Denver International Film Festival

In Denver, Alan Cumming Dishes About "Good Wife," Parker Posey & "Pussycats"

Mark Rabinowitz — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:06:42 GMT

This year's Starz Denver Film Festival ran from November 2nd to the 13th and included a record 282 shorts and features. In addition to various juried awards, each year the festival bestows a number of honors on actors or directors in recognition of their body of work. This year's recipient of the Excellent in Acting Award was Alan Cumming.

On Saturday afternoon we sat for a short chat in the lobby of Denver's Four Seasons hotel, where Cumming and I both admitted to have indulged in a bit too much, the night before. My particular demon was of the corn mash variety, not sure about Alan's but it didn't matter, as the chat ranged from "The Good Wife" to how busy Cumming is to "Josie and the Pussycats" and just exactly how nuts are Parker Posey and Amy Sedaris?

[Next week Indiewire will have an interview with actor James Cromwell of "The Artist," also from Denver.]

You are one busy man. A regular TV show, an active blog, itsasickness.com, novelist, films, host of Masterpiece Mystery, AIDS activist, gay rights activist, theater performer, cabaret performer... I am tired just from reading that list! Do you ever get the urge to just... fuck off for a week or two climb a mountain, wrestle a bear...I don't know...

Yes. I do feel my life's a bit of an escalator that I can't get off. But I think everyone feels that a bit. I have these fantasies...thinking 'I'll go and live in Berlin for 6 months and rent a flat in Berlin or Barcelona or somewhere and just zone out of the world.

I would avoid Berlin in winter.

Yeah, yeah. I do have a house in the Catskill Mountains in New York and I go there and I completely cut off. It really is so useful for me. It makes me value my more full-on ness when I'm using all my time and living with the volume up, but when I go there, I can completely shut down and be away and just be calm.

Are there any one or two or three of these things that really gets your juices flowing more than any others or that you wish you had more time for?

Oh, yeah, I wish I had more time for writing. I mean, I am writing a thing right now and I've got a very persistent and patient literary agent who every few weeks says, "Hey, how's it going?" and it's not that I don't want to do it, I really do it's just that I tend to need to get away and have focused time and that's hard. So I wish I had more concentrated time to write.

And I'm doing photographs, now. I started taking photos! That's my new thing!

Oh, like you need another one!

I'm going to have a photo show next year.

Oh, great! Do you enjoy writing?

I really do! I like the feeling of just starting something and finding what your voice is, what your tone is. I really like that feeling and then you think, "Oh! This is it. I've got it now."

I ask because there are a lot of famous writers who loathed the process. I think they loved the end result where they nailed something, but the actual slog of...it's a very emotional...you're pulling emotional things out of yourself.

Yeah...I quite like that.

It's like self-therapy.

Absolutely it's like self-therapy! I enjoy all that. I enjoy the solitude of it and I really like the progress of it. It's nice to see and it's very simple. It's not un-palpable. You've written that number of pages...I like it.

You're here in Denver receiving the Excellence in Acting award. Is that something you're comfortable with or is it more "Aw, shucks! Ok, but let's not make too big a deal out of it."

Well yeah, I think it would be the latter. I mean, all these things are a little bit...It's a nice thing but....

It's a wee bit embarrassing?

It's a wee bit embarrassing, of course. And I don't know. It's nice to be liked and it's nice to be appreciated but, well....you know.

David Bowie once famously said that the first thing he does when anybody gives him an award is he turns it down and if they still want to give him the award, then he'll consider going.

Oh how funny!

Because he wants to know that they actually want him and not just some famous person.

Well there's a thing that sometimes at these film festivals that they're going to give you an award and then you realize that if you don't go, you don't get it. Like if something happens and you can't go and you think, "well, I'll send a video or something." Sometimes you can send a video and sometimes they're like "Well, actually we're going to give it to somebody else.... [Laughs] If we can't have your...celebrity."

I suppose it's a trade.

It's a trade, yeah. I like it...you know, I really like coming to...I do love a film festival and I like coming to a city that I don't know very well and just doing a sort of snapshot of it. I like that. And it's nice to think that people like your body of work. Tomorrow there are two films I haven't seen for 10 years, it's crazy! [Ed note: "Spy Kids" and "Josie and the Pussycats" screened on November 13th for free in Denver.]

I have to say, I am a big fan of "Josie and the Pussycats."

Me too!

It's a gleefully subversive movie!

Its audience [eventually] found it (it wasn't originally marketed well). And also it's a parody of itself, d'you know what I mean?

People didn't get that.

No but also the studio didn't get that. They marketed it the wrong way. It should have been people like us. It should have been an older audience. We would have got the wit of it, what it was trying to do. And it was marketed for girls like the ones in the story and they were like [makes confused face] "Whaaaaa?"

