A pair of Bethesda natives are bringing a short documentary about a unique D.C. neighborhood tradition to the first ever Bethesda Film Fest in March.

And they’re excited about what the event could mean for the Bethesda arts scene.

Lance Kramer and brother Brandon Kramer made “Porchfest,” a seven-minute look at the one-of-a-kind block party Lance Kramer and a couple neighbors helped organize in 2011 in their Mt. Pleasant D.C. neighborhood.

The Hobart Street Porchfest will be celebrated for the third time this year, a “community showcase” of sorts that encourages neighbors to get to know each other through food, art, music and culture displayed on porches of the street’s homes.

The film emphasizes the vibrancy and potential of a city neighborhood, a topic Kramer and neighbor Tony Harvin discuss in the documentary as something typically associated with suburban communities. Kramer, who grew up in Bethesda, attended Walt Whitman High School and moved out of the area before returning to Hobart Street, said bringing the film to Bethesda represents “this life circle that I hope people really appreciate.”

“Aside from the day I was born, I grew up in Bethesda,” said Kramer, who was born in D.C. and whose grandfather and great grandfather lived in D.C. “For me, in a sense I felt like I had my own personal roots, my family roots. There was that personal part of me that really hatched together this idea to have a festival, which is really just kind of coming out of this love of the street.”

Harvin, a musician who spent his early childhood in a house on the street, came up with the idea after walking down the street and hearing kids and adults playing instruments in their homes. He got together with Kramer and others involved in established neighborhood social events and developed a simple framework.

“It was a little bit of a gamble, in that sense it was definitely a surprise to see all the ideas,” Kramer said. “There was a craft brewing station, somebody rented a moon bounce, there was a blues band and finger painting. Someone who I didn’t know set up a photography presentation. This event was basically saying, take something that you’re proud of, that you want to share or showcase that people might not know or appreciate about you and bring it out into the street so people can experience it.”

Kramer said he’d be shocked if the Bethesda Film Fest, the Bethesda Urban Partnership-sponsored event that will feature five short documentaries at Imagination Stage, doesn’t end up a big success.

“I think there’s already a strong film-going culture in Bethesda, now to take it one step further I think is really good,” Kramer said. “If you look at film festivals, they become these really good cultural catalysts. There’s something in the DNA of a film festival that I think has this really amazing power to do that.”

Photo via Meridian Hill Pictures

The stories of an undocumented Montgomery County student striving for a college degree, a group of Washington, D.C. neighbors who get together for a one-of-a-kind block party, a D.C. native who returns home to find gentrification, a Junior Olympic boxing champion and a high school dropout-turned New Orleans street performer will all be shown in the Bethesda Urban Partnership’s first-ever Bethesda film fest.

A panel of judges for the short documentary festival, set for Saturday, March 23 at Imagination Stage (4908 Auburn Ave.), selected the five films with area ties after putting out word about the event last fall.

Tickets are $10 and more information can be found on BUP’s website:

Baffle their Minds with Bullsh*t, Kerry Leigh

(11 minutes)

Film by Isabelle Carbonell, director/cinematographer/editor, and Sarah Cannon, film and video editor, Izaca Productions, Washington, DC

High school dropout-turned busker, Kerry Leigh’s imagination is for rent on the streets of New Orleans.

Into the Lime Light

(16 minuntes, 37 seconds)

Film by Deanne Canieso, John Dillon, George Washington University Institute for Documentary Filmmaking

Into the Lime Lite follows a two-time Junior Olympic Champion from D.C. as he prepares to fight a tough opponent from Northern Ireland in the Belfast-Beltway Boxing Classic. He’s on a solid path but his involvement in a fight almost gets in his way.

The Plan

(15 minutes)

Film by Rachel Jones, senior film major at Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore

A young woman returns to Washington, D.C. after graduate school and finds that her old neighborhood has been changed by gentrification.

Porchfest

(8 minutes)

Film by Brandon Kramer, filmmaker, educator and co-founder of Meridian Hill Pictures, and Lance Kramer, filmmaker, journalist, co-founder of Meridian Hill Pictures production company, Washington, D.C.

Porchfest tells the story of Hobart Street in Mt. Pleasant as it puts on a rich, vibrant showcase of a diverse community’s food, art, music, culture and history.

Rights of Butterflies

(19 minutes)

Film by Lara Moya, Laurel Gwizdak, Sandrine Emambu, Binyam Hundito, Zaid Jameel, Alan Marroquin, members of Gandhi Brigade, Silver Spring nonprofit that uses media training to teach leadership and social justice to young people.

Katya is an undocumented student in Montgomery County struggling to fund and continue her college education due to her legal status. We learn about Katya’s personal sacrifices in coming to the United States, where she constructs a new sense of home and her perseverance to achieve her ambitions and finish her education.

Photos via Bethesda Urban Partnership