Fests and events, 2/15.

Marcy Dermansky and Jürgen Fauth recommend Beyond the Frame: Dialogues with World Filmmakers and note that author Liza Béar "will be making two upcoming New York appearances: February 20, 7 PM at McNally Robinson with Betsy Sussler, editor-in-chief of Bomb; March 18, 8:30 PM at Sugartown and Spoonbill."

"The female protagonists of the 36 features, short films and documentaries in the Institut Français's festival of films by and about women in the Middle East, Women's Cinema from Tangiers to Tehran, are as dissimilar as the ten countries in which they were filmed," writes Rachel Aspden in the New Statesman. "Some are the struggling inhabitants of back-country villages or urban slums; others wouldn't look out of place on MTV. The films are equally various, ranging from the experimental to big box office, from kitschy melodrama to bitter protest." February 22 through 28.

Shawn Levy has another spurt of reviews from the Portland International Film Festival. Through February 23.

"It's hard to make generalizations about a program as broad as the 2008 lineup of Film Comment Selects, which ranges from zombie movies to experimental documentaries," writes Steve Erickson. "[T]he series is far more open to provocation and potential controversy than its big brother, the New York Film Festival."

Related: Steve Dollar in the New York Sun on The Duchess of Langeais and Inside. More on Duchess from Nick Schager: "[T]he lush, expressive cinematographic design of Rivette's latest is not enough to energize his torpid early 19th-century tale of frustrated romance."

Back in Gay City News: Ioannis Mookas on MoMA's Documentary Fortnight.

For In These Times, Pat Aufderheide spotlights some of the best documentaries to screen at Sundance this year.

Posted by dwhudson at February 15, 2008 2:28 PM