Just the sheer brilliance of white vans, driving around kidnapping children and brainwashing them...

"I want orange shoes...."

Exactly!

And I get to kill a boy band in the first reel! I spoke this week with the directors just to say I was coming and tell them they were going to show it, here. You know it's actually a really nice thing to think that a film, even though it didn't really do very well when it came out, people are very...people have grown to like it, and it's kind of quite validating.

I know a number of people, like Eamonn Bowles of Magnolia...he's a huge fan of it.

Is he really?

Yeah, yeah. There's a number of us who are sort of, in the business, that love it.

I like that.

Well you know there are films like "Withnail and I" that were not a huge success and now are legendary.

Actually somebody sent me that to do as a play.

Really?

Yeah.

That would be interesting.

They sent the screenplay to adapt into a play.

I think that would work.

It would wouldn't it? It's quite easy to adapt into a play. I might have to....let me just write that down.

I think it's much more easy, and artistically successful, to adapt a film to a play than the other way around.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah...there's some terrible.... I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with a film being theatrical in terms of its use of metaphor or style but I think .... I hate when you can see the structure of a play [in the film adaptation].

Well like "Carnage" is... I don't know if you've seen it. The Roman Polanski...

Haven't seen it.

It's a play. It's like he just shot the play and it's anachronistic. It just doesn't work as a film for me.

With all your varied roles: gay, straight, comedy, drama, period pieces, what have you. Do you still find sometimes people saying 'Yeah i don't know if he can play that role...straight, Jewish.... Lots of things you're not.

I guess they must. I don't know. You tend not to....

They don't say it to your face.

Yeah, you tend not to hear that. I love "We've decided to go in a different direction." which is my favorite way to say, "I didn't want you." It's so funny, today I was reading a script by a friend of mine Ali Selim who I did a film called "Sweet Land" with and sometimes you get sent things and the description of the person is so not like you in any way: age wise, looks-wise, ethnicity even that I knew that can change and they want you to play it. And I actually really like the fact that I... well this was a 70-year-old man and I'm going to do it. I'm not going to play him as a 70 year old man but you know what I mean.

I think it's a - when they want your quality and also I love the fact that crazy things happen. A few years ago there was a part in some sci-fi thing that my agency said something about and then a couple weeks later I said, "What happened to that part in that thing..?" They said, "Well, Judi Dench got it!" I was like, whaaat? The bitch is always getting my parts, [laughs]. I quite like that!

Well sure why not. Well "The Tempest," the lead is not written as a woman's role. [Cumming co-starred with Helen Mirren and Mirren's role, Prospera, was female, changed from Shakespeare's original male Prospero.]

No, that's right. I know you can do anything. I'm going to play all the parts in Macbeth next year, as well.

On stage, or...?

On stage. Yeah, on stage.

You'll play three witches at once?

I'm going to be someone who's like, I'm telling the story of Macbeth but I'm someone who's hallucinating and things.

That sounds interesting. Sounds a little meaty!

It's going to be meaty. And it's going to be lonely as well, actually. There's going to be two other people who are in the performance but they're not - they're like just people in the hospital or wherever I am that restrain me and things like that.

So it's more like a monologue.

It'll be a monologue I mean, they don't speak, I don't think. So I'm girding my loins for that one.

Any plans on directing, again?

I've done little bits and bobs and things and little videos for the internet and things but I haven't really found anything - I imagine the next thing will be something - if I write something. I kind of got really burnt on the last film. It just took a lot out of me and I just felt... it was a nightmare. One of the producers stole the film from the cutting room and held it to ransom. I was just like - I can't - what? They don't even like the film anyway, they don't even care about it! I got into legal things... it was just so awful an experience.

I'd rather just do my own musical condom commercials and do things like that to get that fix every now and then. So no, I mean, I do like it very much, but I just kind of, and I don't really want to direct an episode of "The Good Wife."

Well you don't need to, first of all.

No I'm not. When I think of it, I think I should just keep my hand in and I sort of do just by doing weird things of my own and little films I make little video things. I see it in my future but I don't have any direct plans. Actually I had lunch with Jennifer Jason Leigh the other day and we were just laughing about, wouldn't it be hilarious to do "The Anniversary Party 2" and it was all like, the plastic surgery, all the kids are drug addicts.

Sort of like "Texasville."

AC: Yes.

But Better.

AC: Yeah. [laughs] But it would be funny to see who's with who - all our disfunctions. It would be quite a laugh. You know we actually joke about it - joked about it a few times, now. We might do something like that. It would be quite funny.

Well, you could do it as a "Funny Or Die" clip.

Yeah that would be quite good. It would be kind of crazy.

I haven't seen it since its release. I'm trying to remember the cast...

