Fests and events, 3/27.

By David Hudson on 03/27/2009

Philippe Grandrieux's is a "cinema of extreme majesty, strength and courage," writes Robert Koehler from Guadalajara.

"Migrating Forms has released the list of films screening at their first ever event, which will run April 15 - 19 at the Anthology Film Archives," notes Mike Everleth. "Picking up where the New York Underground Film Festival left off, Migrating Forms' co-directors Nellie Killian and Kevin McGarry have programmed a fest that appears to be more tightly focused on the experimental filmmaking side of underground film. It's a very intriguing lineup."

"The career of Jules Dassin, who died in his adopted home of Athens, Greece, last March at age 97, was sharply bisected by an early-50s relocation to Europe after HUAC made him unemployable in Hollywood," writes Bruce Bennett at Moving Image Source. "The personal and professional fortunes of this Connecticut-born, Harlem-raised director, writer, and sometime actor seem to refute F Scott Fitzgerald's claim that 'there are no second acts in American lives,' and it is hard to say which part of Dassin's two-act story contained his artistic climax." Film Forum's Dassin tribute runs through April 7.

"It's not so easy to get much attention for experimental filmmaking these days, but during just a decade of work to date England's Ben Rivers has stirred interest on both sides of the Atlantic," writes Dennis Harvey at SF360. "He makes his Bay Area debut this week presenting in person two programs - 'The Poetic Horror of Ben Rivers' at Artists' Television Access Saturday the 28th, then 'This Is My Land: Ben Rivers' Portraits and Landscapes' via SF Cinematheque at the YBCA Screening Room Sunday night - and you can prepare yourself for a slightly dislocative experience at once tranquil and sinister."

"For its 25th iteration the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival (AFFF for short) changed its name into 'Imagine," notes Ard Vijn at Twitch. And the lineup's up.

The French New Wave turns 50 this year and London is gearing up to celebrate: BFI Southbank's "Nouvelle Vague" season runs April 9 through 30; the Barbican's Truffaut "Directorspective" runs April 12 through May 31; Ciné Lumière's "Nouvelle Vague Influences" season runs April 14 through 23.

For Time Out London, Trevor Johnston has a good long talk with Mike Leigh: "With Godard's 'À Bout de Souffle' in particular, it was the real, fundamental, anarchic, status quo-challenging, breathing-real-air aspect of it which resonated with me.... What Truffaut's brilliant at is tapping into a nostalgia, in the true sense of the word, for life, even if he did once say that British cinema was a contradiction in terms - for which he would probably deserve to get his legs broken." Via Movie City News.

"The most amazing thing about the new wave is how little the directors had in common - artistically, philosophically, politically," writes Joe Queenan in the Guardian. "Reassessing the new wave now, I find that the films I loved when I first saw them 40 years ago are still films I love; that the films whose ingenuity and impudence I admired at the time are less appealing now; and that a lot of the films I never saw at the time seem better left unwatched."

Related: Eric Henderson in Slant: "Criterion's Blu-Ray presentation of 'The 400 Blows' isn't perfection, but it suggests there's a whole new world of black-and-white cinematography to be discovered in high-definition."

"Wallace & Gromit present a World of Cracking Ideas" opens tomorrow at the Science Museum in London; the Independent profiles Nick Park.

Notes on the films, photos from past editions and a few clips: Roger Ebert looks ahead to Ebertfest. April 22 through 26.

At Hollywood Bitchslap, Peter Sobczynski offers a "look at some of the highlights of the final week of screenings at the European Union Film Festival at Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center."

Leo Goldsmith opens Not Coming to a Theater Near You's New Directors / New Films section.

Mike Everleth lists the Backseat Film Festival award-winners.

Online leafing tip. Page through the program for Sci-Fi-London 8.

[Photo: "Un lac," Shellac Distribution, 2008]

Tags: Ben Rivers, French New Wave, Jules Dassin, Nick Park, Philippe Grandrieux