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AFI Fest Taps Robert Koehler

Commentary, Film festival

Robert Koehler has been a longtime supporter of–and occasional contributor to–Film Journey, and I have written many times of my respect and admiration for Rose Kuo, who has transformed AFI FEST in Los Angeles the past couple of years into a major festival for world cinema, so I’m delighted to quote Variety‘s announcement yesterday:

“Robert Koehler, longtime film critic and freelance writer for Variety and other publications, has been tapped director of programming for this year’s edition of AFI Fest.

Due to assume his duties in May, Koehler will work as the fest’s No. 2 under artistic

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Days in Guadalajara: Day 2

Film festival, Film review

By ROBERT KOEHLER

With the happy sights today of one of my favorite comrades in cinephilia, critic-programmer Roger Koza (see his Spanish-language site, ojosabiertos.wordpress.com); the always convivial Screen International critic from Tel Aviv (via Paris) Dan Fainaru; veteran Latin American cinema programmer Denis De La Roca; Gerald Peary, Boston Phoenix critic (and maker of the new doc about American critics, For the Love of Movies, screening here fresh off its South by Southwest premiere); and Holland Film’s best ambassador, Claudia Landsberger, I knew Guadalajara had begun in earnest. After breakfast with the Hollywood Reporter’s man in Mexico …

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Days in Guadalajara: Day 1

Film festival, Film review

By ROBERT KOEHLER

Being told that you’re the first member of the press to check in at a film festival and get a badge produces strange feelings. Beyond the automatic response—“Where is everyone else?”—is the lurking sense that you’re the only one of your kind within earshot or cell phone signal. And in a city the size of Guadalajara, Mexico’s second largest, that sense is stranger, though only really an illusion. I merely showed up early to the party. Most arrive Wednesday (when I’m writing this, in the lobby of the Cine Foro, the University of Guadalajara’s downtown cinematheque, whose …

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Sita Sings the Blues . . . online!

Uncategorized

My favorite animated feature last year, the undistributed Sita Sings the Blues, created almost entirely in Flash by Nina Paley, has become Thirteen.org‘s first feature to be streamed in its entirety on their website. The film has been idling in legal limbo for many months because of its use of 80-year-old pop songs Paley hasn’t had the resources to purchase, but PBS stations have special rules governing their broadcasts that allow the work to be shown.

However, note Paley’s new post at her blog:

“Many more formats will be online by March 7th, the day Sita Sings the

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April Festival Logjam

Commentary, Film festival

I understand that the rainy season in Los Angeles extends through March, and that temperatures quickly rise after June Gloom burns off, but as a devotee of the many smaller ethnic/national film festivals in the city, I’m distressed that so many of them have chosen April as their play date. Los Angeles famously could use some coalescing of its film culture, so it’s unfortunate that its festivals are so unduly competitive (even after the ill-fated Russian Nights festival dropped out of the running):

• Vietnamese International Film Festival (April 2 – 12)

• Japan Film Festival (April 10 – 19)…

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The Dardennes: Responding to the Face of the Other

Texts


La Promesse

I was asked to contribute a chapter in a new book from Cambridge Scholars Publishing in the UK, Faith and Spirituality in Masters of World Cinema, edited by Kenneth R. Morefield. Faith and spirituality are large and ambiguous topics, of course, but they’re frequently reduced to marketing terms for niche publishing groups, something I have no interest in perpetuating. Fortunately the chapters I’ve read in the book (including standout essays by Darren Hughes and John Caruana) feature philosophically and aesthetically informed analysis with a universal readership in mind.

Given how often the word “spiritual” is used …

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