January 3, 2004 - 9:00 a.m., Camelot Theatres - RED ROSES AND PETROL, starring Malcolm McDowell, Olivia Tracey, Heather Juergenson, Max Beesley, Greg Ellis, Susan Lynch, Catherine Farrell, Sean Lawlor, Robert Easton and Aubrey Morris.

Palm Springs writer/director/producer, Tamar Simon Hoffs, brings to the screen an Irish family's scars and secrets and shared experiences.  The sudden death of Enda Doyle (Malcolm McDowell), a poet and university librarian, leaves behind a dysfunctional family, a stash of self-recorded videotapes, unresolved issues and a dark mystery.  This film premiered at the AFI International Film Festival in Los Angeles, CA, on November 13, 2003.  Ms. Hoffs will join us for the Q & A session following the screening to discuss this small film adaptation of a Joseph O'Connor novel and play.
Drama
Sex-oriented language, with Irish accents.
RUNNING TIME:  97 Minutes.

 
February 7, 2004 - 9:00 a.m., Camelot Theatres - THE CITY OF NO LIMITS (La Ciudad Sin Limites), starring Leonardo Sbaraglia, Fernando Fernan Gomez, Geraldine Chaplin, Ana Fernandez, Adriana Ozores, Leticia Bredice, Roberto Alvarez.

Director, Antonio Hernandez, brings to the screen a contemporary story of suspense, romance and unconventional and endearing love, set in Paris and Madrid.
WINNER - "Best Original Screenplay" at the 2002 Goya Awards
WINNER - "Audience Winner" at the Miami International Film Festival
Spanish with English Sub-Titles
RUNNING TIME:  118 Minutes

March 6, 2004 - 9:00 a.m., Camelot Theatres - THE MOVIE HERO, starring Jeremy Sisto, Peter Stormare, Dina Meyer, Brian White, Carlos Jacott.

NOTE:  Q&A Session following the screening with Director/Writer Brad T. Gottfred.

Blake Gardner (played by Jeremy Sisto of HBO's "Six Feet Under") thinks his life is a movie, watched by an audience only he can see.  Everyone else thinks Blake is insane.  When Blake tried to apprehend a "Suspicious Character" for stealing other people's audiences, he is arrested and sent to a therapist.  The beautiful Elizabeth attempts to cure him, but Blake is convinced that she is his "love interest."  Can she cure him of his craziness, or will Blake help her see her own invisible audience?  THE MOVIE HERO is a strange, comic, heart-warming journey into the mind of one man who's convinced there is a hero in all of us.
WINNER - "Best Feature" - "Best Competition Feature" - "Best Feature Comedy" - Best Actor" - "Audience Award Comedy" - "Best Supporting Actress, Comedy" - Best Song" - People's Choice Award"
Comedy/Romance
RUNNING TIME:  98 Minutes

April 3, 2004 - 9:00 a.m., Camelot Theatres - HOW I KILLED MY FATHER, starring Charles Berling, Natacha Regnier, Michel Bouquet

Directed by Anne Fontaine, the complex and fascinating relationship between 40-year-old Jean-Luc, a successful gerontologist living in a wealthy Paris suburb, and his long-estranged father who suddenly appears after an absence of 20 years, is explored in this intelligent, moving and invigorating psychological drama.  Jean-Luc has no option but to face his own life story.  One man who thought he had it all will find that his past has one missing component.
WINNER - Michel Bouquet, a Caesar for his performance in this film.
French with English Sub-Titles
RUNNING TIME:  100 Minutes

 
May 1, 2004 - 9:00 a.m., Camelot Theatres - feature film: CAROL'S JOURNEY (Spain)  PLUS short film:A Fall From The Clouds (USA)