Yeah, I thought they were gonna show it because it's ten years, too and I think they couldn't find a print of it, that's why they're showing "Josie and the Pussycats." Yeah they were going to show that and I think they said someone at Warner Bros that now owns Fine Line and they're a bit shitty about letting prints go or something....it's a shame but who else is in it, did you mean?

Yeah, I was trying to remember. Kevin Kline...

Kevin Kline and Phoebe.

You'd have to pull Phoebe out of retirement

Yes, that's right! Gwyneth, Parker Posey, Jane Adams, John C. Riley, John Hickey, Dennis O'Hare...

Oh, he's fantastic.

He's amazing in it.

I love Parker Posey, she wrote... when we started Indiewire way back in the day, she actually kept a series of diaries from the set of "Suburbia."

Really!!

And they were so insane, we actually had to call them 'possibly true and potentially libelous' because she claimed that Rick Linklater dosed them all with mushroom tea and while they were rolling around on the floor hallucinating he dropped out of a drop ceiling with his pants around his ankles. All sorts of really insane stuff.

She's nuts!

It was wonderful, we still have it somewhere.

Mad as cheese. She just came into "The Good Wife" to play my ex-wife.

Yeah, I saw it.

Oh my god we laughed like drains! I thought she was brilliant in that. I could just...I love her and she's a real darling. I could just sit and watch her all the time. She's fascinating.

And you get to shoot at home.

Yeah, it's great. It's really great. I really enjoy that part of it, it's nice to sort of have a life and not be just be traveling all over the world all the time. To be able to do my own little weirdy projects and to have a base to do that from is great. And I really like "The Good Wife." I think the writing is so good. So good!

It's nice to see some of the actors on "The Good Wife" that aren't on TV a lot.... Like Josh Charles was in "Sports Night," which I thought was brilliant but then he didn't get a lot of work for a while and hadn't done television...

I know it's the guests, like Parker...Amy Sedaris is coming in, she's my nemesis. It's just, there's really great people [working on the show].

Did she bring cupcakes?

No.

She does a lot of baking.

Yeah, she's in crafts, now. She's done a crafts book. She's absolutely hilarious. She does this thing where in rehearsal she would go "Oh well, Eli, that's what you think... laughs, smiles, moves over to the door." She would say the stage directions! [laughs] It's just crazy! And when she made a mistake, instead of saying 'Oh fuck!' she says 'fish.' So she'll be going, "Oh well Eli - FISH!" like really vehemently. She's nuts!

You have to make sure and include that on the DVD's, in the outtakes, that's great.

I hope so. She's great, being able to work with her like that. Parker's coming back because she's gonna run for office.

I have to say, that episode with you and America [Ferrara] was just so sweet.

Oh when at the end she goes off? The last one, yeah. I really like that.

It was really touching.

It was touching, wasn't it? I thought it was really interesting how, when the romance started it was like, "What? This is ridiculous." And lot's of, "He's far too old for her" and I was like 'fuck you!' But then, as the episodes went on people were actually really rooting for them and it's a big sort of thing of the season. I loved it. It was very nice. She's a nice girl too, lovely. Really like her.

Denver Film Festival Sets Galas and Competition for 34th Event

Brian Brooks — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:19:46 GMT

Drake Doremus' "Like Crazy" will open the 34th Starz Denver Film Festival, slated for November 2 - 13. Also on tap is Alexander Payne's "The Descendants," which had its premiere Sunday night at the close of the New York Film Festival. "Descendants" will screen in Denver as the festival's Centerpiece film, while "The Artist" will close out the 12-day event. In all, 275 films from 47 countries will screen during the event.

"We are excited to be 'roll out the red' and welcome over 150 filmmakers and industry professionals to Denver for our annual cinematic celebration," commented Britta Erickson, Denver Festival Director in a statement. "This year’s festival marks two significant milestones for the Denver Film Society, the first anniversary of the very successful opening of the Denver FilmCenter/Colfax, which proved to be the right move at the right time for our organization, and the last time the festival will unspool at our home of the past ten years, the Starz FilmCenter at the Tivoli."

"With more than 250 films screening in this year’s festival, SDFF34 is the largest program we’ve ever produced—and perhaps the most eclectic," added Brit Withey, DFF Artistic Director. "We’re extremely pleased with the incredibly diverse mix of recognizable masters and young talents that will be on display and look forward to showcasing their work."

Competition, red carpet presentations, and more titles from the 34th Starz Denver Film Festival follow with information provided by the event.

Red Carpet Presentations:

Like Crazy
Opening Night Presentation
Director: Drake Doremus
Drake Doremus fashions the heartbreaking tale—already dubbed the Love Story for a new generation —of a British college student (Felicity Jones) and an American classmate (Anton Yelchin) whose passionate love affair is put to the test when she violates her visa and gets deported.

