Fests and events, 2/25.

By David Hudson on 02/25/2009

"With raw and shocking footage of worldwide atrocities, the movies featured in this year's Human Rights Watch International Film Festival speak multitudes - even when their narrators are silent." A preview from Louis Peitzman in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Today through March 26 at the Pacific Film Archive and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

"The fable of catching a tiger by the tail only to be bitten back serves as a wry allegory for the modern day booming economy of Ireland, dubbed the Celtic tiger, in John Boorman's 'The Tiger's Tail,'" writes Acquarello. Also: "An early cursory comment that capitalists invented terrorism as a means of selling security (that, in turn, will safeguard their own survival) provides the trenchant context for Rainer Werner Fassbinder's delirious and provocative satire, 'The Third Generation.'"

And a review of the film that opened the Film Comment Selects series: "Something like an unconstructed take on Peter Mettler's epic essay film, 'Gambling, Gods and LSD,' Michael Almereyda's 'Paradise' similarly assembles a series of fragmentary, cross-cultural, quotidian images taken from the filmmaker's video diaries that reflect on fundamental human questions of life, existential purpose, and transcendence." Related: Alison Willmore has an email conversation with Almereyda here at IFC.

Related online viewing tip. Drew DeNicola and Miriam Bale launch a new series for the filmlinc blog, "Personal Views," with a piece in which critic Melissa Anderson discusses her cinematic "brides." Anderson will introduce Saturday's screening of another "Film Comments Selects" entry, "The Killing of Sister George."

Kevin Lee on "Lucifer Rising": "Despite having its copious array of montage and staging techniques pilfered by hundreds of music videos and commercials over the years, Kenneth Anger's incantatory envisioning of a sacred rite spanning the world retains a hypnotic spell untouched by its imitators." And again, the P.S.1 Anger survey is on through September 14.

Mike Everleth has the lineup for the Boston Underground Film Festival. March 19 through 26.

Online viewing tips. SXSW launches its YouTube channel. And At Twitch, Todd Brown has the trailer for "Boob" (site), a short set to premiere in Austin. Meanwhile, today's SXSW preview from Karina Longworth at the SpoutBlog: "The Time of Their Lives."

Another online viewing tip. Again, from Todd, this one for a series of films curated by Edgar Wright ("Shaun of the Dead") at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto. Weekends, from this one through April 12.

[Photo: "A Maid Is Not a Slave" ("Mbindaan Du Jaam"), Adobe Youth Voices, 2008]

Tags: Film Comment Selects, Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, SXSW 2009