Fests and events, 10/27.

The RomeFilmFest, wrapping today, has announced a slew of awards-winners, including Juno (Best Film), Rade Šerbedžija (Best Actor, Fugitive Pieces), Jiang Wenli (Best Actress, And the Spring Comes) and Hafez (Special Jury Award).

Neil Young's rating films he's caught at the Viennale, running through Wednesday.

Michael Guillén talks with Lotfi Abdelli, who plays the lead in Nouri Bouzid's Making Of, which opened the Arab Film Festival. Abdelli had been detained for five hours at San Francisco International Airport and Michael asks him about the incident:

They are respectful but they ask me questions for five hours and sometimes the same question, sometimes I didn't understand which kind of question. They ask me why I come here and I explain to them that I am invited by the festival. They tell me why you come here again and I explain again, "I'm here for the festival." What is your job? I explain what is my job. What is your business? I explain what is my business. What kind of film? After they take the DVD and they see the film they ask me, "You are encouraging and glorifying the fundamentalist in your film," and I said, "It's not true. We are against this and it's very nice for American people to see this film because we explain how it's fragile to become terrorist. It's good to know about this." They ask me what I think about America. After, they take my telephone and they go through the [contacts list] and they ask me what is this names? Who are these people? What is my relation with these people? Sometimes they left me waiting for half an hour and they come back and they ask me again the same questions.

Steve Dollar looks back at Sitges 07 for Paste.

David Walsh opens the WSWS's review of the Vancouver International Film Festival.

Posted by dwhudson at October 27, 2007 2:29 PM