Fests and events, 2/19.

By David Hudson on 02/19/2009

"Godard in the 1960s" opens today at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and runs through March 7; in the Phoenix, Jeffrey Gantz riffs on "two or three things to remember about Jean-Luc."

"With lower budgets and limited effects, there are several gems at [the Nevermore Film Festival] that put Hollywood to shame by doing more with less," writes Zack Smith in the Independent Weekly. This weekend at the Carolina Theatre in Durham.

Steve Erickson previews "Film Comment Selects" for Artforum: "This year's edition may be the first whose revivals are more exciting than its new films." Tomorrow through March 5.

The "Wild Eye Symposium on Experimental Film Studies" happens from 10 am to 6 pm on March 4 at De Montfort University in Leicester.

The 3rd annual Amoeba Art Show also happens March 6, but in Emeryville, California. And yes, there will be film.

Ongoing: Vince Keenan at Noir City.

On the occasion of the release of the 40th anniversary edition of "Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music," SXSW announces a Music panel, "Woodstock: Untold Stories," and a special Film screening of Barbara Kopple's rarely seen "My Generation."

Meantime, Karina Longworth carries on previewing SXSW at the SpoutBlog: "Today we take a look at 'Creative Nonfiction,' an Emerging Visions entry from Lena Dunham, who you might remember from Brandon's Media Diet interview back in January, which was pegged to the debut of her very funny and still ongoing web series, 'Delusional Downtown Divas.'"

Michael Guillen is prepping for the seven-film tribute to Kiyoshi Kurosawa at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. March 12 through 22.

Looking back over the Berlinale in LA Weekly, Scott Foundas declares Maren Ade's "Everybody Else" the "most impressive film in the Berlin competition." Which puts him at odds with Derek Elley, who panned the "pic" in Variety: "Under normal circumstances, I'd be loathe to call out another critic by name - especially a former Variety colleague - over a mere difference of opinion. But in Elley's case, the circumstances are hardly normal. With increasingly vituperative vigor over the past decade, he has used the pages of the influential trade publication to attack great swaths of the most progressive and innovative contemporary world cinema - a scorched-earth policy that has left the Portuguese director Pedro Costa and China's Jia Zhangke similarly burned in its wake.... Thankfully, in Ade's case, the Berlin jury begged to differ, awarding 'Everyone Else' the Grand Jury Prize and naming [Birgit] Minichmayr Best Actress."

More Berlinale: Neil Young's invited a guest into the Jigsaw Lounge: M Tempest reviews Claude Chabrol's "Bellamy" ("likable but aimless") and Michael Klier's "The Grass Is Greener Everywhere Else": "Good, but someway short of great, hidden gem charting the wanderlust and bildungsroman of a wheeler-dealer Pole on the wrong side of the Wall, just prior to its breaching."

Earlier: "Wrapping Berlinale 09." Reviews will resume as soon as I get a little tweaking done around here.

Online viewing tips. At the International Festival of Contemporary Cinema, on through March 1 in Mexico City, there are five films "so bizarre, so completely outside any conventional genre, that it appears organizers liked them, but couldn't figure out what to do with them," writes Max Brett in the News. "And so, they were set entirely apart in their own category." Via Deborah Bonello, who's got clips in the Los Angeles Times.

[Photo: Anna Karina and Jean-Luc Godard in the 60s]