The festival season explodes starting now: a look at things for the next six weeks plus a birthday and links

(Video by Chocko)

As you saw from earlier today Film Comment Selects starts tomorrow. As is our norm and as is the tradition Unseen will be wading into the fray. Earlier today we ran a review of the opening night film Our Sunhi, We have reviews of the horror film Blood Glacier and the cinematic mind warp Fat Shaker coming this week.  Back during Fantasia we ran a review of the very strange Korean film The Weight. Friday and Saturday we'll be seeing another five or six films in the series.

Film Comment Selects is very important to us at Unseen since the first festival coverage we ever did was on our second day of existence when we went to see the Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Revenge Films. Every year since then We've tried to go back and cover something.(And yes the Revenge films piece is a nervy embarrassing piece but at the time I didn't know better and no one, and I mean no one, was reading the blog- I leave it because that's where we started)

For tickets on Film Comment Selects go here.

Next Saturday before the Film Comment films I'll be stopping by the BAM Kids Fest for a film. We haven't really been covering the Fest in the past couple of years, the film skew younger than The New York International Children's Film Festival. They also tend to show lots of subtitled films to the their young audience and have adults read the subtitles out loud. I understand why they do it (it allows them to show good films), but I don't like to watch films that way so I don't go regularly. Details on the fest can be found here

Speaking of BAM earlier today I was at BAM for Matthew Barney's 6 hour River of Fundament. As this posts I'll hard at work on a review. Look for it in a couple of days.

In other festival news:

Tickets for The New York International Children's Film Festival are starting to sell out. Some films are sold out, and they've added more screenings. I have tickets for 11 or 12 films plus one film, We Are`The Best, crosses over with Film Comment Selects For tickets and details go here.

Another one of my favorite festivals starts up in a couple of weeks- Rendez-vous With French Cinema. This festival plays all over Manhattan and Brooklyn and frequently sells out. I'm starting in with press screenings this week and I'm going to some of the public screenings so look for lots of reports. Details on the entirety of the festival can be found here.

And if that wasn't enough it looks like we'll be getting some form of coverage from SXSW.  We should have some reviews and if my gentle arm twisting works we may have some on the ground coverage.

Of course by the time that's all done We'll be slipping straight away into that beast known as Tribeca since if they are true to form, press screenings will start at the end of March and take us to the end of April.

Earlier I pointed out that the first film festival we ever covered was Film Comment Selects back in 2010. The date was February 21 which was the second day in existence. That means February 20th, this Thursday is our birthday. I'll have a brief piece up about it then.

I'd like to take this time out to welcome Alec Kubas-Meyer to Unseen. Alec has been a friend of Unseen for a few years now. He was introduced to me and everyone through Hubert and nothing has ever been the same. Alec is a filmmaker and writer who's regular writing gig is being the Reviews Editor over at Flixist. He also has his own website A Million Tiny Bublebees. After many arm wrestling matches I finally got him to come over to the dark side to help out with our month of Zatoichi. And should you ever get the chance I also highly recommend going to dinner with him for some great conversation. (And if you want to know how the upcoming Raid 2 is read his piece here.)

This week the month of Zatoichi continues in full force. Not only will you be getting some of the Katsu films but look for some reviews of other related films. Also coming this week will be Film Comment Selects pieces and some other reviews of more current films.

And now some of Randi's full bodied links.

Altered for international release
Coen Brothers films as gig posters
Defunct Olympic sports
Aardman Pirates designs
Silent screen
Michael Mann talks Thief and the future
Al Jaffe talks about the one thing MAD Magazine wouldn't run