The Descendants
Big Night Presentation
Director: Alexander Payne
Superstar George Clooney's new vehicle is this comedy-drama from director Alexander Payne (Sideways, Election) about a baffled husband and father in Hawaii who discovers his wife is having an affair—and takes action.

The Artist
Closing Night Presentation
Director: Michel Hazanavicius
French director Michel Hazanavicius has dared to make a silent film in black and white. Set in Hollywood in 1927, it echoes Singin' in the Rain and A Star Is Born as a matinee idol on the wane falls for a female extra destined for stardom in talkies.

Special Presentations:

Butter
Director: Jim Field Smith
British director Jim Field Smith's clever (and unmistakably metaphorical) comedy stars Jennifer Garner as a ruthless Iowa housewife who will do anything to win the annual butter-carving contest—enlisting the help of her dumb ex-boyfriend (Hugh Jackman) to pull off her dirty tricks.

Coriolanus
Director: Ralph Fiennes
Making his directorial debut, Ralph Fiennes stars as Shakespeare's deeply flawed Roman military hero in a disturbing update now set amid 21st-century guerilla insurgencies and the incessant blare of cable TV news.

A Dangerous Method
Director: David Cronenberg
The famous rift between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung has fascinated psychiatrists and historians for decades—not least because they shared a patient who was also Jung's lover. The ever-provocative David Cronenberg (The Fly) brings it all to life, with Viggo Mortensen as Freud, Michael Fassbinder as Jung, and Keira Knightley as their "hysteric."

Jeff Who Lives at Home
Reel Social Club Presentation
Director: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
Mumblecore masters Jay and Mark Duplass set their new comedy about two mismatched brothers in Baton Rouge. Upstanding Pat (Ed Helms) suspects his wife of cheating, so he brings Jeff (Jason Segel)—the dreamy pot smoker living in Mom's basement—along for some goofy detective work. Susan Sarandon, as Mom, is in scene-stealing form.

Melancholia
Opening Night of Denver Film Center/Colfax presentation
Director: Lars von Trier
Danish auteur (and provocateur) Lars von Trier opens this meditation on depression, death, and the end of the world at a sun-splashed wedding in a beautiful castle and finishes with a huge planet called Melancholia hurtling straight toward the earth.

Shame
Director: Steve McQueen
Handsome matinee idol Michael Fassbinder portrays a helpless Manhattan sex addict in director Steve McQueen's disturbing (and unblinkingly graphic) study of a man being destroyed by his own desire. Carey Mulligan is his needy sister, who comes complete with some serious baggage of her own.

We Need to Talk About Kevin
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Oscar winner Tilda Swinton stars in Lynne Ramsay’s harrowing adaptation of a novel—part horror movie, part psychological thriller—about a guilt-ridden wife and mother trying to cope after her son commits a terrible act. John C. Reilly costars as the mild husband, Ezra Miller the bad seed.

Wish Me Away
Director: Bobbie Birleffi, Beverly Kopf
This intimate documentary, which took the jury prize at the 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival, follows chart-topping country singer-songwriter Chely Wright through weeks of inner turmoil as the date she has set for coming out draws near. Tearful yet resolute, the star now uses her fame to lend support to gay youth.

Films in Competition

The Krzysztof Kieslowski Award for Best Feature Film:

The Turin Horse (A torinói ló)
Director: Béla Tarr
In the strangely hypnotic, metaphorically rich film Hungarian director Belá Tarr says will be his last, a weather-beaten 19th-century farmer and his daughter struggle against the elements for survival, bedeviled by an enigmatic horse that just may have once encountered Friedrich Nietzsche.

The Day He Arrives (Book chon bang hyang)
Director: Hong Sang-soo
South Korean director Hong Sang-soo provides a self-referential, seriocomic portrait of a brawling, drunken, desperate film director in crisis, combining elements of 8 1/2 with the man-in-a-wheel repetitions of Groundhog Day.

The Fairy (La fee)
Director: Dominique Abel, Bruno Romy, Fiona Gordon
Featuring slapstick and sparse dialogue, this engaging frolic stylistically resembles the greats of the silent-film era. Dom, a hotel night clerk, finds himself granted three wishes by newly arrived guest Fiona, a self-proclaimed fairy. He asks for a scooter and enough petrol for life—but then what?

Tyrannosaur
Director: Paddy Considine
In actor Paddy Considine’s impressive filmmaking debut, an angry widower tangles with a vulnerable Christian woman, who mees his violent outbursts with compassion. Stellar performances anchor this gritty, character-driven drama.

