Tonight marks the beginning of the 2013 Florida Film Festival, one of the best in the world and an event we here at Cinema365 look forward to with great anticipation every year. This year is the biggest one yet with 170 films from 23 different countries that cover nearly the entire range of film genre, from animated to horror films to documentaries to dramas to comedies to romances and everything in between. The opening night movie at 7pm tonight (there are only standby tickets available but if you’re interested give it a shot, you never know) is Twenty Feet from Stardom, an acclaimed documentary about backup singers that reportedly had even the savvy audiences at Sundance dancing in the aisles. We’ll be publishing our review of the film sometime late tonight or tomorrow.
My own personal recommendations are The Forgotten Kingdom which might just be the best movie playing at the Festival – a South African film on the nature of the father-son bond that can transcend just about anything, as well as Starbuck which also looks at fatherhood from the perspective of a slacker who finds himself the father of over 500 kids through excessive sperm donation. Documentary lovers should keep an eye out for The Year of the Living Dead which looks at George A. Romero and his iconic film Night of the Living Dead and it’s cultural impact.
We’ll be there to cover all of those and plenty more. So many films that our coverage will extend well past the festival’s end. Each movie playing the festival this year will get the Festival logo on the review, even if the review is published after the festival is history. If you haven’t been to a film festival, this is the one to see – it’s where filmmakers, stars and fans hang out in one big fun party atmosphere.
To get you started, today’s Cinema365 review is of a movie that played at last year’s festival, Your Sister’s Sister. You can click on the link to read the review and get an idea of the kind of movie you’ll see at this year’s festival.
Well, I’m off to the Regal for the opening night festivities. Hope to see you all there or in the upcoming nine days!
UPDATE: Well, if you ever wondered why opening nights are special at film festivals, this is your answer: tonight was simply transformative. Not only was the movie, Twenty Feet from Stardom an amazing documentary that everyone who has ever been inspired by music should see, we were lucky enough to be sitting directly behind one of the subjects of the film, backing vocalist Merry Clayton (you may not know the name but you sure know the voice – she’s the female vocals in the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter”) we were treated to a performance by Ms. Clayton singing Leon Russell’s classic “A Song for You” followed by a wonderfully spirited Q&A session with her and director Morgan Neville fielding questions from the blown-away audience.
A review of the movie will follow tomorrow but I’d have to say that the 2013 Florida Film Festival is off to an amazing start. Whatever you do, find a way to make it down here because this promises to be one of the best (if not the best) festival ever!
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