After four days of packed houses and 18 extraordinary programs, the 16th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival ended on a spectacular note.
Alexander Payne introduces the Closing Night Film Photo © Pamela Gentile
The festival concluded with Victor Sjöström's masterpiece HE WHO GETS SLAPPED and the brilliant accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble from Sweden. In their excellent introductions of the film, Guest Director...
Here it is - the program announcement for the 16th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival! The eighteen programs coming to the Castro this July 14 - 17 feature beautiful new restorations, original commissioned scores, dispatches from the preservation front, masterpieces from the canon, and rarely screened gems. There's not one to be missed. Some highlights of this year's festival:What better way to begin than with the presentation of an amazing discovery: UPSTREAM. For Opening Night, we celeb...
With documentaries showing considerable muscle at the box office, the New York Film Festival is highlighting some documentary films that will be the subject of discussion for months to come. Opening in theaters later this week but featured first at the Festival is INSIDE JOB, a blistering look at the worldwide economic crisis and the secrets and lies that have brought free market capitalism to the brink of disaster.
Tackling a very New York subject, the tension between developm...
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...
For his "coming of age", the European Film Award- formerly known as Felix- has come for the first time to Scandinavia, to the lovely and lively -but horribly expensive- fairy tale capital of Denmark, home of the world's oldest, continuous monarchy - representatives of which will royally grace the 21st EFA Ceremony on- perhaps aptly enough- St Nicholas's Day (or December 6th for humbug-free non-believers and infidels, though I must chose my words carefully in multi-culti København)...
For his "coming of age", the European Film Award- formerly known as Felix- has come for the first time to Scandinavia, to the lovely and lively -but horribly expensive- fairy tale capital of Denmark, home of the world's oldest, continuous monarchy - representatives of which will royally grace the 21st EFA Ceremony on- perhaps aptly enough- St Nicholas's Day (or December 6th for humbug-free non-believers and infidels, though I must chose my words carefully in multi-culti København). This compact...
1920s 1928 Janet Gaynor - Seventh Heaven as "Diane", Street Angel as "Angela", and Sunrise as "The Wife (Indre)" Louise Dresser - A Ship Comes In as "Mrs. Pleznik" Gloria Swanson - Sadie Thompson as "Sadie Thompson" 1929 Mary Pickford - Coquette as "Norma Besant" Ruth Chatterton - Madame X as "Jacqueline Floriot" Betty Compson - The Barker as "Carrie" Jeanne Eagels - The Letter as "Leslie Crosbie" Corinne G...
FROSTED YELLOW WILLOWS, Anna May Wong : Her Life, Times and Legend. A documentary based on the life of third-generation Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong was presented today by its director Ms. Elaine Mae WOO, from Los Angeles, attending the 2007 edition of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival.Anna May Wong was born Wong Liu Tsong on January 3, 1905, in Los Angeles, California. Her parents ran a laundry in t
Marion Cotillard will receive the Hollywood Film Festival's "Hollywood Breakthrough Actress of the Year Award" at the Festival's October 22 awards ceremony.Marion Cotillard's selection was determined due to her distinguished performance in Olivier Dahan's "La Vie en Rose," a biography of the famous French chanteuse Edith Piaf. From the slums of Paris to the limelight of New York, Edith Piaf's life was a battle to sing and survive, to live and love. Raised in poverty, Edith's magical voice and he...
Wednesday, June 6------Film festivals are all about discovery......of newly emerging filmmakers or the latest films from acknowledged film masters. However, the best festivals also take a look backward, to celebrate the accomplishments of cinema giants long since past, and through this showcase bring to light "lost" films for a new generation of film lovers. Such is the case with Festroia's program of ten classic German feature films, a collaboration between the Festival and the G...
Saturday, June 2--------It seems inconcievable to me that the current generation of filmgoers (and possibly even most of the filmmakers) do not know who Billy Wilder was. Or is, for his style of filmmaking remains remarkably fresh and current. For myself, Wilder is one of the giants, who combined the pace of Hollywood filmmaking with the sophistication of his European roots. His movies remain decidedly adult and deal with human emotions that are still very much in style. For local audiences who ...
