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Hearts and Minds: Best of the Festival

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Scene from "Prom Night in Mississippi" Scene from "Prom Night in Mississippi"

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  • Of all the films, long and short, at the Hearts and Minds Film Festival, this was by far the best-looking of the bunch. The cinematography, the direction and editing were nothing short of stunning. These were of course cherries on top of a very emotionally-satisfying story that does what the best does, turn tragedy into triumph.  

  • On its surface, this 74-minute documentary could be summed up as stories from Los Angeles' infamous Skid Row. But, filmmaker Rachel Fleischer doesn't just make this an objective look at the homeless men and women struggling to survive. Fleischer involves herself and more than befriends the various homeless people she encounters.  

  • Fashion photographer Courtney Bent goes to a center in Waterton, Mass., that houses and nurses individuals suffering from cerebral palsy. Director and producer George Kachadorian follows Bent, as she starts the "Picture This" project, which gives developmentally-challenged people the opportunity to create art using still cameras.

The 4th Annual Hearts and Minds Film Festival was held this April. The one day event featured 23 movies from all across the country and globe. The movies ran nearly non-stop from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and I was there for the whole 12 hours of movie-watching.  

Overall, every selection was special and very good in its own way. Each had its own merits. I was able to talk to some of the filmmakers, and I'm very envious. They all did very good jobs.
There were a few selections, however, that I felt were particularly outstanding and that I wanted to single out.

In fact, if I had to rank the top five films of the Hearts and Minds Film Festival, the best of the fest would be as follows:  

  1. Prom Night in Mississippi, Directed by Paul Saltzman, 90 minutes.
  2. Hearing Everett: The Rancho Sordo Mudo Story, Directed by Thomas Johnstone, 68 minutes.
  3. Without a Home, Directed by Rachel Fleischer, 74 minutes.
  4. Shooting Beauty, Directed by George Kachadorian, 63 minutes.
  5. Against the Wind, Directed by Dan Masucci, 10 minutes.
For more information about these top films, including my personal reviews on all of them, click on the sidebar articles.
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