Film Festivals

Several film festivals are gracing the Southland this weekend, including the Hola Mexico Film Festival, which opens Thursday at the ArcLight Cinema in Hollywood. The festival is said to be the largest tribute to Mexican film in the world. The opening presentation is the U.S. premiere of " Bala Mordida." The closing night event on Tuesday is the L.A. premiere of "Alamar." http://www.holamexicoff.com European festival Also beginning Thursday is the South East European Film Festival, which opens at the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles with the 1989 documentary vignette " The Wall ," as well as the U.S. premiere of the Serbian documentary " Goodbye, How Are You?"

The 2014 Tribeca Film Festival audience has spoken. And at wrap party Saturday for the Heineken Audience Awards in New York City,  festival entries in the feature film and documentary categories were celebrated with top honors (as well as a pair of $25,000 cash prizes). “ Chef ,” an indie drama starring, written and directed by Jon Favreau -- best known for mega-budget studio fare such as “Iron Man 2” and “Cowboys & Aliens” -- landed TFF's Narrative Award for best feature.

The 2014 edition of the TCM Classic Film Festival will run April 10-13. The festival, in its fifth year, will coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Turner Classic Movies cable channel. Passes for the 2013 TCM Classic Film Fest will go on sale in November at prices from $249 to $1,599. TCM's Robert Osborne will again serve as official host of the festival, with Ben Mankiewicz also introducing various events. FULL COVERAGE: Film festivals The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel will again serve as the festival's official hotel and central gathering point, with screenings and events held at the TCL Chinese Theatre and Chinese 6 Theatres, as well as the Egyptian Theatre.

Tumultuous marriages, father-son relationships and film censorship are just three of the themes explored in the 12 Iranian films featured at this year's UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema. Beginning Thursday, the series will show the films at the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum in Westwood Village through May 14. Four of the screenings will be accompanied by Q&As with the movies' directors. Iranian cinema is "one of the most exciting on Earth," said Paul Malcolm, programmer at UCLA's Film & Television Archive, which presents more than 200 professionally curated public screenings each year.

A diverse quartet of film festivals open this weekend celebrating Spanish cinema, women directors,  horror films and international films. The American Cinematheque's Recent Spanish Cinema XVIII opens at the Egyptian Theatre on Thursday evening with 2012's “Blancanieves,” Pablo Berger's black-and-white silent version of the Snow White story that pays homage to the 1920s European silent film. Berger and actress Angelina Molina will appear at the event. The film is Spain's official Oscar entry in the foreign language film derby.

With 40 foreign-language Oscar contenders, a 15-hour movie about the history of movies, and appearances by Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Michelle Williams, this year's Palm Springs International Film Festival will cater to a wide spectrum of cinema fans. The 23rd annual festival opens Thursday with a screening of "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen," a British romantic comedy starring Emily Blunt and Ewan McGregor. Other highlights include a showcase of Middle Eastern films, a tribute to Glenn Close and a photography exhibit of Marilyn Monroe portraits.

The third annual Method Fest Independent Film Festival is seeking feature and short film entries for the June 15-22 event, taking place at Laemmle Playhouse 7 Theaters in Pasadena. The festival--which emphasizes "breakout acting performances," will screen works in 16 millimeter, 35 millimeter, Beta SP and digital. The initial entry deadline is Feb. 20, with late entries accepted through April 1. Information: (310) 535-9230, or http://www.methodfest.com.

How's this for the title of a film festival: Wild Walls. Pique your interest? If you're at all intrigued by the intersection of architecture and cinema, make a point to visit an unusual 10-day film festival being staged by the USC School of Fine Arts and the MAK Center for Art and Architecture. Called "Wild Walls: Berlin/Los Angeles Film Festival of Architecture and Urbanism," the festival will begin at 7 p.m.

Behind concrete blast walls and battling a flickering power supply, Baghdad's international film festival opened in a hotel on Wednesday in another sign of how improved security is bringing life back to the city. There was even a red carpet rolled out, but guests to the event last held in 2005 had to be body-searched three times before they were allowed to walk down it. Despite a sharp drop in violence in Iraq since June, the directors of the 40 foreign films at the festival stayed away.

Look at the lineup for AFI Fest, which gets underway in Hollywood on Thursday, and you'll find a handful of award season hopefuls. It's a list that includes "The Artist," a black-and-white silent movie paying homage to the beginnings of cinema's Golden Age; "My Week With Marilyn," in which Michelle Williams takes on tragic icon Marilyn Monroe; and "Shame," an NC-17 rated film about a sex addict played by Michael Fassbender. While none of those movies has opened in theaters, they have all unspooled at high-profile festivals earlier in the year including in Cannes, Toronto and New York.

Albert Dupontel is a popular French comedy actor and film director whose heroes are Charlie Chaplin and "Monty Python's Flying Circus. " Katell Quillévéré, one of the France's up-and-coming filmmakers, lists among her influences Douglas Sirk and John Cassavetes. Dupontel and Quillévéré are making their first appearance at the City of Lights, City of Angels film festival, which will showcase the diversity of contemporary French cinema at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles through Monday.

