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Film festivals, that place where Americans used to go

By Steven Zeitchik

American companies cut back on their festival movies, and now festivals are cutting back on their American movies.

It was only a matter of time. Festival films -- also known as high-quality literate movies -- are a dwindling priority for studios (see under, well, this item). And that means, among other things, that those of us in the media, industry and general public who like going to festivals to discover new talent and keep up with the old talent are increasingly going to find Asian, French, Romanian, other filmmakers -- people from pretty much everywhere except the Lower 48. Even Canada is developing  auteurs. Canada!
 
That non-American trend was already creeping in at Cannes this year, where Quentin Tarantino was one of the few Yanks to get a prime slot. And it's happening again at the New York Film Festival, usually a showcase for a number of American-made and English-language gems.

The fest over the past few years has been a pretty important stop on the fall awards circuit for studio and specialty pics;  "Mystic River," "The Wrestler" and "No Country for Old Men"  were among the movies that had their U.S. premieres at the festival and were spurred to Oscar and Globe glory. This year, there are exactly two scripted features from American directors (and one of those directors is Todd Solondz).

A jury finds that it get easier with practice

By Steven Zeitchik

In very un-O.J. fashion, juries seem to actually be getting it right these days. First Tribeca gave a prize to Marshall Curry's hugely satisfying "Racing Dreams.." Then Cannes admirably chose Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon" over "A Prophet" even though it a) wasn't French and b) was a lot more difficult.

Tonight CineVegas chose to give its grand jury prize to "Easier With Practice," the best movie that we saw at the festival and one of the better films we've seen this year.

The film is about a loner twentysomething writer, his cad brother and a dingy road trip the pair take to promote the writer's short-story collection -- a trip that takes a sharp turn when a stranger mysteriously calls the writer, setting in motion a phone relationship between the writer and his lady caller. It's a study in loneliness, perfectly observed.

No gambling metaphors -- but plenty of weirdness -- at CineVegas

By Steven Zeitchik

How surreal can CineVegas be? It's the kind of festival where you could be sitting in a theater waiting for a screening to begin, and through the speakers come the sounds of a couple tearfully exchanging vows, and then a festival programmer gets up to say it's nothing to be alarmed about - a couple is simply getting married on the red carpet. And no one bats an eye.

And this was actually the most normal part of the screening, which was for an oddball confection titled "Etienne," a hyper-ironic and yet emotionally supple pic about a pudgy, mustachioed loner who has no friends but for his pet hamster (the titular Etienne), to whom the loner speaks as though the animal does not, in fact, have a brain the size of a pea.

When said critter gets a diagnosis of terminal cancer, said loner decides to take him on a road trip (on -- what else -- his bicycle) up the Northern California coast ("to show him the trees"). It's "Lars and the Real Girl," only the main character has an even more tenuous grip on reality.

In Las Vegas, poker movies and other forms of doubling down

By Steven Zeitchik

With "Hangover" currently offering one version of Las Vegas on the big screen, there's something surreal about experiencing the city through the prism of a different cinema lens: that of a film festival.

But CineVegas, the annual Sin City gathering we've stopped to check out this weekend, offers just such said eeriness. In the middle of the slot machines and blackjack tables gather filmmakers and indie-biz types (sometimes right in the middle of it -- passage between fest headquartes and the screenings at the Palms Hotel pretty much requires a walk through the casino; never before has the simple desire to see a festival screening resulted in the mysterious disappearance of one's wallet). This afternoon we're fresh out of a screening of "All In," a documentary from Douglas Tirola about poker, not so much the game itself but the cultural phenomenon. Except for the third-act, in which the triumphal story of 2003 World Series winner Chris Moneymaker (the poetically-named outsider who took on and beat the pros in a fairy-tale run) provides the appropriate coda, the pic explores the reasons for poker's popularity a lot more than it does its mechanics or strategies.

In Havana, filmmakers against a blockade...

By Carl DiOrio

British director Mike Leigh's films -- including his latest, "Happy-Go-Lucky" -- are being honored with a career retrospective at the ongoing Havana Film Festival, where he took the time to participate in a video postcard being filmed for President-elect Barack Obama.

Several other filmmakers also recorded comments in a collective plea for easing trade restrictions with Cuba, which have hampered relations between the Cuban film community and the U.S. and its allies. No American actors or helmers have been able to participate in the fest for several years, since the long-running trade embargo – "El Bloqueo," as Cubans call it – was tightened further by the Bush administration.

