Fests and events, 7/5.

"The Toronto International Film Festival always begins on the first Thursday in September. It's my favorite day of the year, and this site is one more way for me to indulge my obsession with it. Think of it as a First-Timer's Guide to TIFF." Darren Hughes launches 1st Thursday. Meantime, Toronto's announced a fresh batch of titles and Variety's Anne Thompson's got them.

David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson file a scrumptious report from Bologna and the Cinema Ritrovato festival, which runs through Saturday.

"Second-city, easily overlooked, clearly insecure Manchester has just entered the festival racket," reports Mark Swed for the Los Angeles Times. "[T]he Manchester International Festival 2007, which began Thursday and runs for 18 days, is trying very hard with 25 world premieres. The festivities include opera, drama, concerts, literature, film, food, debates and art projects all over the place and all intended to culturally spice up the metropolis that gave rise to the Industrial Revolution, communism and the computer but now is best known as a haven for sports and 24-hour party people."

The Cambridge Film Festival opens today and runs through July 15. Charlotte Cripps has a preview in the Independent.

"It was just about midnight July 4 by the time Omar Ali Khan's Pakistani splatter exercise Hell's Ground (Zibahkhana) flickered to life onscreen at the New York Asian Film Festival, getting both an early start on the pyrotechnics to follow much later in the day and assuring viewers in attendance that no fireworks, barbecues or general holiday revelry would surpass the bedlam imported that night to IFC Center," reports ST VanAirsdale. Also from the NYAFF, Michael Wells for Twitch: Dasepo Naughty Girls, The Show Must Go On, Trouble Makers and I'm a Cyborg But That's OK.

"Falling is just now concluding a US premiere engagement at Anthology Film Archives in New York," notes Andrew O'Hehir in Salon. "Especially in contrast to the star-loaded awkwardness of Evening, [Barbara] Albert's film stands out as a pitch-perfect depiction of female friendship with all its intimacies and deceptions. Wrenching, redemptive and marvelously acted, it's among the best things I've seen this year."

"After Hostel director Eli Roth gave a copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation to Steven Spielberg, the movie reached a whole new level of exposure," Eric Kohn reminds us in the New York Press, where he talks with the dedicated adapter, Eric Zala. "An adorable tribute that works as more than pure pastiche (teenagers wearing false beards somehow reflects the childlike joy of escapism), the movie screens July 6 and 7 at Anthology Film Archives, with Zala in attendance."

Ball of Fire: Barbara Stanwyck Centennial opens Friday at the Pacific Film Archive and runs through the end of the month. Max Goldberg and Johnny Ray Huston celebrate in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

"Describing itself as the 'last independent independent film festival,' Dances With Films celebrates its 10th edition beginning Friday at Laemmle's Sunset 5," writes Susan King in the Los Angeles Times. "It's billed as the only festival in the US in which all the features, shorts and documentaries feature no known actors, directors or producers."

"The RomeFilmFest is going for Gallic flair, opening with Alain Corneau's gangster pic remake Le deuxieme souffle (Second Breath), for which stars Monica Bellucci and Daniel Auteuil are expected on the red carpet," reports Nick Vivarelli for Variety.

"[A]fter giving up on his career as a dancer, [Ken] Russell freelanced as a photographer," writes Jasper Rees in the Telegraph. "Submitting work to the Pictorial Press agency, his photographs appeared in publications such as Illustrated Magazine and Picture Post." Ken Russell's Lost London Rediscovered: 1951 - 1957 is on view at Proud Central through August 21.

Next week in Austin, notes Josh Rosenblatt, "as part of our continuing quest to map all the side roads, dark corners, and back alleys of local culture, the Chronicle will be taking readers inside the 48 Hour Film Project."

"A one-hour flight north of Helsinki and 120 kilometers by road through softly rolling pine-covered countryside dotted with bracing lakes fed by rivers from which countless Reindeer drink, in the Lapland region of Finland well within the Arctic Circle, lies the small town of Sodankyla. In this place twenty-two years ago, celebrated Finnish filmmakers Aki Kaurismäki and Mika Kaurismäki decided to throw a film festival, one essentially dedicated to the worlds most influential auteurs and a celebration, Finnish-style, of their great contributions to world cinema." For indieWIRE, Christian Gaines treks up to the Midnight Sun Film Festival.

The Oregonian's Shawn Levy wraps the Platform International Animation Festival.

Richard Phillips begins WSWS's look back at the Sydney Film Festival.

NP Thompson looks back to the Seattle International Film Festival.

Online viewing tips. The SXSWClick! finalists: Narrative and docs, animation, music videos and shorts that make you go, "Huh?"

Posted by dwhudson at July 5, 2007 9:51 AM