Fourteen years ago, a group of movie lovers banded together to organize the first Newport Beach Film Festival. For the opening-night attraction at Fashion Island, they chose "Sunset Blvd.," the 1950 Billy Wilder drama which famously features a faded Hollywood actress snapping, "I am big. It's the pictures that got small!" As co-founder Todd Quartararo fretted outside the Edwards Big Newport 6 theater before showtime, though, he was more concerned about the size of the crowd than the size of the pictures.

The Cannes Film Festival can certainly welcome, and boost, movies that aim to be Academy Awards players - the festival has premiered at least one best picture nominee in four of the last five years, including "Nebraska" in 2013. But as it made clear when it announced this year's official selection Thursday, Cannes also operates independently from the awards machinery of its late-summer and early-fall counterparts, emphasizing such things as returning directors and dues-paying. As festival director Thierry Fremaux announced this year's selections at a Paris news conference, the returnees were much in evidence.

Loyola High School in Los Angeles will showcase the work of young filmmakers from across the country via a student-run film festival, the first such event in the school's 149-year history, to be held May 17. Open to all U.S. high-school students, the Loyola Film Festival will feature three categories: narrative short, documentary short and action sports. Festival founder Adam Faze, a junior at Loyola, said in an email, "As the oldest high school in Southern California (and being in the entertainment capital of the world)

NEW YORK - Since it was founded 12 years ago, the Tribeca Film Festival has sometimes swerved between identities like a barfly at happy hour, exuberant but hardly always clear. The festival looks to change that this time around. Tribeca has entered an era in which it hopes the sale last month of a 50% stake to James Dolan's Madison Square Garden Corp. gives it economic stability. It also believes it has finally found a mix of eclectic documentaries, international favorites, well-chosen independent features and even digital experiments to supplant earlier missions, which relied on a kitchen-sink approach to U.S. features or, for a number of years, star-heavy studio premieres.

The secrets of Sherwood Forest will be revealed Sunday at the TCM Classic Film Festival's "Academy Conversations: The Adventures of Robin Hood.” Oscar-winning sound designer, editor and mixer Ben Burtt ( “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial”) and Oscar-winning visual-effects supervisor Craig Barron (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) will be presenting newly discovered stills, recordings and outtakes to illustrate how Warner Bros.' landmark 1938 Technicolor adventure was brought to life.

A man adrift at sea. A woman adrift in space. And a young girl all by herself in the desert. If there's a theme at this weekend's Telluride Film Festival, it's that solo travel may have its benefits but also carries more than a few risks. Colorado's Labor Day weekend festival - which is starting Thursday, a day earlier than normal, to commemorate its 40th edition - is known for eclectic programming announced at the very last minute, and it's often difficult to detect trends. PHOTOS: Hollywood backlot moments But the inclusion of three films - Alfonso Cuarón's "Gravity," which stars Sandra Bullock opposite George Clooney as astronauts detached from their space shuttle by a mission disaster, "All Is Lost," director J.C. Chandor's account of an unaccompanied sailor (Robert Redford)

Ewan McGregor first came to the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007 with Woody Allen's "Cassandra's Dream," and last year he was back at the Canadian cinematic gathering to debut his quirky comedic drama "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. " "Beginners," another film from the prolific actor, also found a buyer after screening in Toronto two years ago. This week, McGregor returns to unveil "The Impossible," a drama from Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona about a family torn apart by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The curtain goes up Thursday on the fifth TCM Classic Film Festival with the world premiere of the restoration of Fred Zinnemann's 1955 "Oklahoma!," based on the landmark Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Shirley Jones, who made her film debut in the hit, will be on hand at the TCL Chinese Theatre Imax to discuss the film with Robert Osborne, Turner Classic Movies' popular host. Over the next four days, rabid movie fans will descend on Hollywood to watch beloved classic films and see some of Tinseltown's most venerable stars, including Jerry Lewis, who will have a hand and footprint ceremony outside the Chinese and appear at the screening of 1963's "The Nutty Professor"; Kim Novak, who will appear at the screening of 1958's "Bell, Book and Candle"; Maureen O'Hara, who will be the special guest at the presentation of the 1941 Oscar-winning best film "How Green Was My Valley"; and Mel Brooks, who will be cracking wise at the 40th anniversary celebration of "Blazing Saddles.

Quincy Jones knew even at a young age that he wanted to compose film scores. "I used to go to movies for 11 cents," Jones said at his mansion nestled in the Bel-Air hills. "I used to play hooky in Seattle every day. I could tell if a movie was scored at 20th Century Fox with Alfred Newman or at Paramount with Victor Young. I could just feel it. " Jones, who studied with composers Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris in 1957, would become one of the top film composers in Hollywood by the 1960s.