Off-the-Square Screening Room Launches at Mystic Art Gallery

Independent Film to be Featured at Medford’s Only Art Gallery; First Edition Will Celebrate The “Doc” Kountze Film Festival

The Mystic Art Gallery will feature celluloid as its new art form on Saturday, May 18 at 7:30 pm, when it becomes the Off-the-Square Screening Room for the evening and brings film back to Medford Square. The gallery, located at 14 Main Street, is launching a cinema series saluting the art of independent filmmaking.

The film festival was named after Mabray “Doc” Kountze, a local newspaper columnist and sportswriter who worked to educate, provide and promote better interracial understanding. The “Doc” Kountze Film Festival took place from 2006 to 2010.

“The Mystic Art Gallery was opened to fill a void in the Medford art community,” said Medford Arts Center, Inc. (MACI) President Mike Oliver. “Bringing film back will also meet a need in Medford. But we’re taking that even further, but promoting the independent filmmaker, who toils at their craft for the love of the craft and not wealth or fame, in the same spirit as our featured artists and members at the Mystic. And what better way to start the Off-the-Square Screening Room than by saluting the Doc Kountze Film Festival!”

“Now that we’re up and running, we wanted to expand past some of the more traditional art forms we offer, to do something new while also honoring Medford’s history,” added Oliver.

The evening will feature filmed interviews with “Doc” Kountze, his nephew Mabray Andrews as well as Medford Mayor Michael J. McGlynn discussing the festival. Previously-shown shorts and animated films from past “Doc” Kountze Film Festivals will also be run.

Tony Hale had a film shown each year at the “Doc” Kountze Film Festival and his film “Jaguar Proud,” a short about the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary in Belize, the world’s first jaguar reserve, will be a feature of the night of the Screening Room. Hale’s mother is local artist Adele Travisano, founder of the “Doc” Kountze Festival. His latest project, a documentary called “A Will for the Woods,” about a man’s quest for a final resting place that will benefit the earth leads him to the burgeoning green burial movement, premiered earlier this month at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina.

Also featured will be pieces by filmmaker and media design professional Jonathan Carr, including his film “Heroic Hobo.” An Emerson College graduate, Carr also had a film shown each year at the “Doc” Kountze Film Festival. He was recently featured in the Boston Globe and is making his Lyric Stage Company debut, working on the play “By The Way, Meet Vera Stark.”

Admission is free but there is a $5 suggested donation at the door.

For future Screening Room sessions, the Mystic hopes to feature films by other local producers, and is actively seeking submissions. If you have work you would like to submit or recommend, contact info@mysticartgallery.org

For more information on the Mystic Art Gallery, its latest schedule of events and MACI, visit us on the web at www.medfordarts.org or www.facebook.com/TheMysticArtGallery, or call 781-396-ARTS (2787).

About MACI

The Medford Arts Center, Incorporated (MACI) encourages and promotes the arts in Medford, Massachusetts through arts appreciation and education. A non-profit arts and artists’ organization, MACI provides support for Medford artists in the visual, performance, and written arts, and welcomes exhibiting artists, writers and those with an interest in supporting the arts to become a member.

– Information from MACI