AFI Fest Reviews, Interviews & More
AFI FEST 2010 announced today the four feature and two short films that are the recipients of this year’s Audience and Jury Awards out of the 97 films (66 features, 31 shorts) selected from 3,000 submissions divided across 31 countries.
“We’ve had extraordinary, diverse audiences and incredible attendance at the festival this year, so it’s especially rewarding to...
I will admit to not being a huge fan of American independent cinema in general, largely for its tendency to recycle self-regarding postures and technique instead of ringing out with intelligent, individual voices. And so I approached the AFI Fest's Young Americans strand with caution, but am pleased to say that Mike Ott's Littlerock does its part to restore the good name of the...
As guest artistic director of this year's AFI Fest, David Lynch gets to screen some old classics that mean a lot to him. One of them is Bergman's Hour of the Wolf, whose psychological horror techniques echo throughout Lynch's oeuvre from Eraserhead on. I will admit to having an unresolved relationship with Bergman (don't we all!) but whichever way you slice it, this is a...
It was a little alarming to hear the AFI Fest's associate director of programming describe Takeshi Kitano's latest, Outrage (Autoreiji), as a return to form, since it comes off the back of his masterpiece, Achilles and the Tortoise. What he means is that it's a return to the straight Yakuza genre with which Kitano started his career, and into which he has injected...
Last night David O. Russell's The Fighter starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Melissa Leo, and Amy Adams had it's first ever screening at AFI Festival. The secret screening was only announced yesterday morning and over 100 people were turned away at the door. The star and producer of the film Mark Wahlberg was there to introduce the film and he told the audience...
The AFI Fest offered an intriguing proposition on Sunday afternoon: back-to-back screenings of South Korea's most famous classic film, Ki-young Kim's The Housemaid (1960), together with Sang-soo Im's 2010 remake/re-imagining. It wasn't an entirely successful event - problems with the digital print of the older version meant the new one was screened first, which was obviously...
Lucky us! Well some of us! If you're in the LA area you can be one of the first to screen the new drama starring Mark Wahlberg alongside the stellar supporting cast of Christian Bale, Melissa Leo, and Amy Adams, in The Fighter. AFI Fest just announced today that they will be screening the film from director David O. Russell for festival attendees tonight at 9:30 p.m....
Bertrand Tavernier has a long and distinguished career behind him, of well-crafted, intelligent films across a wide range of genres (L'horlogier de Saint-Paul, 'Round Midnight). But he's never been exactly a hit name, and his recent films haven't even made it to these shores, so it was a treat to attend the AFI Fest's presentation of his latest, La princesse de Montpensier....
What one really wants form a film festival is to be surprised, and the AFI fest did a pretty good job on Friday night, with a midnight screening of Switzerland's first science-fiction film, Cargo.
As with Johnson's walking dog, the surprise is that it is done at all. An immensely ambitious undertaking, set almost entirely in deep space, on a long-haul cargo ship, the film took nine...
The AFI Fest does a good job of getting film-makers to town to attend their screenings, which is how we were gifted with an extra titbit of info from Quentin Dupieux about his film Rubber. He directed it in the nude, wearing one black glove.
Of course he didn't. His movie is absurd. He was accompanied on stage with a tire, the star of the film: it opens in fine surrealist fashion,...
Every three years or so, one can get genuinely excited about the Palme d'Or winner, and with Apitchatpong Weerasethakul's previous work looming large in best-of-the-decade lists, and now three major Cannes prizes on his mantlepiece, it was particularly welcome news that his Uncle Boonmee should be coming to the AFI Festival (Saturday 6 Nov. at 8.45 in the Mann Chinese 6).
Over...
One of the things I like about the AFI Fest is that I know I'll get a fix of Argentine cinema which, for my money, bears the rare distinction of producing the best films in the world right now, in both mainstream and independent spheres. The international resurgence about ten years ago (with Nine Queens et al) resulted in a healthy state-funded production system, which in turn spawned...
It's coming.. From November 4 through 11 the AFI takes over Hollywood with what is traditionally a fine selection of movies from around the world. Big names from the international festival circuit appear alongside less-heralded movies diligently sought out by the programming team, with plentiful US premieres. The festival is under new management this year, but the programme remains as...
And so the 2009 American Film Institute Festival has, as all good things must, come to an end. A smaller selection of films than recent years, showing mostly in one screening only, was offset by the remarkable fact that in conjunction with its sponsors, the AFI was able to present the entire festival for free. This is obviously a good thing, and it would be remarkable if viable in the long...
One of the AFI Fest's exclusive screenings in its final two days' removal to Santa Monica was Portugese João Pedro Rodrigues' acclaimed transvestite drama Morrer Como Um Homem. From the war-paint-as-make-up opening, followed by a terrific sex-change origami demonstration, to the musical afterlife-view finale, Rodrigues glides smoothly and unhurriedly through the story of aging...
The AFI Fest moved on Friday from its Hollywood home to the westside, coinciding with the start of Santa Monica's American Film Market. This occasioned the welcome replay of a handful of titles, as well as some screenings exclusive to the new location. One of the former, widely-praised after an appearance at Cannes, was the Politist, adj., Romanian Corneliu Porumboiu's follow-up to...
The AFI fest continues to support and expose new Argentine cinema with El Secreto de sus ojos by feature and TV director Juan José Campanella. It is essentially a legal eagle murder mystery movie; Campanella has been behind the camera for several episodes of Law and Order, and the TV form is intermittently evident here, but it's to his credit (he also adapted the source novel) that...
So the deal is that Edward Pressman, producer of Abel Ferrara's original Bad Lieutenant, owns the rights to the title and decided the time was right to reuse it with an eye to kick-starting a franchise (he is also currently planning Wall Street 2, and a reboot of The Crow.) He wanted someone unexpected to direct and eyebrows were certainly raised when news filtered...
One of the more anticipated titles in this year's AFI fest was Mother (Madeo), subject of excited word of mouth from Cannes, Toronto and Karlovy Vary, and the fourth film from South Korean writer-director Bong Joon-ho (The Host). Its opening, with an old woman walking slowly through then dancing in a field, has little to do with what follows, but does introduce the...
Always a friend to Argentine cinema, the AFI Fest this year presents Castro by Bueno Aires Film University professor Alejo Moguillansky. There's a an exciting movement in Argentina, spearheaded by the group formed around Mariano Llinás (he of the terrific Historias Extraordinarias, edited by Moguillansky), and working quite outside the traditional channels of government...