"I'm all for Barack Obama and have been all along," Leigh said. “But now let's see what he does when he gets his hands on the reins."

Producer Donald Ranvaud – who has three films in competition at the Havana fest, including the prison drama "Oso Blanco" – was helping to coordinate the Obama video shoot.

“He’s elected now, and when he’s in office, he should do the right thing,” Ranvaud suggested. The video postcard to the incoming president is part of a broader embargo-lobbying project that goes by the Spanish acronym CUBA and which has enlisted support from musical artists Quincy Jones, Sting and others

...While the city becomes the new Mr. Chow -- sort of

By Carl DiOrio

Hotel Nacional has been site to a number of small-world moments during the ongoing Habana Film Festival.
With industry professionals from the U.S., Europe and throughout Latin American here for the 30th annual regional film fest, it's a natural assumption when you bump into a William Morris agent that he's in town for the event. Not so in the case of Kevin Murray, the onetime California state legislator and now 10 percenter at the L.A. talent shop.

"I'm here for some other meetings," said Murray, who works his relationship magic on behalf of WMA's corporate accounts these days.

Then there was Rob McClendon, the Oklahoma-based host of PBS' “Horizons” business-affairs program.
“There's a festival going on?" McClendon asked as he checked in with a visiting business delegation.

Meanwhile, veteran Hollywood publicist Stephen Rivers is everywhere.  He flew here to accompany Benicio Del Toro to screenings of “Che” and a hotel press conference held Sunday. But he tends to get about three steps anywhere he goes before someone hollers, “Hola, Stephen!” and stops him to exchange greetings.

Rivers has escorted numerous Hollywood VIPs – Steven Spielberg and Steven Soderbergh among them – to Havana over the years for meet-and-greets with the government and Cuban Film Institute officials and tours of the local film school.

"Stephen has done great things for us in Cuba," enthused Luis Notario, the film institute's communications chief.  In a country still lacking for dependable friends, it may not be long before a bronze Rivers bust joins the rest of the monuments in the city’s Parque Central."

(Getty Images photo)

A Cuban (cinematic) revolution

By Carl DiOrio

The whole country of Cuba could use a coat of paint.

Paint, even nails at times, are among the items still in obvious short supply decades into the U.S. trade embargo, or "El Blockade," as Cubans call the grinding restrictions on commerce and travel. And best not to discuss the toilet-seat situation.

But Cuba is well-stocked with cinematic history, from features such as Humberto Solas' 1968 classic "Lucia" to documentaries from the likes of Julio Garcia Espinosa and Santiago Alverez, and even contemporary musicals such as Jorge Luis Sanchez’s mambo-manic biopic of the legendary Cuban singer Benny More.

The 30th annual Habana Film Festival -- or more formally the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema – is a many-splendored, if occasionally chaotic, event which taps into that history. "It's not very well organized," admitted Martin Escalante, co-writer of Mexican helmer’s "Los Bastardos," a crime drama about Mexican day laborers in Los Angeles directed and co-written by Amad Escalante.

Then he shrugged, as if to acknowledge the efforts of fest volunteers, and suggested it was perhaps unfair comparing the event to Cannes or other big fests.

Juan Carlos Godoy, a first-year student from Mexico attending Havana's renowned international film and TV school, said he believes the local fest is gaining stature due to cooperative agreements struck with higher-profile fests in recent years. "It's already a big festival, but it's growing," Godoy said.

On a previous visit to Havana, filmmaker Sanchez once shared with us the hope he might someday tap into Yankee capital for a Cuban-Hollywood co-production. For now, the co-prods included among 114 fest entries are more on the order of Pavel Giroud's modestly budgeted "Omerta," a Cuban-Spanish co-production that the young Cuban describes as an “ironic thriller” about gangsters' search for buried loot.

Giroud said he does forward to securing U.S. co-financing for future projects such as his "Emporio Havana," a period gangster film based on the local business exploits of Meyer Lansky and other American mobsters. He also wants to cast Americans but can't under current embargo policy. Like many here, he's hopeful the incoming U.S. administration could bring change to that policy as well as several others.

"(Barack) Obama's triumph also can bring back the cultural flow that was lost under the Republicans," Giroud said. "I wanted to attend festivals in San Francisco and Santa Barbara to receive film awards, but I couldn't because of the travel restrictions."

At Havana film festival, optimism through cinema

By Carl DiOrio

Such an irrepressible city.

