Opening with Potiche (french film by François Ozon starring french icon Catherine Deneuve) just six days after New Years the Palm Springs Film Festival can probably lay claim to the honor of being the very first such festival of any size or signifigance on the annual international film festival calendar. While this is not a festival one hears too much about, being well off the beaten track and coming at a time when most of us are still recovering from year end Holidaze entertainment ove...

Opening just six days after New Years the Palm Springs Film Festival can probably lay claim to the honor of being the very first such festival of any size or significance on the annual international film festival calendar. For readers unfamiliar with the geography of Southern California, most of the lower part of the state is actually a desert and Palm Springs is a kind of extremely upscale oasis in the middle of this desert, a hundred miles away from Los Angeles and halfway to more desert over ...

The halfway mark of the festival peaked for me last night with Tom DiCillo's slam-bang DOORS documentary "When You're strange", by far the best rocku-docu this writer has ever seen, but more on that in a moment. The day's opener was the morning press screening of Swedish director Lukas Moodyson's competition entry, "Mammoth", top lining hot Mexican star Gael Garcia Bernal (of Almodobar's "Mala Educacion"), American actress Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain) and featuring three terrific kids...

The halfway mark of the festival peaked for me last night with Tom DiCilio's slambang DOORS documentary "When You're strange", by far the best rocku-docu this writer has ever seen, but more on that in a moment. The day's opener was the morning press screening of Swedish director Lukas Moodyson's competition entry, "Mammoth", top lining hot Mexican star Gael Garcia Bernal (of Almodobar's "Mala Educacion"), American actress Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain) and featuring three terrific kids ...

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...