FilmFestivals Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It all started in Venice in 1932 – the world's first film festival. Then other festivals began popping up for a variety of reasons, some political, given the growingly fascist government in Italy: Cannes in 1946, Edinburgh in 1947, Berlin in 1951, and so on, until the present day, when a journalist can spend a decent portion of the year (and salary) covering Sundance, the Toronto Film Festival, Telluride, South by Southwest, Fantastic Fest, New York Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, CineVegas, and, more recently, San Diego Comic-Con, just to name as a few, as well as the aforementioned international festivals if they're really lucky.

As time has passed, the fests have become more than venues for movie buyers and sellers to haggle over movies or arbiters of taste in the finest of arthouse flicks. Along the way, critics and journalists have gotten into the festival circuit, which is a win-win for the movies and the writers; small films get the buzz that's sometimes a good push for them to get picked up by distributors, and the writers get access to films before they get hot, making them tastemakers and generally ahead of the curve when it comes to Oscar season, film trends, and insider-y scoops that can only occur when you find yourself sharing an elevator with a Weinstein. Festivals can be great litmus tests for movies that take forever to get picked up – you can pretty much guarantee they're gonna be a stinker by the time they arrive in theaters for a weekend and disappear after that.

I haven't even finished all of my Fantastic Fest work yet (expect a semi-large wrap-up real soon), but my inbox has been flooded with new reports from three other genre festivals. And since I love this stuff, I figured I'd throw 'em all into one handy section. Let's begin reverse-chronologically, shall we?

Beginning on October 17 is the small-but-powerful Toronto After Dark festival (October 17 - 24), which aims to fill a post-TIFF void while Midnight Madness programmer Colin Geddes and his staff take a well-earned vacation. I shan't be able to attend this fine-looking event, but the final slate just came in -- and I can definitely vouch for titles like the brilliant Let the Right On, the amusingly bizarre South of Heaven, the splatterific Tokyo Gore Police, and the stylishly nasty Donkey Punch. Among those "ooh, I wanna see that" titles we have Kevin Tenney's Brain Dead, the comedy horror Netherbeast Incorporated, and I Sell the Dead, which stars Ron Perlman, Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden AND Angus Scrimm. Cool. For more info on Toronto After Dark, click right here.

After the jump: More geeky droolings on L.A. Screamfest and the biggie: SITGES!

A couple hours north of New York City is a small town you may have heard of before: Woodstock. Its place in music history is secure, and it's home to a rather impressive film festival, too, running Oct. 10-14 this year. The opening and closing films were announced a few weeks ago -- Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly to kick things off, Todd Haynes' I'm Not There to wrap things up -- and now the full schedule shows that there's a lot of great stuff in between as well.

Considering the fest only runs four days (Oct. 10 is just a kick-off party), they've filled it with a surprising number of films: 23 narrative features, 28 documentaries, and 58 shorts. Some of the notable entries:

Narrative: Mary Stuart Masterson's directorial debut, The Cake Eaters; the rotoscoped Chicago 10, about the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which was Sundance's opening night film this year; Grace Is Gone, already earning Oscar buzz for John Cusack's performance as an Iraq War widower; and Terry George's Reservation Road.

Documentary: Festival-circuit favorite Billy the Kid, about an emotionally troubled teenager; Chasin' Gus' Ghost, about the history of jug band music; "Peanuts" profile Good Ol' Charles Schulz; rock doc Joe Strummer: The Future Is Written; the touching Holocaust love story Steal a Pencil for Me; and Super High Me, in which comedian Doug Benson stays sober for 30 days and then spends another month smoking pot every day.

Looks like a great fest, and it's in a beautiful part of the country. For all the details on the Woodstock Film Festival, visit their website.

One of my dreams for when I'm a millionaire is to spend a year crisscrossing the globe, just traveling from one film festival after another. I've already got the major ones lined up: Sundance in January, South By Southwest in March, Tribeca in April, Cannes in May, Toronto in September; the rest of the slots are still to be determined. I bet if you had unlimited resources, you could literally spend every day of the year at some film festival somewhere.

Well, the helpful folks at Variety have got my back. In Monday's issue, they have an article called 50 Unmissable Film Festivals, and it reads like a wish list for avid film lovers. They list the "Big Five" -- Berlin, Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, and Venice -- right off, then list the rest alphabetically, from Adelaide to Warsaw.

Some of the ones you'd expect to see are on the list. South By Southwest, Telluride, AFI, CineVegas. And then there are others, mostly foreign fests, that I'd never heard of. And I am intrigued!

Camerimage, held in Lodz, Poland, is where "cinematographers are given the rock-star treatment"! What about Courmayeur Noir, at the foot of the Italian Alps, where the focus is mysteries, horror, and suspense films? I've never been to Iran, and can't imagine ever going -- so perhaps my future millionaire self, flanked by dozens of bodyguards, will visit some February for the Fajr Film Fest.

From Guadalajara to Eastern Europe to Seoul to Nantucket (I once knew a man from there!), there's a cool-looking film festival in just about every corner of the world. If you love movies and traveling, check out Variety's list and feel jealous about what you're missing.

Earlier this year, Jette Kernion and I covered the inaugural year of the AFI Dallas Film Festival. I was quite impressed with the job the AFI Dallas team did in pulling the fest together; they had a pretty solid lineup, especially for their first year. It takes a while to shake out all those kinks, but the staff was knowledgable and enthusiastic, the press office was organized and helpful, and overall they did a solid job. But, the work of a film fest staff is never done, and so, just a few months after the first fest ended, AFI Dallas is already making plans for 2008, and I'm pretty pumped to see what they do with it -- especially now that I'm living in Oklahoma City, just a three-hour drive from Dallas.

Says the fest's senior programmer James Faust (a super-nice guy who, I swear, must have had a cloning machine hidden in the fest office somewhere, because I saw him introduce countless screenings at both main venues), "After a stellar first year, we hope to expand our programming to include more film education, more music, increase our international film content, stretch the imagination with new and amazing animation, and continue to showcase that great Texas hospitality to all of our filmmakers and festival goers."

The expanded programming will be featured in categories including World Cinema, Dallas Premiere Series, Deep Ellum Sounds (that one will focus on music and honors the culture of Dallas' artsy Deep Ellum neighborhood), Mavericks (aka, those films that make you go, "hmm ...."), Family Friendly (self-explanatory), American Visions, and Midnight Specials (those are always a nice break from the more serious fest fare).

Last year's fest had 194 films; this year they're aiming for 225, so all you filmmakers out there itching to get your film into a fest, it's time to shake a leg and submit your film to AFI Dallas. The early deadline (with reduced fees!) is October 26, final deadline is December 7, with decisions announced no later than February 27, 2008. More info is available at the official AFI Dallas website.