Directed by Imanol Uribe, CAROL'S JOURNEY is the dramatic story of Carol, a twelve-year-old Spanish-American girl from New York who travels with her mother to Spain in the spring of 1938, at the height of the Civil War, whose rebellious nature first drives her to reject a new and foreign world, but who progresses into adulthood through friendship with a teacher and a local boy.
ACCLAIM:  Numerous nominations and awards including the Glass Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, 3 Goya Award nominations, including Best New Actress, and a Grand Prize nomination at the Montreal World Film Festival.
Spanish with English Sub-Titles
RUNNING TIME:  100 Minutes
A Fall From The Clouds (USA) is a combination of live action and 3-D and tells the story of Natalie, a beautiful 17-year-old French girl, who climbs to the tower of a chapel on her family estate to watch for a handsome British pilot she is in love with as he flies toward the front.  On this day, he brings danger back with him.
RUNNING TIME:  6 Minutes.

 
June 12, 2004 - 9:00 a.m. - Camelot Theatres - CANONE INVERSO (Italian love story)
desertfilmsociety and CECCHI GORI GROUP, PRODUCER & SPONSOR, proudly present a one-time U.S. Screening of this Film.

Arranged in collaboration with DFS Member Dr. David Kaminsky, who will introduce the film and facilitate a Q&A Session following the screening.
Based on the novel by Paolo Maurensig, directed by Ricky Tognazzi and starring Gabriel Byrne, Domiziana Giordano, Gregory Harrison and Andy Luotto, CANONE INVERSO is a multi-layered, sensual and compelling tale of music, fate and passion, recalling François Girard's THE RED VIOLIN.
WINNER "Audience Favorite" at Palm Springs International Film Festival, and Award-Winning Score.
Italian with English Sub-Titles
RUNNING TIME:  107 Minutes

 

July 10, 2004 - 9:00 a.m. - Camelot Theatres - THE BIG ANIMAL, California premiere.

Starring Anna Dymna, Jerzy Stuhr. Directed by Jerzy Stuhr.
Adapted from a script written in the 1970's by the great Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, Jerzy Stuhr's film is a small, charming fable about individual idiosyncrasy and social uniformity. A giant Bactrian camel, left behind by a traveling circus, is adopted by Zygmunt and Marysia Zawicki (Mr. Stuhr and Anna Dymna), a middle-aged, childless couple whose lives are both enriched and disrupted by the animal's presence. The camel, a slow-moving, deadpan metaphor, becomes the center of a civic scandal, and the movie, like many works of art that originated in Communist Eastern Europe, is both patently allegorical and teasingly oblique. 
Polish with English Sub-Titles
RUNNING TIME:  73 Minutes
Note:  Annette Solakoglu's short film BORDER (USA) will be shown just prior to THE BIG ANIMAL.  BORDER is without dialogue and is a brief and poignant film with a timely message of universal concern.

 
July 17, 2004 - 9:00 a.m. - Camelot Theatres - BULGARIAN LOVERS

Daniel (Fernando Guillen Cuervo) is a middle-aged, gay man who comes from an established family and lives a charmed, middle-class existence.  He is a "regular" at Madrid's gay bar scene sometimes hunting for good-looking, young foreigners.  At one of these bars, he meets Kyril (Dritan Beba), a hunky 23-year-old Bulgarian.  After a night of Animalistic passion, Daniel is under his Eastern European spell.  Wild, reckless and slightly dangerous, Kyril seems to turn Daniel's conservative and rather predictable life upside down.  With each sexual encounter with his Bulgarian lover, Daniel is pulled deeper into Kyril's web of nefarious activities.  Can Daniel meet the challenges of his brand new lover or has he bitten off more than he can chew?
WINNER:  2003 Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival Best Feature Film Award.
Spanish with English Sub-Titles
RUNNING TIME:  101 Minutes.

