At Maryland Film Festival opening night, renovated Parkway theater steals the show

Wednesday’s opening night of the 19^th Maryland Film Festival marked a true coming-out party for the newly rehabbed 102-year-old Stavros Niarchos Foundation Parkway, and its debut proved quite the hit.

“To have something this vital in the center of Baltimore is pretty exciting,” said filmmaker Doug Sadler (2005’s “Swimmers”), an Eastern Shore native and filmmaker in residence at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Filmmaker Kris Swanberg, who co-hosted Wednesday’s opening night shorts program with fellow filmmaker Josephine Decker, was even more effusive in her praise of the $18.2 million renovation project.