Hollywood rebel sees his cause -- with CineVegas

A Sundance kid, a Hollywood rebel and a media mogul walk into a film festival . . . it sounds like the setup to a punch line. Yet the CineVegas Film Festival -- with its central brain trust of artistic director Trevor Groth, creative advisory board chairman Dennis Hopper and President Robin Greenspun -- is no joke, having transformed into one of the region's most vital film fests.

This year will mark the 10th edition of the festival, which runs June 12-21 in Las Vegas. Every Friday in April, the Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles will be screening films from the eclectic mix of past CineVegas festivals. The series kicks off this week with two rare screenings of Hopper's "The Last Movie."

Hopper, the personification of the rebellious outsider for decades, has become a key figure in the world of CineVegas. In 2003, the second year that Groth, also a senior programmer at the Sundance Film Festival, was working for CineVegas, Hopper was given an award. Since then he's pretty much never left. As chairman of the festival's creative advisory board, Hopper became de facto ambassador for what's sometimes called "the world's most dangerous film festival," helping to snag talent and shape its emerging left-of-center identity.

"I was still trying to figure out what the mission of the festival was at that point," Groth recalled one recent afternoon while sitting in Hopper's backyard. "And bringing Dennis out that year really helped shape it in my head. I looked over his career and I learned so much from watching his art; the energy and the provocation that he brought to it really made me think that these are the types of voices that I want the festival to be about. Having him involved in the festival is really a major reason it has taken the shape it has."

As to how and why he became involved with the festival, Hopper gives two answers, one long and one short.

"I just looked at it and felt there could be more of a Hollywood connection, and it started to really happen," he said. "It's a really good relationship now. And it's also promoting the kinds of films that don't get attention, that don't get broad distribution, that need a way to be seen."

The short version: "I opened my mouth too much. I started talking and dreaming."

Mike Plante, associate director of programming, who also works for Sundance, said of Hopper's involvement: "If you're on the outside looking in, it's awesome and impressive.