Palm Springs film fest is big hit

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — Finishing up this year just before Sundance began, the Palm Springs International Film Festival was unusual in many ways.

Usually held beneath plenty of blue skies and sunshine, this year's festival started off looking as if Palm Springs was in the midst of a tropical storm. It rained almost steadily for the first five days, and many roads around the area were closed due to flooding and severe damage.

Then, on the night the rain finally began to let up, fierce winds hit the city, knocking down heavy brown palm branches and fronds from the more than 1,000 palm trees that line the city's boulevards.

If that's not enough, just after midnight — on the day that approximately marked the festival's halfway point — the glitzy resort city was hit by a 4.5 earthquake.

But hey, did any of this dampen the spirits of the thousands of film buffs who annually flock here? No chance.

A festival for true film lovers, it was begun in 1990 by Mayor Sonny Bono. Each year the Palm Springs Film Festival ushers in the film-festival season by starting, as always, during the first week of January.

This year there were more than 194 films from 65 countries, including Thailand, Indonesia, Africa and Estonia. Eighty of these were premieres and 44 were chosen from the 50 films nominated by their respective countries for consideration in the best foreign-film Academy Award nominations.

With a box-office take of $750,000 this year, and attendance that increases by 20 percent annually, it is not only the festival with the largest ticket-generating revenue in the United States, but it also attracts an enviable array of stars. At the awards gala on the final Saturday, among those presenting and receiving awards were Nicole Kidman, Kevin Spacey, Liam Neeson, Adrien Brody, Kirk Douglas, Jean Simmons, Anjelica Huston, Lynn Redgrave, