It’s still not too late to purchase passes for this weekend’s San Diego Film Festival. The event, produced by the non-profit San Diego Film Foundation, runs through Sunday at the Reading Cinemas in San Diego’s downtown Gaslamp Quarter and at the ArcLight Cinemas in La Jolla.
The festival’s goals are to enhance the arts community and expand the economic vitality of San Diego by showcasing outstanding domestic and international independent filmmaking.
The 14th annual celebration of everything celluloid (and digital) began with Wednesday’s gala opening night presentation of “Septembers of Shiraz” starring Adrien Brody and Selma Hayek. Brody was present for a lively post-screening question and answer session with the audience.
The film, powerfully told and dedicated by its filmmakers to all families in the world who have suffered persecution, is set in Teheran in 1979 after the fundamentalist takeover of the Iranian government. Its message remains especially relevant today.
More than 100 films were selected out of 2,000 entries from more than 55 countries to screen at this year’s festival. The subject matter is diverse, as might be expected in any film festival, and runs the gamut from hilarious and sci-fi-themed shorts to thought-provoking documentaries and feature-length presentations.
Many of the films are making their North American, United States, West Coast, California or San Diego premieres.
Juried awards for competition films will be presented Saturday.
Some tidbits:
The post-Holocaust “Labyrinth of Lies” (ArcLight Cinemas, Saturday at 1:30 p.m.) is set in a divided Germany 15 years after the collapse of Hitler’s Third Reich. Germans of that era seem more concerned with climbing out of the rubble of World War II than accepting moral responsibility for the heinous deeds committed in their names.
However, all that changes when an idealistic young public prosecutor (played by Alexander Fehling) takes it upon himself to force an entire country to confront its unsavory past and break a conspiracy of silence. The film has been selected as Germany’s foreign language entry at the 88th Academy Awards in 2016.
A more contemporary German film, the kinetically-driven “Victoria,” screens Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Reading Cinemas. Director Sebastian Schipper’s award-winning film (Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival) tells the story of a young Spanish woman (Laia Costa) caught up in the excitement of one night on the “real side” of Berlin’s big city night life until it turns out to be a bit more than she bargained for.
Brazil’s “Seashore,” which screens Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Reading Cinemas, is a LGBT coming-of-age entry from directors Filipe Matzenbacher and Marcio Reolon that explores the borders between personal identity and sexual orientation for two young men — one gay and one apparently bi-curious — who renew their friendship after years of estrangement.
Bold and beautiful, we can definitely call this year’s collection of films. Visit www.sdfilmfest.com for more information.
