News

After 11 days of celebrating magnificent and electric movies, the 24th Annual St. Louis International Film Festival (Sliff) concluded on Sunday evening. At the closing ceremony the International Alliance of Women Film Journalists (Awfj) presented awards to two women filmmakers. Cate Marquis (St. Louis Jewish Light) and myself were on hand to announce our winners – chosen by a panel of Awfj members.

Lucie Borleteau’s Fidelio: Alice’S Odyssey received the Eda for Best Female-Directed Narrative Feature, while Sophia Turkiewicz’s Once My Mother took the Eda for Best Female-Directed Documentary.

Actress Lucie Borleteau makes her feature directing debut with this insightful study of a woman situated in an almost exclusively male milieu. Sailor Alice (Ariane Labed) joins the freighter Fidelio as a replacement engineer, soon discovering that the captain, Gaël (Melvil Poupaud), is a man with whom she was once romantically involved. Though she leaves behind a fiancé on land (Anders Danielsen Lie,...

The St. Louis International Film Festival has announced the films nominated for the Awfj Eda Awards.

Awfj will partner once again with Sliff to recognize the Best Female-Directed Narrative Feature and Best Female-Directed Documentary. The 24th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival will be held Nov. 5-15, 2015. Check out the full lineup here.

Here’s a glimpse of the films that have been selected:

Narratives

Fidelio: Alice’S Odyssey – Lucie Borleteau (France)

A rare woman in the man’s world of seafaring, 30-year-old Alice signs on as a replacement engineer on the freighter Fidélio. Although she loves her job and does it well, Alice remains a woman even when wearing greasy blue overalls, and there’s some doubt that the all-male crew will remain totally insensitive to her charms. The situation has further complications: Alice has a fiancé back on shore, but when she discovers that the Fidélio is captained by Gaël,...

I interviewed a trio of native-Texas actors at SXSW for the comedy Premature, which premiered at the fest (my review). Alan Tudyk was born in El Paso and grew up in Plano. The veteran of Juilliard has a hefty list of credits in both television and film including roles in Serenity, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, Suburgatory, Arrested Development, Firefly, Dollhouse and V as well as voice performances in the animated films Ice Age (and its sequels), Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen. Due to time constraints, Laurie Coker of True View Reviews and I interviewed Tudyk together.

True View Reviews: First time at SXSW?

Alan Tudyk: No, I've been here before. I worked in the music festival a few years ago. I have a good friend who lives in town. I used to come to Austin all the time. I used to spend every New Years here. This is where you...

Director: Mike Akel Writers: Mike Akel, Matt Patterson Starring: Greg Wise, Chad Anthony Miller, Troy Schremmer, Janelle Schremmer, Laurie Coker, Megan Minto, Steven Schaefer Seth (Greg Wise) and his boyfriend, William (Chad Anthony Miller), show up at the lake house while Seth's unsuspecting family members are enjoying their annual week-long vacation. Before they announce their arrival, Seth confesses to William that his family does not know they are coming. As it turns out, Seth has been estranged from his family ever since he abandoned working beside his older Christian minister brother, Thomas (Troy Schremmer), and ran away to live with William, whom he met on Chatroulette. The Biederman family presumably does not know that Seth is gay and they certainly do not know that he has been sharing a bedroom (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) with William. Seth’s arrival with William in tow catches the Biederman clan off guard. The...

The Los Angeles Film Festival has announced the world premiere of Richard Linklater's Bernie as the opening night film for the 2011 festival.

The film will kick off the festival on June 16 at Regal Cinemas Stadium 14 at L.A. Live. It is written by Skip Hollandsworth and director Linklater and stars Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, and Matthew McConaughey.

The film follows a beloved mortician (Black) from a small Texas town, even winning over the town's richest, meanest widow (MacLaine). Even after Bernie commits a horrible crime, people still will not utter a bad word against him.

