The first Green Mountain Film Festival took place in Montpelier, Vermont

Montpelier, Vermont

Montpelier is a city in the U.S. state of Vermont that serves as the state capital and the shire town of Washington County. As the capital of Vermont, Montpelier is the site of the Vermont State House, seat of the legislative branch of Vermont government. The population was 7,855 at the 2010...

 in 1997. In March 1999, a second festival was held and it has been an annual March event ever since. In 2010 the festival was extended to include a series of satellite screenings in St. Johnsbury, Vermont

St. Johnsbury, Vermont

St. Johnsbury is the shire town of Caledonia County, Vermont, United States. The population was 7,571 at the 2000 census. St. Johnsbury is located approximately northwest of the Connecticut River and south of the Canadian border.St...

.

The program focuses on new work from around the world together with a few classic films. Around half the films shown are documentaries. There are also screenings of shorts and student films. Screenings are often followed by informal discussions often involving the filmmakers themselves. The festival also features special appearances by established film critics and filmmakers. Recent guests have included critics Kenneth Turan

Kenneth Turan

Kenneth Turan is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.-Background:...

, Molly Haskell

Molly Haskell

Molly Haskell is an American feminist film critic and author. Her most influential book is From Reverence to Rape: the Treatment of Women in the Movies...

, Phillip Lopate

Phillip Lopate

Doctor Phillip Lopate is an American film critic, essayist, fiction writer, poet, and teacher. He is the younger brother of radio host Leonard Lopate.-Early life and education:...

, David Thomson

David Thomson (film critic)

David Thomson is a film critic and historian based in the United States and the author of more than 20 books, including The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.-Career:...

, Gerald Peary

Gerald Peary

Gerald Peary is an American film critic, who has been a reviewer and columnist for the Boston Phoenix since 1996. He was formerly the Acting Curator of the Harvard Film Archive and is currently the General Editor of the University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Filmmakers Series...

, and Matthew Hays

Matthew Hays

Matthew Hays is a Canadian film critic, writer, film festival programmer and academic. He won a Lambda Literary Award for his 2007 book The View from Here: Conversations with Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers....

. Filmmakers have included the screenwriter and director, Robin Swicord

Robin Swicord

Robin Swicord is an American screenwriter and film director. She wrote the screenplay for the film Memoirs of a Geisha, based on the novel of the same name by Arthur Golden...

, actor/director Giancarlo Esposito

Giancarlo Esposito

Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito is a Danish-born American film and television actor and director.-Early life:Esposito was born in Copenhagen, Denmark to an Italian father and African-American mother. His mother was an opera and nightclub singer from Alabama, who once appeared on the same...

, producer Christine Vachon

Christine Vachon

Christine Vachon is an American film producer active in the American independent film sector and daughter of noted photographer John Vachon....

,and documentary makers Albert Maysles, Les Blank

Les Blank

Les Blank is an American documentary filmmaker best known for his portraits of American traditional musicians....

 and Ralph Arlyck

Ralph Arlyck

Ralph Arlyck is an American documentary filmmaker. He has won many awards for his films and has been shown at film festivals including Sundance, New York, London, and Cannes....

.

No prizes or awards are given. The emphasis has always been on presenting films on their own merits without the distraction of competition.

The critic Stuart Klawans

Stuart Klawans

Stuart Klawans has been the film critic for The Nation since 1988. He won the 2007 National Magazine Award for Reviews and Criticism and he received a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship to work on a critical study of Preston Sturges...

, writing in The Nation

The Nation

The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...

, described the 2003 Green Mountain Film Festival as "a cinephile's utopia: a festival organized and supported by an entire community of local moviegoers."

Matthew Hays, the Montreal-based film critic, called the 2006 festival "incredible ... a mind-bendingly fascinating diet of movies."

Every year volunteers help run the festival and host special events in venues across Montpelier, Vermont

Montpelier, Vermont

Montpelier is a city in the U.S. state of Vermont that serves as the state capital and the shire town of Washington County. As the capital of Vermont, Montpelier is the site of the Vermont State House, seat of the legislative branch of Vermont government. The population was 7,855 at the 2010...

.

Films in Earlier Festivals (2006)

• After Innocence
• After the Fog
• Ballets Russes
• The Boys of Baraka
• Campfire
• Commune
• Duma
• The Education of Shelby Knox
• Elevator to the Gallows
  Elevator to the Gallows
  Ascenseur pour l'échafaud is a 1958 French film directed by Louis Malle. It was released as Elevator to the Gallows in the USA and as Lift to the Scaffold in the UK. It stars Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet as criminal lovers whose perfect crime begins to unravel when Ronet is trapped in an elevator...
  
  
• Le Grand Voyage
• Hawaii, Oslo
• Homeland
• I Like Killing Flies
• Intimate Stories
• Isn't This a Time!
• Live and Become
• Living the Autism Maze

• The Lizard, or Marmoulak
• "Music and the Movies" with Lloyd Schwartz
• Midnight Movies
• Mind Games
• Paradise Now
  Paradise Now
  Paradise Now is a 2005 film directed by Hany Abu-Assad about two Palestinian men preparing for a suicide attack in Israel. It won a Golden Globe for best foreign language film and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category....
  
