Last weekend, I accompanied Nancy Rosenbaum on a field trip down to Portsmouth for the Telluride by the Sea Film Festival. Every year, six films from the Telluride Film festival in Colorado come to Portsmouth for a special screening.

The venue is the restored theater The Music Hall, and it is worth a trip just to see the building. It is in the style of the Hippodrome in Baltimore, and many other vaudeville era theaters all over the country (world). It has been restored by the “Friends of the Music Hall” to become a non-profit arts and community center, and they continue to improve and expand the building.

Apparently, people come from all over to Portsmouth to enjoy the films and performances they bring to town. We talked to a few folks who had driven an hour and a half to get to the festival from farther west in New Hampshire, and who came for the whole festival (6 movies over the course of the weekend). It made us reflect on our good fortune to have venues like The Movies on Exchange Street here in Portland.

The movie we saw was “The Band’s Visit” and I highly recommend it to anyone who gets the chance to see it. It is bittersweet and hilarious. It follows a small Egyptian police band on their adventures in nowheresville Israel. Its one of those movies where a lot happens even though nothing is really happening. And did I mention that it is very, very funny . . .