Fall Film Festivals - Canada, Italy, Spain, USA

69th Venice International Film Festival

 The 69th Venice International Film Festival (la Biennale di Venezia - VIFF), directed by Alberto Barbera, kicks off today, Wednesday, August 29, with the Opening Ceremony and the Palazzo del Cinema screening of Mira Nair's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, out of competition. It will run through September 8th. Check out the Screenings schedule.

WEBSITE (English)

Toronto International Film Festival

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Toronto, Canada, opens September 6, and runs through the 16th. The folks at Toronto claim, "The Toronto International Film Festival is the leading public film festival in the world, screening more than 300 films from 60+ countries every September." I have no facts to dispute that. I do know that their cinematic selection each year is one of the best if not, as they claim, the best. The TIFF has another distinction, that of managing to screen the Academy Award-winning  feature movie with regularity. Therefore, when I begin the process of trying to predict that winner, I turn to Toronto.

A small sample of films to be screened: From the U.S.A. Beasts of the Southern Wild, Great Expectations. Quebec writer-diector Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette's Inch’Allah, and the return of Austrian auteur and two-time winner at Cannes, Michael Haneke with Amour.

Ticket packages are available to buy now. Individual tickets go on sale September 2nd.

WEBSITE
 

60th SAN SEBASTIAN FILM FESTIVAL

French filmmaker Georges Franju will be the subject of one of the retrospectives programed for the 60th San Sebastian Festival (SSIFF), September 21 - 29, 2012. Franju would have been 100 this year. 

Georges Franju (April 12, 1912 / November 5, 1987) was an enormously influential figure in French film culture. In 1936 he founded the Cinémathèque Française with Henri Langlois, and his career as a director began in 1949 with documentaries. His early works demonstrated his particular talent for filming reality from unexpected angles, a trait akin to surrealism and expressionism.

American director Oliver Stone and Scottish actor, Ewan McGregor will each receive the Donastia Lifetime Achievement Award for their contributions to cinema.  Both of them have new movies, which will premiere after the presentation of their awards, September 23 for Stone's Savages. The Impossible starring McGregor and Naomi Watts, directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, a young filmmaker from Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, will premiere September 27. Bayona's most recent movie before The Impossible is The Orphanage (El orfanato, 2007), featuring Geraldine Chaplin.

Films in Progress will present six films from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay. Four films from Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco are selected to participate in Cinema in Motion.

Sixteen Spanish movies will premiere in the Made in Spain section, including Sleepless Knights, a German production in the Spanish Language, due to be released in 2013. The movie has been selected for the 2013 Forum section at the upcoming Berlin Film Festival and the Cine del futuro section at the Buenos Aires Festival. The full screenings schedule for the SSIFF has not yet been released.

The 60th edition of the San Sebastian International Film Festival will include screenings of the eight films selected this year for the Zinemira section, dedicated to films produced for the most part in the Basque Country. The Premiere's section will include six new productions, while Panorama will offer another two titles produced this year.The six premieres will contend for the Serbitzu Award, a new addition this year. The award will also be open to Basque productions presented in any of the other Festival sections.

WEBSITE  (English)

 

SAN DIEGO FILM FESTIVAL

The San Diego Film Festival (SDFF) will run from September 26 - 30, 2012, and has expanded to two locations, downtown San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter and La Jolla.

If you haven't experienced all the San Diego Film Festival events previously, you need to know this festival is known as "The Party Festival." Each night's fete is held at one of the Gaslamp Quarter's hot spots or in the gorgeous setting of La Jolla. Open to Patrons, Sponsors, VIP & Festival day pass holders, each party will feature a one-hour hosted bar. There are many other smaller parties open to all attendees. At any party, attendees must be 21 with a valid ID.

Gus Van Sant

Oscar nominated auteur Gus Van Sant will attend the special tribute and retrospective of his films. The Festival will screen some of his most acclaimed features, including early indie favorites Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho and more recent Academy Award winners Good Will Hunting, Milk and Cannes Palme d’Or winner Elephant. He is currently directing Promised Land, written by and starring Matt Damon and John Krasinski.

 A small sample of films to be screened: From the U.S.A. Beasts of the Southern Wild, Great Expectations. Quebec writer-diector Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette's Inch’Allah, and the return of Austrian auteur and two-time winner at Cannes, Michael Haneke with Amour. The full Festival schedule has not yet announced.

WEBSITE

Nicole Kidman will be honored, and there will be a special screening of a newly restored version of Lawrence of Arabia. Only two of the juicy events for the 50th New York Film Festival (NYFF), September 28 - October 14, 2012, under the auspices of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York City. More on this one later.

WEBSITE

As information is released there will be more from time to time on this blog about the above festivals.

Cannes Notes: ROBIN HOOD, no big whoop

SERIES: Major Film Festivals

Cannes has a multilingual Web site in eight languages. Take a look.

Also, have you been wondering who the person is in poster above? Keep reading . . . . .

A last minute addition to films in competition is Ken Loach's ROUTE IRISH, which brings the number to 19. Loach's film THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY won the Palme d'Or in 2006. The film tells the story of two Liverpudlian ex-soldiers who go to Iraq to work as private contractors, and will screen 20 May.

Julie Bertucelli's, THE TREE, with Charlotte Gainsbourg, Marton Csokas and Aden Young, will be presented at the Festival's Closing Ceremony. Her first feature film SINCE OTAR LEFT won the Grand Jury Prize of the Critic's week at Cannes in 2003. She is the daughter of French director Jean-Louis Bertucelli.

