Fests and events, 4/3.

The Philadelphia Film Festival opens today and runs through April 15. The Philadelphia Weekly sticks all of its cover package - interviews, recommendations, the works - on one page. In the Philadelphia City Paper, Sam Adams talks with Katrina Browne about Traces of the Trade, Shaun Brady with Jeremiah Zagar about In a Dream, and the staff offers a slew of reviews and recommendations culled from the festival's offerings during its first week.

"Confirming the rumours that the official selection for the 61st edition of the Cannes Film Festival (May 14 - 25) was far from finalised, the announcement press conference has been put back from Thursday April 17 to Wednesday April 23, in the late morning." Fabien Lemercier reports for Cineuropa.

Tom Giammarco and Darcy Paquet offer first takes on the just-announced lineup for the Jeonju International Film Festival. May 1 through 9.

Andy Horbal previews Faces of Mechanization, a series running Friday through April 15 at Carnegie Mellon.

"A rare showing of Dennis Hopper's 1971 The Last Movie, a true see-it-to-believe-it time capsule, will kick off an LA celebration of the 10th edition of the CineVegas Film Festival," writes Mark Olsen. "Watching it today... it is simply astounding to imagine that Hollywood dollars paid for a film so willfully obscure and bullheadedly arty." In an accompanying piece, Olsen notes that "Hopper, the personification of the rebellious outsider for decades, has become a key figure in the world of CineVegas." In anticipation of the 10th edition, "Every Friday in April, the Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles will be screening films from the eclectic mix of past CineVegas festivals." And this year's edition is slated for June 12 through 21.

Also in the Los Angles Times, besides further notes on local goings on, including Friday's Sex(ed) Diaries program, Shana Ting Lipton talks with Heinz Emigholz, whose Schindler's Houses will be "screening Monday at REDCAT and April 12 at the Hammer Museum's Billy Wilder Theater via the Los Angeles Film Forum's weeklong [Heinz Emigholz: Photography and Beyond]. (The filmmaker will attend the events; other presentations are at the Egyptian Theatre, Sunday and April 13; LACMA, next Thursday; the MAK Center, April 11.)"

More from Scott Foundas in the LA Weekly: "Emigholz does more than just film buildings: He immerses you in entire social and architectural environments — a structure as it relates to its surroundings, and those surroundings as they relate to the larger city beyond."

The International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen has its program and juries ready to go for May 1 through 6.

For the Austin Chronicle, Anne S Lewis talks with Jennifer Fox, whose Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman will be screening in various segments around the city.

"If you ask the folks behind the Bay Area-based EarthDance Short-Attention-Span Environmental Film Festival, engaging films with positive and eye-opening ecological themes can not only be easy but high fun." A preview of tomorrow's event at SF360 from Robert Avila.

Posted by dwhudson at April 3, 2008 8:56 AM