Le Havre
Director: Aki Kaurismäki
Le Havre looks like a 1960s B-movie, but its storyline is wholly contemporary. Finland’s official entry for best foreign-language film at next year’s Academy Awards offers a light-hearted look at shoeshine man Marcel’s efforts to provide safe harbor for a young African immigrant.

The House (Dom)
Director: Zuzana Liová
The crusty Slovakian father in Zuzana Liová's satirically laced drama debut dreams of building a house for each of his two daughters on the family's plot of land—but the girls, of course, have other plans. Leading man Miroslav Krobot is simultaneously a pain in the neck and a joy to behold.

Volcano
Director: Rúnar Rúnarsson
Writer-director Rúnar Rúnarsson describes his feature debut as a coming-of-age story about a 67-year-old man. Against the backdrop of an Icelandic coastal town decimated by a volcano in the 1970s, this understated but moving drama examines existential loss and familial reconnection.

The New Directors Award:

American Animal
Director: Matt D'Elia
Jimmy is sick. But Jimmy is tired of being sick, so this morning, Jimmy decides he is no longer sick—he’s happy. An existential fantasy set in a downtown LA loft, Matt D’Elia’s debut feature walks the line between silliness and madness, all the while nodding to classic cinema. Jimmy, it’s showtime!

Bad Fever
Director: Dustin Guy Defa
Dustin Guy Defa’s dramatic feature debut is a wrenching portrait of lonely souls roaming an empty city in desperate need of connection. Kentucker Audley is astonishing as true antihero Eddie, a would-be stand-up comic attempting to win the heart of a drifter.
The Destiny of Lesser Animals.

Director: Deron Albright
Part crime drama, part personal quest, Deron Albright's first feature focuses on a Ghanian police inspector whose fondest wish is to return to the United States a decade after being deported. First, however, he’ll need to extract himself from the series of intrigues in which he’s entangled.

The Dish and the Spoon
Director: Alison Bagnall
In Alison Bagnall’s often humorous, always poignant indie drama, a hysterical wife seeks revenge on her straying husband by forming an unlikely friendship with a vulnerable British boy she finds asleep in an abandoned lighthouse. Rising stars Greta Gerwig and Olly Alexander turn in utterly luminous performances.

The Dynamiter
Director: Matthew Gordon
In rural Mississippi, teenaged Robbie cares for his elderly grandmother and young half-brother while his absentee mother sends the occasional postcard. The return of older brother Lucas threatens the little stability this makeshift family has—and it’s up to Robbie to defend it in this intensely moving snapshot of a forgotten America.

Green
Director: Sophia Takal
Writer-director-costar Sophia Takal’s unflinching exploration of triangulated romance follows Genevieve and Sebastian from Brooklyn to a remote farm in the South, where they form an easy friendship with their neighbor, Robin. But when Genevieve begins to suspect Robin and Sebastian are falling for each other, the pastoral landscape grows dark.

Maria My Love
Director: Jasmine McGlade Chazelle
Jasmine McGlade Chazelle's witty feature debut examines the unlikely friendship between a young café waitress who's grieving the death of her mother and a strangely insightful maternal figure (Hollywood veteran Karen Black)—who also happens to be a compulsive hoarder.

The Maysles Brothers Award for Best Documentary:

Arirang
Director: Kim Ki-duk
In 2008, the once-prolific Korean director Kim Ki-duk watched as his leading actress suffered a near-fatal on-set injury. Traumatized, the devout Buddhist went into hiding and has not re-emerged—except in the form of this raw, corrosive, self-critical video diary that addresses life, death, and the purposes of art.

The Bengali Detective
Director: Phil Cox
Rajesh is a private investigator in Kolkata who’s passionate about his family, his job—and fancy footwork. This one-of-a-kind documentary follows the chubby detective as he tries to crack murder, counterfeiting, and adultery cases as well as win a national TV dance contest.

The Green Wave
Director: Ali Samadi Ahadi
Using a compelling combination of cellphone and online footage, animation, and first-person interviews, The Green Wave documents Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution—from the movement’s sweeping hopes for a liberated Iran to the violence protestors faced following the re-election of conservative dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians
Director: Bryan Storkel
Holy Rollers chronicles the ups and downs of Churchteam, a group of card-counting Christians trained to beat the casinos at blackjack. The obvious moral conflict becomes the focus of this amusingly revealing documentary: how does a group of true believers come to worship at the altar of the almighty dollar? The answers may surprise you.

One Night Stand
Director: Elisabeth Sperling, Trish Dalton
One Night Stand joyfully documents the anxiety, camaraderie, and artistry that unfold when Broadway’s best actors, writers, composers, and directors collaborate to create and perform four mini-musicals in 24 hours for an annual fundraiser in New York City.

