The program is coming together. A great Cecil B. DeMille silent with musical accompaniment at the Paramount….and a prominent Iranian video artist on display at a local gallery…and the recipient of the Virginia Film Award has accepted our invitation. Unfortunately, there’s a restraining order from our publicist preventing me from naming names prematurely. {More}
Archive for May, 2006
San Francisco Wrapup
A couple of other films I caught in San Francisco have potential as REVELATIONS titles. Stanley Nelson’s new film Jonestown recounts the descent of a seemingly enlightened, integrated church and its minister into isolation and suicide. I can’t say that Jonestown helped me understand Jim Jones, although I understood more about the utopian vision that attracted his followers. Aleksandr Sokurov’s The Sun also showed an all-powerful leader, Emperor Hirohito, whose religious authority led many to their deaths. However, this Sun God had the sense, for his defeated country’s sake, to renounce his divinity; the multidimensional performance by Issei Ogata paints an unforgettable portrait of a pathetically oblivious and yet strangely admirable leader. This is the most accessible Sokurov film I’ve ever seen, and I hope it gets an American release. {More}
Greetings from San Francisco
I’ve been here since Friday. Alongside fellow jurors Marian Masone and Ed Arentz, I’ve seen ten of the eleven films vying for the $10,000 SKYY prize, which we’ll hand out on Wednesday night at the Golden Gate Awards. The films are all directors’ first features, drawn from all over the world.
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