ALIVE INSIDE

This winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival investigates the power of music. Dan Cohen, a social worker, decides on a whim to bring iPods to a nursing home. Joined by renowned neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks, the film leads us to a deeper understanding of how music functions in our brains and its power to transform those who most need it.

BICYCLING WITH MOLIÉRE

A once great actor, Serge Tanneur (Fabrice Luchini, The Women on the 6th Floor), has retired from the limelight. He lives in solitude, spending his time cycling through the windswept landscape of the Île de Ré off the west coast of France. Fellow actor Gauthier Valence (Lambert Wilson), whose career is flying high, is planning a production of Molière's play “The Misanthrope” and wants to offer Serge a leading role. They rehearse together for a week. Things look to be going well, especially when a mysterious Italian divorcee (Maya Sansa) appears.

BURT’S BUZZ

Discussion to follow with Jody Shapiro

Burt Shavitz, the eccentric, beekeeping co-founder of Burt’s Bees, detached from his skincare empire decades ago, reaping virtually nothing from the company's financial success. Despite that, Burt remains contractually obligated to be the face of his former company. This insightful portrait takes you into the paradox of Burt, who represents a billion-dollar brand while continuing to live in a renovated turkey coop in the backwoods of Maine. You’ll laugh out loud and in the end look differently at the brand of every product you use.

THE DOG

Preceded by a performance by DanceTheYard, resident performance company of The Yard

A passionate portrait of the late John Wojtowicz, whose attempted robbery of a Brooklyn bank to finance his male lover's sex-reassignment surgery was the real-life inspiration for the 1975 Al Pacino film Dog Day Afternoon. We gain an historic perspective on New York's gay liberation movement, in which Wojtowicz played an active role, backed by the unconditional love of his mother whose wit and charm infuse the film. You won’t be able to turn your eyes away because Wojtowicz holds nothing back: "Live every day as if it's your last and whoever doesn't like it can go f@*k themselves and a rubber duck."

THE FACE OF LOVE

Five years after losing her husband, Nikki (Annette Bening) falls in love again—but what her new beau Tom (Ed Harris) doesn't know is that he's also the near perfect double of her deceased husband. Nikki spirals into a fantasy of the present as past, while Tom must unravel the mystery behind her immediate and unconditional love. Robin Williams, Jess Weixler, and Amy Brenneman play supporting roles in this romance filled with intrigue, surprise, and reflections on the mystery of love and second chances.

FADING GIGOLO

Woody Allen plays a pimp and John Turturro his gigolo employee. Got that? Accept the brilliantly absurd premise and you're in for a hilarious ride. Working from his own screenplay, Turturro sets up the crazy idea in quick, bold strokes, then goes on to explore just what it would mean to be a middle-aged man for hire. His characters are strong and unapologetic, including legendary screen sexpots Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara who turn up as eager clients. But the film's most surprising and affecting element is the romance that develops between the gigolo and an orthodox Jewish widow.

LEVITATED MASS: THE STORY OF MICHAEL HEIZER’S MONOLITHIC SCULPTURE

Since he began producing land art in the late 1960s, Michael Heizer's large-scale projects have been challenging in both description and execution, and the 340-ton rock that was discovered in a quarry and ultimately became an art exhibition in Los Angeles is no exception.

MAIDENTRIP

Discussion to follow with director Jillian Schlesinger

Set sail with an intrepid 14-year-old who embarks, camera in hand, on a two-year voyage in pursuit of her dream to be the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone. In the wake of a year-long battle with Dutch authorities that sparked a global storm of media scrutiny, she now finds herself at sea. You’ll gasp for breath with her as she faces the ultimate test of self reliance, a 27,000-mile ocean journey.

MCCONKEY

Discussion to follow with director and film editor David Zieff

Shane McConkey was a superstar on the snow—a pioneer of two of the world’s most adventurous sports, freeskiing and ski-BASE jumping. As an athlete and an innovator, he was revered by fellow skiers for his daring, creativity, humor, and passion for life. In this jaw-dropping tribute, his friends, family, and the extreme sports community celebrate the incredible life and times of a man determined to define for himself what it means to live life to the fullest.

MONSIEUR LE PRÉSIDENT

Discussion to follow with director and Martha’s Vineyard resident Victoria Campbell

American filmmaker Victoria Campbell enters Haiti just days after the 2010 Haitian earthquake, with a camera and a small valise of medical supplies. There she meets Gaston, a beloved voodoo priest who, with nothing but hustle and hope, revives a defunct clinic and staffs it with a doctor and nurses. Gaston is celebrated in the neighborhood, but then the story takes a sinister turn. No one is a hero. Nothing is what it seems.

