Montreal Festival shuns Hollywood pix

Montreal Festival shuns Hollywood pix

One thing is crystal clear after the first five days of the 24th annual Montreal World Film Festival: Round theseparts, Euro and Canadian cinema is in and Hollywood is barely on the radar.

The hottest titles at the festival, are pictures from France and Canada, andthe only semi-hot picture from a U.S. director, Jerry Schatzberg's The Daythe Ponies Come Back, is a film financed almost entirely with French coin.

The opening night picture, The Taste of Others, went over exceedingly wellwith both critics and the public, a good sign for the imminent release inQuebec of this intellectual French film from actor-turned-director AgnesJaoui.

The other well-received pictures in the official competition were prolificChilean-born, Paris-based director Raoul Ruiz's philosophical fable CombatD'Amour en Songe and Montreal filmmaker Michel Jette's Hochelaga, set in theviolent Montreal biker-gang milieu.

Word was upbeat on The Day the Ponies Come Back, one of the fewEnglish-language titles here that might interest U.S. distributors. Thepicture is the first in 10 years for New York director Schatzberg, whosecareer peaked in the early 1970s with titles such as The Panic in NeedlePark and Cannes Palme d'Or winner Scarecrow. Critical reaction was quitegood for his latest film, which stars French thespian Guillaume Canet in thetale of a Frenchman hanging out in the Bronx.

It has been years since Montreal attracted much in the way of studioproduct, but the Hollywood presence has become even more low profile atthis festival, which is increasingly positioning itself as a purely arthouseshowcase.

There were no American stars on hand on opening night and the star wattageof the first weekend was restricted to a quick visit by actors Gene Hackmanand Morgan Freeman, who star in the English-language French-financedthriller Under Suspicion (a remake of the Gallic Policier Garde a Vue).

David Mamet, who was in town shooting the film Heist with Hackman and DannyDeVito, made a brief appearance at the festival, prior to the screening ofhis Fine Line picture State and Main.

The Mamet film, a movie biz satire starring Alec Baldwin and William H.Macy, had its world premiere over the weekend in Montreal. But Mamet, whointroduced the film in perfect French, didn't stick around to talk tojournalists.

"The only films that are not selling tickets are the studio films," saidfestival spokesman Henry Welsh. "The worst attended films are the Americanstudio films. It's understandable. We have so many American films during theyear, so people are looking to discover different types of films at thefestival."