Category: Film festival

BAFICI, Day 2
By Robert Koehler

All festivals must get smaller. That much is obvious in the scattered world of film festivals, where the urge to spread like kudzu is almost universally irresistible. (A notable exception–and one wouldn’t think of it–is Cannes, which has pretty much kept to its self-imposed limits for each section, with the one variation being the recent addition of the way-out-there-past-the-marina “Tous Les Cinemas du Monde” section, which nobody goes to anyway…)

So…BAFICI is getting bigger, like every other festival. I’m awaiting word on the total number of features, but if the catalog is 512 pages …

Robert Koehler, who writes for Variety, Cinema Scope, Cineaste, and other publications, is not only one of the most dependable and active critics in Los Angeles, but he’s also a friendly and engaging cinephile. We’ve crossed paths at several film events–including a lengthy conversation after the Q&A for Honor of the Knights at this year’s Palm Springs International Film Festival–and he has graciously agreed to send in some exclusive festival reports from the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival, where he is serving on the jury for the international competition. –Doug

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By Robert Koehler…

This should wrap up my quick takes on the films I watched at the Toronto International Film Festival. I fully intend to revisit several of these films at length in the future.

Bamako
One of the highlights of the Los Angeles Film Festival this summer was the revival screening of Abderrahmane Sissako’s Waiting for Happiness (2002), a beautifully elliptical film about a teenager drifting through a coastal Mauritanian town and encountering various local inhabitants. What I most appreciated about the film was its silence and ambiguity; what I most appreciate about Bamako, Sissako’s newest film, is its passionate voice. …

I’m back in Los Angeles, but I’ll be posting the rest of my TIFF impressions this week. Including The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, these are the documentaries I screened:

Manufactured Landscapes

This film introduced me to the work of Edward Burtynsky, a Canadian large-scale photographer whose primary subject is industrial wastelands. From massive technological vistas to mountains of debris to oily vistas stretching off into the horizon, Burtynsky’s photos are startling in their scope and dystopian detail.

The film also provided my first look at one of the unexpected motifs at the festival this year, the Three Gorges …

Continuing with the Toronto International Film Festival ’06 coverage…

Offside

Jafar Panahi–known for his controversial and hard-hitting dramas The Circle and Crimson Gold–has crafted his most vibrantly energetic and entertaining film to date, without compromising his social vision one iota. Various young Iranian women individually attempt to sneak into the 2005 World Cup qualification tournament between Iran and Bahrain but are arrested and detained because of an Islamic convention that only allows men to attend sporting events. (Ostensibly, the fear is that women might be exposed to harsh language.) What proceeds is a film shot with great immediacy with …