The Maryland Film Festival is show time for Skizz Cyzyk

What's your favorite movie of all time? "Citizen Kane"? "The Wizard of Oz"? "Lord of the Rings" (which one)? "Titanic"? Something edgier, say "Fargo" or "Pulp Fiction"?

For Skizz Cyzyk, it's a 5-way tie, and four of the five you've probably never heard of -- Terry Gilliam's "Brazil," Richard Elfman's "Forbidden Zone," John Paizs' "The Big Crime Wave," Coke Sam's "Existo," and Cory McAbee's "The American Astronaut."

A poster for the latter, with the tag line, "Space is a lonely town," graces the wall in front of Cyzyk's desk at work. He describes the independent 2001 film as "a black and white, sci-fi Western musical."

"It entertained me, influenced me, inspired me," he said.

Seeing great indie films is Cyzyk's passion. It's also his job. The Wyman Park resident, 43, is programming manager for the Maryland Film Festival. He's one of several festival staff members who live in north Baltimore, including director Jed Dietz, of Roland Park, and programming administrator Eric Allen Hatch and public relations coordinator Scott Braid, both of Hampden.

This is the peak time of the year for them. May 7-10 is showtime for the ninth annual fest, with 130 films culled from 400 entries, each being screened by the filmmakers or others who helped make them.

Not all are indie. There are more foreign films this year than in the past, along with short films, documentaries, underground movies, a silent movie -- even a 3-D movie.

"We're just a general celebration of cinema," said Cyzyk, who loves Hollywood films too, and readily admits to putting "Top Secret" on his long list of personal favorites.

"We try to find the next big talent," Cyzyk said, "and we try to show the current talent."

Early projections

The movie bug bit Cyzyk like a vampire as a boy, watching rented reels from the public library on his grandmother's 8 mm projector.

Gravitating to horror and science fiction films, he obsessed over ones like "Earth Versus the Flying Saucers " and 1922's silent classic "Nosferatu," which he watched every day the summer he was 10.

Cyzyk studied film at what was then Towson State University, and soon after college started screening films by local and touring filmmakers monthly at the Mansion Theatre, a former funeral home on York Road.

In 1998, he joined the advisory board of the Johns Hopkins Film Festival, and in 1999, he and longtime girlfriend Jen Talbert founded Microcinefest, an underground film fest in Hampden specializing in low-budget, offbeat films that they dubbed "psychotronic."

That festival had a 10-year run as an annual event, drawing as many as 2,000 people a year to screenings at the G Spot, an art space on Falls Road. Microcinefest still runs in a scaled-back form.

When Dietz put together a programming advisory board for the Maryland Film Festival, Cyzyk signed on in 1999. Two years later, he joined the staff full time.

At festival central, a house at 107 Read St., Cyzyk's cluttered desk sits under a leaking ceiling, patched just enough so that the rain no longer drips onto his desk but into a pan on the floor.

Cyzyk runs calls for entries and supervises the screening committee, keeps a computer database of all film entries and recommended films, stays in contact with filmmakers -- "they just have so many questions," he says -- makes sure the films are in a format he can screen, and files everything from stills to biographies of the filmmakers.

He was just about to order 3-D glasses last week when he discovered that he still had a box of 500 from last year sitting on a shelf.

Getting around

A big part of his job is scouting for good films and filmmakers, cultivating relationships with up-and-coming filmmakers, and going to other film festivals, including Slamdance, Sundance, Tribeca, Berlin and Toronto.

The Maryland Film Festival is smaller and less well-known than those, with no national press and a $450,000 annual budget -- compared to $24 million for Sundance and upward of $50 million for the Cannes Film Festival, according to Dietz.

The Maryland festival has to keep costs down and in some cases Cyzyk serves on the boards or screening juries of festivals that pay his expenses to attend. He serves as a projectionist and jury member at Slamdance.

The 2009 festival features several celebrity participants, including John Waters, who each year hosts a screening of one of his favorite films (this year it's "Love Songs"); comedian Bobcat Goldthwaite, who's hosting "Opening Night Shorts," as well as "World's Greatest Dad," which he directed; and local mystery writer Laura Lippman, who's hosting 1995's "Funny Bones."

The festival will also feature some of the bigger names in the indie world, including McAbee, whose "American Astronaut," won Independent Spirit and Sundance awards. He is screening his new film, "Stingray Sam."

Also coming are acclaimed French filmmaker Agnes Varda, who is screening "Beaches of Agnes," and Joe Swanberg, who is on the cover of the March-April issue of Paste magazine. Swanberg is making his fourth straight appearance at the festival, this year screening "Alexander The Last."

"He's one of our success stories," Cyzyk said.

And the festival is building a reputation as much on who can't be there - Cyzyk's friend, Lynn Shelton for one. She's screening her film "Hump Day" at Cannes and Sundance.

"How great for her," Cyzyk said. "Her film will probably be in theaters this summer. It'll be a hit, and she'll be a name, and people can say, 'I saw her first two films at the Maryland Film Festival.' "

Happily sidetracked

Who knows? Cyzyk might someday be screening his own film at the festival. He has a documentary, "Little Castles," to his credit, as well as an award-winning animated short, "4 Films in 5 Minutes."

And since 1999, he's been making an untitled documentary about an obscure musician in Alabama.

"My film festival career sidetracked my filmmaking career," Cyzyk said. "I'm still working on my film. Every year I say I'm going to finish it."

But the festival consumes him from January to June.

"I don't have the time to devote to it. And then I spend the rest of the time recovering."

For now, he's doing what he loves, and financially, "I get by," he said. "I was doing it as a hobby to begin with, so when I was paid to do it, why wouldn't I do it?"

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