The Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival has delivered its most recent installment of “alumni donated” films to the MNFF Collection at Ilsley Public Library in Middlebury. This year, the Festival was pleased to deliver 55 films to the library from its 5th Annual Festival in 2019. This donation grows the library’s collection to include over 145 features and shorts, including documentaries, narrative drama, comedies, and animated films. All the films are available on BluRay. The Festival genuinely appreciates the generosity of its former filmmakers and is proud to offer their work to the community.

New titles include the popular feature films “Lady Bird,” “Eighth Grade,” and “Three Identical Strangers,” as well as the esteemed VTeddy Award winner “Dateline-Saigon.” This year’s donations come from a number of international filmmakers, including the prominent Pakistani documentary filmmaker Mohammed Ali Naqvi.

The partnership between MNFF and Ilsley Library was established in 2016 with the purpose of making MNFF films available to the community. The films can be found on a featured shelf of the DVD collection on the Library’s first floor.

“Ilsley Public Library is grateful to once again receive this generous donation of Blu-Ray DVDs from the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival,” said Dana Hart, Director of Ilsley Public Library. “We are proud to be a community partner with the festival and look forward to connecting Middlebury residents with this rich body of work.”

“We are delighted to resume our process of donating to Ilsley Library a wide variety of films that have screened at the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival or as part of our fall/winter/spring monthly screening series at Town Hall Theater,” noted Lloyd Komesar, Festival Producer. “With the library’s collection now nearing 150 films, we hope the community will take full advantage of the richness and depth of the filmmaking that MNFF has been fortunate to screen.”

The 7th Annual Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival will take place in-person and on the ground at four venues around Middlebury from Aug. 25-29. Follow MNFF @middfilmfest across social media platforms for the latest festival news — and sign up for the festival’s newsletter at middfilmfest.org.