March 4, 2004

Cinequest offers dazzling array of escape routes to creative reality

By Karl Laucher
Staff Writer

I will be immersed and mesmerized in full manic mode as a Cinequest Film Festival spectator this week. I will have missed, due to other passions, for the first time in four years, the Opening Night Gala on Wednesday, but you find me getting a face full of the festival in the front third of the theater through the final reel on March 14.

I have seen as many as 20 films in the festival in previous years, and would be hard-pressed to match that number due to—yes—time constraints.

But with 165 films, including 78 U.S. and world premieres on the schedule, it would take a heroic effort by a true escape artist to see even half. The choice is so delicious, however, you can't fail to get a cranium load of outstanding cinematic art. I hope I'm still coherent for the closing day when I hope to see “The Greatest Challenge” by Shawn Flanagan of Almaden Films in the morning in San Jose State University's Morris Dailey Auditorium, and then “The Conscientious Objector” as the final film of the festival the same evening at the same site.

Highlights of the week include a visit by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as well as many talks by producers, directors and talent as the presentation of many of the films, which also will be shown at the San Jose Camera Theaters and the San Jose Repertory Theater.

For those with a deeper interest in the creation of film making, Cinequest offers several movie-making forums that include the technique of writing and the technique of distribution. There also will be several forums specializing in digital media.

In advance of the festival, time was indeed constrained, but I was able to review “Big Enough,” a documentary about little people and the evolution of their lives from birth to adulthood, with an actual time lapse of 20 years in several cases. There are many films about triumph, and weight of true life. This is one of them. It will be shown March 7 at the San Jose Rep and March 9 at Morris Dailey.

Time is marching on, and space may be limited, but make all the time and space you can in your life to feel the power of truly creative and impassioned people in the Cinequest Film Festival. Tickets range from $7 per performance for students and seniors to (general admission $9) to $125 for a Films and Forums Pass and $195 for a Gold Pass. Call 295-FEST or go on-line at www.Cinequest.org.