The Circuit

Spike Lee's "Miracle at St. Anna" and Jesus Ponce's "Lazy Days" have been added to the London film fest, or rather the Times BFI 52nd London Film Festival.  Fests get itchy when we don't add sponsors to their title.

Fest runs October 15-30.

The preem of "Frost/Nixon," Ron Howard's film adaptation of Peter Morgan's stage play, will open the 52nd London Film Festival.  Michael Sheen and Frank Langella play journo David Frost and Richard Nixon, who sparred on several televised interviews in the summer of 1977. 

At a private screening in New York recently, the film drew big raves.

Adam Dawtrey has an interesting story on festival funding that is foreign to stateside events.  The UK's biggest fests - London and Edinburgh - rely on gov sponsored lottery cash to complete their budgets. 

This year, the UK Film Council passed out a big sum to Edinburgh, impressed with their pitch to be the "Sundance of Europe."

But they sent London's proposal back, saying "think bigger."

Read it here.

Lineups from Austin (whose hub is the beautiful Driskill Hotel, pictured) and London were announced today as the flicks from Telluride, Venice, and Toronto start drifting over the globe. London already announced “Eastern Promises” and “The Darjeeling Limited” will bookend.  Between them a bunch of world cinema screens like “The Band’s Visit,” “Lust, Caution,” “Glory to the Filmmaker!”  Full program here.

Austin’s a different beast.  It’ll open with the Sundance 2007 opener “Chicago 10,” picked up at Cannes by Roadside and set for release sometime in February 2008.  The film reportedly has been tightened since Cannes.  Closing will be “Juno,” which is having a marathon fest run.  Sandwiched inside is a competition lineup of premieres including “On the Doll” about childhood abuse and Noah Buschel’s “Neal Cassady,” about Jack Kerouac’s friend and inspiration.  Full program here.

I wish it weren’t true, but a world premiere at many fests caught between Toronto and Sundance means trouble.  The optimism for these films may look good in the program and to sponsors, but I wonder if it’s still worth it after the film “world premieres” to negative reviews and bad word-of-mouth.  In my experience, they usually do.

More interesting about these fests is the side programs, where trends are “curated,” not “premiered.”  In their “Viet Film Wave,” Austin picked films from a tight knit filmmaking community in Orange County about being Vietnamese in America post-Vietnam War. 

Similarly, London has “Romanian Cinema: The Next Wave,” a not-altogether new but still interesting idea of films like “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days” and “California Dreamin’ (Endless)” that mark that country’s emergence.  Programs like these give a historical sense of definition, and if done correctly, the films feed each other and sometimes create a major/minor movement.  Mumblecore is a recent example. 

(Now the test will be how a movement can survive the praise and backlash.)

“The Darjeeling Limited” will close the Times BFI 51^st London Film Festival, running October 17 – November 1. Wes Anderson will also give a career interview as part of the fest’s TCM Screen Talks series. (Mike Jones)