The Tribeca Film Festival will run through Saturday, but it's hardly the only action these days in the film-festival world. For instance: Seattle honors Pacino, Ebert goes back to the future, and Beijing blows it. A roundup:
SEATTLE
Al Pacino, Ewan McGregor and sports-film director Warren Miller will be in the spotlight at the 37th Seattle International Film Festival, which announced its lineup of films, galas, tributes and special events on Thursday.
McGregor will receive the Golden Space Needle Award at a May 22 screening of the film "Beginners" (above). Miller will be given the Golden Space Needle for Lifetime Achievement on Wednesday, June 8, and Pacino will discuss his career at a special event on Saturday, June 11.
The Seattle festival is known for its length: in contrast to most festivals that clock in at around or just under two weeks, SIFF lasts almost a month, from May 19 through June 12, during which it will showcase a whopping 257 features and 184 shorts.
Many of the festival's marquee films have already shown elsewhere, from Justin Chadwick's Kenya-set drama "The First Grader," which was the People's Choice Award runner-up at Toronto, to Kevin Macdonald's YouTube doc "Life in a Day," which premiered at Sundance in January.
The festival will feature seven world premieres, including the documentaries "Sushi: The Global Catch" and "Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians."
North American premieres include "Killing Bono," the relatively true story of a childhood friend of the U2 singer, and the Italian crime drama "Angel of Evil."
Also on the schedule: a variety of Southeast Asian films presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; and special screenings of Raul Ruiz's "Mysteries of Lisbon," Miranda July's "The Future" and Jay Roach's "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me," which served as the festival's closing-night film a dozen years ago and will have a free outdoor screening at this year's fest.
The full list is available at www.SIFF.net.
SAN FRANCISCO
While the Seattle Festival prepares to launch, the San Francisco International Film Festival is in full swing, with a lineup of foreign films and indies, and speakers ranging from "I'm Not There" producer Christine Vachon to "Cool Hand Luke" screenwriter Frank Pierson.
The most entertaining SFIFF dispatches are coming from Meredith Brody at Thompson on Hollywood: she'll tell you what films she likes ("A Useful Life," right, "Silent Souls") and doesn't like ("Hahaha," "Mind the Gap"), but you'll also learn about where she goes and who she talks to and what she eats, and about the woman applying malodorous unguent to her legs before a screening, or the theater with continual focus problems. (She's the arthouse Jeff Wells at a festival, only not usually as cranky or indignant.) Here's her latest entry.
EBERTFEST
It used to be called the Overlooked Film Festival, but these days the annual fest in Chicago goes by a simpler name: Ebertfest.
