Monday, August 25-------In more ways than one, a film festival brings the world to your doorstep. That is certainly the case for a new film from Chile that is making its North American Premiere at the Festival. ALICE IN THE LAND (ALICIA EN EL PAIS), directed by Esteban Larrain, was recently awarded with the Special Prize of the Jury at the Locarno Film Festival, will be presented in the Documentaries of the World section of the Montreal World Film Festival.ALICE IN THE LAND tells the impr...
Monday, September 3--------In an unprecedented move, the Competition Jury of the Montreal World Film Festival decided to split the Festival's highest honor, the Grand Prix Des Ameriques, a first in Festival history. The period drama UN SECRET by veteran French director Claude Miller, which had its world premiere at the event and closed the Festival's 31st edition this evening, shared the honor with BEN-X, a Belgian/Dutch co-production by first-time director Nic Balthazar. BEN-X, a highly imagi...
Monday, September 3--------In an unprecedented move, the Competition Jury of the Montreal World Film Festival decided to split the Festival's highest honor, the Grand Prix Des Ameriques, a first in Festival history. The period drama UN SECRET by veteran French director Claude Miller, which had its world premiere at the event and closed the Festival's 31st edition this evening, shared the honor with BEN-X, a Belgian/Dutch co-production by first-time director Nic Balthazar. BEN-X, a highly imagi...
The World Premiere of UN SECRET by veteran French filmmaker Claude Miller (GARDE A VUE, LA PETITE VOLEUSE) will screen this evening as the Closing Night Gala of the Montreal World Film Festival. The director will be in attendance. Cecile De France, Mathieu Almaric, Patrick Bruel, Julie Depardieu and Ludivine Sagnier star in this lavish period piece about remembrance and secrets in a French family. .UN SECRET, based on a best-selling autobiographical novel by Phillippe Grimbert, tells the story o...
Monday, September 3--------The World Premiere of UN SECRET by veteran French filmmaker Claude Miller (GARDE A VUE, LA PETITE VOLEUSE) will screen this evening as the Closing Night Gala of the Montreal World Film Festival. The director will be in attendance. Cecile De France, Mathieu Almaric, Patrick Bruel, Julie Depardieu and Ludivine Sagnier star in this lavish period piece about remembrance and secrets in a French family. .UN SECRET, based on a best-selling autobiographical novel by Phill...
Sunday, September 2--------The Montreal World Film Festival, which ends tomorrow evening with the announcement of its awards, is one of the few major film festivals that has a competition section for debut directors. This year, the quality of the films from first-timers is especially strong and make up some of the most buzzed films at the Festival. The First Films World Competition is featuring 23 features from 16 countries. Three films are from "local heroes" from Canada: FINN'S GI...
Saturday, September 1--------The Montreal World Film Festival is honoring one of Europe's most prolific and dynamic film producers in a special tribute to Spanish producer Andres Vicente Gomez. He has been in force in Spanish cinema for almost 25 years, having produced some of Spain's best known film exports. Born in Madrid in 1943, he first became involved in film in the 1960s as a distributor, importing many European films at a time when the Franco regime still held a tight grip on the cultura...
Friday, August 31---------One of the most powerfully acted and beautifully shot films of the Festival has its International Premiere this evening at the Montreal World Film Festival. OTETS (Father) is a Russian film by director Ivan Solovov that is set in the weeks after the end of World War II, when a Russian soldier returns to his life and family, after the glories and comaraderie of war.Although the deprivation and death of World War II is over, the terrible ordeal of adjusting to normal li...
Friday, August 31------One of the unique (and most popular) programs of the Montreal World Film Festival is its CINEMA A LA BELLE ETOILE (SCREENINGS UNDER THE STARS) series, held each evening on the Esplanade de la Place des Arts. It has become a Montreal tradition to bring one's folding chairs to view a mix of Hollywood, European and Quebec films in an open-air celebration of cinema. The fact that the screenings are free to the public and attract a mix of cinemaphiles, Festival visitors and t...
Thursday, August 30----------Mark Brokaw is a respected Broadway theater director who is making his feature film debut with SPINNING INTO BUTTER, which has its world premiere this evening in the Competition Section of the Montreal World Film Festival. A member of the drama department of the Yale School School Drama, Mark Brokaw has directed a score of plays, including many award-winning premieres, on and off Broadway. He staged works in regional theatres across the United States and he directe...
Tuesday, August 28--------Montreal has the distinction of being the only major film festival of the Fall season to have an awards competition. The Prix des Ameriques (Americas Prize) is quite the prestigious award and this year's World Competition Section lineup is the strongest in years. In the high stakes game of festival stragegy, itt is a given that if one premieres in Montreal, that Toronto (which begins a week from Thursday) is out. And while Toronto certainly commands a bigger profile, ...
Monday, August 27--------With a local Quebec film opening the Festival this past weekend (BLUFF), the Montreal World Film Festival is serving as a launching pad and promotion platform for a group of diverse Canadian features (and short films) in the coming week. This brings high profile attention to local artists for visiting journalists, industryites and programmers. There is a strong Canadian presence in all sections of the Festival and this is an opportunity for the "home team" to...
Saturday/Sunday, August 25 and 26---------The Montreal World Film Festival is an eclectic mix. It is a showcase for the most auteur of auteur films, and yet has a hankering to involve "tout le public" also. On the same evening, a film from a film master will screen at the same time as an upstart indie project from a director rookie to a pulpish genre film. In that sense, the Festival is an accurate reflection of the city where it takes place......an uneasy mixture of genteel French-i...
