Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival

Daniel Auteuil in NAPOLEON AND ME 

Friday, October 26----------Well into its second week, the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival offers an eclectic mix of international films and homegrown indies.....something for all audience tastes, and hopefully stimulating enough to bring patrons back for more. Friday night is French night with two Gallic delights. The first, NAPOLEON AND ME, is actually a French/Italian co-production, which stars French superstar Daniel Auteuil as Napoleon and Italian hearthrob Ermanno Germano as the young man who records his memoirs while the deposed Emperor languishes on the island of Elba. Italian actresses Monica Bellucci and Sabrina Impacciatore (who won the Italian Oscar for her supporting role) are also featured in this oddly comic historic fable. Also on Friday evening is the very French, very funny satire OSS 117: NEST OF SPIES, a takeoff on James Bond films, featuring inept secret agents, treacherous spies and hilarious bad guys.

Jeremy RennerSaturday offers a truly eclectic mix, from animation to the steppes of Mongolia to New York's Koreatown. Two time Academy Award nominated animator Bill Plympton screens his new short film and feature, SHUTEYE HOTEL, while also offering a demonstration on the process he uses to illustrate his wildly imaginative films. The exotic TUYA'S MARRIAGE is an international film festival favorite about a beautiful young shepherdesson the Mongolian plains who divorces ger husband and auditions her next conquest. In WEST 32ND, an unsolved murder in New York's Koreatown forms the basis of a whirlpool of terror, lies and corruption. And finally, Minnie Driver (GOOD WILL HUNTING) stars in her best performance in years, as a mother who is kidnapped in a department store holdup in the thriller TAKE. Her co-star Jeremy Renner, who plays a gambling addict , will be honored at the Festival with the Star On The Horizon Award. The talented young actor was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award in 2002 for his riveting portrayal of serial Jeffrey Dahmer in the intense biopic DAHMER, while also receiving awards for his film roles in FISH IN A BARREL (2001) and as a neo-Nazi skinhead who falls in love with a black girl in NEO NED (2005).

On Sunday, it's something completely different, as the Festival offers a repeat screening of the wildeyed documentary CERTIFIABLY JONATHAN, an investigation into the manic mind of comedy genius Jonathan Winters (IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD). The film screened in the Festival's opening week, and demand to see it again has been so great the the Festival has decided to offer a reprise screening. For more information on the films and their screening schedules, log on to the Festival's website at: www.fliff.com

Sandy Mandelberger, Fort Lauderdale FF Editor