Monday, April 23----The Sarasota Film Festival Competition and Audience Awards were announced at a reception hosted by Metro Coffee & Wine, on Saturday afternoon, during the Festival's final weekend. The awards, which have a a cash value of $5000 for the filmmaker, were introduced by Festival Director of Programming, Tom Hall and Festival Programmer, Holly Herrick.  

2007 SARASOTA FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS

• Narrative Feature Competition Award: WAITRESS, directed by Adrienne Shelly.
• Documentary Feature Competition Award: NOTE BY NOTE: The Making of  Steinway L1037,”directed by Benjamin Niles.
• Documentary Special Jury Prize: BEYOND HATRED, directed by Olivier Meyrou.
• Independent Visions Competition Award: GREAT WORLD OF SOUND,  directed by Craig Zobel and PRETTY IN THE FACE, directed by Nate Meyer.
• Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature: CANVAS, directed by Joseph Greco. 
• Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature: CIRCUS ROSAIRE, directed by Robyn Bliley.
• Audience Award for Best In World Cinema: AWAY FROM HER, directed by Sarah Polley.

 Sandy Mandelberger, Festival Online Dailies Editor

Friday, April 20-----The Sarasota Film Festival reaches its climax this evening with its legendary Night of 1000 Stars Tribute, which will begin at 9:30pm tonight at Michael's On East (a venue change from the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall). The Festival will be paying tribute to a stellar group of film industry luminaries, including  an Excellence in Producing Award for IFC Entertainment president Jonathan Sehring (BOYS DON'T CRY, MEN WITH GUNS, WAKING LIFE, GRAY'S ANATOMY), a Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Filmmaking for director Norman Jewison (IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, MOONSTRUCK, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF), a Breakthrough Performer Award for Michelle Trachtenberg (one of the stars of the Festival's Closing Night BEAUTIFUL OHIO) and the Heineken Red Star Award for first-time feature director Chad Lowe (for his direction of BEAUTIFUL OHIO, which also stars William Hurt, Julianna Marguiles and Rita Wilson).

Sandy Mandelberger, Sarasota FF Online Dailies Editor

Thursday, April 19-----Character actor "Joey Pants" Pantoliano and Oscar-winning actress Marcia Gay Harden arrive in Sarasota today to promote their latest film together, CANVAS, and to participate in the A Conversation With.....series at Sarasota's historic Asolo Theater.

CANVAS is the directorial debut of director Joseph Greco, which was shot on location in the state of Florida. In this searing drama, Pantoliano and Harden play John and Mary Marino, a working class Florida couple facing a terrible problem; Mary’s ever-deepening battle with schizophrenia. As the family struggles to hold themselves together, Greco’s deeply compassionate film allows the actors to shine in some of their finest work to date. CANVAS, which screens on Friday and then Saturday, puts a poignant, human face on the issue of mental illness with a sensitivity and grace that is so often absent from films and turns the story of a family in crisis into one of hope and possibility.

This evening however, expect the expletives to fly when Pantoliano, known for his outrageous humor, takes the stage with his co-star (the more demure) Marcia Gay Harden to discuss the making of CANVAS, and other highlights in their respective careers. Pantoliano is among the busiest character actors in Hollywood, and has memorably appeared in such films as RISKY BUSINESS, THE MATRIX, MOMENTO, THE FUGITIVE, BOUND and a recurring role in THE SOPRANOS. Marcia Gay Harden is among the most hard-working actresses in film, having appeared in such well known productions as THE SPITFIRE GRILL, THE FIRST WIVES CLUB, MEET JOE BLACK and last year's AMERICAN DREAMZ and THE  DEAD GIRL. She has been nominated for the Oscar as Best Supporting Actress twice, for the films MYSTIC RIVER and POLLOCK (for which she won the coveted award for her portrayal of painter Lee Krasner).

