Fests and events, 1/8.

"Five Nordic contenders for this year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar are playing at Scandinavia House this week, including the latest offerings from some of the region's hottest filmmaking talents," writes Martin Tsai - more from ST VanAirsdale at the Reeler. Also in the New York Sun, S James Snyder on what makes New Directors / New Films (March 26 through April 6) "essential to the year's movie conversation, standing alongside Sundance as one of the pre-eminent places for new filmmakers to get their work seen not just by audiences but by critics and distributors."

"For the last ten years New York City's Art in General has been host to an annual Video Marathon - a weekend-long intensive look at the state of video art," writes Caitlin Jones for Rhizome. Highlights of this 10th Anniversary Edition include Ed Halter's lecture on "the utopian hopes and mundane realities of public access television, the question of 'fan-dom' and subjectivity, underground VHS bootlegging as proto-file-sharing, criticism of art and comedy, and the challenge of defining the term 'artist,' and in particular, 'video artist,'" using Jeff Krulik's Heavy Metal Parking Lot as the initial point of reference.

"Gathered from around the globe, the films presented in this year's Jewish Film Festival offer a kaleidoscopic perspective on several perennially tragic themes: anti-Semitism, the Jew as outcast (and cosmopolitan), and the eternally knotty conundrum of Jewish identity," writes Lisa Katzman. "Not surprisingly, the festival is heavy on documentaries, and unifying the several very engaging ones is the crucial role memory plays within Jewish culture - particularly in the face of atrocity - and the ethical responsibility of bearing witness." Tomorrow through January 24.

Also in the Voice: "Distinguished by their inventive mix of fiction and documentary modes, Apichatpong's eccentric narratives sparkle with fleeting natural phenomenon, unplanned gestures, happy discoveries." Nathan Lee previews Mysterious Objects: The Films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, at the Anthology from January 17 through 19.

And Aaron Hillis previews The Bet Collector, "which headlines the Global Film Initiative's fifth Global Lens exhibition at MOMA - a means to promote international cinema from regions with underdeveloped filmmaking communities." Thursday through January 16.

"Marcia Gay Harden, Sandra Oh, Quentin Tarantino, Jason Reitman and Alan Alda topline the list of the 24 jurors selected to award prizes at this month's Sundance Film Festival," reports Gregg Goldstein for the Hollywood Reporter.

Mike Everleth notes that the deadline for the Portland Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival (April 30 through May 4) is January 18.

Vancouver's Vancity Theatre will be presenting two films by Raya Martin on January 20 and 21.

Posted by dwhudson at January 8, 2008 3:18 PM