How the Newest Generation Of Filmmakers Is Hacking It As Storytellers

In Vermont, it has been a wet summer. Just as the mosquitos flock to the wet fields and hills of the state, filmmakers come from around the world to the small college town of Middlebury where the 9th annual Middlebury New Filmmaker’s Festival is taking place. Lloyd Komesar knows everyone, it seems, as he flies up and down main street. He knows names, he knows logistics, he shakes hands, he slips into theaters. He’s a producer of the MNFF. Formerly a VP at Disney, Lloyd retired to Middlebury and created the only film festival in the world that focuses solely on first and second-time filmmakers.

“They need a break,” Lloyd tells me as I sit beside him in the front seat of his bright blue Volkswagon driving back into town from the Middlebury Campus to run an errand and then back to the campus again for a screening. “Many larger festivals will include new filmmakers, but they never focus exclusively on the first and second-time filmmakers. We do. They know that they’re going to get some kind of exposure and showcasing that they might not find anywhere else.”