Bill Murray FDR Flick Highlights Santa Fe Film Fest Line-Up
By Kathaleen Roberts / Journal Staff Writer on Thu, Nov 15, 2012
The 13th Annual Santa Fe Film Festival kicks off Dec. 6 with Bill Murray’s take on FDR in “Hyde Park on the Hudson,” according to a listing of films unveiled Thursday.
Bill Murray is Franklin D. Roosevelt in “Hyde Park On The Hudson.”
The four-day festival will include “Any Day Now,” starring Alan Cumming, and Austria’s “Amour,” this year’s Palme d’Or winner at Cannes.
“Hyde Park on the Hudson” pairs Murray with Laura Linney in the British comedy/drama.
“Bill Murray plays FDR and Laura Linney is a guest on the Hudson, where they are hosting the king and queen,” festival executive director Diane Schneier Perrin said. The movie was directed by Roger Mitchell.
The festival spans Dec. 6-9 at locations ranging from The Screen to the Center of Contemporary Arts to the New Mexico History Museum.
Alan Cumming will star in Travis Fine’s “Any Day Now,” winner of the Heineken Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival. The movie was inspired by the true story of an abandoned teenager with Down syndrome taken in by a gay couple in 1970s Los Angeles. The trio create a family challenged by a biased legal system when the couple tries to adopt the teen.
Directed by Michael Haneke, “Amour” is an intimate study of the effects of aging on a blissfully married couple. Haneke also directed 2005’s “Cachet” with Juliette Binoche.
“It’s a couple who have an amazing relationship but one of the partners is starting to show the signs of dementia,” Schneier Perrin said. “It will be relentless.”
The lineup also features Dustin Hoffman’s directing debut with “Quartet,” about a home for retired opera singers giving an annual concert to celebrate Verdi’s birthday. The event is disrupted by the arrival of Jean, an eternal diva. The movie stars Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon and Billy Connolly.
“Now Forager” is about two foodies who forage for mushrooms and sell them to New York restaurants. Their lifestyle is simple, their income unstable.
“Along the way, we’ll see some great food being served,” Schneier Perrin said.
This year’s festival will include five shorts programs. The Foreign Language Oscar contenders include “Violeta Went to Heaven” (Chile), “Lore” (Australia), “Amore” (Austria), “Barbara” (Germany) and Kenya’s first-ever entry “Nairobi Half Life.”
George Jecel’s “Little Dancer” tells the tale of an ambitious and talented 13-year-old Eastern European dancer’s dream to escape the limits of her provincial life for classical training and stardom. But Jecel layers the coming-of-age storyline with a sinister plot to deliver the innocent ballerina into human trafficking.
Schneier Perrin is a veteran film producer (Kathryn Bigelow’s “Blue Steel,” Oliver Stone’s “Talk Radio,” Barbet Schroeder’s Academy Award-winning “Reversal of Fortune”). Brent Kliewer, programming director of The Screen, is also the festival’s programming director.
The New Mexico film program will feature “Canes of Power,” “From Zimbabwe to Santa Fe,” “Living Traditions,” “Rooted Lands/Tierras Arraigadas,” and “Young Ancestors.”
For information on workshops, panels and parties see. www.https://santafefilmfestival.com/index.
