The Florida Film Festival is still a few hours from opening as this report takes shape, yet there is already significant buzz about a number of films set to unspool over the next ten days. This is due, in part, to the fact that a few of the films have already screened before festival audiences. So, despite local published reports criticizing the limited appeal of the festival lineup, there are a number of films that are, or should be, eagerly anticipated by attendees.

This country's top grossing indie last weekend (June 6 - 8, 1997) The Pillow Book, directed by Peter Greenaway (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover; Prospero's Books), makes its way to Central Florida after an impressive three-day gross on a few screens. Talking with indieWIRE's Lydia Marcus in Los Angeles recently, Greenaway raised a few eyebrows declaring that he feels films haven't changed at all since the days when D.W. Griffith was directing. "In a provocative move, I would say we haven't seen any cinema yet - all we've seen is a hundred years of illustrated text - so whether your name is Spielberg or Scorsese or Tarantino or Wenders or Godard, you've got to have text before you've got image; it's the way we've constructed cinema... Most of the world just is not educated in terms of visual appreciation." Marcus reports, "In his newest film, The Pillow Book, Greenaway utilizes picture in picture over picture, all using differing film ratios and a constant shifting and overlapping of B/W, color and monochromatic images within individual scenes."

Questioning the nature of most cinematic experiences, Greenaway asks, "Why do we have so little cultural confidence in our cinema that we don't intrinsically make the notion of cinema as being image based and allow it to make, in some sense, "cinema" cinema. Why do we have writer's cinema all the time?"

A film sure to give Pillow Book a run for its money when it opens on select screens this weekend is Ulee's Gold, directed by Florida filmmaker Victor Nunez and starring Peter Fonda. Since the film's premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah earlier this year, the movie has received overwhelmingly positive notices. Recent buzz indicates Fonda's performance is likely to attract considerable attention this fall when critics and associations honor the year's best performances.

Another film that will likely capture the attention of festival-goers, Star Maps, is the debut work from Miguel Arteta. The film premiered at Sundance to overwhelmingly positive response. The film's Florida screening allows local audiences a chance to take a sneak peak at a film that will be hitting screens later this summer, thanks to a distribution deal Arteta inked at Sundance with Fox Searchlight. Discussing the signing with indieWIRE, Searchlight President Lindsay Law admitted that while his company will seek a Latino audience for the film, he is confident that it will appeal to mainstream audiences. Even in January, Law realized how important screenings at key festivals would be to his campaign. Arteta revealed that a main reason he and his team chose to make a deal with Searchlight was Lindsay Law, who has experience in producing and marketing such films as Gregory Nava's El Norte and Ramon Menendez's Stand and Deliver. "They're open to (attracting) a large Latino audience for this film," Arteta explained, "given his (Law's) track record I feel really comfortable that they will cooperate with us...and we'll get the most mileage (from) this film.

While indie eyes are on Orlando this week, many have been following the trial and sentencing of Timothy McVeigh in Denver, Colorado. Without a doubt, this week's screening of Waco: The Rules of Engagement, directed by William Gazecki, will have audiences buzzing. The doc has already received considerable media attention for its revelations about the U.S. government's siege at Waco, an incident that has been pinpointed as one of the potential motives for McVeigh's involvement in the Oklahoma Federal Building bombing. A panel discussing the film was held in New York last week in conjunction with the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, and FBI Director Louis Freeh, who organizers hoped to include, declined to attend at the last minute.

Don't be surprised if In the Company of Men, a new feature directed by Neil LaBute, becomes fodder for workplace water cooler conversations after it is released theatrically by Sony Pictures Classics later this summer. Buzz about the film's controversial (some called it misogynistic) subject matter began almost immediately after its premiere at Sundance. But it wasn't until it was invited to screen at New York's NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS series that it signed a distribution deal. The movie takes an eye and ear opening look at a couple of company men who plot revenge against women in general by humiliating a deaf secretary. Producer Stephen Pevner, a New York-based literary agent who has represented Richard Linklater, Todd Solondz, Gregg Araki, Guinevere Turner & Rose Troche and Tom DiCillo, told indieWIRE that the film is a "conversation piece" that is "on the vanguard of post political correctness." Echoing the feelings of audiences, in a prepared statement announcing their acquisition of the film in March, Sony Pictures Classics Co-Presidents Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Marcie Bloom said, "When we first saw In the Company of Men, at Sundance, we were as disturbed as everyone else was by this bold and often shocking film. But like many others at the festival and for the last two months following, we found that we could not stop talking about it."

