The Palm Beach International Film Festival
It's for reel!
By Paul Noble 

The tenth anniversary season of the Palm Beach International Film Festival was a forceful demonstration of talent, ingenuity, youth and courage, as well as glamour, business savvy and marketing skill. One hundred and fifty features and shorts were winnowed down from more  than 3,000 entries, a record-breaker for this relative newcomer among  fests.

First time chair Yvonne Boice and first-time exec director Hal Axler tirelessly managed and programmed the screenings and many events. Thanks to Muvico with its Parisian 20 complex in CityPlace (West Palm Beach) and to the Sunrise Cinemas at Mizner Park (Boca  Raton), audiences were treated to digital high tech presentation and easily-accessed venues and parking.

Opening and closing nights book-ended the eight-day festival with crowd-pleasing, Jewish-oriented comedy-dramas. When Do We Eat? a moving original story about a patriarch's coming to terms with his family and his aversion to Passover Seders, was an unexpected delight.  Michael  Lerner and Lesley Ann Warren were among the stars in attendance.

Checking Out, a contemporary version of  Shakespeare's The Tempest, based on a Broadway play, starred Peter Falk, Judge  Reinhold, Laura San Giacomo, and David Paymer. Both of these films benefited from fine casting, directing, and production values.

Among the other fascinating dramatic features which I attended:

Finding Home, in which a young woman unlocks the family secrets which have stopped her from moving forward with her  life;

Call Waiting, with Caroline Aaron as an actress and the woman she is portraying, and how their lives intertwine;

King of the Corner, in which executive Peter Reigert navigates his future through the shoals of his aging dad (Eli Wallach), wife  (Isabella Rossellini), teen daughter, and the young man who is angling to take his job away from him; and

Raiders of  the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, a teen video version of the Spielberg/Lucas classic.

In addition to the great variety provided by the films, Palm Beach was graced by the personal appearances of dozens of film makers and performers, including Judge Reinhold, Patricia Heaton, Jonathan Krane (producer of many pictures including Phenomenon and Look Who's Talking), Sally Kellerman (Hot Lips Houlihan from Mash), Louise Fletcher (Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over  The Cuckoo's Nest), Leslie Nielsen, Salma Hayek, Woody Harrelson, and Peter  Boyle (whose Young Frankensteinwas given a gala outdoor show in Mizner  Park).

Next year, I'll try to take more time to study the programs in advance of the screenings so I can target even more of the films.

PAUL NOBLE, a 48-year television  veteran, was most recently Vice President of Film Acquisitions & Scheduling  for Lifetime Television.

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