Sandy Mandelberger, Sarasota Film Festival Online Dailies Editor 

Wednesday, April 18-----The premiere of the indie film ORPHANS, in the Independents Vision Competition here,  is definitely bittersweet for the director Ry Russo-Young. The film, about two sisters, one a teacher in a rural town and the other a writer living in the big city who reunited for a birthday party, will debut at the Festival this weekend. The director cast old friend Lily Wheelwright, someone she has known since grade school, who also shared her artistic ambitions.  But at a time when the pair should be savoring the excitement of their first film and its debut here in Sarasota, a pall hangs over any celebrations. Ms. Wheelwright died on March 22 in New York at 24, apparently of a drug overdose. Russo-Young has remastered the print, dedicating the film to her childhood friend.

The director reunited with her old friend after Ms. Wheelwright’s younger sister, Josie, auditioned for ORPHANS and then mentioned her sister to her. After the film was shot in upstate New York in 2006, Wheelwright, who was fluent in Spanish, decided to move to Barcelona. She rejoined the cast in Austin, Texas for its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival last month. After the Festival, Wheelwright returned to New York for her parents’ 25th wedding anniversary and a 60th-birthday party for her mother and had plans to return to Barcelona. Her sudden death took the tight-knit independent film community by surprise. A special screening of the film, a kind of vigil to Wheelwright’s memory, will be held April 30 at New York's IFC Center.

Sandy Mandelberger, Sarasota FF Online Dailies Editor

FARGO

Wednesday, April 18----Actor/director Steve Buscemi, one of indie film's luminaries, will be honored with the World Cinema Award at the Sarasota Film Festival  this evening at a special World Cinema Celebration block party in downtown Sarasota.  Buscemi, best known for his turns in FARGO and RESERVOIR DOGS, is in town for a series of special event appearnaces. 

Last night, Buscemi displayed his considerable charisma at the sold-out  A Conversation With....At The Historic Asolo Theater series, held in the newly restored former opera house, an architectural jewel that is one of Sarasota's most prestigious buildings. Buscemi was ably interviewed by Festival Programming Director Tom Hall, who asked pointed questions and was obviously well prepared with an exhaustive knowledge of the actor/director's oeuvre. Buscemi, who continues the great tradition of character acting into contemporary cinema, talked about his early years as an often out-of-work actor in the creative hotbed of New York's East Village in the 1970s and early 1980s, after a short stint as a fireman (his Italian family in Brooklyn pressured him to take a civil service job for security). After working in off-off Broadway, the Brooklyn-born actor got his first big break with a seminal performance in a highly influential indie film. As the gay rebel diagnosed with AIDS (at the time, considered a death sentence), he received impressive reviews for only his third on-screen performance. PARTING GLANCES (1986), directed by first time director Bill Sherwood was a ground-breaking film, not only because of its AIDS subject matter, but also as an example of the promise of independent film to tell more gritty and realistic stories than the commercial cinema of its time. The film also became an epitath for its director, who would die of AIDS just a few years later.

Ghost WorldBuscemi continued to impress critics and audiences with his quirky roles in such iconic indie films as MYSTERY TRAIN (Jim Jarmusch), MILLER'S CROSSING (the Coen Brothers), KING OF NEW YORK (Abel Ferrara), BARTON FINK (the Coen Brothers), IN THE SOUP (Alexander Rockwell), RESERVOIR DOGS (Quentin Tarantino), PULP FICTION (Tarantino again), LIVING IN OBLIVION (Tom Di Cillo),  and FARGO (the Coen Brothers again). Buscemi received a Golden Globe nomination and several critics association prizes for his role as the lonesome geek in Terry Zwigoff's adaptation of the comic book novel, GHOST WORLD. "I never knew going into these films whether they woul (...)

Tuesday, April 17----Perhaps one of the many lessons to be learned from the hemmoraging of money (and reputation) that is GRINDHOUSE, the Tarantino-Rodriguez-Weinstein Brothers box office fiasco, is that if you are going to do a sleazy, low-budget exploitation film, don't spend $100 million dollars on making and marketing it. The Weinsteins, usually known for this business savvy, way overreached on this one....not fully understanding that the film geeks obsessions of their tyro directors is not exactly shared among the great unwashed. For every jump cut, fuzzy frame, bad sound and lack of continuity that GRINDHOUSE slavishly (and expensively) tried to get just right, a much smaller film with a budget that wouldn't even cover Tarantino's cappuccino bill, does.

