By Jim Pitt Harris

Mark Milgard's Dandelion

I arrive at the Stony Brook Film Festival, which takes place on the campus of Stony Brook University, and I wonder if it’s not hiding in some spider hole. At the Staller Center for the Arts the only signs that the festival is happening are the ones curling in the windows announcing that Garden State has sold out. But within 10 minutes festival director Alan Inkles is taking me to lunch, swiping his meal card at the university cafeteria and thundering about the spirit of the festival — 10 days of premieres, features and documentaries.

Come evening, it is clear why the Stony Brook Film Festival — now in its ninth year — has garnered such respect. Inkles, who picks 12 features and 16 shorts from some 400 submissions, programs the festival to appeal to a range of interests and to match the intellectual tenor of its university setting. Short films and features are treated with equal respect; every night one of each is paired off in a sort of cinematic buddy system. And there is a chance for all participants to meet, either during the evening reception, when filmmakers and industry professionals toast each screening with champagne and miniature sandwiches, or during the gatherings of audience and filmmaker after the films.

Throughout the festival, a number of receptions, panels and tributes kept things human. During the weekend Village Voice critic Michael Atkinson moderated a panel titled “A Filmmaker and Distributor’s Journey,” which brought all filmmakers screening at the competition together to discuss the making of their films and the art of attracting distributors. Sunday was supposed to honor Academy Award–winning actress Patricia Neal for her lifelong contribution to film and theater, but she was unable to attend due to shoulder surgery. Stephen Shearer, her biographer, and Mary McDonough, writer-director of the short For the Love of May, accepted the award on her behalf. Other notable no-shows were Natalie Portman and Zach Braff of Garden State.

This year’s festival, while small, included three U.S. premieres. First, the Australian drama Swimming Upstream, starring Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis and Jesse Spencer, tells the inspirational true story of Olympic swimmer Tony Fingleton. Stephen Whittaker’s U.K. World War II drama The Rocket Post not only was a premiere but also garnered the festival Grand Prize. Finally, there was the premiere of Ruud van Hemert’s Dutch romantic comedy Love Trap. The Jury Award for Best Feature went to Ryan Little’s Saints and Soldiers, a stunningly shot drama that follows Hitler’s invasion into Belgium and tracks American soldiers who hope to survive captivity in the harsh winter during the Battle of the Bulge. Chris Tashima’s drama of Japanese internment during WWII, Day of Independence, garnered the Jury Award for Best Short. There are also two Audience Choice Awards, one of which went to Mark J. Gordon’s New Zealand coming-of-age drama Her Majesty for Best Feature and one to Eva Saks’s story of a very messy girl, Colorforms, for Best Short.

This year, many films presented characters being defined by land and landscape. Filmed in Washington and Idaho, Mark Milgard’s Dandelion — starring Vincent Kartheiser, Taryn Manning, Mare Winningham and Arliss Howard — tracks a boy’s search for love and plays off the tension of emotionally conflicted characters living in an emotionally beautiful landscape. Similarly, Campbell Scott’s Off the Map — with stunning performances from Sam Elliott, Joan Allen, Jim True-Frost and Valentina de Angelis — uses its New Mexico setting as a central character, allowing the land to have a transformative effect in the story. David Newman of Holedigger Films joined actor True-Frost at the festival to talk about the distribution process and the development of a play into a film.

But as a small local festival, the Stony Brook Film Festival’s real strength lies in its sense of intimacy and appreciation. Award winner Mark J. Gordon wrapped it up perfectly: “Your professionalism, the warmth and hospitality of your staff and volunteers... together with delivering an unforgettable packed-to-the-rafters screening, puts you, in my book, in the top tier of filmmaker-friendly festivals anywhere.”

Jim Pitt Harris left the corporate world to pursue filmmaking and photography. He is from Greenville, South Carolina.