Sarasota Film Fest Brings Gems to Gold Coast

Details

Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Tuesday, 06 April 2010 05:00

Written by Laura Blum

Sarasota, Fla., is considered ground zero for the recent real-estate crash. But any darkness that prevails during April 9 to 18, 2010 will envelope the inky cinemas where the 12th annual Sarasota Film Festival will unfold.
 
Bookended by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman’s The Extra Man and James Franco’s Saturday Night, the Gold Coast cotillion spans 168 films. Thirty countries are represented, yielding what director of programming Holly Herrick tallies as the Festival's most diverse lineup to date.
 
The Extra Man trails a male escort for elderly socialites and the aspiring playwright he grooms. Kevin Kline, Paul Dano, John C. Reilly and Katie Holmes star in this new comedy by American Splendor's Oscar-nominated duo, based on the Jonathan Ames novel of the same name. Opening night festivities continue with the Seriously Sweet Dessert Soiree and — like closing night — with an after-party at Ceviche.
 
Franco’s documentary, which expands on his New York University graduate film school project, chronicles a week in the frenzied creative cycle behind TV comedy show Saturday Night Live. The actor's feature directorial debut reflects unprecedented access to its notoriously veiled subject, a perk of his personal friendships with the cast.
 
Festival innovations include an "Investors Lab" brokering relationships between independent filmmakers and the investment community. As part of the Lab, Steve Buscemi will stage a reading of Oren Moverman's unproduced script for Queer, based on the book by William S. Burroughs. 
 
Also a first in this year's program are "Cinema Diaspora: International Perspectives on Jewish Identity"; "Views From The Sunshine State: Sarasota & Florida Filmmakers"; and "Through Women’s Eyes," a showcase honoring films by and about women's lives, co-presented with GCC UNIFEM.
 
A 2010 Gala centerpiece is a tribute to John Landis, director of such bedrock comedies as Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Trading Places and Beverly Hills Cop III. Following a multimedia presentation of his work, Mr. Landis will muse on his career, and share a laugh from his upcoming comedy thriller starring Simon Pegg, Burke and Hare.
 
The Festival continues its “In Conversation With…” series, hosting director/Walt Disney Feature Animation producer Don Hahn (whose film, Waking Sleeping Beauty, is being shown out of competition), and actors Kevin Kline, Patricia Clarkson and Vincent D'Onofrio.

SFF also carries on with its "youthFEST" outreach and education programs subsidized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and reaching some 4,000 students. Brownstones to Red Dirt is one youth-friendly title kicking up advanced buzz. Dave LaMattina and Chad Walker's documentary charters the bonds that develop between kids from the Brooklyn projects and the orphans from civil-war-torn Sierra Leone who become their pen pals. Another youthFEST attraction is "Hollywood Nights Student Cinema Showcase."

The Festival runs three competitions. Titles vying in its documentary feature category are Con Artist (Michael Sládek), Gasland (Josh Fox), A Good Man (Safina Uberoi), His & Hers (Ken Wardrop), The Kids Grow Up (Doug Block), Life 2.0 (Jason Spingarn-Koff) and The Oath (Laura Poitras).
 
Narrative feature contenders are: Alamar (Pedro González-Rubio), A Brand New Life (Ounie Lecomte), The Father of My Children (Mia Hansen-Love), Holy Rollers (Kevin Asch), I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino), Winter's Bone (Debra Granik) and Women Without Men (Shirin Neshat)
 
The third competition, "Independent Visions," awards low-budget narrative filmmaking from the US. Its entries are: The Adults in the Room (Andy Blubaugh), Cold Weather (Aaron Katz), The Colonel's Bride (Brent Stewart), The Freebie (Kate Aselton), The Myth of The American Sleepover (David Mitchell), The New Year (Brett Haley) and SXSW narrative feature jury winner Tiny Furniture (Lena Dunham).
 
Festival screenings mostly take place at the Regal Cinemas Hollywood 20, though the scatter of other venues may pose a challenge to footloose guests. The Opening Night film will be screened at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Center; The Lab holds its panels, funding meetings and presentations at the Longboat Key Club and Resort (though the Florida Studio Theater will host its staged reading of Queer); and the Landis Tribute will unspool at the Sarasota Opera House.
 
Consult www.sarasotafilmfestival.com for additional details.
 
Sarasota Film Festival Main Office
332 Cocoanut Avenue
Sarasota, FL 34236
941 364 9514
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 
Festival Box Office
Buddha Belly Donuts
Synovus Bank Building
1990 Main Street, Suite 112
Sarasota, FL

Dallas International Film Festival Goes Populist After AFI

Details

Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Tuesday, 06 April 2010 05:00

Written by Laura Blum

Serving up Texas-sized helpings of cinema, the Dallas International Film Festival will engulf all eight screens of the Angelika Film Center for its Opening Night shindig on April 8, 2010. The festival runs through April 18.

The smorgasbord includes such fiction and documentary films as Bill Cunningham New York, by documentarian Richard Press; Multiple Sarcasms, Brooks Branch's relationship drama starring Timothy Hutton; Mexican classic Nosotros los pobres; and Anthony Burns' Texan-spun drama, Skateland.

It's a foretaste of programming categories to descend on America's eighth-largest city over the subsequent 11 days. Before the Festival closes, some 1,600 film-goers will have seen 153 films from 25 countries.

Dallas IFF's first edition following the expiration of its contract with AFI foregrounds local, Latino and Mexican titles, reflecting the populist convictions of artistic director James Faust, senior programmer Sarah Harris and Festival chairman Michael Cain.  

Last year's multi-screen finale was the model for this year's opener, according to Cain. Not only was it audience catnip, but the stretched slate vested that many more filmmakers in the glamor and goodwill of a gala celebration.