NORTH OF THE SUN

Introduced by Ari Lurie, founder of the Mill Valley Surf Film Festival

Two young Norwegians decide to follow their dream of spending nine winter months surfing a secret, uninhabited Arctic bay—while testing a hypothesis that they could live happily, and even comfortably, off the waste of others. In between surfing, paragliding, and snowboarding in a spectacular setting, they build a cabin and stove out of driftwood and other detritus, create tools to help clean up the beach, and subsist almost entirely without buying food.

OBVIOUS CHILD

When Donna gets heartlessly dumped by her two-timing boyfriend, she plunges into some light stalking and heavy moping. After performing a dreary set of break-up vengeance and Holocaust jokes, she drunkenly falls into bed with a nice young professional named Max. A few weeks later, she’s pregnant. Now Donna, incapable of telling anything but the naked truth when she’s on stage, will resort to any means to avoid telling Max the news.

THE SAME HEART

Discussion to follow with directors and Vineyard residents Georgia and Len Morris

Vineyard filmmakers Georgia and Len Morris expose the appalling adversity that children in underdeveloped countries endure. Through interviews with international economists, moral leaders, and Kenyan community activists, they bring you face to face with the human rights issues that affect these children. Having spent a decade documenting global inequality, the filmmakers dare to devise a strategy to combat poverty and submit an unprecedented proposal that could place children’s welfare at the heart of the global financial system.

THE OVERNIGHTERS

The recent Steinbeckian exodus to the oil rigs of North Dakota has tens of thousands of unemployed men descending on the state with dreams of six-figure salaries but nowhere to live. This Special Jury Award winner at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival follows one pastor who converts his church into a makeshift dorm and counseling center. As broken men arrive in droves, the congregants sling criticism, neighbors get suspicious, and the town threatens to shut the center down. With unfettered access to electrifying and poignant moments, it’s impossible not to be riveted by the pastor’s persistence and complexities.

ROOM TO BREATHE

Discussion to follow with Mindful Schools co-founder Megan Cowan, moderated by Jake Davis; followed by an optional period of mindfulness meditation, with instruction

How can we focus in an increasingly distracting world? Can we teach our kids to do it? This film explores one promising solution. A young mindfulness teacher, Megan Cowan, attempts to teach the technique to troubled kids in a San Francisco public middle school that tops its district in disciplinary suspensions. Can she succeed? This film surprises us with its hopeful portrayal of kids, parents, teachers, and a school system being transformed by the power of the mind.

SHORED UP

Discussion to follow with director Ben Kalina, Dr. Ben Horton, and President of the Woods Hole Research Center, Richard Houghton in attendance

What will a rising sea do to our homes and the survival of our community? Can we afford to pile enough sand on our shores to keep the ocean at bay? The people of Martha’s Vineyard, like those in every other coastal community, are racing to answer these questions. Beach engineering has been our only approach so far, but is there something else worth exploring?

THESE BIRDS WALK

Here’s a side of Pakistan you may not have seen—and a film not about the Taliban. In this stunning observational documentary, filmed in the capital city of Karachi, a run­away boy’s life hangs on one crit­i­cal ques­tion: where is home? The streets, an orphan­age, or with the fam­ily he fled in the first place? Simul­ta­ne­ously heart-wrenching and life-affirming, These Birds Walk doc­u­ments the strug­gles of way­ward street chil­dren and the samar­i­tans look­ing out for them.

52 TUESDAYS

Sixteen-year-old Billie is blindsided by the news that her mother is planning to transition from female to male, and that Billie must live at her father’s house during the first year. Billie and her mother have always been extremely close, so the two make an agreement to meet every Tuesday. As her mother transitions and becomes less emotionally available, Billie keeps a video diary and covertly explores her own identity and sexuality with two older schoolmates, testing the limits of her own power, desire, and independence.

VINEYARD SHORTS

Discussion to follow with the directors and writers

From viral music videos to compelling international narratives, Vineyarders are raising the bar with this collection of homegrown short films.

WHITEY: USA V. JAMES J. BULGER

Discussion to follow with Hank Brennan, Whitey Bulger’s defense attorney, and Steve Davis, brother of a murder victim

This film uses the proceedings of "Whitey" Bulger's sensational trial as a springboard to explore allegations of corruption within the highest levels of law enforcement. Embedded for months with federal prosecutors, retired FBI and state police, victims, lawyers, gangsters, and journalists, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Joe Berlinger pulls back the curtain on long-held Bulger mythology and offers a universal tale of human frailty, opportunism, deception, and the often elusive nature of truth and justice.