Fests and events, 3/30.

The Philadelphia Film Festival opens today and runs through April 11, and both the Philadelphia City Paper and the Philadelphia Weekly are running big preview packages, collections of quick takes on dozens of films. Sam Adams introduces the City Pages' heftier guide and schedule, noting, "if you have to hire a sitter, board the dog, or cancel dinner at Django to see The Sun or The Death of Mr Lazarescu, do it." Funny he should say, because this is precisely the pair Matt Prigge chooses to write up in the Weekly. Prigge also goes for two docs, This Film is Not Yet Rated and Fuck.

The Guardian's Guy Dammann praises the addition of a section devoted to Westerns in the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival: "For what better symphonies of sublimated homoerotic fantasy do we have, if we think about it, than such films whose emotional landscape centres on the sexually-charged atmosphere of gunmen strutting before a draw, or the bristling, theatrical self-confidence of the stranger's entry to the small-town saloon to be mercilessly, cattily sized up by the company at large."

City of Lights, City of Angels (April 3 through 7) "has evolved from an ambitious experiment in cultural exchange into an invaluable survey of the margins and mainstream of le cinema français," writes Scott Foundas in the LA Weekly. Also: Ernest Hardy on Method Fest (tomorrow through April 7) and Holly Willis on Barbara Hammer's Love Other, screening April 3 at Redcat.

For the New York Times, Manohla Dargis is keeping up with the New Directors/New Films series (through Sunday), blurbing Pavee Lackeen, First on the Moon and Into Great Silence; plus Stephen Holden on Texas.

Related: Nick Schager gives The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros a B+.

More from Howard Feinstein at indieWIRE: "It's a truisim that a creative, provocative surge in the arts accompanies national crises. Look at the 'waves' that have emerged over the past 20 years in such countries as Argentina, China, Iran, and Mexico. Given that a significant majority of American independent films in recent years do not make the heart race, the unusually strong showing of US movies in the 35th edition of New Directors/New Films - a showcase of first- and second-time feature filmmakers which began March 22 and runs through April 2 - is evidence of the societal rupture that's been building since a certain president took over."

Also, Tamara Schweitzer previews the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival (April 6 through 9).

"Those attending next week's Full Frame Festival will have an opportunity to see the first documentaries to emerge in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. However, there is a locally produced documentary that, although not in Full Frame, is shedding important light on a disastrous hurricane much closer to home." David Fellerath in the Independent Weekly on This Side of the River, which actually screened last night as part of the African Diaspora Film Festival.

Jack Silverman, Jim Ridley and Noel Murray preview the Nashville International Black Film Festival (April 4 through 8) for the Nashville Scene, where, by odd coincidence, Murray reviews Manderlay.

The Vail Film Festival, featuring the world premiere of 10 MPH, opens today and runs through Sunday.

Brian Darr picks out several films he's looking forward to catching at the San Francisco International Film Festival (April 20 through May 4). More from Jeffrey M Anderson at Mindjack and Susan Gerhard at SF360, where Dennis Harvey offers an overview of the Noise Pop Film Festival (through Sunday).

The 8th Women's Film Festival in Seoul: April 6 through 14.

United 93 opens the Tribeca Film Festival on April 25.

Chema Rodriguez's Estrellas de la Linea (The Railroad All-Stars), a "documentary about Guatemalan prostitutes who form a soccer team for dignity and respect will open the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on April 28," notes Etan Vlessing in the Hollywood Reporter.

Aerodynamics of the Hovering Hummingbird: Science, Cinema, and Ways of Seeing, curated by Jennifer MacMillan and Bradley Eros, at the Millennium Film Workshop in NYC on April 29.

In Kamera, Elke de Wit looks back to the German films at this year's Berlinale: "Often those films that seem to be very popular with German audiences are the ones that I don't think will travel very well and vice versa."

Meanwhile, Sujewa Ekanayake has put forward two questions for filmmakers and festival organizers. In short: Should fests share some of the income from ticket sales with filmmaker? And: Do any already? Comments are coming in.

Posted by dwhudson at March 30, 2006 2:41 PM