all that jazz

I tend to find documentaries play better for me in an intimate home video setting as opposed to the more grandiose theater experience, and so despite considering myself a fan, it was with trepidation that I wandered into the uninspiredly titled Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer (2008). O’Day, who until her passing last year was widely considered the last great female jazz vocalist who could be mentioned in the same breath as Holiday, Fitzgerald and Vaughn, led the type of life one can easily imagine being made into a biopic that wins actresses Academy Awards—there is enough heroin and failed marriages and great music and Esther Blodgett comebacks to supply material for a dozen industrious screenwriters. But cutting through the stock-documentary checklist of events-to-cover is O’Day herself. A startling firecracker of a woman, one moment she’s the hard-boiled, sharp-featured stock blonde of a 40’s noir, the next she’s a folksy Barbara Jean good-naturedly burbling away at god knows what. The film is worth watching for the skewering of even her most wrenching memories with sly humor, but of primary importance: that voice! At first careening through the quarter note vocal pyrotechnics of a song like “Tea for Two” with dazzling ease, later there’s the ravaged voice that hints at countless stories contained within each uttered word. And O’Day’s story ends up being inspirational, almost despite itself, as here is a woman who beat the odds and continued to do the thing she loved most until she almost literally dropped dead. Indestructible! was the title of her last album, released just three years ago—and it serves as a remarkable summation of O’Day herself (pity it wasn’t used as the title for the film itself).

Intrigued by the clip shown and O’Day’s pronouncement that the glowing notices she subsequently received in The New York Times was “the highlight of [her] life,” I tracked down Jazz on a Summer’s Day (1960) and was more or less unprepared for the sheer greatness I beheld. O’Day wasn’t kidding when she emphasized that everyone was there at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958: Louis Armstrong, Dinah Washington, Thelonious Monk, Mahalia Jackson, Big Maybelle, Chico Hamilton and countless others not actually shown in the film—that these performances were captured at all for posterity is impressive enough, but then, what performances! Interspersed between O’Day’s expert deconstruction of “Sweet Georgia Brown” and Louis Armstrong’s onstage banter and Big Maybelle’s earthy growl is footage that turns the cameras upon the assembled crowds with fascinating results—several times a barely-glimpsed attendee makes as indelible impression as the performers themselves.  This allows for unexpected sociological observation: the pre-Civil Rights crowd wasn’t neatly segregated as I had expected—young blacks down from Harlem sat interspersed with the Newport white elite in their expensive suits and pearls (sometimes reality can be so much more complex than the tidy demarcations made in history textbooks). And then there’s Mahalia Jackson, who performs three songs to close the film. Unassumingly radiant, watching her thunder through “Didn’t it Rain,” occasionally slapping together her hands for emphasis, is as euphoric an experience as anything I can imagine; then, at the close and the crowd roars and she bashfully keeps averting her eyes from the audience before murmuring “how you make me feel like a star!”—well, that’s just transcendence itself. 

it’s strictly a family affair

In regards to Les Enfants Terribles (1950), I have not a thing to say about the longstanding what’s Cocteau?/what’s Melville? debate, other than maybe the push/pull between these strong artistic visions can be blamed for the somewhat uneven quality of the film, and perhaps is the root of the deep sense of unease churning beneath its highly polished surface.  The first act is the most compelling as it introduces the enclosed universe of Elisabeth and Paul, laying out the rules of their private little games; once the film stumbles outside the strict confines of their room the film seems to lapse into prim qualité française dullness.  But the magnetic draw of beloved intimate spaces prove too strong, and once the siblings (plus two more) reintroduce themselves into a facsimile of their old room the film’s lurid, potent poetry reestablishes itself, and tragedy quickly, inevitably follows.  There are a number of missteps—the duel casting of Renée Cosima in the role of both male and female love interest never works in any kind of interesting way—but Nicole Stéphane’s tour-de-force performance contains a propulsive force all its own, pushing or pulling everything in her wake according to her capricious whims, and ultimately nothing—not even the film itself—can stand in her way.

