The stars aligned for the kickoff of the 33rd Starz Denver Film Festival, literally, with both director John Cameron Mitchell and the recipient of this year's Excellence in Acting Award, Aaron Eckhart, on hand for the Red Carpet presentation of Rabbit Hole at the Ellie. The heartbreaking drama about a couple grieving the loss of their child gave Denver audiences an opportunity to see just what Eckhart is capable of beyond the delicious portrayals of bad guys for which he's thus far been acclaim...
Day 9 Recap:
Granted, the Starz Denver Film Festival in its entirety is a celebration in their honor, but we at the Denver Film Society literally toasted the talents who make all this possible during the Independent Filmmakers' Reception at the Postmodern last night, where the Lillet flowed like the chocolate atop the made-to-order treats from Crêpes 'n Crêpes. We didn't just put them in the spotlight, however-we also put a few of them on the spot during the Indie Film Roulette panel, as fe...
Even before the curtains rose on the red carpet crowd-pleaser Last Chance Harvey, Closing Night audiences got a thrill via the announcement of this year's festival award winners: the Fox 31 Emerging Filmmaker Award presented by Spout, went to Nina Paley for Sita Sings the Blues; Another Planet's Ferenc Moldoványi is taking home the Maysles Brothers Award for Best Documentary; Christophe van Rompaey won the Krzyszstof Kieslowski Award for Best Feature with Moscow, Belgium; and Robert Cosnahan ga...
Moderated by Spoutblog.com critic Karina Longworth, the Friday evening discussion panel DIY Filmmaking in an Indie Apocalypse explicitly covered what was implicitly clear throughout the day as a whole: independent filmmakers, with insight and integrity, are making the scene in every sense of the phrase. Whether they're creating animated charmers on their laptops, as Nina Paley has done with Sita Sings the Blues; leaving lucrative careers to realize their uncompromising vision behind the lens, li...
Heading into the home stretch, we at SDFF 31 are really picking up speed--and you, our loyal audience members, are doing a fantastic job of hanging on and spurring us onward! On Thursday alone, seven screenings sold out completely: Fire Under the Snow, Witch Hunt, Love and Other Crimes, The Lost Coast, The Great Buck Howard, a double feature of La Americana and The Border Wall, and last but not least Black Sea--whose director, Federico Bondi, was fêted during a private reception hosted by the A...
Halfway through SDFF 31, the Denver Film Society has only just begun to celebrate the cinema, honoring anew those who make it what it is - artists and audiences alike - with each passing day. On Tuesday, we were joined in our efforts by the Consulate General of Mexico in Denver, who threw a fiesta complete with live Latino music, a Qdoba-stocked buffet, and margaritas all around to welcome the creators of such Spanish-language gems as The Desert Within, Intimidad, and La Americana (which screens...
The cinephile equivalent of locavores sure got their fill on Monday, as SDFF 31 laid out a sumptuous feast of Colorado-made films. From Fear & Dystopia and Microcosms to Cinemocracy: The Films and Faux Mouvements...and Other Excursions, shorts packages gave audiences a taste of such treats as The Spot - Alexandre O. Philippe's dreamlike meditation on the Dallas plaza where JFK was assassinated, and Come Back to Sudan, in which directors Patti Bonnet and Daniel Junge follow three wartime refugees...
