POINTS NORTH PRESENTS: CAMDEN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ENCORES 

Missed some of the films on your list at CIFF? You’re not alone!

Catch encore screenings of festival stand outs at select theaters across Maine this fall.

 

CAMDEN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
FREE COMMUNITY SCREENING

Wednesday, September 16th, 6:00 PM
Carl Sagan: We Are Made of Star Stuff 
Directed by Nanette Burstein, 2026

An intimate portrait of visionary astronomer, author and television star Carl Sagan, whose groundbreaking ideas transformed our understanding of the cosmos and human existence.

We’re kicking off our festival this year with a free community screening at The Strom Auditorium at Camden Hills Regional High School!

The unreleased National Geographic film is an intimate portrait of the visionary astronomer, author, and television star whose groundbreaking ideas transformed our understanding of the cosmos and human existence.

Reserve a Free Ticket!

This free Community Screening is presented by Cold Mountain Builders. Thank you as well to First National Bank and Maine Math and Science Alliance for your support.

October 9, 10, & 11
The Strand Theatre, Rockland

Friday, October 9th, 5:00 PM

Boatbuilders

Dir. Luke Lorentzen, 2026

Across four seasons, the skilled craftspeople of Maine’s Brooklin Boat Yard meticulously transform planks of Douglas fir, mahogany, and cedar into a 56-foot wooden sailboat—both a fading, time-honored tradition and a delicate business to manage. Sundance award-winning director Luke Lorentzen mirrors their patience, presence, and attention to detail in a reflection on the pride and value of labor that culminates in a breathtaking maiden voyage.

Saturday, October 10th, 5:00 PM

Ceremony

Dir. Banchi Hanuse, 2026

On the Bella Coola River, the disappearance of the ooligan fish echoes the colonial harm faced by the Nuxalk people. Through radio transmissions, animation, archives, and personal testimony, Ceremony tracks the search for the fish as it broadens into a story of land protection and cultural survival. Told with patience and warmth, this film preserves memory through storytelling as care becomes an act of renewal, resistance, and sovereignty for generations to come.

Sunday, October 11th, 5:00 PM

Once Upon a Time in Harlem

Dir. William Greaves, David Greaves, 2025

On a summer evening in 1972, Duke Ellington’s townhouse fills with the surviving luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance. A film crew captures the kaleidoscopic recollections of artists and intellectuals who shaped this catalytic moment in the movement for Black liberation. A half century later, the director’s son and granddaughter revive this unseen archive as an electrifying work of vérité oral history.

October 27 & 29
The Colonial Theatre, Belfast

Tuesday, October 27th, 6:30 PM

Bucks Harbor

Dir. Pete Muller, 2026

Lobsters survive harsh conditions and predators by developing thick shells, but in order to grow they must periodically shed these protective layers. As the seasons change in a Down East Maine lobstering village, fathers and sons undergo their own cycles of guardedness and vulnerability. With great curiosity and care, photographer Pete Muller observes these longer arcs of inheritance, crafting a moving cinematic portrait of masculinities and the environments that shape them.

Thursday, October 29th, 6:30 PM

Jaripeo

Dir. Efraín Mojica, Rebecca Zweig, 2026

Within the hypermasculine rodeos of rural Mexico exists a vibrant queer subculture. Follow the winding country roads to the Jaripeo, where men climb atop bucking bulls, cowboys sneak away for secret hookups, and gender-bending performers take the arena in this prismatic yet personal celebration of queer rural life.

November 6 & 7
The Portland Museum of Art, Portland

 

Friday, November 6th, 6:00 PM

The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer

Dir. Alessandra Sanguinetti, 2026

What does a twenty-five year friendship look like? This film compresses time to reveal its patterns. Guilermina and Bellinda are two cousins growing up in the rural Argentine Pampas. At first, the camera opens a space for their games and fantasies; later, it follows their journeys from girlhood to womanhood. What emerges is a tender portrait exploring the relationship between time and human connection.

Saturday, November 7th, 12:00 PM

Boatbuilders

Dir. Luke Lorentzen, 2026

Across four seasons, the skilled craftspeople of Maine’s Brooklin Boat Yard meticulously transform planks of Douglas fir, mahogany, and cedar into a 56-foot wooden sailboat—both a fading, time-honored tradition and a delicate business to manage. Sundance award-winning director Luke Lorentzen mirrors their patience, presence, and attention to detail in a reflection on the pride and value of labor that culminates in a breathtaking maiden voyage.

