Destin Library gets a mainstream following with indie film fest

A Christian taxi driver and a Muslim passenger scour the rubble of a bombed-out Lebanese town to find the woman’s son.

A Norwegian man becomes a celebrity after his video diary gets shown on national television.
Amazonian tribesmen, Mongolian sheepherders and desert nomads all struggle to find a television so they can catch the World Cup soccer final.

Welcome to the world of Destin Library’s Independent Film Festival, a four-year-old monthly screening of American and foreign films. The next film, the Belgian drama, “Ben X,” is scheduled for Tuesday.

The DVDs come from a subscription service that allows one public showing in the library’s Calhoun Room before the movies go into the library’s video collection. The festival is the brain child of Julia Vijacka, the president of the Friends of the Library.

When the series began, Vijacka told The Log that she’d been a film student back in the Czech Republic, so the idea appealed to her: “I lived in Key West for two years. They have the movie night down there, that gave me the idea ... I’m a foreigner, so I like to bring anything foreign to the American people.”

The first film, “Buddy,” told the story of a 20-something Norwegian whose video diaries bring him instant fame when they’re turned into a TV show, much to the horror of his friends when they discover their secrets are aired in prime-time.

The October movie night featured a Czech film, “The Country Teacher,” about a gay Prague teacher who leaves town for a country school where he develops a friendship with his landlady and a romantic interest in her son.

Before the movie showed, Vijacka told The Log that a typical movie night saw about 10 people attend, though it’s ranged anywhere from 15 to as few as seven on a slow night. Vijacka said she intended to eventually organize things enough to send people a reminder e-mail.

The audience for “The Country Teacher” included first-timers David and Susan Boyer, vacationers from Indianapolis who’d said they’d read about the showing online.

“I’ve been a member of the Friends for a couple of years,” Destin resident Gail Ferguson told The Log. “I just decided I should come check it out.”

Destin resident Betty Kenyon said attending “The Country Teacher” was “setting a record — two movies in one day.”

Kenyon said she attends the festival regularly; having lived in so many different countries, she finds the foreign films interesting.

“It was different,” she said after the film concluded.

“It wasn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen,” David Boyer said, but he added that he and his wife would be back in November.

Want to go? Here’s the schedule for the rest of the year:
•Nov. 17, 7 p.m.: “Ben X,” a Belgian film about an autistic boy retreating into a fantasy world as the result of constant bullying.
•Dec. 15, 7 p.m.: “The Drummer,” a Chinese film about a criminal’s son who gains control of his anger by immersing himself in the mystical world of Zen drumming.
Both movies will be shown in the Calhoun Room at Destin Library. Admission is free. Past films are available for checkout in the DVD section.