A Preview of the 2008 Starz Denver Film Festival

The setting isn’t quite as quaint, the elevation isn’t nearly as high, the celebrities don’t really generate the same star power and the surprises are, well, not so surprising, but the thirty-first Starz Denver Film Festival still has more than enough going for it to give the prestigious Telluride Film Festival a run for its movie money.

Just remember, the key word is more. More to watch. More to love. More to hate. More to appreciate.

For starters, the 2008 version of the DFF, which opens November 13, with most screenings held at the Starz FilmCenter on the Auraria campus, offers a much more prolific lineup (at cheaper ticket prices) than its state’s trendier but pickier neighbor to the southwest.

And it lasts much longer, taking 11 days to show 215 films (including features and shorts) from close to 30 countries in what festival director Britta Erickson calls a “cinematic celebration.”

And while there are 150 or so filmmakers represented, Denver, of course, likes to show off a few of its own. Among those with local connections who will be major players at the DFF include director Rian Johnson, who attended grade school in the area and whose family still lives in Denver.

Johnson’s second feature, The Brothers Bloom, opens the DFF at the oh-so-plush Ellie Caulkins Opera House and stars Academy Award-winning actor Adrien Brody (The Pianist) and Mark Ruffalo as two con men trying to fleece a seemingly innocent heiress played by another Oscar champ, Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener). It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September and is scheduled for limited release on December 19.

Also flying high on the radar is former University of Colorado student Amy Redford, whose father, Robert, happens to be that famous actor-director who also went to college in nearby Boulder, then later founded a little film festival in Utah called Sundance.

Amy, who has acted in films and television, is now a director, and her first feature, The Guitar, featuring an incredibly brave performance by Saffron Burrows, debuted at Sundance in January and is part of the DFF’s New Directors Showcase. It is scheduled for screenings on November 15-16.

Then there’s director-producer Daniel Junge, who was born and raised in Wyoming but graduated from Colorado College and co-founded Just Media, a Colorado nonprofit production company dedicated to social justice, with his producing partner, Henry Ansbacher.

Specializing in documentaries, Junge brings his latest, They Killed Sister Dorothy, about the aftermath of the 2005 murder of an American nun in Brazil, to the festival on November 22. He is scheduled to host a discussion of the film, which is one of six nominated as Best Documentary at the DFF and which already won both the audience award and grand jury prize at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March.

Article Author: Michael Bialas

A newspaper editor and former college football player, Michael Bialas makes sports his business but exploring and reviewing music, movies, TV and other forms of pop culture are among the games he enjoys playing now.
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