By Morgan Bolah Special to the Daily News “I want the young people to feel good, and for the adults to feel good about the youth.” That isn’t something you’d expect a documentary filmmaker to say after he’s covered such topics as the Columbian drug cartels and lack of water as a necessary resource in Senegal,but in the case of Patrick Davidson, an exception must be made. THE WORLD WE WANT follows teenage activists all across the world who are working to improve their present commun...

By John Wildman AFI FEST Daily News Staff Any number of cinematic bad guys and ruffians have been taught a lesson by Clint Eastwood’s characters. However, when the father in Pelle Moeller’s comedy short MAKE MY DAY uses Eastwood’s film persona as a signature teaching point and role model for his son, he misses the point by a wide margin. And in a charming display of “from the mouths of babes”, his little boy gets to deliver a message that would’ve made ‘Dirty Harry’ proud. MAKE...

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE COMPETITION JURY SEBASTIAN GUTIERREZ Writer/Director Sebastian Gutierrez was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. His feature credits as a screenwriter include: THE BIG BOUNCE (starring Morgan Freeman and Owen Wilson), GOTHIKA (starring Halle Berry), SNAKES ON A PLANE (starring Samuel Jackson) and THE EYE (starring Jessica Alba). As a director his credits include: JUDAS KISS (starring Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman), HBO’s SHE CREATURE (starring Rufus Sewell), RISE (s...

AFI FEST 2008 presented by Audi today announced the 2008 award winners with Federico Veiroj’s ACNE named as the recipient of the Grand Jury Prize for International Feature Competition. Special Mention went to Igor Voloshin’s NIRVANA. Kief Davidson’s KASSIM THE DREAM took the International Documentary Grand Jury Prize. Special Mention went to Jan Louter’s THE LAST DAYS OF SHISHMAREF. SHORTS Audience award: BUSCO PERSONAS Grand Jury Prize: THE LEGLESS BOY CANNOT DANCE; Special Mention APO...

By Marc Lee AFI FEST Daily News Editor Everybody who attended Saturday’s Bill Plympton TALK/SHOW received a free, signed drawing from the cartoonist. And everybody who didn’t go missed out on way more than that. Plympton’s IDIOTS AND ANGELS screened at AFI FEST, but the audience got an extra screening of many of his short films—his latest, HOT DOG; the sad and romantic THE FAN AND THE FLOWER; a music video for the Norwegian band Parson Brown, MEXICAN STANDOFF— and an sneak screening of...

By Roxanne Benjamin Special to the Daily News The final day of the Sloan Film Summit began with the panel From Geek to Chic: The Growing Popularity of Science in Primetime Television. It was a rousing exchange between both the panelists and the Sloan fellows on both the nature of science in television and the process of writing scientific characters within dramatic narrative. The well-vetted panelists included both industry executives and renowned scientists who have served as advisers on scien...

By Marc Lee AFI FEST Daily News Editor Saturday afternoon’s first TALK/SHOW, Gaming: Art or Commerce?, covered much more than that. Swinging from the initial un-anwserable question to the issues of violence, gameplay, ratings and more, panelists Danny Ledonne, Mark L. Walters, Lucy Bradshaw and Jerry O’Flaherty were eager to discuss the issues of their industry. Ledonne, who created the game Super Columbine Massacre RGP and produced and edited PLAYING COLUMBINE showing at AFI FEST, t...

By Roxanne Benjamin Special to the Daily News The Sloan Foundation and AFI FEST pulled together another rousing panel discussion yesterday for the Sloan Film Summit. The well-attended panel took a look at science’s role in cinema, particularly futuristic ‘disaster’ films. The aptly named We Told You So: Scientific Disasters in Film as Entertainment or Cautionary Tale? featured both the Writer and Producer of the Academy Award-winning CHILDREN OF MEN as well as a CalTech neuroscientist who ...

By Shannon Dunn Special to the Daily News While news headlines constantly broadcast political and environmental wins and woes, some of the world’s most exciting filmmakers have made it their mission to go beyond the boundaries so often kept to by the six o’clock news. AFI FEST is providing a platform for some such American and international filmmakers, who have created forward-thinking films and documentaries to educate and inspire. Chris Taylor’s FOOD FIGHT, Danny Ledone’s PLAYING COLUM...

I was talking to someone last night about how hard it is to answer the most oft asked question of me as a programmer: “What’s your favorite film in the festival?” I have stolen Lane’s line, saying, “The one playing right now! Go see that one.” But then we started talking about films, favorite films in general and about how sometimes, when a film affects you at a certain time, it can become a favorite because it immediately takes you back to a time in your life. IDIOTS AND ANGELS 9:4...

