Festival Circuit
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Tribeca 2013 Critic’s Notebook #3: On The Margins
It’s easy to feel cheated at film festivals, especially ones that charge $18 per ticket. (Does Tribeca still do that?) You couldn’t get into this screening or you missed that party or the awards because you couldn’t find a cab or had to file some copy. The publicist you have a crush on just isn’t that into you. Cry me a river. And then the awards have been given, the parties have been had, the distribution panel nameplates thrown in the trash. The clock is ticking, always, and you can never see or do everything. Funny, when you’re young, you […]
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True/False Film Festival 2013
This was my fourth year attending Columbia, Missouri’s documentary-oriented True/False Film Festival, which this time celebrated its 10th anniversary — a number calling for reflection, with the attendant risk of self-congratulation. A commemorative book was released, and nearly every screening had its reserved tickets sold out (ticket sales were up about 5,000 from last year, placing the festival at around 42,000 advance tickets sold), but signs of hubris or overcrowding and goodwill-fraying logistical problems were minimal. My attending experience has remained consistent: commendably adventurous programming during the day, a sort of free-for-all of critics, filmmakers and college students running around […]
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Sundance Film Festival 2013
Last year, when I wrote about the Sundance Film Festival, I did so through the prism of its New Frontier section, using artists’ dialogue with mainstream filmmaking as a way to work my way into a broader discussion of the films found at the rest of the festival. Another year, I used the “revolution” theme of Sundance’s pre-film bumpers to discuss evolving changes in the festival’s self-definition. This year, when I interviewed festival director John Cooper before the 2013 edition, I asked him if there were any themes running through the curation, and he mentioned a “fearless” quality among the […]
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SXSW 2013
Mars is a lonely, spiritually bereft place in Philip K. Dick’s science-fiction classic The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Colonists live inside, away from the planet’s harsh elements and unexpected predators, whiling away the hours by playing a hallucinatory role-playing game called Perky Pat. Using little figurines — avatars, really — and a psychoactive drug, they transport themselves into a consumer fantasy world back on Earth. I thought of Dick’s book as I walked past an exhibit at SXSW Interactive this year. A company was demonstrating its 3D-printing prowess by making little plastic figures based on your Facebook photo — […]
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Berlin International Film Festival 2013
It was the festival of bear traps, digital ghosts and love battles. The 63rd Berlinale featured a strong competition lineup bolstered by great new films from Jafar Panahi, Denis Côté, Hong Sang-soo and Steven Soderbergh, none of which received major awards. However, Côté’s Vic+Flo Saw a Bear picked up a Silver Bear, known as the Alfred Bauer Prize, which, if you examine its history, has a better track record than the more questionable Golden Bear. Last year, this prize “for a feature film that opens new perspectives” went to Miguel Gomes’ Tabu. One of the best Canadian films in recent […]
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Thessaloniki International Film Festival 2012
Opening a film festival with Leos Carax’s Holy Motors shows sullen optimism, of which the 53rd Thessaloniki International Film Festival had plenty. The 10-day event in mid-November brimmed with hope and sunshine, but also what felt like bone-weariness from six years of producing both the international and the spring documentary festival with declining resources in a country where bankers and politicians are determined to spiral into further decline. Past parallel events, such as filmmaker master classes and a daily convocation of directors called “Just Talking,” were missed. Neither a first-time festivalgoer nor the crowds would notice: Capacity was reported at […]
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Toronto International Film Festival 2012
The increased emphasis on red carpet and premiere status in Toronto seems to have left the festival with an identity crisis. Compared to festivals like Locarno and Rotterdam, which have hit their stride in promoting the new guard of international cinema, just a quick glance at this year’s program guide makes it clear that the “Festival of Festivals” is in the midst of redefining itself. Wavelengths, formerly a sidebar of avant-garde shorts programs, has expanded to include the section previously known as Visions. Many of the more interesting films in the festival could be found here, including the much-buzzed-about Leviathan […]
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Toronto International Film Festival 2011
Toronto multitasks. It has to. The North American launching pad for second- or third-tier commercial releases with stars from lists A through C, the festival includes a rather high proportion of Galas and Special Presentations — a majority of them apparently uncurated. Many Torontonians, a cinephilic bunch, as well as peripatetic journalists and programmers, seek out more esoteric fare — almost all of it carefully selected by experts in different geographical zones (plus docs). Discovery, Contemporary World Cinema, Real to Reel, Visions, Masters, Mavericks, City to City: These are festival strands. The Galas and Special Presentations seem, well, booked. What […]
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Karlvory Vary International Film Festival 2011
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (July 1-9) is in its 46th year, but as the premiere cinematic gathering in the Czech Republic it feels even older. The fest takes place in a tiny historic town nestled inside a country that’s seen both Nazism and communism, a spa resort popular with German and Russian tourists and famous for its abundant healing mineral springs. (Goethe and Beethoven were frequent visitors.) Karlovy Vary was also the first Czech city to screen the Lumière Brothers’ shorts back in 1896. (Over a century later it would serve as a location for one of my […]
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Cannes 2012 pt. 2
The incongruity of Michael Haneke winning the Palme d’Or for the second time in four years was that his film featured two veteran actors, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, in a year that may well be remembered for introducing us to several new talents. The common denominator of the films that opened the official competition, Un Certain Regard and Directors’ Fortnight, was that only the parents and school friends of the young actors would have heard of the leads before they became the darlings of the Croisette. Moonrise Kingdom’s Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, as well as Broken’s Eloise Laurence, […]
