Fests and events, 10/31.

"Thursday at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's Linwood Dunn Theater, The Trespasser will have its first screening in Los Angeles in decades." This is a movie with a great story behind it and Susan King tells it. Also in the Los Angeles Times, Mark Olsen previews AFI Fest, opening tomorrow and running through November 11.

Romania "has no business being so exciting onscreen because (a) it's Romania, for god's sake, still hobbling out of Nicolae Ceausescu's 20th-century dark ages, and (b) it only produces six features per year. They can't all be good, can they? Oh yes, they can." Dennis Harvey previews Revolutions in Romanian Cinema, running at the Pacific Film Archive from Saturday through December 9.

Also in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Cheryl Eddy: "Marking National American Indian Heritage Month, the American Indian Film Festival kicks off with a pair of ballet-dancer biographies." Friday through November 10. More from Eve O'Neill at SF360.

Plus, Harvey on Red State Cinema: Rural Auteurs, tomorrow through November 16.

"Ostensibly an annual plunge into the Jewish diaspora as it has taken seed all over the planet, the Boston Jewish Film Festival has always been more about the tenuous experience of that global community than about great films," writes Michael Atkinson in the Boston Phoenix. Tomorrow through November 11.

"In the film Videogrammes of a Revolution (1992) by the German experimental filmmaker Harun Farocki and his Romanian colleague Andrei Ujica we are catapulted back into the events in Romania in December 1989, which led to the execution of the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Yet the film shows that what we don't see may be just as important as what we see." See Us Act is an exhibition at the Lunds Konsthall through November 11.

Michael Guillén reviews three films from Lebanon that have screened at the Arab Film Festival.

The Observer's Jason Solomons reviews the highlights of the London Film Festival. Also: "There is now an established cinematic language of stripped-down, jittery naturalism that is a good fit for investigations into the harsh brutalities of the current Middle East conflicts, but it's not easy to get it right: even [Michael] Winterbottom allowed it to get horribly diluted on A Mighty Heart," writes the Guardian's Andrew Pulver, reviewing Battle for Haditha. "But [Nick] Broomfield, as he showed in his anti-gangmaster fusillade Ghosts, is a true adept."

"Somerset may be about to earn the title of Britain's sauciest county: it is to host the first ever British erotic film festival next June," writes Francesca Martin in the Guardian.

For the Independent, Charlotte Cripps previews the Bath Film Festival, running Thursday through November 11.

The Denver Film Festival (November 8 through 18) turns 30 this year and the Denver Post's Lisa Kennedy counts the ways the city'll be celebrating. Via Movie City News. More from Peter Nellhaus.

"The Gijón International Film Festival, in the Spanish region of Asturias, has recently unveiled portions of the main programme of its 45th edition, which runs from November 22 - December 1," reports Vitor Pinto. Also at Cineuropa, Fabien Lemercier: "Having opened last Friday with Emir Kusturica's Promise Me This, the 29th edition of the Mediterranean Film Festival in Montpellier will be in full swing until November 4."

"Although one may instantly presume that Turkey has only one international film festival to offer, in the form of Istanbul, it is in fact Antalya that garners the most prestige and respect, as the country's oldest and more lavishly funded," writes Kerem Bayraktaroglu at indieWIRE.

At Filmmaker, Jason Sanders has the award-winners from the Hawaii International Film Festival.

"Genna Terranova, former Vice President of Acquisitions at the Weinstein Company, has joined the Tribeca Film Festival as senior programmer," notes Gillian Reagan at the New York Observer. "Co-founder Jane Rosenthal also announced that the festival will create a year-round department."

Posted by dwhudson at October 31, 2007 1:29 PM