Short Takes on Film

State of the Arts

MountainTop Human Rights Film Festival

Friday, January 14, through Thursday, January 20, at Big Picture Theater in Waitsfield. $6-8 per film. mountaintopfilmfestival.com

‘Move Me’

Thursday, January 13, 7 p.m., at Palace 9 Cinema in South Burlington. $6-9.

‘The Dragon Wall’

Sunday, January 16, 1, 3:30 & 6 p.m. at Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center in Stowe. $5.

‘My Run: The Terry Hitchcock Story’

Saturday, January 15, 4 & 7 p.m. at the Film House, Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center in Burlington. $10.

Curious about the next feature film from Eugene Jarecki, who directed the acclaimed documentary Why We Fight? You can get a sneak peek at this weekend’s MountainTop Human Rights Film Festival at Big Picture Theater in Waitsfield, which Jarecki cofounded with his wife, Claudia Becker. He’ll be on hand for a Q&A after the Sunday 8 p.m. screening.

Jarecki directed a segment of this year’s Freakonomics. According to the Internet Movie Database, his next film is Irreparable Harm, a fact-based HBO drama about the CIA.

Among other films playing at the fest are some familiar docs — Waiting for “Superman”, The Tillman Story — enhanced with live filmmaker interviews via iCam. Vermont Commons presents This Land Is Our Land, a documentary about reclaiming common lands from corporate interests, followed by an in-person Q&A with David Cobb of the national Green Party.

This Thursday, you could be one of the first to see the Vermont-made film Move Me, from South Burlington writer-director Mark Williams. It’s a feature-length comedy about a grocery-store clerk who struggles with credit problems, a diva boss, an angry wife and, on occasion, the cops as he tries to start his own business.

Move Me has a cast and crew of 40 locals. Its shooting locations included “Mac’s Market in Essex Junction, the Monkey House in Winooski, a steel bridge in Montpelier for a Nazi nightmare scene, and Al’s French Frys,” according to a press release.

Sunday brings the premiere of another Vermont movie, The Dragon Wall, from writer-producer-directors Mark Freeman and Brandon St. Cyr. Catch the 24-minute fantasy film, shot in Johnson and Cambridge, at Stowe Mountain Resort’s new Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center.

On Saturday, RunVermont hosts two Burlington screenings of My Run, a documentary about Newport, Vt., native Terry Hitchcock, who ran 75 consecutive marathons in as many days after his wife died of breast cancer. Hitchcock will be on hand starting at 5:30 p.m. to discuss the film.

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