The 2008 Tiburon (Calif.) International Film Festival (TIFF), set for March 13–21, will be showcasing more than 225 films from 94 countries.
The festival will open with the US premiere of Miguel Angel Calvo Buttini's political comedy Dos rivales casi iguales / Twins for President at 7 p.m. at the Playhouse Theater on March 13.
Twins for President follows twin brothers (Andoni Gracia) of different political stripes as they fight for the Spanish presidency. Calvo Buttini will attend the screening, which will be followed by a q&a session.
Among the 2008 TIFF tributes are those to John Wayne, with a screening of John Ford's 1956 Western The Searchers (March 16 at 4:45pm), which some critics consider one of the greatest movies ever made. (The best John Wayne vehicle I've seen is Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo).
Other Tiburon tributees are Bob Rafelson, whose first-rate — and Oscar-nominated — 1970 counterculture-cum-existential drama Five Easy Pieces, starring Jack Nicholson and Karen Black, will be screened on March 14 at 7:25pm; and Blake Edwards, whose The Pink Panther Strikes Again, starring Peter Sellers, will be screened on March 15 at 5:00pm.
Rafelson, Edwards, and members of Wayne's family are expected to attend the screenings.
The festival's 2008 Spotlight will be on Brazilian Cinema. Among the 10 scheduled films are Heitor Dhalia's 2006 Rio de Janeiro Film Festival Jury Prize winner Drained; Ricardo Van Steen's The Samba Poet (above), about 1930s samba composer Noel Rosa; and Glauber Rocha's 1964 Cinema Novo classic Black God, White Devil.
The festival's 2008 special programs include panel discussions on "Film, Politics and Culture: How Films Shape Political Beliefs" and "New Technologies for Acquisition and Distribution," and Academy Award-winning visual effects animator Hal T. Hickel's presentation on the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Hickel (right) won his Academy Award for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest; this year, he's in the running for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.
For ticket information: www.TiburonFilmFestival.com or 415.789.8854