By Nived Ravikumar Special to the Daily News In ALONE IN FOUR WALLS, Alexandra Westmeier takes us inside a prison in her native Russia where the convicts are not mobsters but rather adolescent boys. Despite their youth, the crimes they have committed are no less heinous—robbery, assault, murder. ALONE IN FOUR WALLS gets its name from a tattoo given to many of the children, “four dots, with one more dot in the middle, which signifies ’first time behind bars.’ According to Westmeier, “t...

By Lydia Ianni Special to the Daily News Mark Peranson’s debut film WAITING FOR SANCHO offers Festival-goers more than simply a look at the making of BIRDSONG, a beautifully stark black-and-white film depicting the Three Wise Men. Peranson focuses on the process of making of a film, using extremely long takes made with a small HD camera that gives the feeling of being an invisible visitor to this set. Peranson’ s ability to create a film that makes the viewer feel that they are part...

By Roxanne Benjamin Special to the Daily News Meet the Press: Today I’ve had the opportunity to sit in on that most private of arenas at a film festival—within the sacred walls of the Festival Press Room where the cameras are turned and the filmmakers are thrown into the spotlight. This morning’s interviewers are The Documentary Channel production staff, who were kind enough to let me be the fly on the wall while they filmed eight (yes, eight) of the festival’s documentary filmmakers a...

By Lane Kneedler AFI FEST Senior Programmer Eisner winning cartoonist Alison Bechdel articulated her three rules for a movie to attract her interest thusly: 1. Does it have at least two women in it, 2. Who [at some point] talk to each other, 3. About something besides a man Her admiration for the film ALIEN led her to name this commandment “The Ripley Rule.”  Sadly it seems to become increasingly harder these days to find films, which meet this criterion in mainstream multiplex. Luckily AFI...

YELLOW SUBMARINE Director: George Dunning A hit in its psychedelic heyday, George Dunning and the Beatles’ colorful adventure still holds up. AFI FEST celebrates the film’s 40th anniversary with a free screening in the ArcLight Hollywood Cinerama Dome. Older Beatles fans will still “get” the references to hippydom and Fab Four culture, while kids will go nuts for the vivid animation and general silliness. And, of course, there’s the songs—When I’m Sixty-Four, Nowhere Man, Lucy In t...

By John Wildman AFI FEST Daily News Staff Writer Jean-Pierre Caner (TANAREXIA) “Some people have religion, I have the tanning salon.” The opening quote of the lead character in Jean-Pierre Caner’s TANAREXIA could easily have led to a tongue-in-cheek treatment of the self-tanning culture. But Caner has a few other things on his mind, most notably the struggle we all face to come to terms with our own potential – both as we see it and as others see it. The accomplishment is that he doesn...

By John Wildman AFI FEST Daily News Staff Patrick Davidson (THE WORLD WE WANT) Imagine coming up with an idea or taking concrete action to make a positive change in your world. And, no – we’re not talking about separating bottles and cans from your trash for recycling or giving money to Sarah McLachlan to feed those sad eyed dogs and cats she puts in front of the camera. Nothing wrong with that. It’s great if you do that and other similar acts of good will. But, no – we’re talking abo...

By Tim Carpenter Special to the Daily News A film certainly can pull out all the stops. Computer graphics. Enhanced sound. Even completely digitized characters. So it’s kind of nice when a film is simple: simple plot, simple story. The film A BOYFRIEND FOR MY WIFE (UN NOVIO PARA MI MUJER) does not have any fancy special effects. It does not have enhanced sounds. And the characters are 100-percent all-natural. But the simple story about the failing marriage of a married couple in does not suf...

By Aliza Ma Special to the Daily News It’s difficult to believe more than a decade has spanned since Jia Zhangke made his debut, XIAOSHAN GOING HOME (1995), which won the highest honor at the 1997 Hong Kong Independent Short Film & Video Awards. Since then, his oeuvre has garnered international recognition (including wins and nominations from Venice, Singapore and Pusan) and defined an aesthetic that put him in the urban poetic vanguard of 6th generation Chinese filmmaking. In a recent in...

By Roxanne Benjamin Special to the Daiy News This year’s AFI FEST contains a number of exceptional works either by women, about women, or that offer a uniquely feminine point of view. While the premise and style of these films varies wildly, each explores the worldview of women through universal themes that are relevant regardless of sex or gender. Argentinean filmmaker Lilliana Paolinelli’s narrative feature PROPER EYES (POR SUS PROPIOS OJOS) serves as a perfect example of the exploration o...