  
• The Real Dirt on Farmer John
  The Real Dirt on Farmer John
  The Real Dirt on Farmer John is a 2005 documentary film directed by Taggart Siegel about the life of Midwestern farmer John Peterson, operator of Angelic Organics.-Awards:The Real Dirt on Farmer John has won awards at over 30 film festivals...
  
  
• The Red Wagon
• A Sidewalk Astronomer
  A Sidewalk Astronomer
  A Sidewalk Astronomer is a documentary film about former Vedanta monk and amateur astronomer John Dobson. The film follows Dobson to state parks, astronomy clubs, and downtown streets as he promotes awareness of astronomy through his on personal style of sidewalk astronomy...
  
  
• The Singers
• Sir! No Sir!
• The Syrian Bride
  The Syrian Bride
  The Syrian Bride is a 2004 film directed by Eran Riklis. The story deals with a Druze wedding and the troubles the politically unresolved situation creates for the personal lives of the people in and from the village...
  
  
• Tony Takitani
• Touch the Sound
• The Warrior
• Winterwalk
• The World Outside

10th Festival 2007

The 10th Green Mountain Film Festival ran from 16 to 25 March 2007. Guests included Albert Maysles, Ralph Arlyck

Ralph Arlyck

Ralph Arlyck is an American documentary filmmaker. He has won many awards for his films and has been shown at film festivals including Sundance, New York, London, and Cannes....

, Rob Mermin

Rob Mermin

Rob Mermin is the founder of the award-winning international touring youth circus Circus Smirkus.Rob Mermin ran off to join the circus in 1969...

 and Kenneth Turan

Kenneth Turan

Kenneth Turan is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.-Background:...

. The films shown were:

Avenue Montaigne

Fauteuils d'orchestre

Fauteuils d'orchestre is a French film released in 2006 directed by Danièle Thompson, which she co-scripted with her son, Christopher Thompson.-Release:...

Beauty in Trouble

Beauty in Trouble

Beauty in Trouble is a 2006 Czech tragicomedy directed by Jan Hřebejk. Eddie Cockrell, writing in Variety, said the "[t]itle comes from the Robert Graves poem, itself adapted into a Czech popular song in the 1980s, and performed in the film by homegrown thrush Radůza...

Been Rich All My Life

Black Gold

Black Gold (film)

Black Gold is a 2006 documentary film about the international coffee trade and its ramifications for the farmers who grow coffee. It was directed by two British brothers, Marc and Nick Francis.-Synopsis:...

El Carro

The Cave of the Yellow Dog

The Cave of the Yellow Dog

The Cave of the Yellow Dog is a Mongolian/German film written and directed by Byambasuren Davaa. The film was submitted as Mongolia's contender for the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film...

Climates

C.R.A.Z.Y.

C.R.A.Z.Y.

C.R.A.Z.Y. is a 2005 French-language Canadian film from Quebec. The film was directed and co-written by Jean-Marc Vallée. It tells the story of Zac, a young gay man dealing with homophobia and heterosexism while growing up with four brothers and a conservative father in 1960s and 1970s...

Family Law

Flock of Dodos

Flock of Dodos

Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus is a documentary film by American marine biologist and filmmaker Randy Olson. It highlights the debate between proponents of the concept of intelligent design and the scientific consensus that supports evolution.The documentary was first...

Following Sean

Following Sean

Following Sean is a 2005 documentary film directed by Ralph Arlyck, and a follow-up to his 1969 student short "Sean," which features four-year-old Sean Farrell's thoughts on marijuana, police presence, and freewheeling lifestyles...

Gimme Shelter

Gimme Shelter

"Gimme Shelter" is a song by English rock band The Rolling Stones. It first appeared as the opening track on the band's 1969 album Let It Bleed. Although the first word was spelled "Gimmie" on that album, subsequent recordings by the band and other musicians have made "Gimme" the customary spelling...

Gobi Women's Song

Grey Gardens

Grey Gardens

Grey Gardens is a 1975 documentary film by Albert and David Maysles, with Susan Froemke, Ellen Hovde, and Muffie Meyer. The film depicts the everyday lives of two reclusive socialites, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale, who lived at Grey Gardens, a decrepit mansion at 3 West End Road in...

Gypsy Caravan

Holding Our Own

The Host

The Host (film)

The Host is a 2006 South Korean monster film, which also contains elements of comedy and drama films. The film was directed by Bong Joon-ho, who co-wrote the screenplay, along with Baek Chul-hyun....

Into Great Silence

Into Great Silence

Into Great Silence is a documentary film directed by Philip Gröning that was first released in 2005. It is an intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, high in the French Alps . The idea for the film was proposed to the monks in 1984, but the...