 

What to make of Savage Grace (2008)…  a haunting, prickly film, though not necessarily because of (or perhaps in spite of) its controversial subject matter.  The film is being sold as a biopic of the infamous Barbara Daly Baekeland, murdered by her only son, the sole heir to the immense Bakelite plastics fortune; as the alternately fragile and monstrous central character, Julianne Moore has been receiving almost uniformly rave reviews.  To be sure, she gives a ferocious performance, and takes her place alongside the Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest mode (but then, a mother offering herself as a “cure” for her son’s homosexuality is a far, far cry from wire hangers, however much they sting).  Days later I’m still struggling to discover a way to grasp onto the sheer oddity of the film, if only because it seems so relentlessly off-centered—ultimately it’s not Moore’s film, but an unexpectedly poignant portrait of the son she both nurtured and/or destroyed, played with impressive subtlety by the up-and-coming Eddie Redmayne.  Further emphasizing the off-kilter aura is the giant fragments of narrative left completely untouched as the film flits from decade to decade, location to location; eventually the narrative logic seems to begin entering the realm of mirages and dreamscapes instead of “objective facts,” festering and decaying in its luscious, late-Visconti-like interiors and sunny, potentially hazardous beachside escapes.  Finally a point is reached that feels like we have to deduce for ourselves what the hell happened in this exceedingly disturbing set of life stories, but then, that could very well be the point—without the presence of Oedipus’s gods ordaining everything from afar, how can such circumstances be explained?

reappearance

Not back, not really.  I haven’t really missed Memories of the Future in my time since I gave it up, though occasionally I do puzzle over its ultimate fate.  The thing is, I have kept up with my writing, and now I have an unwieldy backlog of capsule reviews accumulated over the last year that are increasingly difficult to access in a Word document (and I dearly need them, given my lamentably awful ability to retain details or even impressions over an extended period of time).  That and the slight shock I received recently when I took a look at my blog stats and realized I’m still receiving nearly as many hits per day as I was when I was posting original content (and I’m not exactly sure how I’m supposed to feel about that, actually). 

So anyway, I’ve decided for the time being I’m going to start posting my little capsule reviews, mostly for myself, but also for whoever it is that’s out there still reading (because the stats show that the Review Index is still being accessed on a regular basis)—hello, whoever you are!  My approach to writing these has grown increasingly inward and memory-oriented—more often than not I regard them as attempts to capture my particular memories of a film than as any particular attempt at analysis—so if they’re a bit incomprehensible or meaningless outside of myself, well, I apologize, but often that is rather the point. 

___

One of my great pleasures is introducing Before Sunset (2004) to unsuspecting individuals… I always worry that its extreme talkiness will bore, but it has always worked its magic and everyone I’ve yet shared it with has been enchanted.  This time around was no different.  I’ve reached the point now where I can anticipate every sequence, even every word as it unfolds—and while the film never changes I certainly do, and I look forward to what my reaction each time around will be; the film doesn’t necessarily reveal new nuances upon each revisit, but instead triggers unexpected revelations in myself.  I’ve just finished Jonathan Rosenbaum’s autobiography “Moving Places: A Life at the Movies” where he uses the (justly?) forgotten Doris Day vehicle On Moonlight Bay as a springboard for extended Proustian reveries… Before Sunset functions for me much the same way.  Still the greatest film I’ve ever seen, or the most special one (if there’s any difference between the two at all).

 

Watching Philip Gröning’s Into Great Silence (2005) dovetailed nicely with my reading of Umberto Eco’s excellent “The Name of the Rose,” even if both are completely different beasts: where Eco’s religious murder mystery piles on the concepts and endless words, Gröning sticks solely with his images (originally about 100 hours worth). A documentary in the sense that it records directly from life, it lacks any kind of storyline to latch onto, no voiceovers, no interviews (with one notable exception) and no kind of outside analysis, instead depicting the band of Carthusian monks inhabiting the ancient, magnificent Grand Chartreuse monastery simply going about their day. Or should I say days, which is more or less unchanging, and provides one of the film’s overarching themes that serves as the string that ties it all together—the cyclicality of the Brothers’s strictly ordered days, that accumulate into seasons which accumulate into years and decades and lifetimes and finally a whole 1,000 year old religious tradition (as the bonus features notes, little has changed for the Carthusians since their founding in 1080). Considered the Church’s strictest order, complete with vows of silence, Gröning patiently observes the brothers going about their day, often in solitude, praying, reading, writing, or performing their tasks, be it cooking, gardening, managing the finances, chopping wood or cutting hair. But the literal great silence of the title, while certainly solemn in an imposing Northern European fashion, isn’t in the least sad—it’s exceedingly peaceful, and to the film’s credit, its grueling, somewhat exasperating structure (nearly three hours of unobtrusive observation where very little “happens”) gives a sense of how this state of mind develops without ever trying to get the brothers to explain it or translate their experiences into words. There is never any attempt to establish some kind of enlightening interiority in the brothers depicted, but the humanity inevitably bubbles through the austerity, particularly in two all-too-brief sequences: one where a group of brothers trek through snowy mountain slopes and slide down a mountainside, laughing at each other as they slip and tumble, and one of the rare occasions when the vow of silence is lifted for a few hours and they sit in a circle and simply converse with one another. And what do they talk about? Why, the value of the tradition of washing hands before meals, of course. How utterly trivial, and yet, one can’t help but feel, how extremely appropriate. This is a different world, indeed, almost a completely different universe, before now virtually unglimpsed, a mystery in the end much more beautiful than anything in Eco’s fiction.