BLOOD CAR by Alex Orr could be termed the anti-GRINDHOUSE. It hit all its notes perfectly, nailing and sending up the exploitation genre, with a dose of environmental topicality. In the film's wildly inventive plot, an everyman who is tired of rising gas prices and the obscene profits of the oil conglomerates, decides to take matters into his own hands....by building a blood car, a car that runs on blood (clearly more available than oil). In this campy instant cult film, Orr mixes buckets-of-blood horror with social commentary and even a little sex for good measure. When our hero falls for the girl of his dreams, he must make a critical decision about how much bloodletting he will do in order to keep his automobile in good running order.

The film is already providing some high octane for its writer/director, having won the Vision Award at the Cinequest Film Festival in February, and receiving strong reviews in the film trades. One could say that the film's screening here on the eve of the bloodiest mass killing spree in American history is either the height of bad luck or an example of exquisite (if unexpected) timing. Because the film is a send-up that links Americans' twin obsessions with speed and violence, the link between blood willing to be shed to get access to oil and the skipping of that step to fill up gas tanks with hemoglobin directly is not that far-fetched. Perhaps it is the philosopher in me that sees such a connection, but Orr's smart script makes it clear that in some crazy universe that such a thing in not as strange as it first appears.

For more information on the film and to view the trailer, log on to the film's website: www.bloodcar.com

Sandy Mandelberger, Sarasota Film Festival Online Dailies Editor 

Tuesday, April 17---While Sarasota may be noted for its beautiful sunsets, pristine beaches and cultural offerings, it is also an important city of architectural interest. In the years after the second World War, a number of architects, influenced by modernism and the Bauhaus movement, built a number of intriguing public and private buildings, which constitute an architectural legacy of some renown. Whether this legacy is properly prized by local authorities is another issue. As Sarasota grows in population and its buildings become taller (and arguably, more anonymous), the Sarasota Film Festival is taking up the discourse of what is meaningful preservation of architectural heritage and reasoned urban planning via an intriguing sidebar program.

The Shape of things To Come: Architecture, Development and Design On Film assembles a group of diverse dramatic features and documentaries that examine the ways that architecture can reflect urban renewal and vitality, while also being subject to the pressures of government, private enterprise and civic grandstanding. A modernist architect who almost singlehandedly invented the "Sarasota style"  was Paul Rudolph, who had studied with the great Walter Gropius (the founder of Germany's Bauhaus movement) at Harvard in the 1940s. In a series of private buildings and public commissions, Rudolph was one of the few architects who used building elements indigenous to Florida, while also building structures that fit into the landscape and provided for access to both air ventilation (for the days before air conditioning) and open views to capture Florida's brilliant sunshine and abundant light. As detailed in the short documentary SPACES: THE ARCHITECTURE OF PAUL RUDOLPH, many of Rudolph's most legendary buildings were not preserved, including his groundbreaking Riverview High School project of the late 1940s. With Sarasota in the grips of a building boom, the questions surrounding the preservation of its architectural heritage are even more relevant. The documentary film was screened along with a group of other architect profiles, including PHILIP JOHNSON: DIARY OF AN ECCENTRIC ARCHITECT, a profile of the famous architect and theoretician, and IN SEARCH OF CLARITY: THE ARCHITECTURE OF GWAMTHEY SIEGEL, a chronicle of the wildly successful architectural firm.

A series of classic films are included in the program. HANDS OVER THE CITY (1963) by Italian director Francesco Rosi, stars (a dubbed) Rod Steiger as a corrupt building inspector whose desire to clear away the slums of Naples is more about his personal greed than any sense of public responsibility. In this Janus Films classic (which deserves a renaissance release), the Neapolitan beaureaucrats use their influence to shape public opinion and to quell any outcry from the press while lining their pockets with graft and paybacks. The film, which is spectacularly shot in expressive black and white, features a great musical score reminisc (...)

