LA. Goings on.

"The REDCAT theater in Los Angeles just screened the three hour documentary Fuck Cinema by legendary doc filmmaker Wu Wenguang, made in 2006," writes Mike Plante at Filmmaker. "With a single handheld camera, he follows a man who hangs out front of the Beijing Film Academy, showing the surprising world of film in China, which seems to have some of the same hang ups the West does.... And leave it to hardcore programmer Berenice Reynaud to put a short film in front of a three hour verite doc. Alas, lucky us, as we got to also see the 8-minute film Ten Years by the great Jia Zhangke, a beautiful piece about change in his country and a nice train ride."

"A onetime heroin addict who worked as a stripper and prostitute, [Elise Hill] is also an accomplished painter, sculptor and maker of costume jewelry who was evicted from the home she had known for two decades - above an elevator shaft in a converted maids' quarters on the roof of an upscale building in Midtown Manhattan," writes Robert W Welkos. "Her poignant story is captured in a feature-length documentary titled Begging Naked, by director and writer Karen Gehres, who spent nine years chronicling Elise's story, beginning with her friend's love of painting, to her work in a brothel catering to well-heeled clients, including members of the United Nations, to her gradual descent into paranoia and mental illness." The film's screening at the Hollywood Film Festival, which runs through Monday.

Also in the Los Angeles Times:

• The iconic Egyptian Theatre will be celebrating its 85th anniversary tonight. Margaret Wappler reports on the planned festivities.

• "Fog-shrouded mountains, swirling clouds and shifting sands infuse the work of Polish writer-director Lech Majewski," writes Kevin Crust. "The poet, painter and stage director, a product of the National Film School in Lodz, draws from each of his artistic disciplines to forge a cinema of fluid imagery fueled by psychological and metaphysical questions." The series Conjuring the Moving Image: The Films of Lech Majewski runs through October 31.

• Paul Young, briefly, on Dalí: Painting and Film, through January 6.

• More goings on.

• Also noted: The Pare Lorentz Film Festival, today through Sunday.

• And: The Films That Got Away, tomorrow through Wednesday. More from Chuck Wilson in the LA Weekly: "For this minifestival, four LAFCA critics (including LA Weekly film editor Scott Foundas) will screen several undistributed films that they love, beginning with Mary, an intense, multilayered drama from Bad Lieutenant director Abel Ferrara."

Speaking of Scott Foundas, he recommends catching Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day tomorrow evening at 7:30.

Posted by dwhudson at October 18, 2007 1:25 PM