The date is different but the films are as fascinating as ever. After three years of successful April events, the Tampa International Film Festival has moved to February. TIFF's decision is a smart one, since April was becoming a little too crowded with all manner of cine-activity — in the Bay area film scene, it rarely rains unless it pours — and early February seems like a perfect time for this award-winning event.
This year's Tampa International Film Festival rolls into Sunrise Cinemas and other selected venues from Feb. 3 through Feb. 11, with a mouth-watering buffet of foreign films served up from Argentina, France, Italy, India, China, Peru, Spain, Hungary and several other exotic, faraway locales. If you get too homesick you can even check out a movie produced right here in the good ol' U.S.A. — although it should be noted that even that one takes place a world away, in the battle-scarred epicenter of Afghanistan.
This is a festival that always has something intriguing up its sleeve, and this year's highlight is a doozy even by TIFF's high standards: a retrospective of the films of acclaimed Indian director Buddhadeb Dasgupta, complete with a personal visit from the filmmaker himself. Dasgupta is a director whose movies have garnered raves around the world (think Satyajit Ray artistry, not Bollywood flash), and this will be the first time any of his films have been seen in the Bay area.
Dasgupta was supposed to be on hand to kick off TIFF 2006 but ran into last-minute visa problems that have prevented him from attending the festival until later in the week. Needless to say, though, he'll be there in spirit on Fri., Feb 3. when TIFF presents the 7 p.m. screening of his most recent film, Memories in the Mist. The story of an office clerk who finds himself overshadowed by the successes of his wife and father, Memories in the Mist is the latest in a long line of this filmmaker's enigmatic examinations of interior lives.
Following the Dasgupta presentation is a 9:30 screening of Yang Ban Xi: The Eight Model Works, an informative but slightly clumsy documentary about Chinese opera during the years of the Cultural Revolution. Yang Ban Xi is well worth seeing for its stunning archival footage of Chinese opera propaganda productions (you haven't lived until you've seen a chorus line of high-stepping dancers toting rifles while singing the glories of Chairman Mao), although the film's attempts to make connections with the cultural life of modern-day China sometimes feel contrived.
TIFF moves to the Museum of Science and Industry on Sat., Feb. 4, for a 2 p.m. matinee of The Ister, a monumentally challenging, densely constructed treatise featuring various contemporary philosophers ruminating on the nuances of history, technology and human experience. This screening is free and open to the public, as is the post-screening forum on ecology and philosophy that will be held at the museum at 4 p.m. The Ister will be screened in two parts, with the second part showing at MOSI the following Saturday.
The festival returns on the evening of Feb. 4 to Sunrise Cinemas and to Buddhadeb Dasgupta with a 7 p.m. screening of the director's Chased by Dreams. This 2004 film paints a haunting portrait of three disparate sorts of people on a road trip significantly different than the ones you may be familiar with from American movies. Following at 9:15 p.m. is the somewhat convoluted but intensely gritty Peruvian film Dias de Santiago, in which a disillusioned ex-soldier struggles to adjust to civilian life.
The Dasgupta love fest continues on Sun., Feb. 5 with a 7 p.m. showing of A Tale of a Naughty Girl, the story of a prostitute's daughter seeking escape from life in a small-town brothel. A more conventional sort of narrative follows at 9:30 p.m., when a barely employed man a cute puppy take on the world in the Argentinean film Bombon el Perro.
Two of the better films of this year's festival are featured on Mon., Feb 6. First up at 7 p.m. is Beauty Academy of Kabul, a lively and good-humored documentary about a group of American-sponsored women who open up Afghanistan's first Western-styled school of cosmetology. Following at 8:30 p.m. is an intriguing Spanish film called The Archimedes Principle, in which a successful businesswoman finds that economic independence is sometimes not all it's cracked up to be. The film eventually drifts into some unconvincing populist politics, but right up until its last act The Archimedes Principle is a meticulously assembled and unflinchingly personal examination of lives in transition.
On Tues., Feb. 7, TIFF teams up with the Education Channel for an independent film salon hosted at the channel's new annex at 703 N. Willow. The salon takes place at 5:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Afterwards you can dash back over to Sunrise Cinemas again for the 7 p.m. screening of Dasgupta's strange love triangle The Wrestlers, winner of a special jury prize at the Venice International Film Festival.
And for those diehard cinephiles who just can't get enough of a good thing, Accidents, a trilogy of stylistically diverse shorts made by students of the Rome Film Academy, caps off the evening at 9 p.m.
There's much more to come during the festival's second half, including a program of short films from France, the conclusion of The Ister at MOSI, the Hungarian oddity The Porcelain Doll, and a luxuriously dark Latvian effort called Fallen. There's even a mini-festival within this festival, when TIFF and the Education Channel join forces for an Independent Film Night on Feb. 9.
And for a grand finale, Buddhadeb Dasgupta himself will make a personal appearance (fingers crossed), along with Canadian filmmaker Bernard Emond, who'll be on hand for a special closing-night presentation of the director's fiercely austere examination of faith, Le Neuvaine (The Novena).
I'll be back next week with more details on all of these and more. Plus the scoop on yet another Bay area film festival returning to town.
All screenings will be held at Sunrise Cinemas unless otherwise noted. Individual tickets are $8 general admission, $7 students, $5 seniors. A Gold Pass, available for $200, is good for admission to all films and all festival events. Tampa International Film Festival, Feb. 3-11, 813-253-3333 ext. 3425, www.tampafilmfest.com.
This article appears in Feb 1-7, 2006.