Opening Party
Friday, June 4, 5:00 - 7:00 pm
Hill House Inn, Mendocino
$20 (2 for $35)
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We’ll kick off the 5th Annual Mendocino Film Festival at our Opening Party on Friday, June 4, at the Hill House Inn. Meet our talented filmmakers over hors d’oeuvres, Blue Angel Vodka cocktails, wines from Goldeneye, Jeriko, and Patianna and brews from North Coast Brewing Company. The Hill House Inn sign still reads “The Hill House of Cabot Cove,” a prop from the popular television series, Murder, She Wrote, filmed in Mendocino. The village starred as the fictional town of Cabot Cove, Maine, in the series that ran from 1984-1996.

Albert Maysles Award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking Saturday, June 5, 3:00 pm,
Crown Hall, $10.
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Widely revered as the “Dean of Documentary Filmmaking,” Albert Maysles joined us as our special guest and advisor in 2007. This year he will honor director and cinematographer Haskell Wexler with the third annual Albert Maysles Award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking. Please join us for this special conversation and clips from Haskell’s work.

Award Winner: Haskell Wexler
Haskell Wexler, two-time Academy Award®-winning cinematographer, was named one of the ten most influential cinematographers in movie history. He won his Oscars® in both black & white and color, for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Bound for Glory. He has directed over fifty documentaries, rock videos and award-winning commercials, including The Bus, Bus Riders Union, Introduction to the Enemy, shot in Vietnam with Jane Fonda; Interview with My Lai Veterans, which also won an Academy Award®, No Nukes with Barbara Kopple, and Who Needs Sleep, a film about sleep deprivation and long hours in the motion picture business, which premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. In 2008 Wexler shot Sense of Wonder, an intimate and poignant reflection of the life of pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson.

Wexler received five Oscar® nominations for his cinematography, plus one Emmy award, in a career that has spanned six decades. His nominations came for his work on his first feature documentary, The Living City; a short film T for Tumbleweed; Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; and John Sayles’ Matewan and Blaze. Moviegoers have had the pleasure of enjoying this icon of moviemaking for over 60 years and we are honored to welcome him to Mendocino.

Coffee with Haskell Wexler and Bill Nichols
Sunday, June 6, 11:00 am,
Little River Inn Abalone Room, $10
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From low-budget documentaries to bigger-than-life IMAX films, the work of Haskell Wexler spans decades, genres and the evolution of technology. Please join us for a rare chance to participate in a conversation with Wexler, one of the foremost filmmakers and cinematographers of our time (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Medium Cool, American Graffiti, The Thomas Crown Affair, Matewan) and Dr. Bill Nichols, an internationally-known author and theorist on documentary filmmaking (Introduction to Documentary; Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary). Wexler and Nichols will discuss truth and reality in filmmaking and visit questions such as: What can film do and not do? How do documentaries contribute to political change? What are the unique challenges of filmmaking today? They will also entertain questions from the audience.

Magic and Conversations with Daniel Ellsberg & Wavy Gravy
Saturday, June 5, 3:00 pm,
Matheson Performing Arts Center, $10
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Join us as we reunite two American heroes, Daniel Ellsberg and Wavy Gravy. Dan and Wavy met in prison while jailed for acts of civil disobedience related to their anti-war and anti-nuclear activism. In a casual, free-form conversation they will look back, look ahead and respond to your questions, and even reprise some moments from their “Tornado of Talent” prison show, magic tricks and all.