You’ve Been Trumped
Director: Anthony Baxter
When business tycoon Donald Trump decides to build his next luxury golf resort on the environmentally pristine coast north of Aberdeen, Scotland, local residents rise up in protest. You’ve Been Trumped documents the Goliath’s sword they take to corporate America in all its greed and denial.

"happythankyoumoreplease" and "The White Meadow" Top Denver FF's Awards

Nigel M Smith — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 10:11:43 GMT

Fresh off of receiving an audience award at the Virginia Film Festival, Josh Radnor's "happythankyoumoreplease" continued a winning streak, picking up the Starz People's Choice Award for Best Feature at the 33rd Starz Denver Film Festival (SDFF), which concluded on Sunday, November 14. Lily Rivlin's "Grace Paley: Collected Shorts" went on to win the documentary equivalent of the award.

Denver's jury award winners included the Krzysztof Kieslowski Award for Best Feature Film, which went to "The White Meadow," directed by Mohammad Rasoulof who was arrested and jailed in Iran last year. Jose Padilha's "Secrets of the Tribe" went on to win the Maysles Brothers Award for Best Documentary Film, while "My So-Called Enemy," from director Lisa Gossels received a Special Jury Prize in Filmmaking for its eight year commitment documenting the lives and friendships of a group of Israeli and Palestinian young women, some of whom are on a quest to be the next generation's ambassadors of peace. Director Chris Brown was also awarded the Emerging Filmmaker Award for "Fanny, Annie & Danny."

This year's edition of the festival took place over 12 days, and featured 224 films from 30 countries. Attendance was up from the previous record of 47,500, the festival said.

"With the opening of the Denver Film Society's new permanent home, the Denver FilmCenter/Colfax, star-studded Red Carpet presentations and filmmakers from around the world joining us, the 33rd year of the Starz Denver Film Festival was an exhilarating cinematic celebration," said Britta Erickson, SDFF director in a statement. "Demonstrated in both numbers and response, the Denver community and the inspiring filmmakers and industry professionals who shared their work with our enthusiastic audience were paramount to this being such a successful year."

Denver Film Festival: Emotional & a 'Kick in the Ass,' Event Returns as a Mile High Star

Brian Brooks — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 08:02:26 GMT

It seems like there is a film festival in almost every city and large town in the world and there may very well be. Sure, it makes sense that cities like New York, London, Los Angeles and Berlin would have vibrant arts scenes and multiple film events, large and small, but it seems like every small to medium municipality wants or has a festival and the competition for the quality films is fierce. Combine that with the rise of "day and date" releases, video on demand, Netflix and the increase in original programming on cable television and there's more competition for eyeballs than ever before. How then, do festivals survive?

Well, the Starz Denver Film Festival (SDFF) has been going for 33 years and despite a rough 15 months or so, they appear to have come out the other end as a stronger, wiser organization. "I think we've come through it for the better," says festival director Britta Erickson, adding that the narrowly averted crisis of 2009 resulted in "a stronger team, really focused on what the goals are for the organization and what the goals are for the festival." Erickson added that the events of that Summer reenergized the community, as well. "I think when things are in crisis and when things are over-reported and over dramatized in the media that those people who may have gone away from the fold wake up and see something in the paper and return to the organization" as supporters.

One way to survive is to open your own film center to reap the benefits of year-round programming and while they had something like that at the Starz Film Center, the new Denver Film Center/Colfax is a whole new ballgame. Stadium seating, a full bar (including Henderson's Lounge, a small bar area named for Ron Henderson, the festival's founder and current senior programming advisor) and an attached 80-seat restaurant all housed in a retail area that includes local indie book and record stores make the new film center exactly what the festival and city needed.

The festival opened with John Cameron Mitchell's "Rabbit Hole" at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, a magnificent 2,000+ seat palace. Unfortunately due to my flight schedules, I missed the film about a couple (played by Nicole Kidman and this year's SDFF Excellent in Acting Award recipient, Aaron Eckhart) coming to terms with the death of their four year-old son. It's been covered in these pages before and I will certainly see it upon its release. I hear great things and am looking forward to the film.

The second night saw the opening of the new Colfax complex during which a sad event that occurred shortly before the festival began came into sharp focus. Filmmaker George Hickenlooper passed away overnight on October 29th, less than a week before his latest film, "Casino Jack" was set to open the new facility. A frequent guest at the festival, this year's event is being held in his honor. Not only that, but 3 days after learning of his cousin's death, Denver mayor John Hickenlooper was elected Governor of Colorado and was on hand to deliver an emotional introduction to his cousin's film. The two men only learned of each other's existence a scant ten years ago and formed a fast and strong family bond that they often described as being like brothers.

A scene from John Cameron Mitchell's "Rabbit Hole," which opened the SDFF.