Saturday, November 7th, 3:00 PM

Revolutionaries Never Die

Dir. Mohanad Yaqubi, 2026

Ten years ago, prolific Lebanese documentary filmmaker Jocelyne Saab emailed director Mohanad Yaqubi suggesting a collaboration. He never responded. Jocelyne passed away, and her films were finally archived. In this documentary letter, Mohanad writes back. Via her images and his words, he poses pressing questions, filmmaker to filmmaker, as he confronts the haunting repetition between her images and those emerging today from Palestine and Lebanon.

November 10 & 18
SPACE GALLERY, Portland

Tuesday, November 10th, 7:00 PM

How to Clean a House in 10 Easy Steps

Dir. Carolina Gonzalez Valencia, 2026

Moving fluidly between performance and reflection, How to Clean a House in Ten Easy Steps imagines a world in which the director’s mother Beatriz, a domestic worker in the US, is a best-selling author. Using the fabricated book as a framework to explore the complex conditions of her life, mother and daughter weave a fantastical and fragmented tale of immigration, domestic labor, authorship, and mythology.

Wednesday, November 18th, 7:00 PM

Dirigo Docs

Maine is not just the gathering place for CIFF, but a living, breathing landscape shaped by the storytellers who tend to its memories. Across this year’s selection of locally made short films, stewardship comes alive as a daily practice. From tending to a wooden boat and caring for farm animals to forging Muslim foodways and preserving Passamaquoddy traditions, these stories explore what it means to inherit and sustain this place—and its histories—with intention.

Steward·Ship, Dir. Luke Kaneb, 2026
Sweetgrass, Dir. Mike Sockabasin, Emily Karlik, 2024
Oxbow, Dir. Greg Kohs, 2026
Fish Film, Dir. Emma Baiada, 2026
Claws for Concern, Dir. Julia Forsyth, 2026
For a Moment the Clouds Parted and I Felt the Sun, Dir. Jared Lank, 2026
May the Water Not Freeze, Dir. Zahira Chaudhry, 2026
Children & Animals, Dir. Walker Kalan, 2026

POINTS NORTH PRESENTS

Points North Presents is a monthly screening series from the team behind the Camden International Film Festival. In collaboration with the Strand Theatre, we’re bringing some of the year’s best documentaries to Midcoast Maine.

Once a month we will gather in the historic Strand to share films that have earned their place on the world stage — documentaries that might otherwise only be seen at major festivals, now here in Rockland. Each screening is followed by a lively Q&A or facilitated conversation, often with the filmmaker in attendance, creating space for genuine exchange between artists and audiences.

Attendees are also invited after the screening to join the Points North team next door for a night cap and a recap of the film at Lemon Bar.

Points North Presents is a monthly screening series from the team behind the Camden International Film Festival. In collaboration with the Strand Theatre, we’re bringing some of the year’s best documentaries to Midcoast Maine.

On the fourth Thursday of May, June, July, and August we will gather in the historic Strand to share films that have earned their place on the world stage — documentaries that might otherwise only be seen at major festivals, now here in Rockland. Each screening is followed by a lively Q&A or facilitated conversation, often with the filmmaker in attendance, creating space for genuine exchange between artists and audiences.

Attendees are also invited after the screening to join the Points North team next door for a night cap and a recap of the film at Lemon Bar.

Join us at the Strand Theatre in Rockland for our monthly Fourth Thursday Documentary Series!

Come for the film. Stay for the conversation. 

Come for the film. Stay for the conversation. 

Tickets are $12 General Admission and $10 for Seniors, Students, and Strand Members, and may be purchased directly through the Strand Theatre.

Purchase Tickets for the Rockland Screenings

If you are interested in supporting future events like these or Points North’s other programming you can donate today at the link below.

Donate

Thursday, November 15th, 7:00 PM
A Bend in the River
Dir. Robb Moss, 2025

Filming five friends for nearly fifty-years—first as free-spirited guides on the Colorado River—director Robb Moss now finds the group in their seventies grappling with the choices they’ve made as individuals and as a generation. The film interweaves moments from the distant past with those of the recent present, exploring the inexorable flow of aging and the unfinished project of living.

Join us this Spring for the launch of our Fourth Thursday Documentary Series!

Thursday, June 25th, 7:00 PM

Everybody to Kenmure Street

Directed by Felipe Bustos Sierra, 2026

In Glasgow, on the first morning of Eid, Scottish immigration enforcement officers detained two men — triggering one of the most spontaneous and successful acts of civil resistance in recent memory. 

The film, co-presented by the ACLU of Maine, will be followed by a panel discussion  connecting this powerful film documentary set in Glasgow, to the state of immigrant rights in our community. Participants include  Somali-American activist and Maine State Representative Mana Abdi, an organizer from Midcoast mutual aid network Community Relief Fund, and ACLU of Maine immigration attorney Max Brooks.

