Two Decades on the Cutting Edge
At 20 years of age, San Jose’s film festival Cinequest has survived its adolescence, one-and-a-half recessions and the dotcom collapse. While Mike Rabehl’s programming skills and the efforts of some 500 volunteers account for part of the reason Cinequest continues into the new century, the tenacity of the two founders—Halfdan Hussey and Kathleen Powell—has been essential to its success.
The three-day festival that began in 1990 at a single theater with $20,000 in city grants now has a year-round staff of 10, an annual budget of more than $1 million and an audience of 85,000. It has expanded to 13 days and multiple venues, and has achieved a reputation both for bringing in established names (Spike Lee, Ben Kingsley) and taking chances on emerging new talent.
The festival runs Feb. 23–March 7 in downtown San Jose at the Camera 12 and Camera 3 Cinemas, San Jose Repertory Theatre and the California Theatre. Read More
Top Picks at a Glance
Applause
(Denmark; 85 min.) Compelling, close-up drama about Thea, a famous Danish actress (Paprika Steen) currently playing Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? onstage. It’s a role far too close to home for this caustic, alcoholic narcissist who has chased away everyone close to her.
(RvB) Feb. 24 at 6:30pm, C3; March 3 at 1pm, C12; March 6 at 4:30pm, C12
Babnik
(U.S.; 81 min.) Just as a beatnik is someone into beat culture, a babnik (in Russian) is someone who is into the babes. Alejandro Adams shows why his work has been getting national attention. His new film is an almost completely sex-and-violence-free tale about a nexus of lives affected by the skin trade. (RvB) Feb. 26 at 7pm, SJ Rep; March 3 at 7:30pm, C12
The Bone Man
(Germany; 121 min.) Already a sensation in Germany and Austria, this adaptation of Wolf Haas’ Simon Brenner detective novels is a dark, club-footed waltz between old and new Europe. Circumstances reduce hangdog ex-detective Brenner (Josef Hader) to chasing a stolen VW Beetle into a seedy Bratislavian resort with a sinister meat grinder in the restaurant basement (like German cuisine, the film has more dubious meat than a Francis Bacon painting). (DH) Feb. 24 at 9:30pm, California Theatre; Feb. 26 at 4pm, C12; Feb. 27 at 11:15pm, California Theatre
Cooking History
(Slovakia et al.; 88 min.) Through poignant remembrances by aging military cooks, re-enactments of war and chilling archival footage, Cooking History tells the story of six modern European wars through the lens of food. It plays like a secret history of World War II, the Chechen war, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the French war in Algeria and other conflicts. (SH) Feb. 24 at 6pm, C12; Feb. 25 at 1:30pm, C12; March 1 at 7pm, C3
Heiran
(Iran; 88 min.) In rural Iran, the daughter of a hardscrabble citrus farmer falls hopelessly in love with an illegal Afghan immigrant; the boy faces the same problems in Iran that Hispanic illegals face in the United States. It’s the last film starring Iranian superstar Khosro Shakibaei, who plays the father of the bride. (RvB) Feb. 24 at 5pm, C12; Feb. 28 at 2pm, C12; March 2 at 5pm, C3
No Tomorrow
(U.S.; 80 min.) In No Tomorrow, filmmakers Roger Weisberg and Vanessa Roth narrate their moral and ethical struggles as their first film, Aging Out is used as courtroom evidence to tug the jury’s heartstrings and condemn the killer of that film’s star. (JF) Feb. 27 at 1:45pm, C12; Feb. 28 at 11:30pm, SJ Rep; March 6 at 6:30pm, C12
Passenger Side
(Canada; 85 min.) With a wit dryer than the Joshua Tree desert in its middle third, Passenger Side is a hyperverbal, daylong meandering drive through a greater L.A. and through the minds of two disaffected brothers. (DH) Feb. 25 at 7:15pm, SJ Rep; Feb. 27 at 11:30am, SJ Rep; March 4 at 11:30am, C12
Peepers
(Canada: 83 min.) Seth W. Owen’s vision of a cluster of Montreal voyeurs is well worked out, even if the premise has the dead-end quality of an academic joke. Steve is the lynchpin of a group of roof crawlers who meet in all sorts of weather; their dedicated window peeping is disturbed by a college professor who has come to study them. (RvB) Feb. 26 at 9:30pm, C12; Feb. 28 at 9:15pm, C12; March 2 at 1:30pm, C12
The Tijuana Project
(U.S./Mexico; 61 min.) The sunny dispositions of the six kids in this documentary belie its tragic setting: a Tijuana trash dump in which they and their families live and scavenge for survival. Director John Sheedy ably captures the children’s most endearing and enduring trait: the ability to improvise fun anywhere. (DH) Feb. 26 at 7:15pm, C12; Feb. 27 at 7:15pm, C12
Special Events
Opening Night
The festival opens Feb. 23 (7pm at the California Theatre) with a screening of The Good Heart. Brian Cox and Paul Dano star in this story of a profane old bartender who makes friends with a homeless young man after the latter’s suicide attempt. The screening is followed by a party with the filmmakers at E&O Trading Co.
Maverick Spirit Awards
Each year Cinequest honors “inspirational beings who touch the world of film while their greater lives exemplify the Maverick spirit.” This year’s Mavericks are Deepak Chopra and Benjamin Bratt.
Chopra will be honored March 2 at 7pm at the California Theatre. While known for his books on personal growth, Chopra is now writing screenplays and producing films with his son, Gotham Chopra, and director Shekhar Kapur. Read more
Benjamin Bratt, who will he honored March 4 at 7pm at the California Theatre, visits Cinequest with the film La Mission, a collaboration with his writer/director/producer brother, Peter Bratt. The film is set in their childhood home, San Francisco’s Mission district. Read more
Forums and Workshops
In addition to films, the festival also presents a variety of afternoon forums and workshops about the future of filmmaking and film distribution, including sessions on “The New Distribution” (Feb. 26), “3-D Cinema” (Feb. 27), the “Day of the Writer” (March 5) featuring James Dalessandro, who’s story 1906 will be Pixar’s first live-action feature, and “Maverick Filmmaking With the Olson Brothers” (March 6). Read more
Old-School
The Stanford Theatre Foundation screens two silent-film operettas at the California Theatre. Erich von Stroheim’s The Merry Widow shows Feb. 26 at 7pm. Ernst Lubitsch’s The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg shows March 5 at 7pm. Dennis James does the honors on the organ.
Tickets
Cinequest can be digested film by film for $5 for students and $10 for general audiences (and only $7 for matinees). The opening- and closing-night galas, with screenings and parties, run $40. The Maverick Spirit events are $15–$20. Run-of-the-festival passes run $145 and up, with privileges priced accordingly. For full ticket and schedule information, visit cinequest.
