The Authors Circle: Process and Perspective in the Literary Arts
Saturday, January 17
3:00 p.m.
Yarrow Hotel Theatre
In film circles, most discussions of literature tend to centre on notions about adaptation. But we’ve invited a group of authors to share their thoughts on process. Where does personality in writing come from?
How do they maintain an ongoing experience of the world?
To whom do they show their work and when?
What are the things they can’t write about and why?
How have films changed their approach to writing, and why is screenwriting
different? Join Walter Mosley, Jane Smiley, and others for this illuminating discussion.

Directors on Digital
Sunday, January 18
3:00 p.m.
Egyptian Theatre
This panel assembles some of this year’s noted directors working in digital video to discuss aesthetics, technology, and their most recent films. Are there secrets to directing digital video?
How does form influence content?
What drives the decision to shoot digitally?
Are these directors just hungry to play with the latest gadgets and gear?
How much of the choice to shoot digitally is grounded in economics and how
much in aesthetics?
How do directors rate their experiences working in DV?
How has digital technology altered the filmmaking process? This panel is moderated by Anne Thompson, contributing editor for New York magazine.

The New “New Black Film”
Monday, January 19
noon
Yarrow Hotel Theatre
Talking about Black .lm at this year’s Festival means talking about more than a dozen very distinct perspectives. The diversity of aesthetics, subject matter, and representations sets these films apart from the market-driven, genre oriented films that have succeeded with mainstream audiences. Has there been a more focused move by African American filmmakers away from the mainstream and toward independent .lm companies and distributors? Is it a trend that will be embraced by companies and audiences?
Moderator Elvis Mitchell talks with Mario and Melvin Van Peebles, Vondie Curtis Hall, Kasi Lemmons, Shola Lynch, Ernest Dickerson, Kevin Willmott, Rodney
Evans, and others about the paths they took to make their films.
Gone Global: The New Power of

World Sales
Tuesday, January 20
noon
Yarrow Hotel Theatre
Film sales have been a global proposition for quite some time, but the role of international sales agents remains a mystery to many filmmakers. Sales representatives are no longer simply brokers who sell a movie into the international marketplace. Now, they are involved in financing projects, presales, co-productions, and getting films into festivals.
Wouter Barendrecht, Jonathan Dana, Cassian Elwes, Charlotte Mickie, Steven Raphael, John Sloss, and Christine Vachon discuss what they do; the relationship among producers,
producers reps, and sales agents; and
the variety of ways and stages in which
projects are sold.


A Special Conversation with Bernardo Bertolucci
Wednesday, January 21
3:00 p.m.
Yarrow Hotel Theatre
The films of Bernardo Bertolucci constitute one of the most exhilarating and substantive bodies of work in cinema history. Once an assistant director to Pier Paolo Pasolini as well as a renowned poet, Bertolucci creates work as diverse as it is distinctive.
From Before the Revolution, The Conformist, and Last Tango in Paris to The Last Emperor and Stealing Beauty, his films are the very essence of visual expression. His newest film, The Dreamers, concerns the unfolding psychological and sexual relationship between three young adults in 1968 Paris. Join Bernardo Bertolucci for this special conversation.

Town Hall Meeting: Taking Politics Beyond the Screen
Thursday, January 22
3:00 p.m.
Yarrow Hotel Theatre
While it’s true that a handful of films remain committed to exploring overtly political subject matter and a handful of filmmakers speak out on various issues,
has the film community itself realized its full potential to be a positive force within our larger political landscape?
Can film really make a difference in politics? How does the “artist activist”
in America compare to those in other countries, where governments have a much different relationship to the political power of .lm. Join John Sayles, Ted Hope, Carlos Sandoval, Catherine Tambini, Alanis Obomsawin, and others in a discussion of where film and politics meet on and off the screen.

The Perils of Prometheus: Ethics in Science and Film
Friday, January 23
3:00 p.m.
Yarrow Hotel Theatre
Filmmakers have long been attracted to the moral realm of new discoveries in science and technology. Stories about atomic power, the building of machines, advances in genetics and artificial intelligence, or simple inventions that give us new capabilities, all have the potential to explore the good and bad in human nature, social institutions, corporations, and government. These Pandora’s box–style stories are a way of asking moral and philosophical questions about our world. But how does science work through those same questions—in real time and under a multitude of constraints and pressures. In this Panel, sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, moderator Ann Druyan, John Underkof.er, Marvin Minsky, and other filmmakers and scientists examine issues of knowledge
and ethics in the sciences that have changed, and will change, our lives.