 

Dans Paris (2007), Christophe Honoré’s loose, Nouvelle Vague-inspired riff on J.D. Salinger’s “Franny and Zooey” was my most anticipated film of 2007—and the powers that be sure made me wait long enough to finally see it (a drawn out, almost nonexistent theatrical release, then a delayed DVD release, etc, etc).  Happily, it didn’t disappoint despite my endlessly growing anticipation; indeed, far from it: in many ways it’s much more than I dared let myself hope for.  Split into two very distinct but intertwined storylines embodied by two brothers, we have Roman Duris as “Franny,” heart-sick and pitifully bundled up in his private, somewhat silly miseries, and Louis Garrel as “Zooey,” irresistibly, almost obnoxiously gregarious, prone to spouting ill-timed but well-meaning advice and insight.  Like in Salinger’s story, family dynamics drive the film, as does the familial interplay within the cramped family apartment, a much lived-in space perpetually echoing with memories and now-past moments and the ghosts of the past that hover in forgotten corners.  Perhaps it was because I was just starting Bachelard’s seminal “The Poetics of Space” when I watched this film that I was particularly attuned to the matter, but I can’t think of another film that comes near to Honoré’s precise depiction of how people act and interact within their most intimate spaces—particularly their homes—unashamedly lounging about in various states of undress, blissfully unaware of how any “objective analysis” would quickly reveal the ridiculousness of the little soap operas that unfold behind closed doors and drawn curtains.  It’s rather miraculous to behold, in a low-key way.  But Honoré never allows the proceedings to get too insular—something which could be considered both the strength and the weakness of Salinger’s novella—using Garrel’s youthful antics (que Demy) out and about in Paris (que Bande a part) to counterbalance the dark pathos of Duris’s emotional breakdown.  A lovely film which seems so slight, so ephemeral at first glance but which I have a haunch might be an impressive, maybe even important achievement.  With another viewing I fully expect it to leap near the top of my favorites list: for now I’ll just allow myself to rather self-consciously gush over it.

 

drawing lines

Salome (1923)

The Tempest (1979)

an announcement of my retirement.

Well, not quite as drastic as that, so let me explain. If I can—not that much of this makes much sense even to me.

(Note: The following was written as a “prologue” for my “best of 2007” wrap-up that remains half-written, in that half-formed place where I’m not sure if it’ll ever be resurrected to see the light of day.)

***

No matter how I’ve tried to approach it, 2007 remains problematic for me. First, an admission of embarrassing facts: 2007 was the year I saw the least amount of new releases since high school, and if I had not attended TIFF this last year, I would have seen just a mere dozen or so of 2007’s offerings. But most disheartening for me was the realization that I read (or completed, more accurately) less books during the course of the year than I probably ever have. As a result, 2007 seems to stand as an alarmingly stagnant year, at least weighed solely in intellectual terms. During college, intellectual growth became my major (perhaps my only) yardstick for measuring personal growth, and holding to that standard, 2007, to be quite blunt, ranks as a dismal one.

Thankfully, one of the personal breakthroughs of 2007 was the realization that there are other means of measuring the self out there, and what’s more they are probably more accurate in their eventual assessments. Because even if day-to-day living seemed resolutely immomentous, 2007 actually stands as a year of tremendous personal growth—a rather stunning realization I made during my annual New Years Day recap that I sit down and write every year in my journal. Just taking just an hour or so to take stock of where I was, I was rather floored to realize where I started 2007 and how much progress had been made as I entered 2008.

