SNEAK PEEK: AFM 2010 Gets Into Swing with 409 Films, 49 World Premieres & 287 Market PremieresDim the house lights, open the curtains: the 2010 American Film Market (AFM) opens today, Nov. 3 through Nov. 10. Usually you can get a thematic read on this annual cinephile buyer/seller-ama by running through some titles. Consider this year's AFM offerings sampler: SYMPATHY FOR DELICIOUS, JACK GOES BOATING, I'M STILL HERE, THE PEOPLE VS GEORGE LUCAS, FREAKONOMICS, GASLAND, LOVE RANCH, THE DRY LAND, L...

Four thousand film festivals populate the globe. But more than many, the San Francisco International Film Festival may satisfy a collective hunch of what such a gathering should be. Perhaps age has something to do with it; at 53 years old, SFIFF, held this year from April 22 to May 6, 2010, is the oldest film festival in the Americas. Then there's the topography of San Francisco, which rises, falls and yields vistas that themselves cop filmic metaphors. Or maybe it's because San Francisc...

The 15th edition of the GEN ART FILM FESTIVAL came to a rousing ending on Tuesday night with the NY Premiere Screening of MERCY, a morality tale starring Scott Caan set in the shark-infested waters of Los Angeles, followed by the announcement of the award winners for this year's event. The Acura Grand Jury Award for Best Feature went to Tatiana Von Furstenberg and Francesca Gregorini’s “Tanner Hall” with both directors on hand to receive their award. The Acura Grand Jury Awar...

  Most American indie films don't have budgets to attract big stars or show off spiffy special effects. However, what they do have and are arguably much better at than the Hollywood studios, is the ability to offer stories that are more personal and more "real" and which relate to their audiences in a special way. Endings don't always need to be happy, conflicts don't always need to be tied up and emotions don't need to be well mannered in an indie film. In this sense, they a...

  The Gen Art Film Festival, a kind of mini Sundance, opens tonight with the East Coast Premiere of HappyThankYouMorePlease, the directorial debut of actor Josh Radnor. The film will screen at the 1500-seat Ziegfield Theater in Manhattan, one of the last of the grand movie palaces left in New York. Radnor, best known as an actor, is pulling a Woody Allen with this debut film....writing, directing and starring. The fact that the film won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Fes...

  Some might say that the most prized award given at the Sundance Film Festival is the public prize. Winners of the Audience Award, as opposed to winners of the juried competitions, tend to indicate an innate audience appreciation that speaks volumes to film distributors and critics. In that light, tonight's Opening Film at the 15th Gen Art Film Festival is bound to be a crowd pleaser. HappyThankYouMorePlease is the directorial debut of actor Josh Radnor, best known for his role o...

  It has been a decade and a half since Gen Art, the nationwide networking organization devoted to art, fashion, music and movies, first launched a New York-based film festival to highlight works from emerging American independent artists. But different from other festivals of a similar stripe, the Gen Art concept was quite simple: seven films shown over seven nights with audience members invited to an after-party at a hot club or restaurant each evening. This winning formu...