The 23rd annual Palm Springs International Film Festival is due to open tonight (Thursday) with a screening of the British romcom Salmon Fishing in the Yemen , starring Emily Blunt and Ewan McGregor. Although the festival boasts that it presents "the largest selection of foreign language Oscar submissions of any film festival in the world," it does not include Asghar Farhadi's recently released The Separation from Iran, which many industry pundits claim has the inside track on winning the best foreign language award. It does, however, include the controversial Hossein Keshavarz's Dog Sweat , filmed in Iran without official permits or approval by the country's censors. Keshavarz, who holds both Iranian and U.S. passports and attended Film School at Columbia, has not attempted to return to Iran since the film was released. Other films from The Middle East also focus on political and cultural obstacles facing ordinary people. A Saturday awards gala is expected to attract numerous Hollywood celebrities, including Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Michelle Williams, and Glenn Close. It will not be televised. "The honorees and presenters seem to feel more comfortable to say off-the-cuff things they wouldn't say at any other major awards show," festival chairman Harold Matzner told Daily Variety . "That's why we don't televise it. We really prize the natural state of the show, the fact that it is so relaxed."
05/01/2012
What do you do when you feel like your garden ornaments are in grave danger?...
Princess Twilight Sparkle lives in the beautiful land of Equestria; a land of rainbows and...
As the director of The Help, Tate Taylor may seem like an odd choice to...
The protagonist Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt) in The Girl On The Train is a troubled...
Aside from success at the box office, there was nothing about 2012's rather uneven fantasy...
Mirror Mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?' is a line from...
Long before the evil Queen Ravenna was thought to have been killed by Snow White,...
A rare film that adds up to much more than the sum of its parts,...
Kate Macer is an FBI Agent who's about to undertake probably the most dangerous mission...
It's taken a long time for this stage musical to make it to the big...
When a Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) are unable to have children...
When a Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) are cursed by a witch...
Take a sneak peak of forthcoming musical fairytale flick 'Into The Woods' in this short...