Now as nice as this all is, why does this matter, especially as a prelude to unveiling my own contribution to that narcissistic but somehow very necessary tradition among film buffs in presenting their favorite films of the preceding year? On some levels its an attempt at an apology for the really stunning gaps in my film viewing this year, but I also offer it up a bit blindly because there’s something about it that I haven’t grasped fully but sure feels important. I’m likely overstating things, but at this moment I feel that without a firm grasp of knowing myself, any kind of intellectual enterprise is more or less like playing at making little towers out of playing cards—interesting, even occasionally admirable in its results, but much too flimsy and insubstantial to be much of anything at all. An example, because it’s been on my mind a lot lately: I’ve always been more than a bit embarrassed of my honors thesis, which in my most honest moments I admit I’ve considered an unqualified failure from the very moment I turned in the first draft for committee review. I never was really grasped why I felt this way, but I think I do now, and the reason surprises me—I wasn’t comfortable digging into any kind of genuine and honest analysis and dialogue with the topic that I selected. To not stray too far into tangential explanations I’ll just say even if it was completely unwitting, at its core the entire paper was an act of intellectual dishonesty, and as such, I doomed it to failure the moment I started it. And now, suddenly, the rest of my writing feels suspect.

Gah. All of that just to say that another of my great personal discoveries of 2007 was a growing sense that approaching films—and reading, and anything else—from a point of personal honesty and awareness of self is absolutely essential if there is any hope of grasping any kind of intellectual truth. Which segues into another of 2007’s revelations—that of coming to grips and ultimately making peace with what is increasingly beginning to feel like alienation from not only film culture at large (whatever that exactly encompasses), but most particularly from the cinematic-minded blogosphere that I was just beginning to feel part of. For the first time since I started taking cinema seriously, I’ve never felt so disconnected from what’s new and what is being hailed as important by those I consider “in the know;” looking at Film Comment’s critics poll, just looking at the top tier it’s rather staggering the films I haven’t seen: There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Zodiac, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Eastern Promises, The Lives of Others, Black Book, Michael Clayton, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and the list goes on and on… of course, it’s one thing that I just haven’t seen said films yet—the fact time and financial resources were in short supply can’t be avoided—but what does it mean that quite frankly I just don’t really want to see any of the above listed? Of course, this isn’t unprecedented—I refused to bow to the pressure to see The Departed, as I can’t be less interested in Scorese’s film—but this year it just feels so, so widespread, so, overwhelming.

Inevitably, I feel left out, which is one reason why in the second half of 2007 output of this blog dropped dramatically, with only the occasional capsule review to give others some kind of indication of a vital sign (yes, I’m still here!). And I think I’m okay with that now, even as I continue to wrestle with the implications. I used to be very concerned—almost obsessively—with having something important or vital or interesting to say, which is probably why this blog was never as vibrant as I wanted it to be, even when I was at my most committed. I’ve let go of any aspirations of greatness and furthermore discarded once and for all the mantle of precociousness I cherished for years and years in my internet interactions. I no longer really possess the desire to say something important because I realize thet I’m not at a point where such expectations are even realistic. Instead, for the first time, I’m really allowing myself to merely be exposed to the things that interest me, and see where that eventually takes me. I feel like I need to see more films, read more books, listen to more music, experience more art, and simply live more before I dare even think I have a chance of coming up with something genuinely insightful. One of my resolutions for 2008: to undue my habit of watching a film or reading a book or whatever through a filter of “now what interesting thing am I going to say about this when I write my review?” I see now that such a mindset is severely limiting, and might even be robbing me of quite a bit of enjoyment I might not even realize I’m missing. Happily, I’m already seeing results—in the first months of 2008 I have read more books than I have during any period since graduating, and furthermore, it was on more wide-ranging subjects than I’ve ever let myself indulge in before. It’s been fun, it’s been terribly interesting, and for now, I’m going to stick with that.

I don’t even know what I’m getting to at this point, and I find myself already fighting thoughts of “what did I end up saying? Is it good? Is it insightful?” This is what it is, I guess. And I’ll end this thing here, and you know, actually get to the films themselves, which is why I undertook this thing in the first place.

