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2010 New Orleans Film Festival Selects Renowned Independent Features for Festival’s Opening and Closing Films

Posted Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 - Comments Off on 2010 New Orleans Film Festival Selects Renowned Independent Features for Festival’s Opening and Closing Films
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New Orleans, August 27, 2010 – New Orleans Film Society is pleased to announce that the opening and closing feature films have been selected to screen at the 21st Annual New Orleans Film Festival taking place October 14-21, 2010. This year, Welcome to the Rileys will be the opening film with Blue Valentine rounding out the festival.

“We are thrilled to bring these renowned independent films to the New Orleans community as they set a strong tone for this year’s New Orleans Film Festival,” says Larry Blake, President of the New Orleans Film Society. “Each year the festival strives to expose the latest in independent film and movie culture to the New Orleans metropolitan area.”

Welcome to the Rileys is directed by Jake Scott, son of director Ridley Scott, and made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Welcome to the Rileys follows a damaged man (James Gan- dolfini) and his wife (Melissa Leo) who have been driven apart by grief after losing their daughter but are brought back together when they meet a troubled young woman (Kristen Stewart) on a busi- ness trip to New Orleans.

Blue Valentine, which will be closing out the film festival, is directed by Derek Cianfrance and premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Blue Valentine is a story of love found and love lost told in past and present moments in time. Flooded with romantic memories of their courtship, Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) use one night to try and save their failing marriage.

The 2010 New Orleans Film Festival will take place October 14-21, screening at various venues city wide. The Renaissance Arts Hotel New Orleans will serve as the official hotel and headquarters for the festival and play host to panels and a VIP lounge. Festival attendees are also able to take part in a generous $79/night room discount.
All-Access and Six-Film passes will be available soon at www.neworleansfilmsociety.org.

About New Orleans Film Society
The New Orleans Film Society is the leading exhibitor of independent cinema in the New Orleans metropolitan area. The centerpiece of their annual programming is the New Orleans Film Festival (NOFF), a week-long showcase of Competitive Division films, curated films, and special screenings with an emphasis on Louisiana-made films.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon