Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival

Saturday/Sunday, October 28/29----If you cannot afford the $350 per ticket to see Barbara Streisand live in concert during her current sold-out tour, the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival offers you a front-row seat to appreciate the enduring vocal, dramatic and directing talents of La Streisand . The Festival will present a four-film mini-retrospective this Sunday, with proceeds benefiting the Streisand Foundation, a not-for-profit agency involved with social and environmental concerns.

The series begins with Streisand's reprise of her Broadway show-stopping role as vaudeville superstar Fanny Brice in the big screen version of FUNNY GIRL. Her virtuoso performance, honed after playing the part on the stage for nearly three years, won her the Best Actress Oscar in 1968 for her first film role (actually, she shared it with Katherine Hepburn that year). One of the last musical super-hits, the film screens at 11:00am at the Cinema Paradiso.

Streisand as Fanny Brice

That classic is followed by the screwball comedy WHAT'S UP DOC? that pairs her with Ryan O'Neal. The film was directed by Peter Bodgdanovich, hot off the success of his THE LAST PICTURE SHOW. Streisand, in a non-singing role, shows off her superb comic timing and off-kilter sense of humor in a hilarious homage to the zany comedies of the 1930s. The film screens at 1:45pm at the Cinema Paradiso.

In interviews, Streisand makes it clear that her first love is directing, and two of her best films show off her remarkable range. Streisand directed herself in an adaptation of novelist Isaac Bashevis Singer's YENTL, the proto-feminist tale of a young woman who pretends to be a man, in order to be able to study the Torah. With an Oscar winning score by Michel Legrand and lyrics by Marilyn and Alan Bergman, YENTL is a musical and visual tour-de-force, which screens at 3:30pm at the Cinema Paradiso.

Streisand takes up the directorial reins again in THE PRINCE OF TIDES, an emotional tale of a dysfunctional Southern family, with terrific performances by Nick Nolte and Blythe Danner. Streisand also has a supporting role as a New York psychiatrist treating Nolte's suicidal sister, who is emotionally drawn to Nolte, a married man with a dark secret in his past. Streisand shows herself to be a director of subtle gifts in this emotionally gripping tale of love, remembrance and forgiveness. The film screens at 6:00pm at the Cinema Paradiso.

Sunday with Streisand....sort of like bagels with lox, a perfect combination for her legion of devoted fans.

Sandy Mandelberger
Festivals Editor