Fests and events, 3/4.

"[I]t's invigorating to finish watching The Best of the Ottawa Animation Festival 2007 (a compendium of prizewinners and finalists from the largest animation showcase in North America) and realize that no two films looked remotely alike," writes Paul Matwychuk. March 15 in Vancouver.

"Pedro Costa's digital video aesthetic makes light itself a character in Colossal Youth, another of the malleable souls in this forlorn world of immigrant life on the margins of Lisbon," writes Ryland Walker Knight at the House Next Door. And Rob Davis is startled to discover how many times the camera actually moves: "Colossal Youth, like most great films, releases its mysteries slowly even though it hides them in plain sight." Still Lives: The Films of Pedro Costa is on at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley through April 12.

Brian Darr introduces his interview with Alejandro Adams, who edits BRAINTRUSTdv.com and whose first feature is Around the Bay: "Michael Guillén has eloquently summarized the reaction to this confident debut in advance of its world premiere screening this past Saturday. The film plays twice more at [Cinequest]: Tuesday, March 4th at the Camera 12 and Saturday, March 8th at the San Jose Repertory Theatre."

Faces of French Cinema, an exhibition of portraits of French actors and directors by Fabrizio Maltese, opens on Thursday and will be on view through April 17 at the Institut français d'Ecosse in Edinburgh.

Michael Jones has news at the Circuit that Trumbo, the doc about blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, will open the Full Frame Documentary Festival, which runs April 3 through 6.

The Los Angeles Times offers a brief guide to a few upcoming festivals in North America.

"In a trade dominated by egotists, the actor Rex Harrison, whose centenary will be celebrated by the Museum of Modern Art beginning tomorrow in a month-long series of his films, was among the most self-obsessed" Nicholas Wapshott in the New York Sun.

AJ Schnack has loads of pix and takes on docs in an entry on the just-wrapped Truth/False Documentary Film Festival. More dispatches: Karina Longworth at the SpoutBlog on Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson, Forbidden Lies and Shake the Devil Off; and a roundup from Dugrex at AICN.

Posted by dwhudson at March 4, 2008 8:26 AM