"We're thrilled to be opening the Festival with the world premiere of this delicious black comedy - a treat from one of the most original and exciting voices in independent film, Richard Linklater," said Festival director Rebecca Yeldham. "With its fabulous all-star cast, Bernie is a perfect stage setter for the incredible line-up of...

You can read more of contributor Laurie Coker's reviews and features at True View Reviews.

Throughout the screening of MacGruber at SXSW this year, the audience laughed riotously and cheered. Afterwards we had the pleasure of meeting the cast in a Q&A session and hilarity abounded. Admittedly, I chuckled during the film, based on a Saturday Night Live sketch that spoofs one of my favorite old televisions shows, MacGyver. Still, I am not into silly, sometimes sick, stupid, over-the-top humor like my husband, so some of the film had me head in hand, thinking "Are you kidding me?" To be fair, I am not familiar with the skits on SNL created and made famous by comedians Will Forte and Kristen Wiig, so I went in not knowing what to expect, but if the audience reaction says anything, I most definitely was in the minority that night.

Forte plays MacGruber,...

You can read more of contributor Laurie Coker's SXSW reviews and features at True View Reviews.

When the PR rep for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo told me not to offer my senior students passes to see the film, my curiosity piqued. Now that I have seen the Swedish (subtitled) mystery thriller, I understand completely. The film will mostly likely garner a Nc-17 rating because of some graphic sex scenes and disturbing subject matter. As a huge fan of mysteries, the story intrigued me overall, even though some aspects are predictable, but I'm inclined to admit I found some scenes tough to watch.

Based on Stieg Larsson's novel Män som hatar kvinnor (Men Who Hate Women) about a journalist and a young female hacker, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo brings together several unlikely characters, connecting them by way of a 40-year mystery. The story begins with...

You can read more of contributor Laurie Coker's SXSW reviews and features at True View Reviews.

I do not like watching concerts on film or television. Just ask my husband. Unless the movie has some special draw, like that I want to share the experience with him because he loves music, I avoid concerts that are not live. I also have a huge problem with most music videos. This Movie is Broken, which is having its world premiere at SXSW, is basically a long, long music video with a tiny, interesting but all too brief story woven in between songs, performed in concert format by Toronto's famous indy rock band Broken Social Scene.

Directed by Bruce McDonald and written by Don McKeller, This Movie is Broken had me engrossed in the story of its characters, but since the film's main footage shows the band in performance, I felt frustrated and dissatisfied.

You can read more of contributor Laurie Coker's SXSW reviews and features at True View Reviews.

One of the things that never fails to surprise me for good or bad, when I attend SXSW or any other film festival, is the fact that some extremely crappy films, like say last year's Observe and Report, can get funding and distribution from the likes of Warner Brothers and other far better films have to seek private promoters or never get released at all. Barry Munday, a movie from filmmaker Chris D'Arienzo, making his delightful directorial debut, still waits to be picked up by a major studio. It is a remarkably simple and entertaining film about a man who, after waking up to find his testicles gone, discovers what it really mean to be a man. It is a coming of age for a thirtysomething-year-old and it is good.

Patrick Wilson (Watchmen,...

Please welcome contributor Laurie Coker, whose reviews you can also read at True View Reviews.

Romantic comedies always hit and miss with me. I like them, for the most part, but have grown weary of the formulaic plots and pat endings. Still, with fresh writing, quality gags and dialogue, a good director coupled with a fine screenwriter, can make even formulaic fun. Director/co-writer Rick Famuyiwa and screenwriters Wayne Conley and Malcolm Spellman offer some hilarious moments in Our Family Wedding. Had they left out at least three very stupid gags, it would have been a fine romantic comedy. But they did not avoid the silly, actually asinine, defeating what could have been a decent film overall, which will most certainly disappoint some.

One of my favorite actresses, America Ferrera, plays Lucy Ramirez, a young woman who drops out of law school, becomes engaged to an African-American man, Marcus (Lance Gross...