Meet the Director: Yesterday's Foreign Film Symposium at the American Cinematheque
Ronit Elkabetz, co-director of "Gett," and Ruben Ostend, director of "Force Majeure" at the American Cinematheque 1/10/15/Hope Anderson Productions
Because my days are mostly spent sitting in front of a computer, playing Words With Friends, going to the gym and running errands, I sometimes think Los Angeles is wasted on me, since all those things could be done as well (and in the case of errands, more easily) elsewhere. Then I remember what keeps me here: films. It's not just the variety and number of movies that come out each week; it's the fact that many of them will never run anywhere else in the United States but here and New York. Sure, most will eventually turn up on DVD or online, but by then they'll be competing with a flood of new releases, both theatrical and online. With greater numbers of films released each year, keeping up is nearly impossible.
But in Los Angeles I can see a great new film from Poland or Estonia as soon as it arrives, and on a big screen. It's something that I've never taken for granted, any more than I take for granted the state-of-the-art sound systems and screens at ArcLight Hollywood, my neighborhood theater. In other cities, even ones that pride themselves on their cultural offerings, the situation is quite different: the Bay Area, where I used to live, gets big studio releases one or two weeks later than Los Angeles, the same as most cities across the country, while independent and foreign ones films open even later, if at all.
There are other perks to being here, too. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about "Force Majeure," Sweden's entry for Best Foreign Film. http://underthehollywoodsign.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/force-majeure-everything-wild-isnt-and-more/ Yesterday, at the American Cinematheque's pre-symposium reception for the Golden Globe nominees, I was able to introduce myself to Ruben Ostlund, the director, and tell him how much I loved his film. Although he was gracious, it probably meant nothing to him. But to me it was a vivid reminder of why, twenty-five years after moving to Los Angeles, I'm still here.