Cinema Saint Louis has officially unveiled
the line-up for the 18th annual Saint Louis International Film Festival today. I've known about all this for a while, as I did some assisting this year, but now that everything's set in stone (at least, as much as it can be) I can discuss some of the highlights this year. The four best films we're screening: Lucrecia Martel's
The Headless Woman [
La mujer sin cabeza], Lisandro Alonso's
Liverpool, Claire Denis'
35 Shots of Rum [
35 rhums] and Andrew Bujalski's
Beeswax. All four will make their local debuts at the festival, which begins 12 November 2009, opening with Lone Scherfig's
An Education, with Peter Sarsgaard, who hails from the Saint Louis area, in attendance. Sadly, I was so focused on the features this year I haven't had a chance to see any of the documentaries yet.
Bujalski will be in attendance at the
Beeswax screening on 13 November at Webster University. Lee Daniels is coming with
Precious (I tried to get Mariah, but y'know, she's busy) on 14 November. Director Kirk Jones will also be present for
Everybody's Fine, a remake of Giuseppe Tornatore's Stanno tutti bene with Robert DeNiro, Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale. Jason Reitman is coming with
Up in the Air, followed by a Q&A, on 14 November at the Tivoli Theatre. Other appearances include Kevin Willmott with his
The Only Good Indian; author Daniel Woodrell for the Director's Cut of Ang Lee's
Ride with the Devil; Connie Stevens for
Saving Grace B. Jones as well as co-stars Penelope Ann Miller, Rylee Fansler, Evie Louise Thompson and Tricia Leigh Fisher; Faruk Sabanovoc, co-writer and art director of
Snow [
Snijeg]; David Lowery with his excellent feature debut
St. Nick; Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, with
The Young Victoria which she co-produced with Martin Scorsese; AJ Schnack with his Convention; Joel Hodgson and the original crew of
Mystery Science Theater 3000; Joe Berlinger with his latest film
Crude; and Ry Russo-Young, writer/director of
You Wont Miss Me, another film that comes highly recommended.
Stewart Copeland's
Jennifer, which I discussed
twice before, will screen as part of the Documentary Short collection "Individuals." Another friend of mine Mike Steinberg, director of the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, will premiere two documentaries:
Old Dog, New Trick and
The Pride of St. Louis (co-directed by Thomas Crone). The screenings, on 20 November, will be followed by a concert from the subjects of the docs, local musicians Steve Scorfina and the band Mama's Pride (one of my father's favorites, actually).
Closing on Sunday, 22 November, you have your pick between Agnès Varda's
The Beaches of Agnès [
Les plages d'Agnès], Richard Linklater's
Me and Orson Welles, Terry Gilliam's
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus or Jean-Marc Vallée's
The Young Victoria.
A few other films screening this year that I quite admire: Nancy Kissam's
Drool; two films from Christian Petzold,
Yella and
Jerichow; Lucía Puenzo's
XXY; and Noah Buschel's
The Missing Person. And a couple I have yet to see: Jia Zhang-ke's
24 City; Nuri Bilge Ceylan's
Three Monkeys [
Üç maymun]; Ondi Timoner's
We Live in Public; and Hans-Christian Schmid's
Storm [
Sturm]. Check out the full schedule and descriptions (many of which were written by yours truly) at
Cinema Saint Louis' website. I'll have more updates closer to the fest itself.
One of the things I have been working on these past two months in assisting in putting together the local gay and lesbian film festival, otherwise known as Qfest which is now in its third year. Qfest picked up where the Saint Louis International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival left off when it ended in 1999. This year's program will feature eleven features (8 features, 3 docs) and four shorts, one of which, Heartland Transplant, was directed by my friend Cody Stokes and played at this year's Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. The festival runs from 28-31 March at the Landmark Tivoli Theatre.
While I haven't seen all of the films screening this year, I can safely recommend three of the ones I have watched. Leo's Room [El cuarto de Leo], the feature debut from Enrique Buchichio, is a compelling, often quite beautiful portrait of two former primary school classmates, who run into one another in their mid-twenties. Leo (Martín Rodríguez), dumped by his "beard," cruises online chat rooms for men; Caro (Cecilia Cósero) spends most of her day in bed, downing anti-depressants. While it doesn't break a whole lot of new ground, Leo's Room does have a number of rich, expressive moments that set it apart from your average coming-out/coming-of-age tale. Leo's Room is part of the 2010 Global Lens Collection.
Haim Tabakman's exceptional Eyes Wide Open, which premiered at Cannes last year in the Un Certain Regard section, follows a taboo love/lust affair between two Orthodox Jews (Zohar Shtrauss, Ran Danker) in Jerusalem. Ella Lemhagen's Patrik, Age 1.5 [Patrik 1,5] takes a farcical premise (a gay couple looking to adopt a baby get stuck with a fifteen-year-old homophobe due to a clerical error) and gives it dramatic weight, aided by two outstanding performances from Gustaf Skarsgård (Stellan's son, Eric from True Blood's brother) and Torkel Petersson (Old Men in New Cars) as the daddies-to-be. Tickets for all the films are now available; check the Cinema Saint Louis website for more information. Hopefully, if you're in the area, I'll see you there. I'll also be posting longer reviews of the three films mentioned above (and maybe a few of the others) closer to the festival date.
