This year finds the 12th annual Nortel Networks Palm Springs Intl. Film Festival returning to its roots.
"A little over 10 years ago this was Sonny Bono's dream," explains Denis Pregnolato, who worked with the late Bono for many years and was on hand to help found the festival in 1989.
After a near-decade hiatus, Pregnolato rejoined the festival staff in late-November after then-executive director Craig Prater and festival board chairman Fred Linch resigned. Pregnolato refused to comment on the resignations other than to note that the conflicts are in the past (part of the pair's ire is rumored to stem from an arrangement made to screen international films at another festival in the city).
The resignations came at a crucial point, not only in the festival's annual cycle with the event a mere eight weeks off, but in the fest's overall history. The festival has steadily gained momentum over the last four years, thanks in part to a growing international reputation and expansion.
Pregnolato, who stepped in to act as interim executive director amid much internal turmoil, explains that the mandate for the festival from the beginning was to find the best foreign films possible.
"We did a lot of research to find out what would be best for Palm Springs," he continues, "and what we discovered was that Palm Springs had never experienced the foreign film thing. So we went out and found the best commercial foreign films we could find so that when people experienced subtitles for the first time, they'd see them with the best films.
"We screened 'Cinema Paradiso' that first year, for example, and it's that kind of crowdpleaser that's always worked here."
Since then, the festival has become a haven for foreign-language films, especially those submitted for consideration to the Academy Awards. Indeed, the fest has been able to boast for several years running that it hosts the Academy Award submissions from around the world, thanks in part to its mid-January timing.
But the festival also prides itself on creating interest and excitement around these films with its nightly galas and parties, which are invariably attended by a bevy of stars. Again, this aspect goes back to the festival's roots.
"From the beginning we wanted to be an event," explains Pregnolato. "Rather than starting out as a little film festival and building from there, we wanted to start big."
As such an event, the festival provides foreign films a concentration of enthusiasm and press coverage in this country that certainly can play into the Academy Awards. Indeed, the desert community is the home for 300 voting members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, meaning that many of them will be able to see the films onscreen with an audience rather than watching them on tape at home.
Fipresci, the worldwide organization of film critics, is also establishing a jury of international critics at the festival and will decide the Intl. Critics' Prize (Fipresco Prize) for the best non-English-language film submitted to the Academy. Jury members are Derek Malcolm of the Guardian (U.K., president), Gideon Bachmann (U.S.-Germany), Gyorgy Baron (Hungary), Luc Chaput (Canada) and Leonardo Garcia Tsao (Mexico).
Of course, there's a big emphasis on star appeal at the event, with a special tribute planned for Sean Connery, who will be given the Lifetime Achievement Award in the annual Awards Gala on Jan. 13 at the Palm Springs Convention Center. Additional honors include the Charles A. Crain Desert Palm Award, which will goes to Nicolas Cage, and the Director's Achievement Award, to be given to Ridley Scott. Composer Randy Newman will receive the Frederick Loewe Award.
Among the highlights of the foreign-lingo entries for the Oscars is Hong Kong's entry, Wong Kar-wai's critically acclaimed "In the Mood for Love," starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung. With its gorgeous cinematography by Christopher Doyle and unhurried pace, the film is a meditation on nuance and gesture, and a visual treat for those irked by subtitles.
In addition, the fest will screen Mexico's entry, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's explosive treatise on love grounded in a violent world, "Love's a Bitch," and Iran's haunting "A Time for Drunken Horses," by Bahman Ghobadi. "Little Crumb" will represent the Netherlands, and Germany will bring "No Place to Go."
Given the rise in interest in foreign fare at other festivals, this year's effort to stay competitive with other fests was one of the most intense.
"We have a lot of competition with Sundance," Pregnolato says, "in the sense that everyone wants to go to Sundance, which means that we have to go even farther to find films that aren't going to that festival. And that's OK. We're a completely different kind of festival, and what Sundance does, it does well. But while Sundance features more independent kinds of films, we look for films that are more accessible to an audience."
And while this year has in some ways been a return to the past, what's in the future?
For Pregnolato, he says, the future does not include his continued role as executive director. "I stepped in as a favor, but that's all," quickly adding that the festival will continue to thrive.
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