15th South East European Film Festival Los Angeles June 24-August 16, 2020
Among the many delights of the 13th Los Angeles Greek Film Festival with five nights among the palms in Hollywood after an opening at UCLA—with feature films, shorts and documentaries, Greek food, music, and wine—a dreamy film screened on a balmy June afternoon. Imagine being swept away more...
Todd Haynes’ latest work, Carol, which premiered locally at the 2015 AFI FEST presented by Audi, was re-visited today at the Harmony Gold Theater in West Hollywood where the film’s screenwriter, cinematographer, and costume designer represented the film in a post-screening panel discussion with more...
1st EUphoria Film Festival
September 19-24, 2014
Writer-director-actress Susanna Nicchiarelli centers her story on two women. In 1981 in Rome, a professor is murdered on campus and falls into the arms of his best friend and colleague, who himself mysteriously disappears within days. Flashing forward to 2011, the two daughters of the missing colleague, Caterina more...
18th City of Lights-City of Angels April 21-28, 2014
Young and Beautiful — it sounds better as Jeune et Jolie, the name of a teen magazine in France; the French title for François Ozon’s latest film points to a wry analogy with the first career of his leading lady, model-turned-actress Marine Vacth, who truly “walks the walk” even if she doesn’t “talk the talk.” She plays Isabelle more...
In the turquoise luminosity of a vast lake are reflected heaven and earth alike, clear spring skies and a mountain peak that open the vista of a young maiden who awaits her future. She sees only its promise. Our first glimpse of her, in a flowing white gown with a man at her side, perched on a precipice looking out on the water with more...
“German Currents: Festival of
German Film” will showcase a cross-section of the country’s highlights in
cinema production at its seventh annual event, held this year at the American
Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood from October 4-7, 2013. A wide spectrum of programming will encompass
theatrical, more...
17th City of Lights-City of Angels April 15-22, 2013
COL-COA, this year bigger than ever, will present 38 feature films and 19 new shorts with at least 9 of the participating writers, directors, actors and producers on hand to discuss their work. In two adjacent theaters nicknamed the “Truffaut” and the “Renoir” just for this week of French film premieres in Hollywood more...
14th Scandinavian Film Festival Los Angeles January 12, 13, 19, and 20, 2013
The Deep: Art Has that Potential, to Be Something Bigger
One of the joys of the Scandinavian Film Festival Los Angeles is the chance to follow the evolving career of an extraordinary and prolific talent from one “Nordic” season to the next right in Beverly Hills. At the Writers Guild Theater (135 South Doheny) on January 12th, 13th, 19th, and 20th, the festival will showcase 25 films more...
Rome’s Rebibbia Prison. Thirteen inmates, most of them serving life sentences, are directed by Fabio Cavalli in performing Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar with the collaboration of the facility at-large. Through their watchful camera, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani film this process — in the cells, the prison yard, the High Security more...
20th Pan African Film and Arts Festival February 9-20, 2012
Mariette Monpierre Takes Us to Guadeloupe: Elza at the 20th PAFF
Billowing sails in azure skies, turquoise waves on soft white sand, red ginger blooms from jungle-green hills are all there for Elza as she arrives on her first trip back to her homeland in Guadeloupe. It’s a tantalizing adventure, sensual as an island breeze, but with one aspect that holds it all in check: Elza is there to retrieve more...
13th Scandinavian Film Festival Los Angeles January 7, 8, 14, 15, 2012
A Swedish Grande Dame at the SFFLA: Pernilla August and Beyond
Button up your overcoats — there’s a strong north wind whipping throughthe southland, a female voice that can ride as well on a whisper, that lets you see your own breath in the air when warmth and tenderness take over the chill. On January 7th at 8 pm the Scandinavian Film Festival L.A. follows its gala buffet with Beyond, more...
13th Scandinavian Film Festival Los Angeles January 7, 8, 14, 15, 2012
Now in its 13th year, it’s not surprising that the Scandinavian Film Festival Los Angeles at the Writers Guild Theater, 135 S. Doheny at Wilshire) is seeing a recurring visit in the work of one of Nordic cinema’s giants. A showcase for the region’s submissions for the Best Foreign-Language Film at the Oscars, the SFFLA more...