Thursday, February 8----Two legends collided in one city tonight as the Berlin International Film Festival began this evening. For one night only, Edith Piaf waltzed with Marlene Dietrich on the steps of the Berlinale Palast, in the heart of the "new Berlin" Potsdamer Platz. Of course, the two, most deceased, were not dancing in the flesh. But when the music of Edith Piaf, as captured in the Berlinale Opening Night Film LA VIE EN ROSE, spilled onto the streets of Marlene Dietrich Platz, two l...
Thursday, December 14----The Museum of Modern Art continues its grand tradition of honoring visionary artists from Hollywood's golden age, with a 21-film retrospective of the films of famed film score composer Franz Waxman, on the centenary of his birth. FRANZ WAXMAN: MUSIC FOR THE CINEMA opens on Saturday, December 16 and runs through January 17th at the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters at New York's citadel of culture, the Museum of Modern Art.
Franz Waxman was one of the best known and most in...
Thursday, November 2------Film directors always have a colorful history. Some come from film school. Some come from advertising. Some come from other industries entirely. But there are not too many that can claim that they first found fame as a drag artist.
Well, that is how Charles Busch became a household name (at least in my household) for his campy portrayals of glamourous women on the verge of a nervous breakdown (to borrow a title from another queen of camp melodrama). Busch is, in the...
“Help Wanted: Mature, well-known movie actresses to preside over juries at major film festivals. Temporary work, well paid, five-star hotel accommodations with many extras and fringe benefits. French or English speaking preferred. Under sixty need not apply”.While I did not actually see this ad anywhere except in my mind’s eye, this seems to be the year in which such a theoretical ad might have been circulated in the cinema “trade papers”.. With legendary French actress Jeanne Morea...
30th Retrospective at the 56th Berlin International Film FestivalDream Girls. Film Stars of the Fifties The Retrospective of the 56th Berlin International Film Festival will be dedicated to the screen heroines of the 1950s. A diverse programme of 45 films will present 30 actresses from the US, Europe and Japan. The Retrospective focuses on the portrayal of femininity in international films of the post-war period, which mirrors the reactionary climate of the Cold War and questions the obsolete ro...
SAN SEBASTIAN -- ALFRED AND GRETA ARE WATCHING ...by Alex Deleon – Lasst DayThis being the centennial of the birth of two towering icons of world cinema, suspense maestro Alfred Hitchcock, and the mysterious lady from Sweden Greta ("I vunt to be alone"), Garbo, both born in 1905, the spirit and image of these two idols is much in evidence this year in Donostia-San Sebastian The official poster of the festival bears a full length photo of Hitch, the official press bag issued to all journalist...
SPECIAL GRAND PRIX DES AMÉRIQUES AND 5-FILM RETROSPECTIVETO HONOR ISABELLE ADJANI AT MONTREAL WORLD FILM FESTIVALThe internationally renowned French star Isabelle Adjani will be honored with a Special Grand Prix des Amériques and a five-film retrospective at the 2004 Montréal World Film Festival, August 26 - September 6.The dazzling star of some 30 films will be presented with the Grand Prix at a tribute evening Friday, August 27, Festival President Serge Losique announced today.Five films t...
Which competition film or participant will take home a Golden or Silver Berlin Bear at the end of the Berlinale 2004 is decided by the International Jury. In 2004 this committee will again consist of seven international film experts from a variety of disciplines. This year’s President of the Jury is Frances McDormand, an Academy Award winner and star of independent film.The award ceremony of the 54th Berlin International Film Festival will be held at the Berlinale Palast on Saturday, February ...
The 2004 Montreal World Film Festival will pay tribute to French and international film star Isabelle Adjani, it was announced today by MWFF president Serge Losique."For us and for cinephiles worldwide, Isabelle Adjani is an extraordinary artist, an actress who is equally at home in transforming herself into her films' profound and exceptional characters or playing seemingly light roles with an expert touch," declared Mr. Losique. "The range and passion of her work has earned her advance members...
