WATERVILLE — The Maine Film Center’s annual Cinema Explorations program, a community-curated winter film series at Railroad Square Cinema, will kick off in January with two screenings of the documentary “Bounce: How the Ball Taught the World to Play” at 10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 9 and 10. From Brazilian favelas to dusty Congolese villages, from neolithic Scottish isles to modern soccer pitches, the film explores the little-known origins of the world’s favorite sports.

One of the goals of the Cinema Explorations program is to foster community dialogue around film with post-screening discussions led by filmmakers, visiting experts, and community members. In keeping with this goal, Bounce producer and cinematographer David McLain will attend the Jan. 10 screening to host a Q&A with the audience after the film.

Based in Maine, McLain is a cinematographer and photographer who has shot feature length assignments around the world for National Geographic magazine. “The stories varied but the mandate was always the same: work with every kind of person under any kind of condition and create timeless yet contemporary images for a client with the highest visual standards on earth, McLain said in a Maine Film Center news release.” McLain co-owns Merge, a boutique production company, with colorist and post-production expert Jerome Thelia. Bounce, their first feature length documentary, premiered at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival.

Cinema Explorations continues through March with bi-weekly film screenings. In addition to Bounce, the line-up includes documentaries, “Peace Officer and Hitchcock” and “Truffaut,” as well as three foreign films, Jafar Panahi’s “Taxi,” “Dukhtar” (Daughter), and the re-released classic “The World of Apu.” All film screenings will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday and Sundays with complimentary bagels provided by Bagel Mainea. Additional information, including full film descriptions, can be found online at www.mainefilmcenter.org.

Cinema Explorations is a program of the Maine Film Center dedicated to fostering the voices and choices of local film lovers. Led by a volunteer steering committee, Cinema Exploration presents works of cinema from around the world to enrich, educate and entertain filmgoers and to encourage the sharing of the experience of cinema through communal film viewing and discussion.

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