ROBIN HOOD, the epic by British director Ridley Scott starring Russell Crowe as Robin Longstride and Cate Blanchett as Marion Loxley, screened out of competition on Opening Night of the 63rd Festival de Cannes, Wednesday, May 12th, 2010. It was the world premiere for the film, which was presented out of competition. It is in release in the U.S. now.

Other notables in the cast are Max Von Sydow, Lea Seydoux and William Hurt. In the movie, King Richard (Danny Huston) and his soldiers pause on their way home from Palestine to attack a French castle. I haven't seen it, but I have heard the French were routed. And, as it turns out, the response to the movie at Cannes was less than stellar. Hmmmm.

I came across three excellent reviews. The first is an audio review by National Public Radio's Kenneth Turan, and he is spot on when he says, sort of, that Scott's movie is about Robin before he was forced to take up residence in Sherwood Forest's hood with his merry men, but there is little that is merry about this movie. Listen.

A. O. Scott's review in The New York Times, 14 May, is more in-depth for those of you who wish to read deeper.

Owen Gleiberman in the current issue of Entertainment Weekly sums up Crowe's Robin Hood and the movie, "[Crowe's] so grimly possessed with purpose that he's a bore, and so is the movie."

The world premiere of Oliver Stone's WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS. was Friday, 14th, screening out of competition. It is a sequel of Stone's WALL STREET ( 1987), starring Michael Douglas, who is back as Gordon Gekko.

Appearing with Douglas is an a-list cast, including Josh Brolin, Shia LaBeouf, Carey Mulligan, Charlie Sheen, Susan Sarandon and Frank Langella. Compared to ROBIN HOOD's lukewarm reception, Stone's new movie can be labeled a critical success at Cannes.

Woody Allen's latest, YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER, will screen out of competition next week. This Allen movie has a large and diverse cast, including Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin (he's been busy this year), Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto and Lucy Punch. It's U.S. release is scheduled for September.

As I reported in a previous post, there is only one U.S. film in competition, FAIR GAME, based on the true story of CIA agent Valerie Plame, starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts (another busy one), and directed by Doug Liman (THE BOURNE IDENTITY).

The person on the poster? It is a photograph of French actress Juliette Binoche (THREE COLORS: BLUE, WHITE, RED) by Brigitte Lacombe, graphic design by Annick Durban. To access the Cannes IFF Official Site click title of this post.

Here Comes Cannes

The world-renown Cannes Film Festival will open in Cannes, France, 13 May, and run through 24 May 2009, 16 days away at the time of this post. This year is the 62nd edition. Gilles Jacob is president.

Significant Festival history will be made beginning on opening day with the computer-generated animated movie UP (Disney-Pixar, directed by Peter Docter), opening the Festival with its international premiere. This is the first time an animated movie has opened the Cannes Festival, and UP is not just any animated movie, it is in digital 3-D. The top prize is the Golden Palm (Palm d'Or). It could make more Festival history if UP won it, but UP is screening out of competition. The movie is scheduled to release in the U.S. 29 May.

French actress Isabelle Huppert is the jury president at this year's Festival. Only three other women have helmed the panel in the six decades of the Festival. The other women so honored: Liv Ullmann, Jeanne Moreau and Françoise Sagan.

The director lineup in the main competition of 20 strong films will include directors Quentin Tarantino (INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS), Ang Lee (TALKING WOODSTOCK), Pedro Almodovar (BROKEN EMBRACES), Jane Campion (BRIGHT STAR) [won as director of THE PIANO, the first woman to win the Golden Palm for directing], Ken Loach (LOOKING FOR ERIC), and Lars von Trier (ANTICHRIST).

Asian films are strong this year. Chinese movies joining Ang Lee's, are Hong Kong director Johnny To's VENGENCE, Park Chan-wook's (THIRST), and Ye Lou's and SPRING FEVER.

One of the Festivals' special screenings will be for HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR by French director Alain Resnais, one of the outstanding French New Wave directors. This year, the Festival commemorates the 50-year anniversary of the film's first screening at Cannes, and Resnais (86) brings his latest film, WILD GRASSES, to Cannes. Two of his fellow countrymen will join him to represent France, Jacques Audiard (A PROPHET) and Xavier Giannoli (IN THE BEGINNING).

Another showcase will be the last film performance of Heath Ledger in the Terry Gilliam fantasy THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS. Ledger died mid-shoot last year and his part was completed by Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. Ledger was awarded a posthumous Oscar® this year for his supporting-actor performance as The Joker in THE DARK KNIGHT.

One of the biggest galas associated with the festival, is actually a benefit gala held outside the main Festival, but in conjunction with it - - the annual European fundraiser sponsored by the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR). American actress Sharon Stone will host it again on 21 May. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Carine Roitfeld, Michelle Yeoh and Donatella Versace will be among 800 personalities attending.

This year for the first time, the benefit gala will be held at a Riviera palace, the Eden Roc, at Cap d'Antibes. Singer Annie Lennox will give a special performance. Last year's event raised $10 million.

The closing night film is Dutch-born, now French director, Jan Kounen's COCO CHANEL & IGOR STRAVINSKY, screening out of competition. I shall be following the Festival from now until it closes 24 May.