 
August 7, 2004 - 9:00 a.m. - Camelot Theatres - LA VILLE EST TRANQUILLE (The Town is Quiet) - Coachella Valley Premiere

Robert Guédiguian, director of A LA PLACE DU COEUR and MARIUS & JEANETTE, returns once again to Marseilles in this compassionate and moving drama.  Beautifully observed, uncompromisingly honest and always engrossing, Guédiguian skillfully interweaves the stories of several different characters, following their everyday struggles to survive life in the teeming cultural melting pot of the city.  Among the director's regular troupe of actors, Ariane Ascaride is outstanding as Michèle, a woman pushed to extremes.  Acclaimed by critics and audiences, LA VILLE EST TRANQUILLE is a passionate and powerful film from one of French cinema's most distinctive directors.
WINNER:  FIPRESCI Prize - European Film Awards
Best Screenplay - Mons International Festival of Love Films
Best Actress - Ariane Ascaride (Unanimously) - Valladolid International Film Festival
A selection of the Rotterdam Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival
French with English Sub-titles
RUNNING TIME:  143 Minutes

 
September 11, 2004 - 9:00 a.m. - Camelot Theatres - THE MAN OF THE YEAR (Homem do Ano, O)

Murilo Benicio plays Maiquel as THE MAN OF THE YEAR, who has lost a bet and dyed his hair blond -- an event which triggers a head-on collision with destiny in which Maiquel goes from nobody to hero, then to outlaw -- all in 24 hours -- and Benicio is brilliant as Maiquel, a quiet, middle-class loser -- vain, smug, angry, brooding, thoughtful, remorseful, duped, and with a special fondness for a baby pig handed to him as a gift.
Director Jose Henrique Fonseca
Country:  Brazil
Language:  Portuguese with English Sub-Titles
RUNNING TIME:  116 Minutes

 
October 2, 2004 - 9:00 a.m. - Camelot Theatres - DOUBLE DARE

As the 2003 AFI FILM FESTIVAL closed last November in Los Angeles, CA, the audience award for Best Documentary went to DOUBLE DARE, a film by AMANDA MICHELI.  It's an action-packed documentary about two Hollywood stuntwomen, Jeannie Epper and Zoe Bell, filled with amazing live-action stunt sequences and star-studded interviews.  Q&A session will include film-maker guests Producer, Karen Johnson and Stuntwoman, Jeannie Epper, and will be facilitated by Tom DeSimone, DFS Board Member and accomplished writer/director.
RUNNING TIME:  82 MINUTES

 
November 6, 2004 - 9:00 a.m. - Camelot Theatres - BEAUTIFUL BOXER -  Benefiting the Desert AIDS Project

Director Ekachai Uekrongtham brings to the screen the true story of Thailand's famed transvestite kickboxer, tracing Nong Toom's childhood, teenage life as a travelling monk, gruelling days in boxing camps and explosive matches where he knocks out most of his opponents across Thailand and Japan.
Country:  Thailand
Language:  Thai with English Sub-Titles
Reviews:  "The artfully assembled film is a genuine crowd pleaser..."  -  Hollywood Reporter
"Certain to become a must-see on the festival circuit, Beautiful Boxer has the smarts and imagination to gain wide theatrical distribution around the world."  -  Reuters
RUNNING TIME:  118 Minutes

December 4, 2004 - 9:00 a.m. - Camelot Theatres - REMEMBER ME, MY LOVE

Carlo and Guilia's marriage has begun to drift into such a boring routine that both carelessly stumble in separate searches for self-worth.  Carlo, once a writer, now an office lackey, begins an affair with a past flame, while Guilia tries to revive her acting career through a local theater production. As her parents flounder in their attempts at personal success, Valentina sets her sights on becoming a dancer on a popular television show.
Language:  Italian with English Sub-Titles
RUNNING TIME:  120 Minutes

December 10, 2004 - 8:00 P.M. - Camelot Theatres - "Shock Value" - An Evening with John Waters, In Person - An unforgettable talk and Q&A Session - followed by a Simply Divine Champagne and Chocolate Dessert Reception with the outrageous film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor, notable TV guest, author of four books and self-proclaimed "Pope of Trash."  John Waters is unapologetically responsible for films which violate the border between underground and mainstream, such as his latest assult upon good taste, A DIRTY SHAME -- little wonder, then, that this articulate king of cult films has been M.C. for the Independent Spirit Awards for the past several years.