Fests and events, 8/2.

"The Roxbury Film Festival, the largest African-American film festival in New England, [has opened with a gala screening of Jennifer Sharp's I'm Through With White Girls, a winner at June's Hollywood Black Film Festival." Brandon Harris files a first dispatch. Through Sunday.

The Brisbane International Film Festival has opened today with Hal Hartley's Fay Grim and runs through August 12. Trevor Gensch has a preview for Hollywood Bitchslap.

"The Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe together make up the world's largest festival of the performing arts." Telegraph critics "select the cream of this year's film crop." August 10 through September 2, though the Film Festival runs August 15 through 26.

At indieWIRE, Anthony Kaufman heralds the arrival of the New Crowned Hope series in New York. Tomorrow through August 29.

"As a filmmaking icon as well as a filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami occupies two prominent positions: a central figure in Iran's celebrated and multigenerational cinema movement, and one of a handful of supreme masters in that more rarefied, rootless milieu called 'world cinema' (where he invariably falls in alongside Akira Kurosawa and Satyajit Ray)," writes Robert Avila at SF360. "This straddling, dual status is not all that arbitrary: while Kiarostami's aesthetic is heavily indebted to indigenous influences (perhaps Persian modernist poetry and the groundbreaking work of his late contemporary Sohrab Shahid-Saless in particular), he's also famously influenced (like other Iranian filmmakers) by Italian neorealism and France's nouvelle vague. Neither cultural exoticism nor the continuation of a stylistic tradition in European art film, however, goes very far in explaining the powerful appeal of the films on display in the Pacific Film Archive's retrospective, Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker, a wide-ranging and altogether impressive series co-presented by New York's Museum of Modern Art and PS1 Contemporary Art Center in collaboration with the Iranian Art Foundation, which includes a concurrent exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum of Kiarostami's striking photographic work."

"I spent the past weekend experiencing Jacques Rivette's magnificent, nearly 13-hour Out 1 (1971)," writes Doug Cummings. "I use the word 'experiencing' rather than watching or viewing, because more than most films, Out 1 is a movie that makes its overall impression on a cumulative, experiential level, amassing an ambiguous narrative comprised of documentary elements, intertextual quotes and references, and figures that are often more striking as actors than characters. As Robert Koehler (who introduced the screening) put it, the film can be seen as the 'missing link' between the madness of Rivette's L'Amour Fou and the playfulness of Celine and Julie Go Boating; Rivette expert Jonathan Rosenbaum has placed the film between the freedom of Jean Renoir and the fate of Fritz Lang."

Michael Guillén: All about All About Eve and All About All About Eve.

From Locarno, Ray Bennett reviews Vexille for the Hollywood Reporter: "Anime is an acquired taste but fans will surely respond to the picture's dynamite energy. Those not already in the fold will find this one very easy to take."

"Films featuring gay themes or characters are to take center stage at this year's Venice film festival, with the introduction of a new award. The 'Queer Lion' award will sit alongside the regular Golden Lion award, with the aim of highlighting and honouring films that represent aspects of gay culture," reports the Guardian.

Darren Hughes: "Julie Taymor's Across the Universe and Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream have been added to [Toronto's] Gala Presentations."

"Home Movie Day is like a birthday party for an entire community." Carson Barker celebrates in the Austin Chronicle. Saturday, August 11.

"After the sudden death of New Beverly Cinema owner Sherman Torgan at age 63 on July 18, his son Michael announced that he and his mother had decided to close the theater until further notice.... But the Torgan family has decided to keep the theater open after all." Susan King's got the schedule and notes on a few other local goings on in the Los Angeles Times.

In the Philadelphia City Paper, Sam Adams looks back at the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar.

For the Nashville Scene, WM Akers reports on how the 48 Hour Film Project came off there. Also, Brand Upon the Brain!

Online viewing tips. The SXSWclick 2007 winners.

Posted by dwhudson at August 2, 2007 1:50 PM