Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival

Robin and I attended our first RBIFF in 2002, and were looking forward to this year’s event which marked its fifteenth year.  RBIFF has grown considerably over the years.  Last year more than 19,000 individual movie tickets were sold during the festival’s five days. 

RBIFF usually begins on Wednesday of the second week of November and continues through the following Sunday.  This year’s program included more than 55 independently  produced feature and documentary films from the U.S. and elsewhere as well as a substantial number of short films.  Our list of ten films included three from Italy, two from the U.S. and one each from Argentina, Israel, India, Kazakstan and South Africa.

What makes the RBIFF special is that all of the films are screened at the Midway Movie complex on Route 1.  A large tent is set up behind the theaters for film-goers to buy tickets, eat, drink, chat and relax between films.  This is different from most urban film festivals where screenings are held at  a number of different venues throughout the city, and it is unlikely that one will see the same people from film to film.  

At  RBIFF, everyone comes to this one event and keeps coming back until it is over. Some attendees will see more four films each day. Lines begin to form inside about 30 minutes before every film, and most people are amenable to talking about about what one has seen, what was good or bad  or indecipherable.  It’s all about the films, and the conversations Robin and I have with others add immensely to our enjoyment of the festival.  

We had two favorites this year. the first was “Lucky,” where a 10-year old South African boy  leaves his village after his mother dies of AIDs to live with his troubled uncle in a Durban apartment complex.  Lucky encounters an elderly Indian woman, with a deep fear of black South Africans, who lives in the same complex. Their relationship grows  through a series of harrowing incidents even though he does not understand English and she cannot speak his native language. Wonderfully acted by the two protagonists, their ability to understand each other and change grows despite the fact that they cannot talk to  each other.

Our other favorite was a documentary, “Searching for Sugar Man,” the story of Sixto Rodriguez, a rock musician of the early 70s, who never made it in the U.S. but became a tremendous success in South Africa.  Two South African fans undertake to learn what happened to Rodriguez and all of the profits from his albums.  The film has terrific music, of course, and takes some very unusual twist and turns.

RBIFF did not disappoint in 2012, and we are looking forward to next year.