Local film fever!

I never really understood the films of Alexander Sokurov until last night at the Chlotrudis Awards ceremony when the Chlotrudis players performed a musical number backing a montage of the director’s film “Aleksandra”  and set to the tune of  Abba’s “Fernando.” The film was one of the group’s nominees for Best Buried Treasure, and although it didn’t win (Margaret Brown’s “The Order of Myths” won the “Trudy” in this category), it did, in my opinion, get the best introduction in this very entertaining evening.

The other winners are:

Best Ensemble Cast

“Monkey Warfare”

Best Cinematography

Hoyte Van Hoytema for “Let the Right One In”

Best Adapted Screenplay

John Ajvide Lindqvist for “Let the Right One In”

Best Original Screenplay

Cristian Mungiu for “4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days”

Best Supporting Actor

Eddie Marsan for “Happy-Go-Lucky”

Best Supporting Actress

Elsa Zylberstein for “I've Loved You So Long”

Best Actor

Richard Jenkins for “The Visitor”

Best Actress

Kristin Scott Thomas for “I've Loved You So Long”

Best Director (A TIE)

Mike Leigh for “Happy-Go-Lucky”

Guy Maddin for “My Winnipeg”

Best Documentary

“Man On Wire”

Best Movie

“The Edge of Heaven”

And if you haven’t seen these you should.

Another outstanding local film event, the Independent Film Festival of Boston , which they claim is now, officially, the biggest film festival in New England (presumably in number of films screened, certainly it is number one in quality), has just announced their 2009 line-up. It runs from April 22-28 at a variety of venues, including the Institute of Contemporary Art, which was just added this year.

The films — so far (by my count) 25 features, 33 documentaries and many shorts — range from the artsy (Olivier Assayas’s “Summer Hours”) to the fartsy (Bobcat Goldthwaite’s “World’s Greatest Dad,”  though the IFFB's Adam Roffman insists that it is not "fartsy") to the in between (the opening night feature “The Brothers Bloom”, which will be attended by director Rian Johnson and “selected cast” at the Somerville Theatre) Also screening are a bunch of films by local directors such as Andrew Bujalski’s “Beeswax”  and the debut documentary by the “Phoenix’s” own Gerald Peary, “For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Critics.” Gerry has been working on this film for eight years now with his lovely wife Amy Geller and it is coming out not a moment too soon. Any later and the profession would be extinct and people wouldn’t know what a film critic was.

And of course, there are the celebrity guests. Scheduled so far, in addition to the “The Brothers Bloom” people mentioned above, are Chris Cooper, Benjamin Bratt, Bobby and Peter Farrelly, Kevin Corrigan and Luis Tiant. The chance of catching all these people at the same time drunk and arguing at the hotel bar is reason enough to get on board.