.............                                                                                                                                                          NEWSLETTER N° 499: february 25, 2011 Follow this LINK if you cannot read the newsletter properly  Contact the Editor, Advertise with us  This weekly newsletter reaches 90 931 film professionnals. ...

The stars will roll into Cinequest Film Festival, always a bastion for the discovery of new and emerging talent and innovations, at the palatial California Theatre for their premieres. Previous Maverick Spirit Award winner, Edward James Olmos, will return to Cinequest for the World Premiere of America on March 3, 2011, at 7 p.m. at the California Theatre. Olmos stars in and executive produces the powerful story of a courageous woman who flees Puerto Rico to start life anew in New York City. ...

Mark Romanek, Scott Frank, Michael Elliot, and Adriene Bowles Among Program Mentors & Guest Speakers -Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that produces the Film Independent Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival, has selected 33 filmmakers for its annual diversity mentorship program, Project:Involve. The signature program is dedicated to fostering the careers of talented filmmakers from communities traditionally underrepresented in the film industry. Writer/directors M...

THE BIG EVENT of the day, if not of them entire week, was a personal appearance by Sylvester "Rocky" Stallone in the ongoing festival sidebar, "Conversations With" -- featured monitored stage interviews with various Hollywood personalities of note.  The last was with actor Ben Affleck and still to come is legendary no-budget flix director Roger Corman.  Mr. Stallone, now pushing sixty-four (Born July, 1946) but looking more like thirty-four, showed up nattily dressed in...