The 24th Haifa International Film Festival, which runs during the Succot holiday from October 14-21 at the Haifa Cinematheque, features a star-studded guest list, as well as competitions, special programs and tributes. There will be over 150 films from all over the world, including the latest films from Israel. The opening attraction, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woody Allen's look at two American young women in Barcelona starring Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz, and Javier Bardem, will get audiences into a festive mood. That mood will be enhanced as the festival guests are introduced. Film buffs who grew up on Francois Truffaut's Jules et Jim will be excited to learn that the legendary star of that movie, Jeanne Moreau, will be a guest of the festival. She has the lead role in director Amos Gitai's Plus Tard Tu Comprendras (One Day You'll Understand), a movie about a woman who has kept her past as a Holocaust survivor a secret from her children, which will be presented in the festival. She will receive an award for Cinematic Excellence and the Haifa-born Gitai is the honorary president of the festival this year. Actor Joseph Fiennes, best known for starring in Shakespeare in Love, will also be attending the festival. His latest film, Spring 41, directed by Uri Barbash (Beyond the Walls) and based on a story by Ida Fink, about a love triangle in World War II-era Poland, will be shown in the Panorama section. But not all the talent is foreign. Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer, who is fast on her way to becoming an international star after her appearances in such films as Steven Spielberg's Munich and the thriller, Vantage Point, will also be a guest of the festival and will attend screenings of her new movie, Fugitive Pieces. It's a highly acclaimed drama by Canadian director Jeremy Podeswa, about a child whose family is killed in Nazi-occupied Poland and grows up longing for his lost sister. Podeswa will also be a guest of the festival. One of the highlights this year will be the premiere of the Jeff Goldblum film, Adam Resurrected. Based on a novel by Yoram Kaniuk about a cabaret entertainer who survived the Holocaust by imitating a dog for one of his Nazi tormenters, the movie was filmed partly in Israel. Its director, Paul Schrader, who has directed such films as Affliction and will always be remembered as the screenwriter for the classic Taxi Driver, will attend the festival and will receive an award for his body of work. Peter Greenway, acclaimed British director of such cerebral films as The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, will be at the festival to present Nightwatching, a film biography of Rembrandt, and to host a seminar on the topic, Between Cinema and New Media. Greenaway has been a guest at Haifa in the past. French director Laurent Cantet, whose The Class won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year, will be at the festival to present this film. The Israeli feature and documentary competitions generate an enormous amount of buzz, and this year, there are seven features and 14 documentaries. Director Nir Bergman, who made the much-praised Broken Wings six years ago and has written and directed several of the best known Israeli television shows, including In Treatment, is back with Castles in the Air. It's about the emotional turbulence that erupts when a family gathers to celebrate the parents' 35th wedding anniversary. Shmuel Beru's Zrubavel tells the story of a young Ethiopian who wants to become Israel's Spike Lee. The war that hit Haifa hard two years ago has now become the subject of several feature films. Oren Gvili's Secured Space is set in Haifa during the second Lebanon War and looks at how that conflict affects a couple trying to hold its wedding. Tamar Glezerman's The Other War follows three women during that conflict. There will be a tribute to Israeli director Eitan Green and a retrospective of his work, as well as a screening of his latest film, It All Begins at Sea, which features three interlocking stories about turning points in the lives of various members of one family. The documentaries cover a wide range of topics, from the political to the personal. Ori Ben Dov's A Mother of a Refusenik focuses on the disappointed mother of a young man who refuses on principle to serve in the IDF. The survival of kibbutzim in today's economic climate is the subject of Itzak Rubin's Degania - The World's First Kibbutz - Fights Its Last Battle. Matan Yair's It Is Written In Your I.D. That I Am Your Father examines the director's relationship with the father who abandoned his family after the Yom Kippur War. There are also competitions for Israeli short films and student films. The Golden Anchor competition, for films from countries (other than Israel) along the Mediterranean, has movies from half a dozen countries and by several well-known directors, including the Belgian Dardenne brothers, whose film, Lorna's Silence, about gangsters and their victims, won the Best Screenplay Award at Cannes this year. Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, whose Three Monkeys won him the Best Director Award at Cannes this year, is also competing for the Golden Anchor. The Panorama section features the Israeli premieres of several new films by top international directors. These include Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours (L'heure d'ete), starring Juliette Binoche, about a family that comes into conflict over a house owned by an uncle who was a celebrated painter. Another film starring Binoche, Hou Hsiao Hsien's Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge, is based on the classic Red Balloon but is set in a very different present-day Paris. Linha de Passe, the latest feature by the Brazilian director Walter Salles (Central Station), tells the story of a mother raising her boys in the slums who dreams that one will become a soccer star. Lead actress Sandra Corveloni won the Best Actress Award at Cannes this year. The East of the West program focuses on movies from Eastern Europe, and includes 12, the most recent film by Oscar-winning director Nikita Mikhalkov (Burnt by the Sun), a retelling of 12 Angry Men set in contemporary Russia. In the Doc-Talks documentary section, many will be curious to see Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, a movie about life of the legendary director who has visited Israel often in recent years but is still a fugitive from justice in the U.S. The program Haifa-Boston spotlights films that have some connection to one or both of those cities. A tribute to Hollywood in the seventies features such classics as Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider, Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show, Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation. There will also be a tribute Hong Kong action director Johnnie To. Both of these programs will be a sheer delight for film buffs. Tickets sell out fast, so try to buy yours in advance if you can. www.haifaff.co.il
