Film Festival Fever
Summer Brings a Melange of French, Classic and Documentary Films
to South Florida

By Mary Damiano

Anita Bryant, the subject of the documentary I Just Wanted To Be Somebody, at the Rewind/Fast Forward Film and Video Festival at the Colony Theatre

At movie theatres, the new Superman has already flown into theatres and Meryl Streep is proudly parading her Prada.  But for those who prefer their movies with a little less mainstream, two film festivals offer an alternative way to beat the July heat. This month, film fest fever grips South Florida, with film festivals in both Miami-Dade and Broward County. 

In Broward, the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival presents The 3^rd Annual Perrier French Film Festival, which turns the spotlight on a bevy of French films filled with romance and suspense—as only the French can do it. 

In Miami-Dade, the Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archive presents the Rewind/Fast Forward Film & Video Festival, a collection of films that explore the incorporation of archival footage in new films as well as all facets of film production. 

In this festival, much of the focus is on local subjects and filmmakers, including cocaine trafficking in the 1980s, the changing face of Coconut Grove, and Anita Bryant’s role in the gay liberation movement.

Here’s everything you need to know about July’s film festivals:

Rewind/Fast Forward Film & Video Festival
Rewind/Fast Forward Film & Video Festival will be held on July 28-30 at the Colony Theatre in Miami Beach.  The first such festival of its kind in the country, Rewind/Fast Forward explores all facets of documentary filmmaking, film and video preservation, film and television history, and the use of archival images in new productions, including many that utilize footage from the Wolfson Archive.   

Barbra Streisand as Fanny Bryce in Funny Girl. A newly restored Technicolor print will screen at the Rewind/Fast Forward Film and Video Festival

Praised for its discerning mix of feature films, experimental short form and documentary films, the common thread in Rewind/Fast Forward's programming is the Wolfson Archive's mandate of nurturing public awareness of and access to film and video preservation.   From its beginning, the Rewind/Fast Forward Film & Video Festival, unique in the United States, has explored the innovative use of archival images in new productions, restorations of Hollywood studio classics, and provided the introduction of some of the best experimental film artists in the world to South Florida audiences. 

In 2004, Rewind/Fast Forward was voted "Best Film Festival" by the Miami New Times, and Miami Herald film critic Rene Rodriguez, said the festival "doubles as the perfect antidote to the summer movie doldrums."

The festival is presented by the Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archive, a treasure trove of historical and documentary footage for filmmakers.  The Rewind/Fast Forward Film Festival, now in its fifth year, explores the depth and breadth of moving image production. 

The first such festival of its kind in the country, Rewind/Fast Forward explores all facets of documentary filmmaking, film and video preservation, film and television history, and the use of archival images in new productions, including many that utilize footage from the Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archive.

This three-day festival, the only one of its kind in the country, is a whirlwind combination of premieres, screenings, seminars, and other special events. Capturing the spirit of Rewind/Fast Forward’s broad sweep is Clips & Conversation on Sunday, July 30, 5 p.m. with filmmaker Billy Corben and producer Alfred Spellman about their documentary Cocaine Cowboys, which reveals the amoral attitude of the Miami Vice era,  offering a look at Miami’s cocaine trafficking, fusing solid reporting with an evocative soundtrack.

Other films include the world premieres of Tell Me Cuba, Saturday, July 29, 9 p.m., a documentary by Megan Williams that sets out to unravel the complexities behind the 40-year old embargo and on Sunday, July 30 is  the documentary by University of Miami graduates Chad Tingle and Marlon Johnson’s A Sense of Place: West Grove, which chronicles the dramatic changes of the Bahamian immigrant neighborhood, the West Grove,  when it meets head on big development and rising real estate prices that threaten to displace and forever change the face of this community.

Other films include a restored Technicolor print of Funny Girl, starring Barbra Streisand on Friday, July 28; I Just Wanted To Be Somebody, by Jay Rosenblatt, part documentary/ part poem that reflects on Anita Bryant’s life and the impact she had on the religious right and the gay liberation movement and the world premiere of Mark Boswell’s The St. Petersburg Paradox both on Saturday, July 29.

All of the films and programs either incorporate archival images from the Archive and or explore Florida or archival themes.

For more information about the Festival, the Archive, or to be placed on our mailing list for upcoming activities, please call  (305) 375-1505 or visit rewindfastforward.org.

Schedule
Friday, July 28
7-8:30 p.m.   Film & Video Awards Ceremony,  Free

9-11:30 p.m.   Funny Girl, with Barbra Streisand,  $5

A scene from Born of Wind, part of the “Melting Film and Making Gold: Preserved Films from Anthology Film Archives” program

Saturday, July 29
4-5:30 p.m.   “Melting Film and Making Gold: Preserved Films from Anthology Film Archives”, $5
Join Anthology Film Archive's Andrew Lampert for a guided tour through this alchemical and diabolical collection of preserved avant-garde films.

6-7 p.m.   “Recycle, Reuse, Re-Cinema: Found Footage In Art Cinema, 1950s-Present”, $5
Three generations of experimental filmmakers recreate and comment on the past, present and future—all through astounding manipulation of archival film.  A selection of "found footage" masterworks, especially curated for Rewind/Fast Forward, will be presented by Christopher May, founder and director of The International Experimental Cinema Exposition (TIE).

