Weekend fests and events.

"The Guru Dutt film festival this weekend in London reminds us that long before Bollywood was born - long before the big, melodramatic scores and blockbuster appeal of modern Mumbai's film industry - there was Indian cinema," blogs Kavita Amarnani for the Guardian. "Acclaimed as one of that cinema's great auteurs, Dutt is something of an Orson Welles-like figure, only fully appreciated after his death in 1964 - which, tragically, came at his own hand."

"The Responsibility of Film Criticism" is the title of a recent workshop at NYU and Kevin Lee's been posting extensive notes. Following his introduction, he's got notes on presentations by Jonathan Rosenbaum, Adrian Martin and Nicole Brenez and on a Q&A session with Rosenbaum and Martin, moderated by Girish Shambu.

Andrew Hultkrans recently caught Slavoj Zizek talking about movies and he's sent an entry in for Artforum's diary: "Accusing Spielberg films of promoting family ideology is like calling Hitchcock films suspenseful. I expect more complexity from a Lacanian Christian Communist, and you should too."

"Ed Halter and his partner Thomas Beard are opening a new space in Brooklyn, NY dedicated to film and electronic art called Light Industry," notes Mike Everleth at Bad Lit. "The duo are also presenting the first screening event called The Blazing World, which will feature several short films based on the concept of utopia and will take place on Tuesday, March 25 at 8 pm."

New Directors / New Films won't be running until March 26 through April 6, but as it's a highlight of the season, Slant's already got its special section up.

Selected By... Andrew Bujalksi runs through Wednesday at the Brattle in Boston. Via the cinetrix.

Two days into the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (it runs through March 23), Brian Darr's got an entry on the highlights so far, including Edward Yang's The Terrorizer.

With Mario Bava: Poems of Love and Death running through March 23, the Los Angeles Times' Susan King talks with Joe Dante, who'll be introducing the screening of Lisa and the Devil on Saturday.

Martin Tsai previews MoMA's Canadian Front series for the New York Sun. Through March 20.

PDFs featuring a mini-guide and the full program for this year's Philadelphia Film Festival, running April 3 through 15, are now available. Via Michael Lerman.

Robert Koehler has more from Guadalajara at filmjourney.org.

"Welcome to the world of the 'gentleman amateur,' the hero of countless British films of the middle part of the last century." For the Independent, Geoffrey Macnab previews BFI Southbank's Robert Donat season, running April 11 through 30.

Posted by dwhudson at March 15, 2008 7:43 PM