I talk to MNFF festival founder Lloyd Komesar and new managing producer Andy Mitchell to talk about what's coming to Middlebury August 26-30.

This year's Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival brings its biggest lineup of honorees yet, including Jane Fonda, Hadestown creator Anaïs Mitchell, producer Allyn Stewart, director Kirsten Johnson, documentary filmmaker Ross McElwee, and composer Mason Daring,

Lloyd looks back on starting the festival from scratch in 2014, and Andy, stepping in as managing producer for the first time, talks about what he wants to protect and what he might change.

In the first half, Zach talks with Opera Company of Middlebury's Founder and Artistic Director Doug Anderson about his upcoming production of La Traviata, which he sets in the 1920s with Violetta as a woman taking control of her own life.

In the second half, Zach talks with Alejandro Roca about the U.S. premiere of Catalan composer Xavier Montsalvatge's opera Babel 46, which follows a group of refugees of different nationalities awaiting repatriation after World War II. Alejandro is the artistic and music director of OCM's Young Artist Program.

Zach talks with Rebecca Strum who is directing Middlebury Acting Company's production of Eureka Day. Eureka Day is set in a progressive day school by the same name, a utopic school in Berkely, California where all decisions must be made by consensus.

The show is timely, funny, and also Rebecca Strum's final directorial work before she moves to Los Angeles after 10 years in Vermont!