The AFI FEST 2011 Presented by Audi offers ten days (November 3-10) of new films at the Mann’s Chinese and the Egyptian theaters, two of the most glamorous iconic settings of old Hollywood and also two of its best venues for viewing. With free ticketing (at http://www.afi.com/afifest/), audiences can access the more...
12th Polish Film Festival Los Angeles October 11-20, 2011
Feliks Falk’s Joanna: A Man-Made Women’s Weepy?
The Polish Film Festival Los Angeles, now in its twelfth year and a new time slot on the calendar, October 11-20, 2011, presents twenty-one feature films along with numerous documentary, animation, and short works either made in Poland or taking up Polish subject matter. Opening the festival at the Egyptian Theater in more...
6th South East European Film Festival Los Angeles April 28-May 2, 2011
Vlado Škafar’s Dad: The Space Between
It’s a bold move — and an exceedingly admirable one — to open the South East European International Film Festival Los Angeles with Vlado Škafar’s stridently original Dad (Oča) from Slovenia. Yet this festival, founded in 2002, is not afraid of innovative and artistic programming. For four days, April 28 – May 1, it will more...
15th City of Lights-City of Angels April 11-18, 2011
Angèle and Tony: Alix Delaporte Casts Her Net in the Rough Seas of Love
Funny that she’s called Angèle, we think when
the film opens, as we see her maneuver a three-minute sexual encounter behind a
wall on the street to get her hands on a hot new child’s toy. “It’s Action Man – the latest on the market
in China. You wanted Action Man, didn’t you?” he asks,
a they both zip up their pants. This more...
15th City of Lights-City of Angels April 11-18, 2011
This year for its 15th anniversary, “City of Lights, City of Angels,” a week of French film premieres in Hollywood, boasts screenings of 60 films, including 34 features and 26 shorts (for which the French are duly famous), at the Directors Guild of America. With the exception of COL-COA Classics screening in the more...
26th Santa Barbara International Film Festival January 27-February
6, 2011
For winter-tourist fans checking into their seaside hotels for a stroll by the waves and a breeze of Hollywood stardust, the 26th SBIFF was a ribbon of red carpets rolled out for celebrities from James Franco to Nicole Kidman. How refreshing it was to discover amidst the glitzy galas and big tributes a “little” Swedish film more...
12th Scandinavian Film Festival Los Angeles January 8,
9, 15, 16, 2011
Mamma Gógó Looks Back: The Ghostly Tales of Fridrik Thór Fridriksson
One of the delights of the SFFLA is that the attendees get to meet and talk with many of the filmmakers right in the lobby over Nordic drinks and “sauna” sausage at the Writers Guild of America Theater in Beverly Hills. Iceland’s Friðrik Þór Friðriksson arrived this year along with his latest venture in writing, directing, and more...
12th Scandinavian Film Festival Los Angeles January 8, 9, 15, 16, 2011
The 2011 Scandinavian Film Festival Los Angeles Opens with Steam of Life
There’s nothing like a trip to the sauna for Opening Night of the 12th Scandinavian Film Festival Los Angeles (January 8, 9, 15, and 16 at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills, 135 S. Doheny at Wilshire). Preceded by the festival’s Gala Buffet, the night starts with Joonas Berghäll and Mika Hotakainen’s Steam of Life more...
The 14th annual City of Lights–City of Angels once again moves “April in Paris” (the 19th to the 25th) to Los Angeles at the Directors Guild of America for a week of French film premieres that screen each day from morning to midnight with several panels of guest speakers followed by wine-and-cheese happy hours more...
25th Santa Barbara International Film Festival February 4-14, 2010
With only one screening, sold-out, at the 25th Santa Barbara International Film Festival, word is out: I Am Love (2009) is a feast for the senses. Yet a big part of what Italian writer-director-producer Luca Guadagnino serves up is food for thought, which makes the devouring all the richer. Lest there be doubt, his first feature more...
11th Scandinavian Film Festival Los Angeles January
9-10, 16-17, 2010
Applause Places Acting Center Stage as Zandvliet Brings Cassavetes Home
What is often most exciting at a film festival, though least expected, is the discovery of a lesser known work — at least in southern California, where audiences would think they’d seen everything. The Scandinavian Film Festival Los Angeles shows films day and night (Jan. 9, 10, 11, and 16), not just those submitted for the Oscar more...
