AltWeeklies Wire
The Ann Arbor Film Festival: Bringing indie film to Mitten Masses for 48 Yearsnew
It's pretty safe to say that Michigan isn't exactly wanting for film festivals. In fact, the damn things are popping up like dandelions. If you throw a dart at a calendar, you're bound to hit a week when an ethnic or special interest group is screening flicks for local moviegoers.
Metro Times |
Jeff Meyers |
03-30-2010 |
Movies
Going for the Gold at the Toronto International Film Festivalnew
The Toronto International Film Festival is often a venue for anointing the preordained, the first stop on the studios' long march toward Oscar season. But it's the surprises that shine through.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
09-29-2009 |
Movies
A Week Without Movie Stars at the 33rd Montreal World Film Festivalnew
For years Montreal's festival ran neck and neck with the Toronto Film Festival, competing to premiere films from the same pool of foreign and independent releases. But as Toronto secured its position by bringing in more big Hollywood pictures, Montreal continued to rely on foreign films. And with fewer of those picked up for North American distribution every year, the pool of high-profile picks shrank steadily.
Saving Shaolin: Portland Film Geek Unearths Grindhouse Goldminenew

Dan Halsted started Portland's Grindhouse Film Festival in 2004. Since then, he has developed the festival into a monthly showcase of genre cinema that pits the sordid pulp of films like The Toolbox Murders against the antiseptic blandness of contemporary multiplexes.
The Portland Mercury |
Matt Davis |
09-10-2009 |
Movies
Rebecca Yeldham Fights the Good Fight at Helm of the L.A. Film Festivalnew
The 41-year-old Yeldham came onboard as festival director this past March during a tense moment for LAFF and its parent organization, Film Independent. She had to hit the ground running, with barely three months left to plan for the festival's 2009 edition.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
06-19-2009 |
Movies
Looking for 'Slow Cinema' at the Berlin International Film Festivalnew
If this year's Berlinale was dominated and ultimately defined by polyglot international coproductions that, as one British colleague joked, might have been rated "G" for globalization, the festival's most memorable offerings came from filmmakers who looked no farther than their own backyards for inspiration.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
02-20-2009 |
Movies
Cinematic Representations of Female Athletes Evolve Alongside Women's Sportsnew
What do tricked-out bikes, Canadian roller derby, prepubescent soccer players, and cops playing a 4,000-year-old Southeast Asian sport have in common? All are the subjects of documentaries screening at the Baltimore Women's Film Festival's Women in Sports shorts program.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raven Baker |
10-28-2008 |
Movies
Filmmakers Turn Lens On Baltimore's Growing Latino Populationnew
Viva El Cine Latino, a Latino short film festival, is a long-overdue examination of Baltimore's Latino culture through language and how linguistic misunderstandings can lead, through pain and confusion, to growth and catharsis.
Baltimore City Paper |
Robbie Whelan |
10-14-2008 |
Movies
VIFF Embarks on Odysseys in Musicnew
"With music, you can keep on dreaming." So says Quique Cruz in Archeology of Memory: Villa Grimaldi, one of numerous movies about music as inspiration and guiding light at this year's Vancouver International Film Festival.
The Georgia Straight |
Ken Eisner |
09-26-2008 |
Movies
Finding Joy in the Little Things at the Toronto Film Festnew
Speaking strictly in percentage terms, film festivals are defined more by the movies you don't see than the movies you do. That went double for the just-ended Toronto International Film Festival, where the initial buzz was mainly concerned with the lack of putative Oscar contenders.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Sam Adams |
09-23-2008 |
Movies
SPARKcon Looks to Its Futurenew

For its third year, SPARKcon continues to wage the battle to help brand the Triangle as "the creative hub of the South." The three-day conference and showcase of local talent is designed to bring together the area's creative community, helping it connect with the public—and itself.
Disappointments and Surprises: Toronto International Film Festivalnew
When good directors go bad. At least, that's what it has felt like around here as one anticipated new film after the next by some of the world's name-brand auteurs — the Coen brothers, Spike Lee, Jonathan Demme — has laid a less-than-golden egg
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
09-12-2008 |
Movies
Discovering the Bbest of Pica's 2008 TBA Fest.new
Here are our top TBA picks, organized thematically.
Willamette Week |
Staff |
09-03-2008 |
Movies
Tags: film festivals
Sweet Talking with the Film Banditsnew
The film collective of 15 or so just finished casting for Pinheads!. Their first short is the story of a group of second-rate villains — a pickpocket, a dine-and-dasher, a movie pirater and the aforementioned cupcake thief — who play in a bowling league against an equally unimpressive lineup of heroes.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Monica Weymouth |
08-26-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: film festivals, cupcakes
The YoungCuts Film Fest Pulls Together Consistantly Good Shortsnew
Chalk it up to the digital revolution or well-funded film schools or the willingness to take on credit card debt, but the festival films' production values are impressively high, all told.
Montreal Mirror |
Mark Slutsky |
08-18-2008 |
Movies