The tenth staging of the Santa Fe Film Festival is held from December 2-6, 2009. The founder Jon Bowman will be stepping down after ten years as heading the Santa Fe Film Festival operations. His interest in films started while making popcorn in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the Silver Dollar Drive In when he was 15. The organizers are moving towards their aim of making it a world class festival. According to Karen Redhawk Dallet, the festival’s new operations director, the film festival will one day surely achieve the level of the Toronto and the Sundance Film Festival. Once known for being a perfect location for making movies, New Mexico is now also considered as an ideal place for showcasing them too. Karen plans on moving the festival dates to October in hopes that this will accommodate more viewers and filmmakers. This year’s festival has low temperatures in the high teens making for some chilly nights.

 The Santa Fe Film Festival this year is all set to celebrate Oscar stars by honoring Tommy Lee Jones, actress Ellen Kuras and Wes Studi. Mark Rydell, Director of “On Golden Pond” and Inside Actor’s Studio Director, will also be honored with an award. Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico mentioned that the Santa Fe Film Festival is recognized at both the national and international level. The film industry of New Mexico is growing at a very fast pace and the credit for the same goes to Richardson’s film incentive program along with the Albuquerque Studios.

 The film festival hold screenings of over one hundred independent films categorized into narrative feature, documentary, animation, short narrative, short documentary and indigenous. The films are going screened at seven different locations within downtown Santa Fe. The collection is not only entertaining but aims at reflecting issues that each one of us is concerned about to a great extent. The films that are going to be screened will focus on aspects like family love, individual challenges, environmental awareness, immigration, international affairs, truth and humor and of course entertainment. The film festival triggers emotions with a wide variety of films.

 The opening night screening will be “Everyone’s Fine” starring Robert De Niro, Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, Katherine Moenning and James Frain. This is a remake of Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Stanno Tutti Bene.” This is the story of a widower, (De Niro), who goes on a road trip to connect with his grown children. He discovers his children are not perfect and they discover a new side to their father. He gets to know his children as adults and develops a relationship that he did not have when they were young.

 The Santa Fe Film Festival also includes parties, panels and filmmaker workshops. The center of this activity is the Hotel Santa Fe.

Hotel Santa Fe | Sponsor for the Santa Fe Film Festival

Opening night party is at The Cowgirl. The party has music, BBQ and of course tequila by sponsor Silver Coin Tequila. Call them and tell them you read about The Cowgirl on My Entertainment News

The Cowgirl host to the opeining night party for the Santa Fe Film Festival. 505.982.2565 319 S. Guadalupe St Santa Fe, NM

My Entertainment News reporter PJ Yatar was on hand as the doors finally opened up film goers marveled at the throng of photographers and media personalities that bordered the theaters’ red carpet entrance. When Leigh Steinburg took to the podium it was official the 2007 Newport Beach Festival had begun.

>>Watch the interviews and Newport Beach Film Festival Action or just click the video below to watch.

 Includes interviews with Robert Davi about his new film “Dukes” and Michael and Janeen Damien about “Moondance Alexander” their new film. Includes interviews with Robert Davi about his new movie “Dukes” and Michael and Janeen Damien about “Moondance Alexander” their recent film.

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At the recent press briefing on his former boat, the Wild Goose, (see My Entertainment News video) his son Patrick Wayne, shared the story of how his famous father damaged his shoulder body surfing one summer. The shoulder kept Wayne from playing football and he dropped out of USC and started working at the studio full time. That is where he met John Ford who started using him on films. Good thing for all of us because John Wayne had planned to be a lawyer.

For most of his life John Wayne lived in Newport Beach and moored his boat there when he was not cruising on it. This year the Newport Beach Film Festival will show a number of his films and have a special awards night. Along with the films a number of filmmakers, co-stars, friends and family will be circulating and sharing John Wayne stories.

Co-founder of the Newport Beach Film Festival, Gregg Schwenk, told us that this year will also be the biggest turnout of celebrities. One of them that should be on the red carpet for opening night will be Chad Lowe who directed “Beautiful Ohio.”  Another big star from the hit TV show “Heroes” that is supposed to come down from Los Angeles is Hayden Panettiere for the screening of her new film “Shanghai Kiss.” More on these in later news stories.

Gregg Schwenk shared the hot tip with us that the best night is opening night. Stars, a red carpet, the premiere of a big film and then a huge party to launch the Newport Beach Film Festival that will have fifteen Orange County restaurants, a hosted bar and a lot of glamour.

Of course My Entertainment News will have reporters and camera crews to cover the action on the red carpet and at the party, so be sure to click your favorite RSS feed to subscribe so you don’t miss what it is like to party in The OC.

 In this podcast, Michael Berlin gives valuable tips on how to start as a screenwriter, how to write good scripts, and much more. Michael has written, produced or consulted on several television episodes like Miami Vice, Cagney and Lacey, Hunter, Earth: Final Conflict, Diagnosis: Murder, Beauty & The Beast, The Exile, The Outer Limits and many more. Michael also talks about how he started as a psychologist in New York. He later hooked up with a parter and wrote Miami Vice.

 Michael says to be a good screenwriter you have to love to read and write. You have to learn to use language properly. He also advices using good softwares for formatting the script properly. Michael says it is important for new writers that their scripts reach right people. It is extremely essential for those entering the industry to do their homework first. For more such tips listen to the podcast.

>>Listen to My Entertainment News Michael Berlin Podcast