On Tour: The Best of the 2017 Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival - Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

VTIFF is delighted to be partnering with the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival to host a special evening of On Tour: The Best of MNFF 2017 - co-curated by MNFF Artistic Director Jay Craven and MNFF Producer Lloyd Komesar, in consultation with VTIFF Executive Director Orly Yadin. The evening will include two films and a reception in between screenings. Tickets can be purchased singly for each film but we urge you to book for both and join us for the reception in between screenings to meet and greet the filmmakers and Jay Craven, Artistic Director of MNFF. Tickets for The Peacemaker can be purchased HERE.
We are very grateful to Main Street Landing for being the Host Sponsor for the evening.

5:00pm ⎮ Film House
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story
Directed by Alexandra Dean⎮ USA ⎮ Documentary ⎮ 90 mins

What do the most ravishingly beautiful actress of the 1930s and 40s — and the brainy inventor whose concepts led to cell phone and bluetooth technology have in common? They are both Hedy Lamarr, the glamour icon whose ravishing visage who was widely heralded as “the most beautiful woman in the world” — and was the inspiration for Snow White and Cat Woman. But Lamarr also had a secret identity—as a technological trailblazer who perfected a radio system to throw Nazi torpedoes off course during WWII.

This riveting film weaves interviews and clips with never-before-heard audio tapes of Hedy speaking on the record about her incredible life.  We get an up-close look at her beginnings as an Austrian Jewish emigre whose scandalous nude scene in the 1933 film, Ecstasy, caused such an enormous international uproar that even the Pope was moved to denounce it. After capturing Lamarr's glittering Hollywood life and her ground-breaking but completely uncredited inventions, director Dean follows the actress/inventor’s retreat, during her later years, when she became a recluse, impoverished and almost forgotten.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story brings to light the story of an extraordinary, unusual and accomplished woman, spurned as too beautiful to be smart, but still a role model to this day.

"Very enjoyable—one of the best movies of 2017.  Ms. Dean relates Lamarr’s ventures, those onscreen and off, with savvy and narrative snap, fluidly marshaling a mix of original interviews and archival material that includes film clips, home movies and other footage.”  — Manhola Dargis, New York Times.

“Yet what what makes "Bombshell" intriguing is not just Lamarr's gift for invention, it's also what a fiery individualist she was, someone who had no regrets about her eventful life ("You learn from everything"), not even its racy, tabloid elements.”  — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

6:30pm ⎮ Lake Lobby
Reception and meet and greet the curators and filmmakers

7:30pm ⎮ Film House
The Peacemaker
Directed by James Demo ⎮ USA ⎮ Documentary ⎮ 90 mins ⎮ Followed by Q&A with.....

Tickets for The Peacemaker can be purchased HERE.