Anybody going to the Calgary International Film Festival? (1 Viewer)

www.calgaryfilm.com

Approximately 250(!) movies will be screened from Friday, Sept. 26 to Oct. 5.


Too bad William H. Macy can't make it to the opening gala(father's illness). :frowning:

This festival is HUGE now! I expect attendance to be through the roof this year. And, it is much less formal than those snobbish film festivals on the East coast... :p)

I'm definitely going. I gots my Premier Pass so I can mingle with the DPs and directors and producers.

Some of those 250 are shorts, of course (I recognized a few names from the Boston FF).

Still... How does Calgary get a film festival with 250 entries while the Hub Of The Universe gets what I went to two weeks ago? :frowning:

Well, there are lots of great films in there worth seeing... especially in the "Canadian Film" and "Contemporary World" series.

It's surprising that there is a lot of interest in this festival. Thank goodness Calgary isn't just a bunch of cowboys, oil rig hands, and oil barons anymore.

The population boom that is still happening in Calgary must be the reason...for the last 5 years it's been getting a lot of refugees fleeing infamous third world regions like British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and parts of Ontario.

I've been so busy with other things, I haven't had a chance to review all the entries. Any recommendations? The schedule is pretty darn tight!

I just got back from "American Cousins". Excellent flick. I strongly suggest checking it out at it's second showing on Thursday if you missed it.

I will try. I'm really looking forward to "My Sassy Girl". I still haven't decided if I should go to "Zero Day" or attend the closing gala. Hmmm.

I greatly enjoyed Mark Ackbar's "The Corporation". I found it as entertaining as "Bowling For Columbine", and also much more satisfying (and has great interview segments with Michael Moore and others). I really hope it gets an oscar nod for 2004. It was fun talking to him at the bar after the show too.

And it was really cool seeing pictures of Mark's experience at the Burning Hand festival in Nevada.

"The Corporation" is a must-see. It is showing again on Wednesday I think. The theater was packed for tonight's performance.

I also found "A Little Monk" a very enjoyable and touching movie (and Korean women are cute!).

Saw At Five in the Afternoon, a film made in Kabul, Afghanistan. Very depressing. I did enjoy it though.

My Sassy Girl is just brilliant...gut-bustingly funny. Looks like the reason why it isn't in wide release anywhere in North America is because Hollywood wants to do a remake of it. Shameful, because I can't see any way they can do justice to it.

I am going to be seeing a couple movies at this fest over the weekend. I am ashamed to admit I haven't seen Leone's THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY, so I will definitely be seeing it in the restored print on Sunday. I am also going to see a documentary on Saturday called MY LIFE WITH COUNT DRACULA.

As far as the festival goes, it made some big leaps in the last couple years, but it still is no Toronto Film Fest. Hopefully this is only the beginning though, and that Calgary continues to build a strong reputation in the industry.

Hey Rhett...I'm actually glad it ISN'T like the Toronto Film Fest. I actually like being able to walk up to an actor or director without being harassed by bodyguards and chug a few beers and pontificate over trivial crap.

The festival is over. I've seen 28 movies.

Some notes on the "major" movies:

My Sassy Girl is my favorite movie of the festival by far. I think the Korean movie industry just took a great leap forward back in 2001!

I was somewhat disappointed with Barbarian Invasions. Sure, it has some funny and clever dialog, but haven't I already seen this movie a dozen times? A bunch of old people get together waiting for an old ex-womanizing post-modernist left-wing professor to die of cancer. Fortunately, I did appreciate the self-deprecating humour...a lot of joking about how they embraced every fad that came along (communism, environmentalism, pacifism, etc.), yet realizing that it was all just a waste of time, and what really counts is their friendship. *sniff* An overrated film that will do well.

Second favorite film: A Little Monk, another South Korean film.

Second second favorite film: The Corporation: A nicely entertaining documentary (with leanings toward editorial) about our favorite institution! I love the humorous (cynical?) self-promotion of the corporations that chose to do interviews and presentations for the movie. And the CEO of Interface was intriguing...a CEO of a carpet manufacturing corporation that truly wants to help the environment by cleaning the factories up - almost unbelievable, yet he seems genuinely sincere!

Maybe I'll post more thoughts later...