Penelope Cruz in BROKEN EMBRACES (Spain)
The New York Film Festival, which enters its final weekend today, has presented a program with a large emphasis on European cinema. With a strong showing of films from Portugal (http://www.fest21.com/en/blog/filmnewyork/a_peek_at_portugese_cinema_at_nyff) and
France (http://www.fest21.com/en/blog/filmnewyork/the_french_invasion_of_new_york), the Festival finds that contemporary European cinema from other nations not only has...
Ten days have gone by like a flash and I'm sitting here in the press room on Saturday afternoon, Valentine's Day, mulling over the dull flicks I slept through, the one or two that kept me awake, and the handful that I really wanted to see but never got around to. ("John Rabe", Sean Penn's "Milk", a Persian film called "Barbareye Elly", the latest Wajda, and a few others). Of the half dozen competition films I did get to, not one was a real winner, and most were so...
ALEX'S FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS -- ANNO 2005 WITH A MERRY X-MAS TO ALL! 1.TROMSO, January -- A fantastic place to open the festival year if you love snow and don't mind fifteen minutes of daylight, MAX ...in January. That was just a joke, folks -- by late January you get almost a whole hour of sunlight -- around eleven AM -- but really, who needs it? ...when fest topper, irrepressible Norskie-American MARTHA OTTE, is guaranteed to provide a slate of such interesting films that you'll spend th...
An abridged version of the Seattle Polish Film Festival closed out on Sunday, May 6, with a screening of the highly controversial "We Are All Christs" by veteran maverick director Marek Koterski. Only nine films were screened during the abbreviated week, but the closing entry featuring an alcoholic father bearing a full sized cross and a suffering son with a crown of thorns throughout, was an eye-opener. The screening was attended by Mister Koterski and his wife, an actress who appears in the f...
GDYNIA -- BLUES ON THE BALTICAlex Deleon, Sept. 15Although there are no international or Hollywood stars prancing around the premises there are enough Polish film celebrities and industry VIPs in attendance, and the 30th Jubilee mood is so high that the local papers have picked up the catch-phrase "Cannes on the Baltic". One reason for the upbeat atmosphere is the announcement by festival artistic director Maceij Karpinski, that after many years of quibbling and struggling the new Polish Cinema...