On Friday, April 4th from 5:30-9 pm, Art of Biddeford and the Vacationland Film Festival presents at City Theater the first Biddeford Mini Film Festival, a one-evening event sharing two feature-length and two short documentary films focused on social themes and issues in Maine.

The immigrant experience, mental health, recovery, the LGBTQIA+ community, and the history and culture (and the “in-betweenness”) of the communities bordering Canada are all empathetically and beautifully portrayed in the featured films. Filmmakers Nyamuon “Moon” Nguany Machar (I Come From Away: An Immigrant in Maine, Part One and Part Two), Katy Haas and Megan Ruffe (La Frontière) and Marissa (Riss) Bickford (Recovery in ME: Queer Voices) all share the story of what it is to be a Mainer.

I Come From Away: An Immigrant in Maine, Part I:

Nyamuon “Moon” Nguany Machar, a 30-year old African woman in Portland, Maine shares her story of immigration through personal and familial histories and poetry. David Zwalita Mota tells the story of his journey, fleeing the violence of the Democratic Republic of Congo along with his young family. By weaving together the journeys of both Moon and David, documenting the city of Portland’s response to an influx of asylum seekers, and the desire by Moon to help asylum seekers secure pathways to mental health, I Come From Away: An Immigrant in Maine speaks to the modern immigration experience.

I Come From Away, An Immigrant in Maine, Part 2:

Nyamuon “Moon” Nguany Machar focuses her lens on the extraordinary effort made by the city of Sanford, Maine, to accommodate hundreds of asylum seekers who showed up unexpectedly one day in the spring of 2023. Known as “the city which never dies” because of its resilience after the decline of the once-thriving textile industry, the city of Sanford responded in force at every level. City officials, community action workers, police and volunteers jumped into the fray. Where to put the new arrivals? How to feed them? The immigrants showed up on a Friday in front of Sanford City Hall, which was closed at the time. With no help from the federal or state governments, Sanford was on its own. In this new film, Moon tracks this incredible story over the course of several months as these new Mainers learn how to apply for work permits and adapt to their first winter in Maine.

La Frontière:

La Frontière is a poetic documentary portrait of Northern Maine’s borderlands. Through interviews, vérité moments and scenic landscapes, this 35-minute film takes viewer on an exploration of the history and culture of the six-hundred and eleven mile-long border between Maine and its norther neighbors Quebec and New Brunswick. The film screened at the 2022 Camden International Film Festival in Midcoast Maine, in the 2023 Rhode Island International Film Festival in Providence, RI and Monadnock International Film Festival in Keene, NH, as well as in festivals in Louisiana and France. It was first broadcast on Maine Public, and has also been shown on Vermont Public and New Hampshire PBS. La Frontière is supported by grants from the Points North Institute/TV5Monde and the Keith Campbell Family Foundation and is fiscally sponsored by UnionDocs, Inc.

Recovery in Maine: Queer Voices:

The short documentary, titled RECOVERY IN MAINE: QUEER VOICES, explores the intersection of LGBTQIA+ identities and recovery. Throughout the film, Mainers share their experiences navigating recovery services and spaces as queer people — and navigating queer communities and spaces as people in recovery. The film was produced by Points North Institute in partnership with Governor Mills’ Office of Opioid Response. It was co-produced by the Armadillo Collective, which was founded by Maine filmmaker Alexandra Morrow.

There will be a Q+A with available filmmakers, moderated by Art of Biddeford after the screenings of I Come From Away: An Immigrant in Maine, Part I, La Frontière and Recovery in Maine: Queer Voices. The evening will end with the screening of I Come From Away: An Immigrant in Maine, Part 2.