***

And now, I guess an epilogue to my prologue, written from the perspective a month after the above was written. Just last night I had a long conversation with my best friend with whom I shared much of what is written here, and as always, her insight and empathy hit the bullseye. She emphasized that it is impossible to expect ever reaching a place of “knowing enough,” and as a result it should never serve as a deterrent for writing (because in reality it’s merely an excuse, a flimsy cop-out). So I think the problem lies in my burning desire of saying something meaningful, an exhausting ambition that I currently don’t have the time or energy to keep wrestling with. As a result I’m still not sure of the fate of Memories of the Future, but for now I have decided for now to turn my writing inward, that is, to focus more on my personal journal until I’m ready to start focusing outward again. This also comes as I’ve stepped away from internet use in general as I’ve thrown myself into redeveloping my intense love of books, literature and cinema, and also a new appreciation of music I have never reached before.

And that, in effect, is my “retirement”—though in actuality it’s more of an open-ended sabbatical. For a while at least the only thing that can really be expected from me is repostings of the capsule reviews I will continue to write for the IMDb Classic Film message board (simply means to save them for future reference). Maybe there will be more, I really don’t know at this point. I just wanted to let you all know the reason for my absence—and rest assure, I’ll continue to read you all in hopes of rejoining your ranks once again sometime in the future.

-jesse

film notes

Quick thoughts on Syndromes and a Century and Waitress, two films I saw recently.

***

It’s there in the way that Dr. Nohng uncovers and studies the tattoo just below the collarbone of the sullen young man suffering from carbon monoxide poisoining; the same could be said about the loose, casual banter between a dentist who after hours is an accomplished musician and a young Buddhist monk who once wished to be a DJ. Ditto the comfortable, sun-dappled picnic shared by Dr. Toa and Pa Jane. None of these sequences are necessarily erotic, but there’s something a bit charged about them which produces an interesting effect as all three probably convey a greater degree of intimacy and personal understanding than we ever witness between members of the opposite sex (except perhaps the completely sexless reminiscing between Dr. Nohng and elderly Dr. Wan). What this means I have no idea, but I think it’s interesting to note that the central, elusive relationship with homoerotic undertones in Tropical Malady is carried over and multiplied less overtly several times over in Syndromes and a Century. Isn’t that, well, a bit odd considering the film was inspired by the courtship of the directors parents?

Representative images of interaction:

As opposed to:

Do you see the difference I see?

***

It seems to have been considered last year’s equivalent to the feel-good indie financial summer success story, which kind of baffles me as I can’t think of another widely released film in recent memory that has presented a group of characters who are as relentlessly unlikable as the ones presented in Waitress (2007). All are stereotypes and more often than not rather ugly ones, even the supposed “heroine” and “hero” of the story (Kerri Russell and Nathan Fillion, respectively) who are more than a bit infuriating in their relentless wishy-washiness. Granted, most of the actors manage to generate a tremendous amount of audience good-will through performances that give delicate shades and facets to the strereotypes they are saddled with, which is probably the very thing that lends the film the odd, rather uneasy equilibrium is eventually discovers. Not a great film but one inevitably labeled “interesting,” if only because there’s no other word to really describe it.

obsession

I’ve literally had this song on loop for days.

not-so-sentimental education

In his thoughts on the documentary For the Bible Tells Me So a few months back, my friend Lin made a comment about the infamous Anita Byrant pie-in-the-face incident that forced me to confront my ignorance of gay history—I had no idea who she was! It subsequently became one of my New Years resolutions was to educate myself on the subject, if only because it has long been my vague impression that the lamentation from some quarters that the homosexual community is no longer politically engaged can be primarily attributed to (and I’m pointing a finger squarely at myself) here) not possessing even a passing awareness of our history. And as one not content with indulging in such willful ignorance, I started off by reading:

Louis Crompton’s Homosexuality and Civilizations is an illuminating survey from the farthest reaches of human civilization through the Enlightenment, and while obviously an impossibility, while reading it Crompton’s book it certainly seems to be an exhaustive analysis of the subject. As such, there is so much that could be expounded on in great length, but instead I’ll stick to a few sadly scattered thoughts:

—I went into the book with a few general tidbits gleaned from elsewhere about the general acceptance of homosexuality in ancient Greece as well as their penchant for pederastic relationships, but what I wasn’t expecting was the sheer wealth of information that has survived from ancient times regarding male/male relationships (unfortunately, except for Sappho, information on lesbians is almost nil). As almost all of it comes through the surviving art, in a lot of ways the book comes off as a general survey of the era’s literature as most of the major players (and many, many more minor ones) of the period are in some way included. I used that I used it as an excuse to justify not reading something specifically GRE-approved in my preparation of said test.