Havana bore the brunt of no fewer than three hurricanes this year but, as always, just keeps on ticking. An urban landscape decimated by need and neglect in addition to tropical storms, the city is nothing if not resilient.

Its newfound sense of tourism – new since the Soviets left now more than 15 years ago – resides well along side the populace’s natural warmth and openness. This month's 30th anniversary of the regionally focused Habana Film Festival, running through Dec. 12, has lent a literal sense of festiveness to the post-storm season atmosphere.

Many Havanans schedule their vacations to take advantage of the fest's screenings at theaters citywide. The venues tend to be a bit down at the heels, but the enthusiasm for the films couldn’t be stronger.

Benicio Del Toro will introduce Saturday evening’s screening of "Che" at Cinema Yara, and the pic's star will hold a press conference Sunday to discuss his participation in the Steven Soderbergh epic (shot in Spain, not Cuba, due to the U.S. trade restrictions) at fest headquarters at the Hotel Nacional.

The two-part, four-hour-plus biopic will then be screened at the cavernous, state-of-the-art Karl Marx Theatre on Sunday evening.

There is, of course, another set of visitors who regularly touch down at Jose Marti Airport here. They are the Cuban emigres to the U.S. who return to visit relatives, whenever time and travel regulations allow.

Teresa, a fellow passenger on the charter plane we took from Miami, was one such visitor. She hadn’t been able to visit her mother for 10 years but was returning now to do so, for her mother’s funeral.

Moore Manufactures Dissent

John Anderson has written a NYT story about the documentary Manufacturing Dissent, coming up at South By Southwest, which dissects Michael Moore's brand of POV filmmaking.

Berlin: Snyder Talks 300

300 is one of those movies that is going to change the way movies are made. It will be a decade-defining blockbuster, I suspect. Who knew that Frank "Dark Knight" Miller would continue to have such an impact on pop culture? He and Robert Rodriguez turned his Sin City into a stunning digital graphic novel movie, and now Dawn of the Dead director Zack Snyder has translated Miller's 300—about the Spartan's Battle of Thermopylae—into a hugely entertaining movie starring the well-muscled Gerard Butler (with, from left, director Snyder and Rodrigo Santoro). Warner Bros. launched the stylized war picture out of competition Wednesday at the Berlinale; here's Kirk Honeycutt's review and Borys Kit's Q & A with the filmmaker:

Filmmaker Zack Snyder is arriving in Berlin with "300," a historical action movie about the Battle of Thermopylae based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller. Snyder is an award-winning commercial and video director who made his debut with the 2004 remake of "Dawn of the Dead," which not only was a boxoffice hit but also was that rare horror movie to earn critical acclaim. "300" is only Snyder's second movie, but looking like a graphic novel come to life, it already is generating buzz for its unique style. Snyder discussed the film with The Hollywood Reporter film reporter Borys Kit.

The Hollywood Reporter: How did you get involved with "300"? Did you read the Frank Miller graphic novel?
Zach Snyder: I was familiar with the graphic novel, and a few years ago, I was in (producer) Gianni Nunnari's office, and I saw it on his desk. And he was telling me, "We have this movie that Martin Scorsese is doing, and we have this movie ..." and he said, "What are you interested in doing? What would be cool?" And I said, "That would be cool (pointing at graphic novel.) If you made '300' into a movie, and specifically this shot of Leonidas getting whacked by a million arrows." I said, "If you could make this shot real, then you've got, well, you've made something that I had never seen in a movie."

THR: But at that point you had not even directed a movie.
Snyder: I had no track record. I was the guy who quit 'S.W.A.T.'. That's not a great thing to be in Hollywood.

THR: And then you made "Dawn of the Dead," which was a hit, and then the project was finally set up at Warner Bros.
Snyder: (Warners president of production) Jeff Robinov had seen 'Dawn of the Dead' and for whatever reason thought it was something special. He wanted to make a movie with me. He helped shape the movie ("300") and helped me understand that movie I wanted to make, but in the end, he wanted me to make my movie as cool as I could. And that's hard in this town. The way the system is set up, to really cultivate a filmmaker and say, "You're promising me you'll make something different?" That's a promise that every filmmaker makes, by the way. That was really cool, and I felt obligated to try to give him something else.

