Foreign film fest coming to area

Attention all cinephiles and foreign film fans: today and every Friday for the next five weeks are your lucky days.

Starting with a critically acclaimed South African film tonight, Pollack Tempe Cinemas, at the southwest corner of Elliot Road and McClintock Drive, will host foreign films never before screened in the Valley as part of a festival called OneNightCinema’s Fall Semester Abroad.

“They’re all first-run films, so they haven’t played in Phoenix at all,” said Randy Montgomery, an Ahwatukee Foothills resident and movie buff who’s coordinated the festival for the last four years.

Each of the five films screens three times per weekend: Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2:30 p.m. and Mondays at 7 p.m. Tickets are $9 for a single feature or $35 for all five ($7 per film).

Ahwatukee Foothills resident Lorraine Rice has been attending the OneNightCinema festivals each year since Montgomery started and recommends the movies for anyone sick of brainless blockbusters.

“I go because the films seem very interesting, and some movies we wouldn’t see anywhere else in the Valley,” Rice said. “I enjoy movies a lot, but I hate to go to something and waste my time. There’s so much out there that just wastes your time and money.”

The screen list is as follows, with the country of origin in parenthesis:

• Opening Friday, Sept. 21: Beat the Drum (South Africa)

• Opening Friday, Sept. 28: The Willow Tree (Iran)

• Opening Friday, Oct. 12: Milarepa (Bhutan/India)

• Opening Friday, Oct. 19: This Is England (United Kingdom)

• Opening Friday, Oct. 26: Bamako (Mali)

All five of the films make their premiere in Phoenix through the festival, and all have garnered immense critical acclaim in other places.

“We try to pick movies that have done well in other markets, like New York or L.A.; movies that have generated lots of critical buzz,” Montgomery said. “Beat the Drum, for example, I actually saw at a Sedona film festival. By the end of the festival it had won some awards and it filled every seat for the rest of the festival.”

Rice said the thought-provoking nature of the films is what draws her and others to them.

“These are unusual films,” she said. “Many of them are made on a small budget, but that doesn’t matter. You focus on the content; why they’re made.”

She added, “Even with the ones that are very well-funded, the ideas can be very unusual.”

Beat the Drum has had no critical response in national media, but the other four films have done very well with critics. This Is England and Bamako in particular have earned copious praise, receiving high scores on www.metacritic.com, which averages national reviews.

The films have certainly done better than most mainstream films currently fighting for moviegoers’ cash, which is why Rice said she’ll be attending.

“I love movies. It’s one of our art forms, but it’s not art if it’s just a bunch of garbage.”

For information, or to purchase tickets, visit www.onenightcinema.com, e-mail onenightcinema@hotmail.com or call Pollack Tempe Cinemas at (480) 897-0677.

Jason Ludwig can be reached at (480) 898-7916 or jludwig@aztrib.com.