Monday, April 17-----One of the best attended sidebars of the Sarasota Film Festival is its Emerging Jewish Voices program, featuring a diverse group of Jewish-themed films that provide a contemplative and suggestive look at the re-examination of Jewish history and a sense of what is important to contemporary Jewish culture.  

The Jewish community is particularly mindful of keeping its history, both tragic and transecendent, alive in the hearts and minds of its members. This sentiment reaches its ultimate expression in the filmed version of the Broadway musical smash FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, screening as part of the Tribute to director Norman Jewison (more on this later in the week). Israeli actor Topol takes on the role of originated by Zero Mostel on the Broadway stage....of a poor milkman in a small Russian shtetl whose world changes with the turn of the last century.

The rich culture of pre-War War II Vilna is documented in THE WORLD WAS OURS, a unique documentary on the vibrant community that existed in this "Jerusalem of Lithuania", which was devastated of its centuries-old Jewish culture in a matter of a few years. The Holocaust, that defining event in the recent history of the Jewish community, is represented with the films THE BUCHENWALD BALL, chronicling the stories of survivors of that infamous concentration camp who come together to celebrate their survival in the face of certain death, and THE RAPE OF EUROPA, a rich chronicle of the plunder by the Nazis of the artistic heritage of its Jewish victims.

The post-war Jewish American heritage is represented by 51 BIRCH STREET, by Festival Documentary juror Doug Block, a personal journey into the heart of his parents' troubled marriage. The continuing tussle of loyalties inherent in the Middle East are richly conveyed in the documentary films NEWS FROM HOME/NEWS FROM HOUSE and the dramatic features SWEET MUD (a prize winner at Sundance) and MELANOMA MY LOVE. The Festival presents a rich tapestry of voices that continue to enrich and diversify the Jewish cultural experience.

Sandy Mandelberger, Sarasota FF Online Dailies Editor

Sunday, April 16---With the tail end of the Northeastern storm that has been plaguing the Eastern half of the United States whipping through Sarasota (for half the day, at least), the respites of the Festival’s jam-packed schedule provided a dry and warm alternative to the blustery winds outside the theater. This being my first full day of screenings, I opened myself to the serendipity of film hopping, only realizing after the day was done that there emerged a kind of symmetry to it all.

The films I attended on Sunday all had the connective tissue of being exploratory about the history…..of a little known part of World War II, an almost-forgotten American legal miscarriage of justice, even the heyday of the Broadway musical comedy. Despite these desparate subjects, the films on view reinforced the ability of the filmed medium, whether through exhaustive documentary fact-finding, or via powerful dramatization, to make history alive and meaningful for those who with a memory of the original times and events, and those coming to them with fresh perspectives and a hunger to learn.

As the winds raged, what could be better than a trip down memory lane to the legendary Broadway of composer Jerry Herman? The documentary film WORDS AND MUSIC BY JERRY HERMAN, directed by Amber Edwards for New Jersey Public Television, was an exhaustive account of the personal triumphs and tragedies of one of the masters of the Broadway musical, the normally reclusive Jerry Herman. Edwards has uncovered rare and ephemeral footage of Herman’s early career as a Greenwich Village tunesmith, which led to his pre-eminence on the Gay White Way of Broadway in the 1960s. With such shows as HELLO, DOLLY and MAME, Herman gave a permanent signature to a brassy, optimistic kind of stage extravaganza that, he recounts, was a welcome antidote for audiences weary of turmoil and dissent. In the early 1980s, with his fabulously successful musical adaptation of the French farce LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, Herman found the perfect vehicle to inject a political message (of tolerance for gays, despite their demonization during the early AIDS era) and to bring some dimension to his own identity as a gay man who was touched closely by the tragedy of AIDS. This is more than a feel-good, PBS fundraiser workhorse….much like its subject, it is deceivingly serious amidst the glamour and the feel-good frisson. Kudos to Edwards for conjuring up a Broadway baby who does not always get the recognition he deserves.

