Back

FilmFest DC

Start
16 Apr 2015
End
29 Apr 2015
Location
Various Locations

FilmFest DC Returns! With Recommendations from Film Buff Robin Diener

Through April 19

Last year festival organizers announced its demise. Happily, rumors of its death were greatly exaggerated. The 29th Annual Washington DC International Film Festival will return to present 62 films and programs at six venues from April 16 - 26. Many films are showing at the E Street Theatre, not far from Dupont, or at Mazza Gallerie not far on the red line. Special discount packages are available through advance purchase. www.filmfestdc.org ;

In recent years I have been fortunate to attend the International Film Festival in Palm Springs. Many of the films in the upcoming DC Festival showed there. For what it’s worth, here are some I recommend.

From Sweden, The 100 year Old Man Who Climbed out a Window and Disappeared is a romp of sophisticated Scandinavian silliness.
Accused is based on a true story about an intensive care nurse prosecuted by an ambitious district attorney. When suppressed evidence comes to light, it’s not clear that the Dutch judicial system will be able to rectify the gross miscarriage of justice. This is a moving film of a worthwhile life tragically undone when those who know better look the other way.

24 Days is a true sad story, based on a 2006 kidnapping in France, sadly made relevant again by the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Parisian police refused to accept that anti-semitism was at the root of the crime. This is a beautifully restrained film, while also a nail-biting procedural, based on the memoir by the mother of the abducted youth.

I loved the The Dark Horse. After a psychotic breakdown, Maori chess genius Potini tries to restructure his life by coaching a band of unruly kids while warding off his own demons, which include a demanding brother who heads a biker gang and a beloved nephew who would escape the life if he can figure out how. Cliff Curtis puts on an extraordinary performance. Caution: exceedingly rough language.

Pakistani-born, now Brooklyn-based Afia Nathaniel made her directorial debut with Dukhtar. The title means daughter, and in it, a mother takes her daughter and runs, from her aging warlord husband, who has arranged to give the girl in marriage to end a tribal dispute. The journey to find a safe place is complicated by a man who reluctantly befriends them and by the desire to see her own mother again, from whom she herself was taken to be a child bride.

The Nightingale is a crowd pleaser from China by French filmmaker Philippe Muyl. Yuppie parents leave their wired and citified daughter in the care of her grandfather who is unexpectedly called to return to his ancestral village during their absence. This is a sweet, humorous, gentle story full of gorgeous scenery of the Chinese countryside and mountain villages, nicely contrasted with new China’s hypermodernity.

Founded in 1922 in a townhouse at 1767 P Street, to promote and protect the interests of the residents, the Dupont Circle Citizens Association (DCCA) is the premier civic and residential organization in the Dupont Circle area. DCCA brings neighbors, including residents, businesses and non-profit organizations, together to improve the quality of life in an active and diverse urban neighborhood. It holds membership meetings nine times each year, which are open to the public, organizes the Dupont Circle House Tour, resolves neighborhood issues through its committees, donates to local causes, and incubates innovative projects.

Dupont Circle Citizens Association | 9 Dupont Circle, NW | Washington, DC 20036