by Marla Lewin This Sunday is Independence Day a time for backyard BBQs, friends, and fireworks. Next Sunday, July 11,  is time for the Bastille Day Los Angeles Festival. As an homage to the French holiday and to France’s major significance in the formation of classical ballet, the American Ballet of Los Angeles (ABLA) will make its official L.A. debut performing "flirtatious and fun dance vignettes" set to the musical styling of Brigitte Bardot at the Elysian Pa...

By Sophie Nellis     The view of Paris from Parc de Belleville Next stop on our tour of Paris is the area of Belleville. Straddling the 19th and 20th arrondissements, Belleville is located between Rue de Belleville, Rue des Pyrénées, Rue de Ménilmontant and Boulevard de Belleville. It is situated on and around a hill and if you make it to the Parc de Belleville there are some amazing views of the city’s skyline. Belleville began its life as a working cla...

The Berlin International Film Festival has long reflected the character of its bohemian host city. Think avant-garde filmmaking in the Forum section; gay-themed pictures in Panorama; and the political polemic popular among competition directors, including this time, the Holocaust film, The Counterfeiters.This year’s festival (February 8th-18th, 2007), however, went one step further, taking fest-goers back in time to a bygone era of cinema and the city’s golden age. The opening film La Vie En...

Thursday, February 8----Two legends collided in one city tonight as the Berlin International Film Festival began this evening. For one night only, Edith Piaf waltzed with Marlene Dietrich on the steps of the Berlinale Palast, in the heart of the "new Berlin" Potsdamer Platz. Of course, the two, most deceased, were not dancing in the flesh. But when the music of Edith Piaf, as captured in the Berlinale Opening Night Film LA VIE EN ROSE, spilled onto the streets of Marlene Dietrich Platz, two l...