Exhaustive research and the unearthing of miles of difficult to find footage is also the hallmark of THE RAPE OF EUROPA, an eye-opening documentary by Richard Berge, Nicole Newnham and Bonni Cohen of the systematic theft, deliberate destruction and miraculous survival of Europe’s art treasures during and immediately after World War II. The filmmakers outline the nefarious plans of the Nazi elite to strip cultural institutions and individuals (mainly Jews and political opponents) of their priceless art collections, for both individual glory and idealogical fervor. Among the fascinating little-known facts was Hitler’s plans to transform his birthplace, Linz, a modest industrial town (...)

Saturday, April 14----The Sarasota Film Festival, which began its 9th edition last night, will salute Academy Award nominated actor Edward Norton and writer/producer Brian Koppelman (who recently teamed as actor and producer of the critically acclaimed THE ILLUSIONIST) at The Reel Experience at The Lake Club Gala this evening.   Mr. Norton will be honored with the Festival’s Humanitarian Award, with Koppelman receiving an Excellence in Screenwriting honor for his work (which includes  the upcoming OCEAN'S THIRTEEN, as well as his previous work on such films as RUNAWAY JURY and ROUNDERS, which starred fellow honoree Edward Norton). On Sunday, the pair will participate in the festival program, In Conversation With…At The Historic Asolo Theatre where they will discuss their respective careers.

Edward Norton is regarded as one of the most talented and dynamic actors of his generation. Not yet 40 years old, he has already built an impressive career as a no-holds-barred actor who is committed to realism and elevating the art of acting. After attending Yale Drama School and working in New York's non-profit theater world, his big break came with his casting in the role of a young man suspected of murdering a priest (who may not be as innocent as he first appears) in the courtroom thriller PRIMAL FEAR, opposite Richard Gere. The  role was originally offered to Leonardo DiCaprio, who turned it down. Norton auditioned and won  he role over 2000 other hopefuls. He was nominated that year for the Oscar as Best Supporting Actor (and won a Golden Globe Award) for his intense and dynamic performance......one of the most auspicious film debuts of the past decade.

In 1998, he gained 30 pounds of muscle and transformed his look into that of a monstrous skinhead for his role as a violent white supremacist in AMERICAN HISTORY X. That acclaimed performance earned him his second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actor. Subsequent film hits include FIGHT CLUB, Spike Lee's THE 25TH HOUR, THE ITALIAN JOB and last year's THE ILLUSIONIST and THE PAINTED VEIL. Norton made his directorial debut in 2000 with the romantic comedy KEEPING THE FAITH and is next set to star opposite Colin Farrell  in the New Line production PRIDE AND GLORY.

(...)

Friday, April 13----The Sarasota Film Festival opens this evening with its head in the stars......courteosy of the East Coast premiere of the Sundance Film Festival sleeper hit IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON. This dazzling documentary feature film, which won the Audience Award in the World Cinema Competition at Sundance, is a visually exhilirating account of the triumphs and tragedies of the Apollo space program, as recalled by the astronauts and technicians who made the giant leap into the next stage of exploration of the solar system.

When President John F. Kennedy made his famous declaration in 1961 that "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to earth" , he threw down the gauntlet for the role of the United States to be a leader in the worlds of science and inter-planetary exploration. That this was also a challenge to the Soviets, who had already launched the Sputnik rocket and a dog into outer space, is another sub-text from the Cold War era.

The film, which features never-before-seen footage that has been safeguarded in the NASA archives, tells the story of the national commitment to put a man on the Moon, as a unifying action to bring America together. That this occured in the 1960s, at the same time that the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement were dividing the country, makes it all the more poignant that the government planned to foster reconciliation by dabbling in the exploration of the cosmos.David Sington

With the exquisite and jaw-dropping film shot on the lunar surface as its central motif, the film features interviews with the Apollo astronauts who continue to define heroism and captivate our imaginations. As an added bonus, astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, will attend the screening, along with the film's director David Sington. The film will be screened at the Van Wenzel Performing Arts Center, with the Opening Night Gala to follow at the historic John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.

Sandy Mandelberger, Sarasota FF Online Dailies Editor