Fests and events, 1/31.

• Al Franken: God Spoke, directed by Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus.

• Fired!, directed by Chris Bradley and Kyle Labrache.

• Heavens Fall, directed by Terry Green.

• The Oh in Ohio, directed by Billy Kent. What an unusual cast: Parker Posey, Paul Rudd, Mischa Barton, Danny DeVito and Liza Minnelli.

• And V for Vendetta.

Matt and his team are putting together a program featuring nearly 50 world premieres. And the Music fest's looking none too shabby, either.

In the Guardian, Matthew Tempest reports from the Rotterdam International Film Festival and offers first takes on Jan Svankmajer's Lunacy, Fabienne Berthaud's Frankie, Kornél Mundruczó's Johanna, Lech Kowalski's East of Paradise, Manoel de Oliveira's Magic Mirror, Chantal Richard's Lili and the Baobab, Emily Richardson's Block and Jim Finn's Interkosmos.

More from Rotterdam: Cineuropa interviews nine young directors with films at the fest and Boyd van Hoeij is now blogging full blast at europeanfilms.net.

IndieWIRE gathers all its Sundance coverage onto one handy launching pad of a page. Meanwhile, Anthony Kaufman's "6 Things I Learned at Sundance 2006" are six things worth knowing if you're already planning for 07.

Amy Taubin at Flavorpill: "This the first Sundance where I didn't fall in love with at least one one film."

Perhaps you saw (or more likely, read about) Isabel Coixet's The Secret Life of Words when it screened at Sundance. If so, you'll be doubly interested to hear that it's just won four Goyas, the Spanish counterpart to the Oscars. Those four include best film and best director. Reuters reports and André Soares has the full list at the Alternative Film Guide.

In other awards news, the New York Times ran an AP report on the Screen Actors Guild awards, but the Carpetbagger's entries are far more fun. At any rate, Reese Witherspoon (comment: robbiefreeling at Reverse Shot) and Philip Seymour Hoffman were the big winners.

Also in the NYT: David M Halbfinger wraps Sundance, and he's found a theme: culture clashes.

Sonia Phalnikar has a serious take on this morning's Berlinale press gathering at Deutsche Welle (and in English).

Posted by dwhudson at January 31, 2006 12:31 PM