Wrap

The event concluded with a gala Awards Ceremony that was heavy on star power and sentiment and ambitious in its scope and diversity. The 4-hour love fest shuttled between honoring some of Hollywood's heaviest hitters and introducing new talents from the independent and international film world. When the likes of Russell Crowe, Morgan Freeman, Richard Dreyfuss, Richard Donner and Kenny Loggins share the spotlight with first time filmmakers from Europe and the American underground, you know that something new and different is happening. And to the credit of the Hollywood Film Festival, whose stated goal is to bridge the gap between Hollywood and the international film world, the ambitious juggle was a resounding and satisfying success.

As we dined on what presenter James Woods later jokingly described as "pressed muskrat", a 1920s style jazz band offering such standards as "Hooray for Hollywood", television personality Nancy O'Dell, best known for her reportage on the entertainment magazine progrtam "Access Hollywood" began her stint as official host. The games had begun.

The Awards Ceremony moved gracefully between honoring the new directors of films presented at the Hollywood Film Festival and in honoring lifetime achievement awards to a host of artists and craftspeople who make up the art and industry of Hollywood filmmaking.

Top Festival winners included a Best Feature Film award to Marlene, a German/UK co-production that dramatizes the life of screen icon Marlene Dietrich. The film, which had its US premiere at the Festival, features an uncanny performance by young German actress Katja Flint, whose resemblance to La Dietrich over the course of her 40 years of stardom is uncanny and unsettling. Flint was present to accept the award for director Joseph Vilsmaier.

The Hollywood European Film Award was given to A Place Nearby (Denmark), a moving tale of a mother's attempt to protect her retarded son from the spectre of a murder, written and directed by Kaspar Rostrup and featuring a compelling performance by famed Scandinavian actress Ghita Norby (Best Intentions). Recognizing the new wave of digital filmmaking, a special Achievement Award for Digital Filmmaking was given to The Poor and the Hungry (USA), written and directed by Memphis-based Carl Brewer. The film, which features astonishingly free and expressive camerawork by Brewer, tells the tale of a car thief who falls in love with one of his victims.

Two films tied for the Best Documentary Film honor: My Khmer Heart (Australia) tells the extraordinary tale of Geraldine Cox, an Australian in Cambodia who has struggled to build an orphanage for youth abandoned by poverty and war in a country that is still struggling to come to terms with the years of the Killing Fields and Sugihara: Conspiracy of Silence (USA), which tells the inspirational story of a Japanese diplomat who singlehandedly saved the lives of more than 2000 during the dark years of the Holocaust.

A Monkey's Tale (UK), a tale about two tribes of monkeys co-written and directed by Jean-Francois Laguionie, won top honors for Best Animated Film. The award for Best Short Film was given to writer/director Shlomo Buchler, whose film Soledad is the fascinating story of a former black slave who comes to terms with his new found freedom in post-Civil War America. The film had its world premiere at the Festival.

In contrast with the fresh-faced winners described above were the industry veterans honored for their career achievements in a host of different disciplines. Since Hollywood, in spite of its size and cultural dominance, is in many ways a company town made up of thousands of unsung artisans, the Festival's decision to honor those behind the camera is both savvy and sophisticated. With the public and press almost obsessed exclusively with actors and a few directors, the contributions of many great artists goes largely unsung.

No one represented that sentiment more than honoree Henry Bumpstead, who received an award for Achievement in Production Design. Bumpstead, whose 60 year career has included such classics as Vertigo, To Kill A Mockingbird and The Sting. Bumpstead is still much in demand, having collaboriated with director Clint Eastwood on his last 8 films, including the current summer hit Space Cowboys. Not bad for a still youthful and vital 85-year old!!

Successful Hollywood composer Michael Kamen was another audience favorite, honored for his diverse film scores which range from such popular fare as the Lethal Weapon and Die Hard serious to more serious score for Mr. Holland's Opus and the Oscar-winning Don Juan De Marco. Kamen, who is represented by this summer's mega blockbuster X Men, was also honored for his non-profit foundation which helps keep music programs in public schools.

The career of director auteur Martin Scorsese is inextricably intertwined with the artistic vision of his long time collaborator editor Thelma Schoonmaker, an honoree for Outstanding Achievement Editing. Beginning with Scorsese's first feature film Who's That Knocking At My Door? (1968) and continuing through last year's Bringing On The Dead, Schoonmaker was recognized for her brilliant technique and her role in opening up the editing suite to women.A clip of the celebrated fight sequences in her Oscar winning film Raging Bull brought the crowd to its feet as it still impresses as a singular work of artistic brilliance.

Richard Donner, the director best known for his work on the highly successful Superman and Lethal Weapon series, was honored with an Achievement Award for Direction presented by his wife Lauren Shuler-Donner, producer of this year's runaway hit X Men. Donner, who confessed that he had thrown his back and "was in a lot of fucking pain," told how as a young man starting his career in New York City, "I thought everything about Hollywood was the opposite of art." He has since reversed his opinion calling the assembly of talented artists in Hollywood the best in the world.

Saving the best for last, the final honorees represent three diverse actors with a remarkable body of work between them. The youngest honoree was red-hot Russell Crowe, voted Best Actor by a public poll on the Entertainment Tonight website. Crowe, still sporting his Gladiator beard, was loudly applauded after clips from his recent films The Insider and LA Confidential were screened. (Best Actress winner Angelina Jolie thanked the audience via videotape from the Mexico movie set of her current film).

Hailed as an "actor's actor" by producer Arnold Kopelson, Morgan Freeman was honored with an Outstanding Achievement in Acting award. Freeman, whose highly naturalistic work in such films as Driving Miss Daisy and The Shawshank Redemption received Oscar nominations, was visibily moved by the tribute and gave his brief acceptance speech with a definite lump in his throat.

Eloquent and wise would describe the prepared speech of Lifetime Achievement Award winner Richard Dreyfuss. The veteran actor, who was first discovered in George Lucas' American Graffiti and shone in such films as The Goodbye Girl, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Down and Out In Beverly Hills and the Oscar-nominated Mr. Holland's Opus, movingly remembered his successes, wrong decisions and his up-and-down bankability. He stressed what was the theme of the evening, that film is a collaborative art that "demands the best of all its collaborators".

With behinds somewhat numb from the 4-hour marathon of award giving, and slightly tipsy from one glass of champagne too many, we left the Beverly Hilton with a deep sensation that in the continuing battle between art and commerce in Hollywood, that art, at least for this evening, was the clear winner.

FilmFestivals.com reporter
Sandy Mandelberger