Fests and events, 7/17.

"In what is shaping up to be the Bay Area art event of the summer, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is presenting the only US showing of Matthew Barney's extensive Drawing Restraint series. Thomas Logoreci talks with curator Benjamin Weil for SF360. The extravaganza is open Friday through September 17.

Harry Knowles is "fucking jazzed," and understandably so, to be able to announce that Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain will be the closing night film at the Fantastic Fest (September 21 through 28 in Austin). He's got notes at AICN on over a dozen other titles in the lineup as well.

In the Los Angeles Times, Susan King sets the mood for The Female of the Species: Screen Sirens of the 20s, a series at the UCLA Hammer Museum through August 11.

All weekend long, the Siffblog turned into the Sfsffblog, which is to say, David Jeffers and Anne M Hockens sent in quick, on-target dispatches from the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Related: Michael Guillen on Seventh Heaven and Brian Darr: "I'm reminded again why, once you've enjoyed 35mm prints of these films on the Castro Theatre's towering screen with live musical accompaniment by some of the best in the business and a very appreciative audience, it's hard to be satisfied by a home video silent film experience."

At Cineuropa, Bénédicte Prot checks in briefly with the ongoing Munich Film Festival. Also: Fabien Lemercier takes note of the single Hungarian entry in the Lacarno International Film Festival (August 2 through 12), Kythera; Vitor Pinto sees a Portuguese entry, Body Rice; and Lemercier on the French films competing in Venice (August 30 through September 9).

Richard Phillips begins to look back at the Sydney Film Festival: "Although the festival provided some sense of the world, with a large number of features about the Middle East and a few valuable movies, many of the problems highlighted in previous WSWS coverage of the festival are still present."

Deutsche Welle reports on a Bollywood festival in Stuttgart.

Online viewing tip. A brief clip from Caveh Zahedi: Bruce Conner introduces a screening of Pandora's Box. At Movie City Indie, Ray Pride points to Kristine McKenna's 1990 profile of Conner for the LAT.

Posted by dwhudson at July 17, 2006 7:40 AM