Palm Springs International Film Festival
by Audrey Liebross
Despite being a critic of live theatre for more than a decade, I had never attended a film festival until this past week. The vaunted Palm Springs International Film Festival is currently running until January 15th, and I decided to check it out.
For the total newbies — as I said, I am one — what exactly is a film festival? According to Xochital Pena, writing on the blog Visit Greater Palm Springs, visitgreaterpalmsprings.com/blog/post/palm-springs-international-film-festival/, expected moments at any film festival include the glamour of a Red Carpet, talkbacks and interviews with industry professionals, and, of course LOTS of films. The Palm Springs International Film Society, which hosts the festival, explains that this is the 35th year of the Palm Springs International Film Festival, and it certainly features what Ms. Pena’s article tells people to expect.
Unfortunately, it’s too late to camp out near the Palm Springs Convention Center to see the stars arriving for the red carpet or to attend the awards ceremony. The film-inspired dinners have also already taken place. However, the GAYLA! for the LGBTQ+ community will take place on Thursday, January 11th. January 14th, closing day, features family friendly films. The closing night screening of Ex-Husbands on January 13th features a Q&A with director Noah Pritzker and actors Griffin Dunne and Miles Heizer. And, of course, the screenings of the 180 movies being presented are going on through the end of the festival.
According to the festival’s Web site, this year, it is spotlighting Korean films. I attended one of those, a new film called Cobweb, starring Parasite’s Song Kang-ho. (This is not the same film as an English language movie named Cobweb also released in 2023). I picked Cobweb because of the site’s description of the film as a “chaotically entertaining dark comedy.” psfilmfest.org/film-festival-2024/film-finder/cobweb. Although IMDB calls the film a drama — incorrectly in my view — it also correctly says that the movie is “experimental and genre-defying.” Cobweb contains elements of horror within its farcical film-within-a-film framework, but nothing too horrific — if I can watch something without getting grossed out, almost anyone can.
The story involves a film director in the 1970’s who wants to re-shoot his ending after the movie has wrapped. However, the government censors who, during that era, operated in the Republic of Korea, are unlikely to go along with his plans, and the performers and equipment are needed elsewhere. Cobweb would work very well as a play because of the small set requirements, but the advantage of the film genre is that it is far easier to tease the audience with pieces of the story and then cut to something entirely different, the way mystery novels often do.
The Palm Springs International Film Society also sponsors a festival for short films, which will take place between June 18th and 24th. I am hoping to attend that festival, and report on those entries, which many of us never get to see, now that shorts have all but disappeared from movie theaters. For anyone who wants to see Cobweb, which I highly recommend, it is being screened twice more on the current sFilm Festival’s closing weekend.