The film, co-presented by the ACLU of Maine, will be followed by a panel discussion  connecting this powerful film documentary set in Glasgow, to the state of immigrant rights in our community. Participants include Somali-American activist and Maine State Representative Mana Abdi, an organizer from Midcoast mutual aid network Community Relief Fund, and ACLU of Maine immigration attorney Max Brooks.

Thursday, July 23rd, 7:00 PM

Time and Water 

Directed by Oscar nominee Sara Dosa, 2026

Facing the death of his country’s glaciers and the loss of his beloved grandparents, an Icelandic writer turns his archives into a time capsule to hold what is slipping away.

Friday, July 24th, 7:00 PM | Waterman’s Community Center, North Haven, Maine

Time and Water 

Directed by Sara Dosa, 2026

POINTS NORTH PRESENTS SCREENING SERIES

Points North Presents is a monthly screening series that extends the spirit of the Camden International Film Festival throughout the year. In collaboration with the Strand Theatre, we’re bringing some of the world’s most exciting and thought-provoking documentary films and filmmakers to the Midcoast Maine community.

On the Fourth Thursday of March, April and May, we will gather in the historic Strand to share unforgettable films and the conversations they spark. Each screening will be followed by a lively Q&A or facilitated discussion — often with the filmmaker in attendance!

Points North Presents is made possible by generous support from the Dave Nichols Charitable Trust — alongside our Official Media Sponsor, the Midcoast Villager.

General support for the series is provided by Perspective Fund; the Lesher Family Foundation; Onion Foundation; Fisher Charitable Foundation; and the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts; as well as our tremendous individual donors.

Join us this Spring for the launch of our Fourth Thursday Documentary Series! Come for the film. Stay for the conversation. 

Thursday, March 26th, 7:00 PM

The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist

Directed by Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell, 2026

From the Academy Award®-winning filmmakers behind Everything Everywhere All at Once and Navalny; a father-to-be tries to figure out what is happening with all this AI insanity. The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist is a hand-made, eye-opening documentary about the most powerful technology humanity has ever created… and what’s at stake if we get it wrong.

This inaugural screening will be free and open to all.

Thursday, April 23rd, 7:00 PM

Cutting Through Rocks – filmmaker in attendance 

Directed by Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni, 2025

As the first elected councilwoman of her remote Iranian village, Sara Shahverdi fearlessly breaks patriarchal traditions by training teenage girls to ride motorcycles and stopping child marriages. When accusations arise questioning Sara’s intentions to empower the girls, her identity is put in turmoil.

Thursday, May 28th, 7:00 PM

Natchez – post-screening Q&A 

Directed by Suzannah Herbert, 2025

Natchez captures an unsettling clash between history and memory in a small Mississippi town; a layered mosaic of people contending with the weight of the past in a place where it is always present. Equal parts amusing and disturbing, we journey through an antebellum tourist destination at a crossroads as it grapples with a deeply troubled history that is so thoroughly ingrained in its present, we’re left to wonder if it’s actually past at all.

Tickets are $12 General Admission and $10 for Seniors, Students, and Strand Members, and may be purchased directly through the Strand Theatre.

If you are interested in supporting future events like these or Points North’s other programming you can donate today at the link below.

FREE COMMUNITY SCREENING OF IAN CHENEY’S OBSERVER 

Join us on Wednesday, September 10th at 6:00pm, at Camden Hills Regional High School, Strom Auditorium. 

The 21st Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) will kick off with a special free community screening for the first time! Observer is a new documentary by Camden-based filmmaker Ian Cheney.

Fresh off its world premiere at the prestigious CPH:DOX film festival in Copenhagen, Observer is a poetic and inquisitive journey into the art of looking closely. From street corners to starfields, Cheney’s film brings viewers into conversation with scientists, artists, and everyday observers, revealing the wonder woven into daily life.

The evening will feature live music, a Q&A with Cheney and special guests, and a chance to gather with friends and neighbors before CIFF officially begins. The screening is open and welcome for teenagers and adults.

This event is free and open to the public. Register to save you or your friends and family’s spot today! Doors open at 5:30PM.

Observer is presented as part of Points North’s ongoing effort to build community through the power of nonfiction storytelling — not just within the international film world, but here at home in the Midcoast.

We hope to see you there! If you are interested in supporting future events like these or Points North’s other programming you can donate today at the link below.

Observer
Ian Cheney
USA, 2025, 94 mins

Points North Presents is produced in collaboration with The Strand. Support for the program is generously provided by Davis Family Foundation and the Dave Nichols Charitable Trust, with media support from Midcoast Villager.

General support for Points North is provided by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Perspective Fund; the Lesher Family Foundation; Onion Foundation; Another Light Foundation; WaterWheel Foundation, Fisher Charitable Foundation; and the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts; as well as our tremendous individual donors.