Weekend fests and events.

Open City "is the ideal film with which to launch LACMA's Mamma Roma: The Films of Anna Magnani, a 14-film retrospective featuring numerous unfamiliar titles - and running through Nov 24 - that will reveal why Magnani remains one of cinema's greatest actresses," writes Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times.

In conjunction with Enduring Myth: The Tragedy of Hippolytos and Phaidra, an exhibition at the Getty through December 4, Gregory Markopoulos's Twice a Man and Jules Dassin's Phaedra will be screened next week. David Ehrenstein previews the pair for the LA Weekly.

Previewing Resistance and Rebirth: Hungarian Cinema, 50 Years after '56 (through November 15) for the L Magazine, Mark Asch catches three films by Miklós Jancsó: The Round-Up, The Red and the White... "But Electra, My Love, made nearly a decade later in 1974, tops 'em both for direct-address didactics and stylistic exceptionalism."

Before delving into another extensive guide to what all to see and do in the San Francisco Bay Area, Brian Darr urges you to vote for the Roxie.

In the Independent Weekly, Zack Smith has an overview of the Masters of French Cinema Series at the North Carolina Museum of Art (Fridays through December 15).

Kira-Anne Pelican blogs for the London Times on A Portrait of London, the project overseen by Mike Figgis: "For the most part, this was an event to remember. Less because of the individual nature of the shorts, which when viewed together resembled a Ken Livingstone, 'We are London' style promo, but more because watching film, in the magnificent setting that is Trafalgar Square, with all the spontaneity of the comings and goings of a live crowd, was in itself something to celebrate."

At Twitch, Todd's got the list of award-winners coming out of Toronto After Dark, plus a wrap-up press release.

The Heartland Film Festival, wrapping today, "is a thematic festival, one focused on the human spirit." Steve Ramos reports for indieWIRE.

At Twitch, Canfield wraps the Chicago International Film Festival: "Bottom line? A less than stellar lineup, as noted by many critics, was simply one of several reasons to feel less excited about covering what should be the local film event of the year."

Screenwriter William Martell lambasts what he sees as the film festival racket. Via Scott Macaulay at Filmmaker.

Posted by dwhudson at October 28, 2006 11:18 AM