THR: How did you convince him that you're making something different with "300"?
Snyder: I did a test shot. I remember we were talking, and he said, "Is there anything you could show me that would help me understand what this is?" I said, "Yeah, let me shoot something." So I did a shot and basically it was a 360-degrees Steadicam shot of one Spartan fighting. I didn't want to do a shot from the movie because it invites a whole series of questions like, "Is this what the actors are going to look like?" It opens up a whole can of worms. So I did an abstract action sequence, but it actually tells a story. It starts with the Warner Bros. shield, which gets stabbed, and the camera comes around and you see this Spartan fighting these Persian soldiers, kills them all, and a phalanx links up with him and we go back to reveal the entire Persian army. And they all shoot arrows. So it had the same style as the movie.

THR: How did you come up with that style?
Snyder: I had played around with it in commercials. Aesthetically, it's what I like. What we did in the test shot, and we did this in the movie, is in the fighting. I wanted to see the actors fighting. If you look at the movie, in the beginning of Battle 1, there's a lot of quick cutting. And in some ways I did that on purpose, to goad the audience into perceiving that that's the way the battles were going to be photographed, in that sort of "Gladiator," messy, you're-not-quite-sure-what's-happening style. And then suddenly, the movie breaks out and the language of the movie really becomes apparent when Gerry (Gerard Butler) is hacking everybody and the camera is floating. We shot that with three cameras, all right next to each other. The one center camera is flat, the wide lens camera is slightly bladed in, and the long lens is slightly bladed in. And all three were running at 150 frames. All three are basically shooting the same thing. They overlap. And in post, you end up with the ability to zoom between the different sizes and never cut. By having all three, I could choose where I wanted to be.

Berlin Is Hotbed of Sales Activity

The hunger for acquiring titles continues unabated as the Berlin market winds own, reports THR. Indiewire has also been filing reports:

At the Berlinale today...Samuel Goldwyn Films and Netflix's Red Envelope Entertainment have announced the joint acquisition of Julie Delpy's feature directing debut, "2 Days in Paris," which had its world premiere earlier this week in the Berlin International Film Festival's Panorama section. Delpy wrote, directed, edited, composed music and stars (with Adam Goldberg) in the culture clash romantic comedy set in Paris. The two companies are planning a Summer 2007 release.

Waitress Opens U.S. Comedy Arts Film Fest

The 13th annual U.S. Comedy Arts Festival to be held in Aspen, Colorado from February 28 to March 4 will show 30 features and 20 shorts. The film fest will open with Adrienne Shelly's Sundance hit Waitress and will unveil Frank Oz's Death at a Funeral, among other premieres. here's the press release:

The U.S. Comedy Arts Festival (USCAF) and HBO announced the lineup for the 2007 Film Program sponsored by HBO Films, at the 13th installment of the prestigious festival to be held February 28 – March 4 in Aspen, Colorado. The film program line up showcases 30 features – including three world premieres and two North American premieres – 20 shorts, culled from entries around the world.

Headlining the film lineup is the opening night film “Waitress,” directed by the late Adrienne Shelly, which will screen at the Wheeler Opera House on Tuesday, February 28 at 6:00 p.m. The film premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, where it was acquired by Fox Searchlight, and her husband Andrew Ostroy announced the creation of the “Adrienne Shelly Foundation” to support the efforts of women writers and directors.

“Waitress” will be Shelly’s second film to appear at the USCAF. In 2000 her film “I’ll Take You There,” was awarded the prize of Best Director.

World premieres include Guy Shalem’s “Cook Off!,” Armen Kaprelian’s “Closing Escrow,” Frank Oz’s “Death at a Funeral,” Jim Pasternak’s “Certifiably Jonathan,” and Gary Toll’s “Judy Toll: The Funniest Woman You’ve Never Heard Of.”

The film program will also feature special screenings of works in progress including John Landis’ “The Rickles Project,” “The Combacks” directed by Tom Brady and Jamie Kennedy’s “Heckler.” Jamie Kennedy will also host this year’s Festival awards ceremony.

“The films that we have selected to showcase alongside the live performances at the festival offer a diverse group of talent from different backgrounds and experiences, but all solidified in the foundation of comedy,” said Kevin Haasarud, Director of the USCAF Film Program. “Each year the festival looks forward to bringing together such a vast community of filmmakers, film buyers, television executives, comedians, writers and actors and giving them the rare opportunity to collaborate with each other and admire one another.”

Gonzalez Inarritu Directs Cannes Short

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu will be contributing one of the 30 two-to-three-minute short films to be unveiled at Cannes on May 20 to celebrate the festival's 60th anniversary, he told me. Other directors contributing include past Palme d'Or winners Gus Van Sant, Wong Kar Wai and Ken Loach. Pedro Almodovar reportedly turned the Cannes festival down.