Coronado Island Film Festival Will Bring New And Old Films To The Big Screen
Speaker 1: 00:00 It's a film festival worthy of all the old time charm and glamour of the hotel Del itself. The car and auto Island film festival begins this Friday bringing new films, old films and celebrities to various venues in Coronado, including that famous hotel, celebrated film critic Leonard Maltin. We'll also be handing out his achievement awards as part of the festival and joining us for more on the current auto Island film festival is Andy Friedenberg, who is the artistic director of the festival. And Andy, welcome. Thank you. Nice to be here. You've been with the Carnaval Island film festival since it started. What's new for the fourth edition of this festival? Speaker 2: 00:40 Well, it's the same and yet it changes. Our lineup is completely different. We have more activities than ever before, over 100 events in a four day period. We, um, are honoring different sets of people, but some things don't change. The beauty of in the environment of Cornetto Island is magnificent for our festival and we always, no matter what lineup we put together, we always close our festival with some like it hot on the beach at the hotel Del where it was filmed. Speaker 1: 01:10 I want to ask you more about that as we go along, but tell me more about why you say Coronado was special and it makes a good place for a film festival. You have a business, I know leading arts-related tours in the States and and abroad. So what's what makes Carnados special for something like, Speaker 2: 01:26 yes, it's a village and I love film festivals that are a village because you can walk everywhere. Everything's within two, three blocks. Everything's on or right off of orange Avenue. That's easy for people. So I don't have to hop in a cab and run over. I don't have to worry about avalanches at Sundance. I don't have to worry about the French trying to explain to me where this theater is and con, it's easy and I love easy and so a plus people are so happy to be on Cornetto Island. We had an Oscar nominated filmmaker last year. I said, what? What are you going to be doing today? I'm going to rent bicycles with my wife and we're going to go around the islands. So it's, it's really quite lovely Speaker 1: 02:08 now, the festivals to opening night films, our marriage story with Scarlett Johannson and Adam driver and the Atrust skin smile. One of your favorites at this year's festival. Tell us about those two films. Speaker 2: 02:20 So marriage story is not about marriage, it's about divorce. It's a updated Kramer versus Kramer. Speaker 3: 02:28 I realized I never really come along for myself. I was just feeding his alive ness to really be his parents again. He needs to know that I fought for him. Speaker 2: 02:40 It's a very powerful film. Very well done. A trust can smile is a not powerful. It's sweet. The great Scottish actor, Brian Cox, who is actually playing Lyndon Baines Johnson on Broadway as we speak. Stars in this film was a Scottish guy with a, uh, with [inaudible] loves to, and uh, he, uh, he's taken ill and so he goes to San Francisco to stay with his son, his wife and the grandson that he's never met for medical purposes. And, uh, to get help. And it's the story in Sue's and it's quite charming. What other films at the festival are you personally looking forward to? So many. Uh, it's like, Oh, who's your favorite child? Um, uh, I love so many. I love the river and the wall, which is a, uh, a group of young people who say, okay, okay, we're going to have a wall between Mexico and the U S over 1200 miles. Speaker 2: 03:40 Let's go visit the 1200 miles. Let's see it. Let's see where this wall's going. And so it's beautifully photographed. It's not political, but it's quite interesting. It's a very fascinating film. We're showing a film from Finland called one last deal, which is about a, a guy who has an art shop and he's wanting to close it up, but he wants to have one big special sale before he retires. And what's special about that is costs. Horrow. One of the great filmmakers on the planet is flying in from Helsinki. He's only made six films in his 48 years of age. Only six, four have represented Finland for the Oscars. The fencer was his last film, which got a golden globe nomination and was shortlisted for the Oscar. He is one of the great filmmakers and after that screening I'm taking him to a lunch where anybody can ask him questions about international cinema. Speaker 2: 04:35 Also, we're going to be showing the 20th anniversary of the making of almost famous, which was filmed here in San Diego and Lois Burwell who did the makeup on that film and her husband, John toll, who was a cinematographer on that film are going to be there to talk about it. You're also showing a film about a pair of brothers who composed classic Disney songs, right? Yes. The Sherman brothers and uh, Richard Sherman's son. Greg Sherman is coming in for two presentations. One is about a film that he made. He's going to present a film that he made called the boys, the Sherman brothers, and the other is a presentation on Mary Poppins. The Sherman brothers were the song writers that Walt Disney always turned to. Speaker 3: 05:26 I saw ladders, Dick and Bob Sherman over the Walt Disney studio, GM chipping the chip chip, chip, chip [inaudible]. These are the people who wrote every song that every child has grown up with. Ooh. Speaker 2: 05:45 Oh inch that touch your heart. Speaker 3: 05:49 He's weird. Do we all want to be not you? I remember Speaker 2: 05:55 the songs more than I remembered the movie. [inaudible] the wonderful modern media television, movies and Disneyland day just were in the this extraordinary position to have a gigantic impact. Now, a signature event of the car now out of film festival is film critic Leonard Maltin, who picks his film greats to honor in a special ceremony. Give us just a couple of ideas of who will be honored this year. So we're honoring. I mentioned, uh, Lois Burwell, who's the vice president of the Academy and Steven Spielberg's favorite makeup artist. She and won the Oscar for Braveheart. She's been honored. Her husband, John toll, who won the Oscar for also for Braveheart. They met on the set and he won the Oscar too for legends of the fall in his new film called Harriet is out in theaters now. They're being honored along with 10 time Oscar nominee Diane Warren and we are honoring legend. Cloris Leachman who is now 94 years of age. Speaker 2: 06:58 We should, we'll she'll be there. She will be there with her daughter. Her daughter and her are spending two two nights in Cornado and she will be at the dinner. Now you also have a veteran's day film salute is scheduled for Monday. What will you be screening as part of that? So, uh, it'll be, uh, two programs back to back. The first will be again, I mentioned Lois Burwell. She won an Oscar nomination for saving private Ryan, uh, for her makeup. She's going to be introducing on talking about saving private Ryan. And then we're going to show the first scene from the movie, which runs about 22 minutes on the landing a normity. And then we're going to show a film called Libertas, which is about a gentleman who flew into Normandy and he's now 93 and he will be at the screening to talk about the experience of landing on on D day. Speaker 2: 07:49 So you're closing, uh, on Monday, as you mentioned, with that quintessential car and auto movie moment. And that is some like it hot. Tell us how you close the festival. We actually have three closing night films. We're going to be showing Alfre Woodard, new film clemency. We're going to be showing the biggest little farm, which is a strong contender for this year's Oscar for documentary feature. And we've invited a number of organic farmers from San Diego County to join us. And then as you mentioned, some like it hot. This is our event that we repeat each and every year. It's iconic. There are people, particularly in Cornetto that say I was there, I was on the beach when Marilyn was there. And they tell these stories. It's, it's a very important, the cinematic experience that happened on the Island. Oh, well, the Coronado Island film festival starts on Friday and runs through Monday. Films will be screened at various locations, including vintage village arts, theater, and the [inaudible] performing arts center. And I've been speaking with the artistic director of the festival, Andy Friedenberg. Andy, thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