7:30-8:30 p.m.  “Avant Archive” $5
Bill Morrison, Porch; Mark Boswell, The St. Petersburg Paradox and Jay Rosenblatt, I Just Wanted To Be Somebody

9-11p.m.   Tell Me Cuba, $5

Sunday, July 30
2-3 p.m.   West Grove:  A Sense Of Place, Free

3-4:30 p.m.   “Moving The Images: From Archive To Screen”,  Free
Moderated by Kevin Wynn of Miami-Dade Television, the panel includes Christopher May, Andrew Lampert, Chad Tingle, Megan Williams

5-7 p.m.   Clips & Conversation: Cocaine Cowboys, Free 

The 3^rd Annual Perrier French Film Festival
Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival (FLIFF) will host the 3rd Annual Perrier French Film Festival July 21-30 at their year-round art-house, Cinema Paradiso, located in the heart of downtown Fort Lauderdale on the South bank of New River just east of the Broward County Courthouse (503 Se 6 St).

The event is sponsored by Perrier and co-sponsored by Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences (Foundation), Air France, Broward County, Comcast, Florida Arts, and Gallery One.

Tickets are $5 FLIFF members; $7 seniors and students and $8 general admission and includes a free bottle of Perrier.  Parking is free after 6pm at meters and after 4:45pm in the courthouse parking garage. Call 954-525-FILM for tickets or log on to FLIFF.com

Films and Schedule

La Moustache, part of the 3rd Annual Perrier French Film Festival

La Moustache 2005 / 86 min / French w/English sub-titles
When a man spontaneously shaves off the title occupant of his upper lip an apparent shift in the fabric of the universe results. Adapting his own 1986 novel, Emmanuel Carrere—whose books Class Trip and The Adversary—provides a feast of sustained tension as the man's wife and his closest friends deny that he ever had a moustache.

Friday, July 21 6 p.m., 8 p.m.; Saturday, July 22 and Sunday, July 23 3 p.m., 5 p.m.; 7 p.m.

A scene from Strayed, part of the The 3rd Annual Perrier French Film Festival in Fort Lauderdale

Strayed  2003/ 95 min / French w/English sub-titles
As the German army storms through Paris in June of 1940, a woman flees the city with her two children, heading south. A teenaged boy comes to their rescue by leading them into the forest – their best chance for survival. Director Téchiné has sexual tension coil under the surface as the widow and teenager create their own protected world.

Monday, July 24, 6 p.m., Tuesday, July 25, 8 p.m.

Sequins 2004 / 88 min / French w/English sub-titles
When seventeen-year-old Claire learns she is pregnant, she quits her supermarket job and finds refuge as an embroidery assistant for Madame Mélikian, an embroiderer for haute couture designers who has recently lost her son. Working side by side, as Claire’s belly grows rounder, the threads of embroidery create a bond between the two women.

Monday, July 24 8:00 pm Tuesday, July 25 6:00 pm

Games of Love and Chance 2004 / 117 min / French w/English sub-titles
This film that swept the Cesar Awards is a captivating and sensitive portrait of life and young romance in Paris’s ethnically diverse suburban projects. Krimo, an Arab teenager, falls in love with the feisty blond Lydia and maneuvers his way into the school play in which she stars.

Wednesday, July 26, 6 p.m., Thursday, July 27, 8 p.m.

Film icon Charlotte Rampling in Lemmings

Lemming 2005 / 129 min / French w/English sub-titles
Spooky, intellectually titillating and darkly funny pic is definitely the kind of film where the less you know going in, the better. It's not so much that there are twists that shouldn't be revealed prematurely -- although there is one such zinger. Rather, the entire venture is an accretion of odd behavior intermingled with level-headed behavior until something (or several somethings) has got to give.

Wednesday, July 26, 8 p.m., Saturday, July 29, 9:30 p.m.

Read My Lips 2001 / 105 min / French w/English sub-titles
Carla, a long-time employee, loyal and hardworking, first to arrive and last to leave, is beginning to chafe at the limitations of her career. But at 35 and with a hearing deficiency, she is not sure how to climb out of her humdrum life. Into her life comes Paul, a new trainee. He is 25 and completely unskilled, but Carla covers for him when the need arises because of his other qualities - he's a thief, fresh out of jail and very good-looking. It's a case of good meeting bad.

Friday, July 28 7:00pm, Soiree prior to the 8 p.m.screening of Read My Lips, on the pool deck of New River Landing behind Cinema Paradiso. Tickets for party and screening are $15 for members and $20 for non-members and include Perrier, wine, beer, soft drinks and crepes.  Film also screens Sunday, July 30, 8 p.m.

Red Lights 2004 / 106 min / French w/English sub-titles
Based on the novel by George Simenon, Red Lights is an edge-of-your-seat-thriller in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock. On his way to a family event a man has too many drinks, quarrels with his wife, gives a lift to a stranger, and finds himself in a mysterious maze of trouble. Strange, scary, and atmospheric, with a delicious Claude Debussy score.

Thursday, July 27, 6p.m., Saturday, July 29, 7:30 p.m.