Film fest’s best is far from over |There are plenty of great – or at the least, greatly interesting – movies left to see before the 29th Starz Denver Film Festival closes on Sunday. And don’t forget to check the festival’s website at denverfilm.org for last-minute
additions of screenings for the more popular shows of the program.
The biggest ticket left is Werner Herzog’s “Rescue Dawn,” the closing-night film at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Buell Theatre. Herzog takes on a topic he already explored in a documentary, this time crafting a feature film out of a Navy pilot’s escape from a prison camp in Laos.
As the festival guide puts it, star Christian Bale “is the first actor since Klaus Kinski to match Herzog’s infamous intensity.” Anyone who loves “Fitzcarraldo” knows what they’re in for with “Rescue Dawn”: a story about an adventurer whose ideas border on insanity, and a man vs. nature battle for the ages.
“Rescue Dawn” won’t show up again in Denver until early January, so now’s the chance to get a jump on a much-anticipated film.
Tonight you can still see one of the movies nominated for the Maysles Brothers Best Documentary Film. “The Trials of Darryl Hunt” tells the story of a wrongfully convicted black man’s journey toward vindication for his alleged murder of a white woman. Directors Ricki Stern and Annie Sunderberg, as well as Hunt himself, will appear at the showing at 6:45 tonight and 12:45 p.m. Saturday at the Tivoli.
Another movie in competition for the Kieslowski Best Feature Award is “The Journals of Knud Rasmussen,” out of Canada. Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn previously made festival fan favorite “Atanarjuat the Fast Runner.”
In “Journals,” a Danish explorer and a young protégé visit a remote Arctic Inuit camp and discover a form of paradise, only to see it threatened by modern life. “Journals” unreels at 12:45 p.m. Saturday at the Tivoli.
Some of the most exciting movies at any festival are the first-time efforts by talented upstarts. “Analog Days” was a favorite earlier in this 29th Film Festival, and another entry in the same category for the Emerging Filmmaker Award is “Swedish Auto.”
Derek Sieg recruited name actors Lukas Haas and January Jones for “Swedish Auto,” an American film about two voyeurs who strike up an unlikely relationship in the midst of their melancholy. “Swedish Auto” shows tonight at 7 and Saturday at 1:15 p.m.
