The first annual Indianapolis International Film Festival will be bringing a taste of Hollywood to the Circle City this weekend. Featuring 27 films ranging from full-length features to shorts, the festival aims to provide entertainment to the highly sought after 18--to-40 year old demographic said Brian Owens, Indianapolis International Film Festival Director.
Owens, an Indianapolis native, played a key role in organizing the film series "Movies in the Raw," a collection of independent films two years ago, but anticipates that the impact from the Indianapolis International Film Festival will be more widely felt.
"For a first year festival this will have an impact," Owens said. "People will be paying for movies, food, things like that."
Owens also said that this will be a good event for the city, and may help bring in many people from outside of Indianapolis and the state.
"We have people coming in from Kentucky, Houston ... all over the U.S." he said.
The line-up includes nine world premiers, four Midwestern regional premiers and 12 Indiana premiers from a total of 11 countries. The short films slated for showing were chosen on a competition basis and, according to Assistant Director Kara Glennon, only the best have been selected.
"I don't want people to disregard the short films," Glennon said. "Personally, I'm really proud of them."
Of the 27 films included in festival, five feature-length films are being touted as the festival's highlights. "A Slipping Down Life," by director Toni Kalem, starring Guy Pearce, is the story of a woman who falls in love with a musician when she hears him on the radio.
Making its Indiana premier, "Balseros," by directors Charles Bosch and Jose Maria Domenech, is the Academy Award nominated follow up to a public television feature on a group of seven Cubans who planned to make it to the U.S. in 1994. "Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself" by director Lone Sherfig, starring Shirley Henderson and Adrian Rawlins, is a dark comedy set in modern-day Glasgow about two brothers who fall in love with the same woman.
Making its Midwestern regional premier a full three months before its nationwide release is the official Mongolian entry for this year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and Best Documentary nominee at the 2003 European Film Awards, "The Story of the Weeping Camel," by directors Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni.
Being sure to end with a bang, the festival will come to a close with showings of "Dogville," by director Lars von Trier, starring Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Paul Bettany, James Caan, Patricia Clarkson, Jeremy Davies, Ben Gazzara, Chloe Sevigny, Stellan Skarsgard and John Hurt. This piece is the first of three parts in Trier's "America" trilogy and tells the story of Grace (Kidman), a woman on the run from the mafia who happens to end up in a small Rocky Mountain town for which the film is named.
The festival runs from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 10:10 p.m. Sunday. Tickets can be purchased as all-access passes ($75) or separately ($10) for gala presentations, $8 for all other showings and are available at http://www.indyfilmfest.org or at the J. Martin Gallery, 874 Virginia Avenue, Indianapolis, IND.
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