Earlier this month, the 14th Annual Monadnock International Film Festival (MONIFF) was held in Keene, bringing a variety of curated films to the local community. This year, one of the films included in the MONIFF lineup was created by Keene resident and former KSC adjunct art professor Craig Stockwell.
Hosted across several venues in downtown Keene, such as the Showroom and the Keene Public Library, the in-person screenings for MONIFF took place from Oct. 2 to Oct. 4. During the following two weeks, from Oct. 6 to Oct. 15, virtual screenings of the films were available for on-demand purchase on the MONIFF website. This gave community members additional chances to view the festival’s lineup.
In an email statement, MONIFF Chair and Festival Programmer Deirdre Fitzgerald described the festival as “one of the most exciting organizations in the Monadnock region, celebrating the art of filmmaking, visual storytelling, and the craft of filmmakers.”
“The annual three-day, in-person festival is only one of the many year-round screenings we host highlighting topics relevant to various non-profits and organizations in the community,” she stated. “Most films screened during the in-person festival are free to attend, and all community screenings held throughout the year are free to the public.”
Now in her sixth year in charge of MONIFF programming, Fitzgerald said this year’s edition of the festival felt particularly energetic.
“While every year is unique and special, I have to say that the energy behind this year’s festival was amazing, largely thanks to the number and impressive quality of storytelling from local, regional, and international filmmakers, and the increased number of filmmakers in attendance,” stated Fitzgerald. “When the filmmaker and those connected to a film are in the audience, it adds an extra level of excitement and opportunity for the community to connect with the content being presented.”
Despite being a featured filmmaker at this year’s festival, Stockwell said that he is primarily a painter. He said that filmmaking was a newer medium for him, and he began the work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I took a class in video and performance and started making my own short videos in conjunction with work I was doing in the studio,” said Stockwell. “Most of them I call memorials. They have to do with a person or a place that I’ve been deeply connected to and the video gives me a way to tell a larger story than just the paintings, but I include the making of the paintings and the gathering of the research and all of that within the film itself.”
Stockwell said that the film he premiered at MONIFF, titled “Three Pairs of Paintings,” documents the creation of paintings he made last year as a memorial for a close friend who took his life.
Described as “poetic” rather than “linear narrative,” Stockwell said the film includes footage of the painting process, a walk in the woods in Dublin, Stockwell speaking at his friend’s memorial service and excerpts from “The Dead,” a short story by James Joyce published in 1914.
In addition to the screening of his film, Stockwell’s art pieces were also displayed in the venue during the festival.
As for the process of curating the lineup of films screened at MONIFF, Fitzgerald said that over 100 films were reviewed for selection by a committee this year. Final choices were made based on story diversity, quality of content and relevance to the community. She added that Stockwell’s film stuck out as a perfect choice for this year’s festival lineup.
“[Stockwell] is a notable, award-winning painter who quietly and brilliantly goes about his craft… His film, while experimental, is a deeply personal piece dedicated to a friend who passed last year, and it resonated with me. It was a definite for inclusion in the festival, as I saw it as an opportunity to introduce this quiet yet brilliant man to the festival community,” stated Fitzgerald. “I hope this is the beginning of a new avenue of expression [for Stockwell].”
Stockwell said he had been a fan of MONIFF for several years. Due to his own film’s unique format, he was unsure of what to do with it, and decided to submit it for the festival. Even though he is used to sharing his artwork with others, Stockwell said premiering his film was a new kind of experience for him.
“Any artist wants to be seen, and normally I’m seen through my work hanging on gallery walls and such, which is a little removed,” Stockwell said. “There’s something about a film showing that’s a little more immediate because everybody is in the room together and for the four minutes everybody is attentive to your story.”
“I talked to several people afterwards who were very moved, and that was important to me,” he added.
Stockwell said the experience had opened his mind to the possibility of submitting his work to more film festivals in the future.
“I have probably about 25 of these films now and had been wondering what to do, and now I understand there is this whole film festival circuit,” he said. “It’s a new world.”
Justin Dearborn can be contacted at
jdearborn@kscequinox.com
