Fests and events, 4/9.

Gabriel Figueroa: Cinefotógrafo is on view at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City through May 4. As Reed Johnson reports in the Los Angeles Times, LACMA may take on the exhibition and retrospective in 2010: "During his prolific 50-year career, which began as a still photographer and included a brief Hollywood sojourn, Figueroa forged a film iconography that was as elaborately crafted with calculated symbolism as a baroque altarpiece. In classic films such as Enamorada, Los Olvidados, La Perla, Night of the Iguana, Pedro Páramo and Vámonos con Pancho Villa, Mexico's most famous cinematographer conjured an emblematic vision of his country's landscapes, people and history."

Michael Tully has an entry loaded with pix covering the first couple of days at the Sarasota Film Festival. And for the SpoutBlog, Karina Longworth reviews Throw Down Your Heart, "Sascha Paladino's somewhat overlong but surprisingly moving document of his brother Béla Fleck's journey to Africa to sort out the roots of the banjo and record an album with native musicians." Plus: Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story.

Then Karina took notes one fine evening: "Dressed in a low-cut black pantsuit bracketed by diamond earrings and killer heels, quick with self-deprecating quips and eager to offer candid, perfectly paced anecdotes, her faded Noweigian accent occasionally taking on the lilting cadences of a woman a third her age (she's a big fan of the word 'whatever'), [Liv] Ullmann came off as loquaciously eccentric and yet completely clear-eyed about past, present and future."

Jean Eustache: Film as Life, Life as Film, sees two more nights at the National Gallery of Art in DC: Saturday and Sunday, while The Rediscovery of Jean Eustache carries on at the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY. Acquarello reviews Hieronymous Bosch's Garden of Delights, Le Cochon, Les Photos d'Alix and Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes; and Girish has recently seen Eustache's Mes Petites Amoureuses and revisited Robert Bresson's L'Argent: "To me, it's particularly important that although both the Bresson and Eustache films make striking use of place and nonprofessional actors, their conveying of sensations and impressions is not done in a documentary-like manner. Instead, the filmmakers present certain details (of gesture, movement, color, light, sound, texture) while also guiding our attentions in a controlled and highly selective manner."

For the Walker Art Center, Rob Nelson introduces the retrospective Milos Forman: Cinema of Resistance, running through April 22; and via Movie City News, Colin Covert talks with Forman for the Star Tribune.

For the Philadelphia Weekly, Matt Prigge notes the highlights of the second week of the Philadelphia Film Festival; here's more.

David Bordwell has notes on some of the avant-garde work he's seen at the Hong Kong Film Festival "that seemed to me especially fine."

"I've returned from a too-short visit to one of the film festivals I love, the Images Film Festival," blogs filmmaker Jennifer Reeves.

"Writer-director Alan Rudolph is showing paintings at Bainbridge Island's Gallery Fraga," notes Ray Pride.

Mark Bell not only wraps AFI Dallas for Film Threat; he's been blogging about it all along. At indieWIRE, Eric Kohn has the list of awards - and he assesses the festival's place in the circuit. Cinematical's been all over the festival as well.

Meanwhile, the USA Film Festival, set for April 21 through 27 in Dallas, has announced a series of special events.

"Where's New York? Where's LA?" asks Gerald Peary in the Phoenix. "Nowhere for film, that's the impression from last month's 5th International Mexico City Festival of Contemporary Cinema (FICCO), where Boston, our Boston, totally ruled."

"The Jackson Hole Film Festival has announced a lineup heavy on international fare," notes the Circuit's Michael Jones. June 5 through 9.

Posted by dwhudson at April 9, 2008 2:06 PM