11th Scandinavian Film Festival Los Angeles January 9-10, 16-17, 2010
Letters to Father Jacob: A Love Story for the Faint of Heart
The11th Scandinavian Film Festival Los Angeles will celebrate its gala with award-winning guest Klaus Härö on-hand on January 9th at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills (135 S. Doheny) to introduce his fourth feature film, also his third to be submitted to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign-Language Film more...
2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival January 5-18, 2010
Porumboiu’s Police, Adjective: Witnessing Our Times
Internationally lauded for his highly original 12:08 East of Bucharest (shown at the 2007 PSIFF), a droll look at the quizzical moment of the Romanian Revolution as everyday citizens might have taken stock of it, Corneliu Porumboiu filled the screen again this year at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival with his more...
2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival January 5-18, 2010
Both the 2010 PSIFF and the 11th SFFLA previewed this lyrical tale of a venturesome preteen who has infinite trust in her own imagination. The Girl unfolds through the innocent eyes of an always curious and sometimes frightened child, one as sensitive to her world as she is withholding of a reaction, and who can be both more...
58th International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg November 5-15, 2009
Klaus Härö Graces Mannheim-Heidelberg Fest with Letters to Father Jacob
The 58th International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg, where the “art of cinema” is upheld above all celebrity, box office, and entertainment values, screened 32 new films this season: 17 in the International Competition section, 8 in the International Discoveries program, and 7 in the Festival Highlights segment more...
2009 AFI FEST October 30 - November 7, 2009
It was cold enough to split stones. We noticed a foot-warmer, then an easel, then a man, swathed in three coats, his hands in gloves, his face half-frozen. It was M. Monet, studying a snow-effect. Unwittingly, the journalist who wrote this in 1868 was stunned by Claude Monet as an intrepid observer of nature more...
German Currents Festival of New German Cinema September 30 – October 5, 2009
On Sunday, October 4th the Goethe Institut Los Angeles will provide three ways to get acquainted with the work of German writer/director/producer Helma Sanders-Brahms. At 11:00 a.m. the Institut will host an exhibition of photographs documenting the making of two films, Clara by Sanders-Brahms and Klimt by Raoul Ruiz more...
German Currents Festival of New German Cinema September 30 – October 5, 2009
“A real book is not one that’s read, but one that reads us,” said W.H. Auden. It’s a witty expression of a keen observation by the poet that, for all practical purposes, married the daughter of the author Thomas Mann. Of course this was after both Erika Mann and her father were to see their citizenship revoked in Nazi more...
2009 Los Angeles Film Festival June 18 – 28, 2009
At the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival, filmmaking partners Sam Fleischner and Ben Chace wowed audiences and jury members alike with the world premiere of Wah Do Dem, racking up the Target Filmmaker Award for Best Narrative Feature (with $50,000 cash attached). The Jury observed that this debut feature was a more...
24th Santa Barbara International Film Festival January 22-February 1, 2009
Flickering Light: Impressions of Truth in Ceylan’s Three Monkeys
One of the most challenging and by far most rewarding of films at the 24th Santa Barbara International Film Festival in its highly impressive slate of World Cinema was Three Monkeys. Last year Cannes named Nuri Bilge Ceylan its Best Director. Not only had he made five features in eleven years, but he was picking up his more...
24th Santa Barbara International Film Festival
January 22-February 1, 2009
So Yong Kim’s Treeless Mountain:
Verses in Time
It’s always astonishing when a quiet film lingers. Of the thirteen films showcased in the International Features section of the 24th Santa Barbara International Film Festival (January 22 to February 1, 2009), there is hardly a more striking one to illuminate the gifts that Asian Americans bring to the art of cinema today than more...
13th City of
April 20-26, 2009
One of Eric Rohmer’s earliest
films, La Collectionneuse, is in
essence about three “collectors” idling away the summer in the south of France,
namely, an off-handedly attractive young woman who appears to take on a new
sexual conquest nightly and a pair of male guests who have been invited to stay
at the same 17th-century more...