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 movies at the Independent Film Festival of Boston
CURE FOR PAIN Mark Sandman’s life and work are explored in this new documentary.

If you had to find a common theme among the films in this year’s Independent Film Festival of Boston (recently honored in the Phoenix Best of Boston Poll as the Best Film Festival), you might say that there are a number of deranged old coots who turn out to be possessed by genius, as in Last Days Here and Heaven + Earth + Joe Davis. Or maybe the dominant trend is stylistically bold black comedies about marginal people adrift: The Future, Bellflower, The Trip, Submarine, even Stake Land. Or maybe it’s documentaries about urgent issues and desperate solutions, like If a Tree Falls and Better This World. But one thing you can say about them all is that they’re better than just about anything else out there.

Read the movie reviews and watch the trailers:

Better This World (4 stars)
Cure for Pain: The Mark Sandman Story (3 stars)
The Future (3.5 stars)
Heaven + Earth + Joe Davis (3.5 stars)
Last Days Here (3.5 stars)
Littlerock (3.5 stars)
Stake Land (3.5 stars)
Submarine (3.5 stars)
Troll Hunter (2 stars)
Push: Madison vs. Madison (3 stars)
Project Nim (3.5 stars)
If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (3.5 stars)
God Willing (2.5 stars)
Dragonslayer (2.5 stars)
Related: Review: Rubber, Review: The Double Hour, Review: Fast Five, More more >
  Topics: Features , Movies, Somerville Theater, film,  More more >
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ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH
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  •   THE 13TH ANNUAL PROVINCETOWN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL  |  June 21, 2011
    Henry Thoreau said of the song of the wood thrush: "Whenever a man hears it, it is a new world and a free country, and the gates of heaven are not shut. . . . " For some reason, Provincetown is full of these birds — appropriately so, given the avowed intent of the Provincetown International Film Festival to present liberated "filmmaking on the edge."
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 See all articles by: PETER KEOUGH

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