—Not that I thought the Middle Ages was a garden party for anyone involved, but I honestly wasn’t expecting the overwhelming intensity of the rising Christian church’s demonization of homosexuals over the course of several hundred years. Any natural disaster was the cause of rounding up homosexuals for public burning in an attempt to convince God that said area was not the modern equivalent of Sodom and Gomorrah (whose development as a potent, effective symbol of decadent, shameful homosexuality is analyzed in length in the chapter Crompton devotes to ancient Hebraic culture), and the degree and widespread intensity of torture is head-spinning (gruesome public castration—which you weren’t expected to survive—was the most common prelude to burning, to the delight of thousands). But even more disheartening than the gleeful hate of the masses is the downright loathing espoused in book after book, pamphlet after pamphlet, sermon after sermon by the philosophers, theologians, preachers and priests of the time. I know it’s become commonplace in academic circles to move away from the term “Dark Ages” in describing this particular time in history—but for homosexuals, it’s still the most apt label imaginable.

—One of the most valuable elements of Homosexuality and Civilization is the chapters on ancient Asia—and not just because it provided a much-needed break from the atrocities of Medieval Europe. Spending time with ancient China and Japan we encounter literally a completely different world occurring simultaneously with the Middle Ages in Europe, for with the exception of cycles of particularly fervent following of Confucian philosophy, homosexuality was generally an issue that was at least tolerated, and at some times and places, actively embraced. And for those of us whose major source of information on samurai life is through the films of Kurosawa, how surprising it is to find that a pederastic system startlingly similar to that of ancient Greece was a rather basic element of samurai culture! In the rich history of both the Chinese royal and education systems as well as Japanese theater Crompton discovers much to explore—and what’s all the more amazing is that Crompton admits he’s only touched the tip of the iceberg as much still remains untranslated (and therefore unavailable) to Western scholarship.

—The chapters on the European royal courts and its many sexually dubious monarchs are great fun to read as the “enlightened” noble classes viewed homosexuality (of both sexes) to be almost commonplace among the elite of the population, and therefore discussed it frankly in their private with a great deal of wit (I laughed out loud during several passages). And the book ends with the inspiring writings of British reformer Jeremy Bentham whose progressive ideas on equality remain stunningly progressive even for a so-called “enlightened” society as modern day America.

I can’t remember the last time I got so quickly through a 500 page book. And aside from the sheer amount of information he provides, what makes the book so endlessly fascinating is the nuance Crompton allows in his approach—he rarely can be accused of resorting to generalizations (and in the cases he can it’s very clearly the result of space constraints) and he has a very keen sense of the variation caused by such factors as location, socio-economic status and gender. There’s also an admirable fairness in Crompton’s approach—even while dealing with worst atrocities at the hands of so-called Christians he also makes clear in his conclusion that the religion cannot be completely condemned out of hand. And, of course, it helps that he’s an engaging wordsmith and a remarkably fluid writer, something that’s not always a given when approaching academic texts. A book of tremendous value—and as should be obvious, one the deserves to be widely read.

down endless corridors (one last time)…

RIP.

SDFF Call for Entries

So one of the main reasons for lack of activity in these parts lately is that I took on the position of Assistant Programming Director for the 2008 San Diego Film Festival(!!!).

September 25th – 28th, 2008

Early Deadline – May 1st

Final Deadline – June 1st

Call for Entries for the 7th annual San Diego Film Festival

Held in the Gaslamp Quarter—San Diego’s premier entertainment district—San Diego Film Festival (SDFF) is a competitive four-day fest that offers attendees a 360 festival experience. Whether it’s a relaxing day of film and a night of parties, or catching a workshop and hitting a conference to learn from the pros, no single day is like another at SDFF. The Festival features more than 100 American and international feature, documentary, short films and music videos; intimate filmmaker and celebrity gatherings; industry panels and the American Screenwriters Association’s annual conference; in addition to four nights of San Diego’s most glamorous parties. San Diego Film Festival has earned more than 12 awards, including Best Beach Fest, Best Party Fest, Best Regional Film Fest and a coveted spot as one of the country’s Top 10 Film Festival Vacations. Produced by the non profit 501(C) 3 San Diego Film Foundation, SDFF celebrates its seventh anniversary Sept. 25 – 28, 2008.

Interested in submitting? Go here!