WATERVILLE — The Maine Film Center will be putting on the film festival “John Ford: 125 Years” to celebrate Maine native and Oscar-award-winning director John Ford.

Independent theaters and venues across the state will participate in showing his films. “The Grapes of Wrath” will be shown at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 5, in the Edmund S. Muskie Room at Bates College in Lewiston.

Mike Perreault, executive director of Maine Film Center, recently told Mainebiz, “Each screening will offer opportunities for open discussion inspired by that film. . . . Just as important, we hope creative people of all ages in Maine can look to Ford and recognize their own potential to begin their work right here in our state.”

Ford was born in Cape Elizabeth on Feb. 1, 1894, the son of Irish immigrants, and grew up on Munjoy Hill in Portland. He won four Academy Awards as “best director” — a standing record. He has directed more than 140 silent and sound films that cover an array of subjects and categories. He is probably best known for his Westerns.

This is a publicity still from John Ford’s “Stagecoach,” which will be shown in Bar Harbor on Sunday, Feb. 3. (Photo courtesy of Maine Film Center)

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