Published: Sunday, March 11, 2007
Cleveland becomes movie mecca
For truly different film fare, the Cleveland International Film Festival is the place to go.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
Do the offerings at your neighborhood multiplex seem to be lacking in variety and spice these days?
Are you a hardcore cineaste who's still mourning the closing of Austintown Movies, the Youngstown area's first and only arthouse since the Foster went porno back in the early '70s?
Does the idea of a celluloid smorgasbord comprising the sort of esoteric, off-the-beaten path-type fare that not even Netflix can provide send your heart racing with palpitations of joy?
Well, there's a cure for what ails all of you cine-obscurantists out there, and it doesn't require round-trip airfare to Toronto, Sundance, Cannes or any of the other top-dog film festivals.
The 31st edition of the Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF) kicks off at Tower City in downtown Cleveland Thursday, and for eleven days and nights you can binge on all sorts of "art-with-a-capital-A" flicks that will never see the light of day in the Mahoning Valley.
Some samples
Think I'm kidding? How about "Zoo," an acclaimed documentary about — what else ? — bestiality that premiered at Sundance this January. Or "Manufactured Landscapes, a Canadian documentary which examines the "ever-increasing industrialization, urbanization and globalization" of present-day China and opens with a 10-minute tracking shot encapsulating every inch of a Chinese factory.
"Zoo" and "Manufactured Landscapes" are just two of the many docs scheduled to play CIFF this year, and they're not even part of the Nesnadny + Schwartz Documentary Film Competition in which 11 non-fiction films vie for a cash prize.
Sixteen movies are in the running for CIFF's Greg Gund Memorial Standing Up Film Competition which celebrates "social justice and activism by presenting films with messages that cannot and should not be ignored."
Eighteen homegrown indies compete for a cash prize in the American Independent sidebar, the only CIFF competition in which the audience gets to pick the winner. (Juries composed of film professionals award the festival's other prizes.)
And in the festival's fifth annual Central and Eastern European Film Competition, films from Poland, Hungary, Serbia, the Czech Republic, et al, contend for a $10,000 check.
Big winners
The winners in all four competitive categories will be announced on March 25, the festival's closing night.
As usual, CIFF's "something for everyone" programming (120 features and more than 110 shorts representing close to 60 countries) is spread out over a plethora of individual sections and sub-divisions. You can pick and choose from Jewish and Israeli Visions (films that celebrate Israeli filmmaking and/or Jewish themes); Cinema en Espanol (Spanish language films); Local Heroes (films about Cleveland, set in Cleveland or made by Clevelanders); 10% Cinema (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender films); Pacific Pearls (films from Asia and the Pacific Islands); Scandinavian Screenings (the best of Nordic cinema); Music! Movies! (films highlighting musicians, music movements and the influence of music on movies); Pan-African Images (films from Africa and the U.S. by and about Africans and African-Americans); Midnight Snacks (cultish night owl fare); and Independent Shorts (15 programs consisting of short films of various stripes and persuasions).
There's even a self-contained retrospective within the main festival dedicated to Australian visionary Rolf de Heer ("Bad Boy Bubby," "The Quiet Room"). All eleven of de Heer's films, including his most recent work ("Ten Canoes"), are featured in this year's Director Spotlight.
While the Cleveland International Film Festival will probably never attain the prestige or cultural cachet of some of the more renowned international film festivals, it's a great opportunity for northeastern Ohioans to take a representative sampling of what's new — and certainly different — in world cinema.
All you need is a tank of gas to get there.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
For truly different film fare, the Cleveland International Film Festival is the place to go.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
Do the offerings at your neighborhood multiplex seem to be lacking in variety and spice these days?
Are you a hardcore cineaste who's still mourning the closing of Austintown Movies, the Youngstown area's first and only arthouse since the Foster went porno back in the early '70s?
Does the idea of a celluloid smorgasbord comprising the sort of esoteric, off-the-beaten path-type fare that not even Netflix can provide send your heart racing with palpitations of joy?
Well, there's a cure for what ails all of you cine-obscurantists out there, and it doesn't require round-trip airfare to Toronto, Sundance, Cannes or any of the other top-dog film festivals.
The 31st edition of the Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF) kicks off at Tower City in downtown Cleveland Thursday, and for eleven days and nights you can binge on all sorts of "art-with-a-capital-A" flicks that will never see the light of day in the Mahoning Valley.
Some samples
Think I'm kidding? How about "Zoo," an acclaimed documentary about — what else ? — bestiality that premiered at Sundance this January. Or "Manufactured Landscapes, a Canadian documentary which examines the "ever-increasing industrialization, urbanization and globalization" of present-day China and opens with a 10-minute tracking shot encapsulating every inch of a Chinese factory.
"Zoo" and "Manufactured Landscapes" are just two of the many docs scheduled to play CIFF this year, and they're not even part of the Nesnadny + Schwartz Documentary Film Competition in which 11 non-fiction films vie for a cash prize.
Sixteen movies are in the running for CIFF's Greg Gund Memorial Standing Up Film Competition which celebrates "social justice and activism by presenting films with messages that cannot and should not be ignored."
Eighteen homegrown indies compete for a cash prize in the American Independent sidebar, the only CIFF competition in which the audience gets to pick the winner. (Juries composed of film professionals award the festival's other prizes.)
And in the festival's fifth annual Central and Eastern European Film Competition, films from Poland, Hungary, Serbia, the Czech Republic, et al, contend for a $10,000 check.
Big winners
The winners in all four competitive categories will be announced on March 25, the festival's closing night.
As usual, CIFF's "something for everyone" programming (120 features and more than 110 shorts representing close to 60 countries) is spread out over a plethora of individual sections and sub-divisions. You can pick and choose from Jewish and Israeli Visions (films that celebrate Israeli filmmaking and/or Jewish themes); Cinema en Espanol (Spanish language films); Local Heroes (films about Cleveland, set in Cleveland or made by Clevelanders); 10% Cinema (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender films); Pacific Pearls (films from Asia and the Pacific Islands); Scandinavian Screenings (the best of Nordic cinema); Music! Movies! (films highlighting musicians, music movements and the influence of music on movies); Pan-African Images (films from Africa and the U.S. by and about Africans and African-Americans); Midnight Snacks (cultish night owl fare); and Independent Shorts (15 programs consisting of short films of various stripes and persuasions).
There's even a self-contained retrospective within the main festival dedicated to Australian visionary Rolf de Heer ("Bad Boy Bubby," "The Quiet Room"). All eleven of de Heer's films, including his most recent work ("Ten Canoes"), are featured in this year's Director Spotlight.
While the Cleveland International Film Festival will probably never attain the prestige or cultural cachet of some of the more renowned international film festivals, it's a great opportunity for northeastern Ohioans to take a representative sampling of what's new — and certainly different — in world cinema.
All you need is a tank of gas to get there.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
what else ? — bestiality that premiered at Sundance this January. Or "Manufactured Landscapes, a Canadian...
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