Great Movies and Way Too Many Distractions
by Eleanor Ringel Cater
Georgia Online News Service
The Miami International Film Festival, now in its 26th year, has an efficient and appealing staff, a broad range of movies and a brand-new, enthusiastic director in Tirana Fins.
So why isn't this an internationally well-known festival?
One word: weather.
How can you go sit in the dark with something called "A Bullet in the Head" when the temperature is a perfect 79 degrees, the surf is singing your song and everywhere you look are bronzed gods and goddesses on skateboards?
Well, you make plans. You arrange your film festival trip so that you stay either two days before or two days after the main event. That way, you can soak up the rays and the art.
As a juror for FIPRESCI, the international federation of film critics, I was exposed to more projection beams than sunshine. But it was well worth it.
Here are a few of my favorites:
"La Parque Via," an unusual Mexican film about a caretaker who becomes so attached to the mansion he's lived in for three decades, he can't bring himself to leave. It's part character study, part ghost story.
"Katia's Sister" is an amazingly astute study of when girls learn about being women. The title character is a kind of Dutch Ugly Betty who longs to be like her sex-kitten older sister (all honeyed smiles) or even her cougar-like mom (all the right moves).
"The World Jury" chose a piece of soft-core porn called "The Past is a Foreign Land," about a law student corrupted by sex and drugs. It was my first festival experience watching a woman beaten up and then raped. But it was a mostly European jury and they talked a lot about shedding his bourgeoisie parents.
The movies the FIPRESCI Jury chose was "Involuntary," a series of short stories intercut among themselves, each posing a moral problem. It reminded me of Robert Altman's "Short Cuts" or the recent Oscar-winner "Crash."
Hopefully this will help 'Involuntary" get a second look from distributors. And the Miami Festival a second look from everyone.
Eleanor Ringel Cater has been a Georgia-based movie critic for 28 years. She has been a regular contributor to CNN, MSNBC, Entertainment Weekly, Headline News and WXIA, Atlanta's NBC affiliate, and a columnist for TV Guide. [full bio]
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