescues the stranger, who does not speak a word, offers him his friendship and names him Thongchai. But when the fisherman suddenly disappears at sea, Thongchai slowly begins to take over his friend’s life – his house, his job and his ex-wife.

Mom And Dad
Hosted by John Waters
Director: Brian Taylor
USA
Nicolas Cage and Selma Blair star in this pitch-black horror-comedy about a worldwide mass hysteria where, for 24 brutal hours, parents turn violently against their own children.

The Mountain
Director: Rick Alverson
USA
Set against the 1950’s “golden age” of American male supremacy, an introverted young photographer (Tye Sheridan) joins a renowned lobotomist (Jeff Goldblum) on a tour to promote the doctor’s recently-debunked procedure.

Premature
Director: Rashaad Ernesto Green
USA
The summer before she leaves for college, Ayanna meets handsome and mysterious outsider, Isaiah; and her entire world is turned upside down as she navigates the demanding terrain of young love against a changing Harlem landscape.

Ray and Liz
Director: Richard Billingham
UK
On the outskirts of Birmingham and the margins of society, the Billingham family perform extreme rituals and break social taboos as they muddle through life. At times shocking and laced with an unsettling humor, three episodes unfold as a powerful evocation of the experience of growing up in a Black Country council flat.

Tito
Director: Grace Glowicki
Canada
Tito is trapped. With lank black hair, curlicue sideburns, and an emergency whistle dangling from his neck, Tito is so stricken with fear that he’s developed a hunch in his back. Starved for food and security, Tito’s terrorized existence threatens to overwhelm him — until the sudden arrival of a cheerful intruder, offering breakfast and protection.