Fests and events, 6/8.

By David Hudson on 06/08/2009

Michael Guillén talks with programmer James Quandt about "In the Realm of Oshima," currently at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley through July 18. And here's the second part of the interview.

The New York Asian Film Festival (June 19 through July 5) rolls out its guest list and schedule. Update: The festival announces that it'll be screening Feng Xiaogang's "If You Are the One," a romantic comedy starring Shu Qi - and the highest grossing film in China. Ever.

James van Maanen carries on covering "Open Roads," the series of new Italian films running in New York through Thursday, with an interview with Silvio Orlando, who stars in Pupi Avati's "Giovanna's Father."

IndieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez has the latest on the shakeup at the Denver Film Society.

Ben Slater, who's been tracking reviews of a film he's had a hand in, "Here," argues that film festivals aren't exactly the ideal milieu for clear-headed critical judgement:

One refrain heard during that item was a rhetorical question along the lines of "where were the real ground-breaking works that pushed the language of cinema?". The answer to that was pretty easy - they were in the Cannes Film Festival, but you didn't bother to watch them (Raya Martin, Ho Tzu Nyen, Gasper Noe, Tsai Ming Liang, and I'm sure there were others worth tussling with). Or when you did see them you were too bloody tired to make sense of them - so either you didn't bother to write about them, or gave them a pasting. Easy to speculate that if the Noe had screened before "Antichrist, then it might have been a sensation. The schedule is utterly crucial, and a very late appearance for a difficult film is deadly (the Tsai).

On Saturday, the jury for this year's La Biennale di Venezia awarded the Golden Lion for best National Participation to the US for Bruce Nauman's "Topological Gardens," the Golden Lion for the Best Artist of the exhibition "Fare Mondi // Making Worlds" to German artist Tobias Rehberger ("Was du liebst, bringt dich auch zum Weinen") and the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Artist in the "Fare Mondi // Making Worlds" exhibition to Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg ("Experimentet"). Steve McQueen is evidently going home empty-handed.

More on the Biennale: Laura Cumming (Guardian), frieze, Paddy Johnson (Art Fag City), David Velasco (Artforum) and Carol Vogel (New York Times).

[Photo: "The Man Who Left His Will on Film," Art Theatre Guild, 1970]

Tags: Cannes 2009, James Quandt, Nagisa Oshima, NYAFF 2009, Open Roads 2009