While the cultural flavor is down-home, the new regime hardly stints on pomp. And some of it converges on the Dallas Star Awards.

Mexican screenwriter/director Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, Babel, 21 Grams) will receive one. Further basking in the Festival limelight, the master of nonlinear narrative will be honored with a retrospective of his work at the Latino Cultural Center. Particular sizzle surrounds The Burning Plain, which female lead Jennifer Lawrence will be on hand to discuss, and which Arriaga also directed. In a "Conversation with… " panel discussion, erstwhile university maestro Arriaga will field questions about his work.

To salute Mexico's bicentennial, another Dallas Star Award will be presented (posthumously) to fellow countryman Pedro Infante. Among the screen icon's myriad hits were Opening Night's Nosotros los pobres (We the Poor) — a popular favorite set in a poor working-class barrio of Mexico City — Ustedes los ricos and Pepe el Toro. Mexico's first filmed trilogy, by Golden Age director Ismael Rodríguez, will be screened alongside other Infante greats.

Writer-director John Lee Hancock (The Rookie, The Blind Side) and three-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Wally Pfister (Batman Begins,The Dark Knight) round out the roster of Dallas Star Awardees.

Oscar-winning writer/director Pete Docter will take home the Texas Avery Animation Award, which Reel FX Entertainment is springing for. Docter will be decorated prior to a special salute to his animation career.

Also, Target is back for the fourth year to sponsor the Target Narrative and Target Documentary Feature Competition awards, each of dangles $25,000 in cash.

Dallas IFF is also cuing the drum roll for its “Super Saturday Presentations,” a slate of seven premiers to be presented April 10. Virsa, which is an official World Cinema Selection and Feature in Competition, makes its world debut that evening. The Punjabi-language film about cross-generational and cross-cultural tensions is directed by Pankaj Batra and executive produced by Dallas-born oncologist and hematologist Dr. Amanullah Khan.

Hold, Frank Mosely's drama about a young couple's relationship after the wife's rape also has its world premiere on Super Saturday, as do Derrick Borte's sendup of consumerist society, The Joneses (starring Demi Moore and David Duchovny) and Hollywood romance Waiting for Forever, by James Keach (starring Rachel Bilson, Richard Jenkins and Blythe Danner).

Sin Ella (Without Her), a drama by Jorge Colon about a TV producer whose late ex-wife comes back to guide him, and We are the Sea, Neil Truglio's portrait of a drifter, are other eagerly anticipated April 10 selections.

For information on additional films and awards at Dallas IFF, visit http://www.dallasfilm.org.

The Dallas International Film Festival
Apr. 8 - 18
the Angelika Film Center
3625 N Hall St
Dallas, TX
75219
(214) 720-0555
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Aspen Shortsfest an Embarrassment of Riches

Details

Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Monday, 05 April 2010 05:00

Written by Laura Blum

As the 17th-century philosopher Francis Bacon argued, "Rather to excite your judgment briefly than to inform it tediously." Aspen Film would appear to agree. Its acclaimed Aspen Shortsfest showcases films from two to 27 minutes long.

The 19th round takes place April 6 to 11, 2010, at Wheeler Opera House in Aspen, Colorado, and at the Crystal Theatre in nearby Carbondale.
 
This year Aspen Film cherrypicked 85 competition contenders out of the 2,500 submissions that poured in from some 80 countries. Taken together with its non-competing titles, the Fest is screening about 100 short films from around the world.
 
Not only is the work exceptionally diverse, according to Aspen Film program director George Eldred, but it's more interesting, of higher quality and more skillfully produced than that of previous troves, he noted in a statement. "Creators worldwide benefit from unprecedented access to new technology and equipment," he added.
 
Take for example Home Is Where You Find It. The 27-minute documentary by 16-year-old Mozambican Alcides Soares recounts being orphaned by AIDS, and constituting a new family of loved ones. Produced by a group of professional mediamakers including Dick Wolf and Peter Jankowski, the film has swept numerous awards.
 
Another exemplar of this year's evolved concepts and executions is the British drama, Man and Boy. In their 20-minute put, directors Marcus McSweeny and David Leon explore paternal instincts gone amok in working-class London. Storylines jump up and back, here and there, suggesting several scenarios and letting the viewer decide what actually happened.
 
No less thought provoking is The Cow Who Wanted to Be a Hamburger, by U.S. animator and cartoonist Bill Plympton. His self-described "fairy tale gone bad" takes its palette from Vasily Kandinsky and character cue from Ferdinand the Bull. Look to the four-minute piece for answers about life and advertising. 
 
Kid-friendly shorts are in ample supply at Shortfest, thanks to "Films for Families," a docket of shorts for tweeners and up. Fest highlights also include "Micro Moviemaking," with director Lewis Teague (Navy Seals, The Jewel of the Nile), exploring his web series Charlotta-TS; and "Tropfest's Best: 7 Minutes or Less," spotlighting picks from Australia's celebrated shorts festival.
 
Ringed by mountains and affluent skiers, Aspen may better known for its outdoor sports than indoor lounging. Yet Aspen Shortsfest has been turning this perception around with its Oscar-qualifying International Competition, filmmaker appearances, parties and special presentations.
 
This year, its embarrassment of film riches prompted Eldred to extend the fest by a night.

For more info go to: http://www.aspenfilm.org/

Aspen Shortsfest
Apr. 6 - 11
Wheeler Opera House
320 East Hyman Avenue
Aspen, CO 81611
(970) 920 5770
 
Chrystal Theater
427 Main Street
Carbondale, CO 81623
(970) 963-0633

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.