Stepping up to the microphone, Governor-elect Hickenlooper spoke one syllable before being rendered mute by grief and quietly crying for a full minute or two, while the packed house sat silent, tearing up in respect for their beloved mayor in his time of grief. It was one of the most moving experiences I have had in my life. When he finally recovered, the governor-elect said: "George would love it that I can't speak!" before telling the audience that we were "all part of my (grieving) process" and speaking lovingly about his cousin George.

Later that night, festival guests Leland Orser (here with his feature debut "Morning") and Elliott Gould (in town to accept the festival's John Cassavetes award) made the scene at a legendary Denver Film Festival hot spot, the Late Night Lounge, with Orser proclaiming as he entered the nearly empty lower floor, "This place needs a big kick in the ass!" He needn't have worried as the lounge's 3 levels were soon well populated. That said, the lounge's 3 levels were occasionally problematic when it came to seeing who else was around, sometimes giving the false impression that there was nothing going on, when in fact the roof deck was usually hopping. Two sponsored bars brimming with top shelf booze tends to make for a decent atmosphere.

As with many 10 day urban fests, Denver's weekday screenings don't start until the afternoon, allowing attendees to either experience the city a bit or, if you're like me and are often taking advantage of things with the words "Late" and "Night" in them, sleeping in. The thing about this festival that is both a blessing and a curse is, they take care of their guests VERY well. As in, I probably spent $50 in my 5 days in Denver. Cabs? Don't need them between 8am and midnight, because the festival maintains a large fleet of cars and drivers to take guests hither and thither with as little as 30 minutes notice. Of all the perks offered to attending filmmakers (lodging, food, parties, booze) this was the most oft mentioned item.

The best films at the major fests tend to make the rounds at smaller festivals for at least a few months and this year's SDFF was no different. I got to catch up on some films that I had missed at several other events, included two of the most beautiful and moving films of the year, Derek Cianfrance's "Blue Valentine" and Jan Hrebejk's "Kawasaki's Rose. Cianfrance's film is so beautiful as to make one think, "why bother trying to make a movie when there's something like this out there?" A painfully intimate look at a young couple's disintegrating marriage, "Valentine" emotes without being overwrought and engages without manipulation. No tricks, just honest filmmaking with two actors upon whom bestowing the title of "Best actors of their generation" might actually not be hyperbolic for once. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are at the very least the best two actors of the year to date.

SDFF Festival Director Britta Erickson, festival co-founder Ron Henderson and actor/director Leland Orser ("Morning"). Photo by Mark Rabinowitz.

As for the Czech "Rose," the film opened the 2010 Berlinale's Panorama Special section and almost immediately the cries of, "Why wasn't this film in the main competition?" arose from the festival's attendees. Why, indeed. Hrebejk's drama slyly teases the audience with an intimate family drama while slowly shifting the film to a tale of secrets, betrayals and shameful political history, all the while not forgetting to give a little humor, now and then. It's a heavy story but I dare you not to fall in love with Anna Simonova as she shoplifts by jamming several chocolate bars into her mouth while still in the grocery store.

I kept thinking back to Lukas Moodyson's beautiful 2000 film "Together" while watching this film. While the two films are not particularly similar in story (although both are somewhat political in nature) and Moodyson's film is funnier, I kept comparing them in my mind. It might just be that both Moodyson and "Rose" screenwriter Petr Jarchovsky are masters at creating fully rounded characters and family dynamics as well as stories that may seem particular and foreign on the surface but are eminently relatable to on an emotional level.

Some of my favorite things about attending film festivals are the retrospective screenings. They enhance the festival experience and these classic films are all too rarely seen on screen. This year the SDFF screened both Robert Altman's "MASH" (which unlike the TV series and later DVDs of the film, does not have asterisks between the capital letters) and John Sturges' "The Magnificent Seven." Elliott Gould was on hand for a Q&A after the former and longtime SDFF friend, Variety critic & film professor Joe Leydon intro'd both films and handled the Gould Q&A.

Having someone as knowledgeable as Leydon on hand to give a mini-film class before or after these screenings is a godsend and truly enhances the experience. A couple things I learned:
* "MASH" was the first major studio release to contain the word "Fuck."
* The cast of "The Magnificent Seven" signed their contracts mere days ahead of a SAG strike and didn't even know what roles they were to play and because they were under the old contract, they never received any residuals from the film.

At a reception prior to the opening of their new building, talk turned to my question that leads off this piece and to the importance of film festivals in the current age of multiple distribution channels. Sarasota Film Festival Program Director/Hamptons International Film Festival Special Programs Producer Holly Herrick thinks that the SDFF is taking the right tack: "The film society and festival are making sure that Denver is a regional hub for all things cinema, which is a good reason for distributors to be paying close attention," adding, "more than having the attention of the people of Denver, this is the premiere festival of the Mountain West." Indeed, the SDFF is pretty much the biggest film event in a 10 state radius, Sundance excepted. Someone ought to tell Colorado and Denver's visitor's bureaus. Film festivals are vacation destinations all over the world. Why not here, much as some music and arts festivals have become?

