Dressing up the movies
Scottsdale International Film Festival highlights costumes, a U.S. and two Ariz. premieres
by Chris Moore

SCOTTSDALE – With each passing year, the Valley’s, and particularly Scottsdale’s, interest in international films grows. And that, in no small measure, is the responsibility of Amy Ettinger and the annual film festival she has established in that town, using theater venues provided by another longtime supporter of the foreign film, Dan Harkins of Harkins Theatres.

This year marks the sixth year for the Scottsdale International Film Festival, which runs from Oct. 6‑10 at Harkins Camelview 5 and Fashion Square 7 Theatres.

Ettinger, who is the festival’s director as well as founder, launched the festival in September of 2001 to what seemed an inauspicious beginning due to its proximity to the 9/11 attack, but as she recalls, the week‑long, 11‑film event got “a great reception. We had such an overwhelming response that we were turning people away at the door.”

The festival has been growing ever since and Ettinger predicts that last year’s attendance of 5,000 should be up to around 7,000 or 8,000 this year.

“We strive to bring in the most high quality films we can get our hands on, and there’s a long list to choose from,” she says. “Our first year, a little Italian film called ‘Bread and Tulips,’ which had no studio distribution, went on to do fabulously. More recently, one of our finds, ‘Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress,’ did very well internationally.”

This year the festival is highlighting two categories of films in particular, “Jewish and Israeli Films,” and movies from “North of the Border,” that is, Canada. Also featured is a Saturday/Sunday series of “FamilyFest” and “KidFest” films to expose younger audiences to global cultures.

The main event, though, will be two Arizona premieres that spotlight this year’s Costume Design Sidebar, which include presentations and discussions with the films’ costume designers after the screenings. The films, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Babel,” with costumes by Michael Wilkinson, and Doug McGrath’s “Infamous,” with costumes by Deborah Landis, will show back‑to‑back on Saturday, Oct. 7, at Harkins Fashion Square 7 Theatre.

Iñárritu’s “Babel,” which has already won kudos at Cannes this year for Best Director, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, and Technical Grand Prize for Editing, stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. Like Iñárritu’s other films (“21 Grams” and “Amores Perros”), “Babel” promises to be an intense, wild, soul‑wrenching ride through the lives of four disparate groups of people who, through Iñárritu’s aesthetic kaleidoscope, funnel to a shared destiny.

“Infamous” is the second Truman Capote bio‑pic to hit screens in about a year, this time with dead ringer Toby Jones as Capote and Sandra Bullock as “To Kill a Mockingbird” author Harper Lee, Capote’s childhood friend. Lee, as also depicted in Bennett Miller’s “Capote,” assists Capote as he investigates and becomes enmeshed in the brutal small town slaying of a family that became the pulp of “In Cold Blood.” The experience not only consumed him, but catapulted Capote to stardom.

A rich cast of notables including Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, Gwyneth Paltrow, Isabella Rossellini, Sigourney Weaver, Daniel Craig and Peter Bogdonovich, in addition to what look like remarkable performances by Jones and Bullock, should make “Infamous” famous at the festival.

And, oh, yes, the costumes. Let’s not forget the costumes. Just as much as the acting, cinematography, music and other elements that make up a movie, the costumes play a vital role in creating not only the look but the character of the film. That’s why Ettinger is shining the spotlight on the contributions of the costume designer.