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Cinematic whirlwind tour
Riverside's growing festival showcases diverse films from a dozen countries

10:30 AM PST on Friday, February 17, 2006

By CARLA WHEELER / The Press-Enterprise

What's playing?

Here's a selection of the movies playing at the Riverside International Film Festival. For a complete schedule, visit www.riversidefilmfest.org.

"Zeppelin!" (Germany) -- In 2004, Matthias Silcher decides to complete an investigation his father began into the cause of the Hindenburg air ship explosion in Lakehurst, N.J., in May 1937.

"Parineeta" (India) -- Lolita comes to live with her uncle and falls in love with Shekhar, a handsome young man who lives nearby. But when Shekhar's father plots to steal Lolita's family's property, all bets are off.

"Santos Peregrinos" (Mexico) -- Craziness and greediness ensue when a Mexico City apartment building's residents discover a proverbial jackpot: Their dead neighbor's three gold religious figurines.

"The Telling Takes Me Home" (USA) -- Heather Carawan turns the cameras on her parents, Civil Rights activists and folk singers Guy and Candie Carawan.

"Getting to Know You" (USA) -- Cartoonist Tenny Bell dives into relationships body first. The film won the 2005 Best Lesbian Short at the Barcelona Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

"Ugly on the Inside" (USA) -- Della just wants to get married and have kids but her best friend Rayanne keeps killing her boyfriends.

"Sasquatch Hunters" (USA) -- A group of paleontologists and park rangers looking for fossils run across more than they bargained for during a mountain expedition. German Zeppelin pilots and American sasquatches. Lebanese singers, American folk musicians and star-crossed Indian lovers.

These diverse characters will show up -- on screen -- when the 10-day Riverside International Film Festival gets under way today at the Metropolitan University Village Cinemas. Tonight's gala opening will be an 8 p.m. screening of "American Blend," a world premiere of the film with Dee Wallace Stone of "E.T." fame and Anupam Kher from the movie "Bend It Like Beckham." Stone -- starring in the new ABC series "Sons and Daughters" -- will attend the screening, said the film's writer and director, Verun Khanna.

Though the festival opens with an American film, most of the movies come from about a dozen countries, including India, Germany, South Korea, Mexico and Turkey. Watching foreign films can give people in the Inland area a better understanding of different cultures without traveling far, said film festival programmer Nancy Douglas.

The Riverside event experienced a growth spurt this year. Organizers will show more than 40 films, up from 30 movies last year. The Riverside Youth Council also helped organize a program of student short films, which will screen from 4 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday and include question and answer sessions with the filmmakers.

Festival vice president Kishori Reddy said board members envision Riverside's festival growing into an event on par with the respected Palm Springs International Film Festival. "Our vision is to go up to 100 (films)," she said. Festival organizers are all volunteers, with no paid staffers to scour the world for cutting-edge fare. However, Riverside received about 60 submissions. "With most of the popular feature films, we went after the directors and convinced them we are a good film festival," Reddy said. That tack helped them land full-length features including the epic romance "Parineeta" from India, the comedy "Santos Peregrinos" from Mexico and "Zeppelin!" from Germany.

Organizers also were pleased to receive the submitted documentary "Boys of Summer" by Robert Cochrane, who filmed the trip he and his father, Dan, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, took in 2004 to 30 major league baseball fields.

Independent filmmaker Heather Carawan, who worked as an intern at the UCR/California Museum of Photography six years ago, submitted her 28-minute film of reminisces about growing up with folk singers and activists Guy and Candie Carawan as parents. Carawan said her father sang "We Shall Overcome" at the organizing conference of the civil rights group, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960.

Filmmakers will vie for awards at the festival including the top prize worth $50,000 -- converting a digitally shot movie into a 35mm film. Digiquest Studios in Riverside, owned Reddy's husband K.B, will do the work.

Reach Carla Wheeler at (951) 368-9584 or cwheeler@PE.com.