Among other films that come to Florida on the heels of successful festival screenings are Michael Uys and Lexy Lovell's documentary Riding the Rails, which was recently acquired for distribution by NYC-based Artistic License Films. The film, which premiered at Sundance, chronicles the 250,000 teenage boys and girls who left home and hopped freight trains, traveling to find work during the Great Depression. Love God, directed by Frank Grow, and produced by well-known New York indie production company Good Machine (Sense and Sensibility; Walking and Talking) is a high-tech, digitally shot movie with "B" monster movie sensibilities. It has appeared at numerous festivals following its premier at Sundance. Finally, with all the talk at Sundance, Florida Film Festival programmers have also invited Sunday, a feature directed by Jonathan Nossiter, which was awarded the Grand Jury Prize in Utah to the surprise of many. While the film has since received critical acclaim, it screened to virtually no attention early in its Park City run.

Wrapping up its sixth annual event, the Florida Film Festival honored filmmakers with audience and juried awards during a gala ceremony held Saturday night on a soundstage at Universal Studios. The Enzian Theater, home of the festival, is a dinner theater nestled among the trees in Winter Park, so it was no surprise that the three-hour ceremony included a sit down meal - in between courses, festival jurors presented the awards.

Despite comments that the festival was rewarding work of the under-30 set, audiences acknowledged the work of two over-30 filmmakers and their paternally themed movies. The Journey, directed by Harish Saluja, which dramatizes an Indian man's trip to America to visit his son, was voted favorite feature by festival-goers, and Nobody's Business, a film about director Alan Berliner's own father, was the udience's choice among the strong documentary field. "Our film had no sex, no violence, no nudity - we didn't even have incest," boasted Saluja while accepting the trophy. He went on to praise the festival, adding, "You're doing something right here." Accepting his award, Alan Berliner revealed how his father might react to the news - "Hooray for you, big fucking deal, and get a real job."

Jurors Peter Broderick, Jason Kliot and Bob Hawk, awarded the festival's dramatic jury prize to The Headhunter's Sister, directed by Scott Saunders, and honored Hang Your Dog in the Wind directed by Brian Flemming, and 35 Miles From Normal, directed by Mark Schwan, with special jury prizes for writing and directing. Documentary jurors Stuart Strudin and Bruce Sinofsky (third juror Bingham Ray was absent) awarded the jury prize for a feature-length documentary to Before I Sleep, directed by Kristen Schultz and the short documentary jury prize to Andre the Giant Has a Posse, directed by Helen Stickler. In addition, the jurors singled out the popular Hands on a Hardbody, directed by S.R. Bindler, with a special jury prize for editing.

In the short film category, jurors Chris Gore, Barbara Mannion and John Pierson, presented the top prize to Blue City, directed by David Birdsell, and awarded a special jury prize to Anna in the Sky, directed by Mark Edgington. The audience's choice among short film was a tie: Only Child, directed by David Ogden and Christopher Landon and The Spirit of Christmas, directed by Trey Parker.

Concluding the evening with a lengthy, sometimes hilariously rambling introduction, Peter Fonda returned to the festival to present Roger Corman with a lifetime achievement award. "I am not the godfather [of independent film]," Fonda declared, "This [Corman] is The Don." Corman graciously accepted the award with a brief speech and a respectful smile.

-- Eugene Hernandez/indieWIRE

Eugene Hernandez Editor in Chief - indieWIRE While a student at UCLA, I programmed the campus' film series and utlimately headed the UCLA Campus Events Commission - the office responsible for producing concerts, lectures and screenings. After a brief stint working in Hollywood, I spent five years at ABC-TV in the company's expanding Multimedia division. I am currently working with the Network and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a producer of Oscar.com. Other Articles I've Written