All in all, Denver is a shining example of what a big city film festival should be and Herrick sums it up best: "As I see it, most important is the fact that [the Denver Film Festival is] cultivating an educated audience who loves interesting and ambitious films. The more festivals and film societies take on this role, the better for all of us."

[Mark Rabinowitz is a co-founder of indieWIRE]

Botehlo Takes Denver Film Society Reins

Brian Brooks — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:52:57 GMT

Tom Botelho has been named the new executive director of the Denver Film Society, the organization which produces the annual Denver International Film Festival announced today. The appointment is effective immediately. Botelho returns to the position he held on an interim basis for six months in 2008. He also served as a member of the board of directors of DFS for 12 years, including one term as board chairman in 2003. The film festival's head, Britta Erickson, had been serving as interim executive director following the abrupt departure of the group's previous executive director, Bo Smith after a messy breakdown with DFS staffers earlier this year.

Botelho, a 30-year veteran of the advertising industry, began his career in Los Angeles at BBDO International. After working in Chicago, he moved to Denver in 1984 joining advertising outfit Tracy-Locke/BBDO where he served as vice president of account service on a $26 million Mountain Bell account. In 1988, he teamed with four other partners at Thomas & Perkins to build the agency to $45 million in annual billings. The Denver Post hired Botelho in 1996 to lead the newspaper's marketing efforts. Six years later, Botelho became the Denver Newspaper Agency's senior vice president of brand marketing.

"Coming back to the Denver Film Society is a tremendous honor and opportunity for me," said Botelho in a statement. "This organization has a 32-year track record for producing industry-renowned film festivals, exceptional programming at the Starz FilmCenter and innovative educational offerings. And, looking ahead to the 32nd Starz Denver Film Festival, we're preparing to deliver one of the strongest programming lineups in years, including a focus on Mexican cinema featuring emerging fimmakers. In today's economic climate, the challenge is to keep moving forward and expand programming while also generating incremental revenue associated with these new initiatives."

Denver Film Fest Honors Debut Feature "Brooklyn Bound" and "WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception" in Prize

Indiewire — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 06:00:00 GMT

Denver Film Fest Honors Debut Feature "Brooklyn Bound" and "WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception" in Prizes at 27th Event

by Brian Brooks

"WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception" director Danny Schechter with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in a scene from his movie, which took The Maysles Brothers Award for Best Documentary at the 27th Starz Denver International Film Festival. Image courtesy of the festival.

Debut feature "Brooklyn Bound" by Rich Devaney received the first annual juried Best Emerging Filmmaker award at the 27th Starz Denver International Film Festival, which showcased 189 films from around the world in the Mile High City from October 14-24. Set in inner-city Brooklyn, the film, co-written with lead actor Thomas Guiffre, follows "two brothers who attempt to navigate the drug and violence infused streets." Honorable mention in the category was given to Ferenc Toth's feature focusing on a man's journey through despair, "Unknown Soldier."

Writer/director Danny Schechter's film "WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception" won the Maysles Brothers Award for Best Documentary. The film, investigates the onset of the American invasion of Iraq and how it received an "uncritical" view by the American commercial media. The film also delves into what it views as the "Bush Administration's premeditated and controlled shaping of public opinion." Acclaimed documentarian Albert Maysles presented the award to Schechter at the festival.

Two films won Denver's Krzysztof Kieslowski Award for best film. Latvian filmmaker, Laila Pakalnina's feature about a group of pranksters antagonizing a school's headmistress in, "Python," shared the prize with Zrinko Ogresta's "Here." The film is described by the event as "a series of mini-stories depicting contemporary life in morally adrift Croatia."

In audience prizes, actor/director Jerry Stuhr's "Tomorrow's Weather," the story of a monk who emerges from a monastery after a 17-year self-exile to find himself confronted with his former self, won the prize in the best feature category, while Leslie Sullivan's "A Touch of Greatness" received the nod in the documentary category. "Greatness" centers on educator Albert Cullum, considered a pioneer in his field, who utilizes unorthodox educational practices to teach his elementary school classes about literary notables including Shakespeare, Sophocles and George Bernard Shaw.

In other honors, SDIFF presented actor Morgan Freeman with its Mayor's Lifetime Achievement Award, while actor Kevin Bacon received the John Cassavetes Award. Next year, the Starz Denver International Film Festival will move its dates to November 10-20, 2005.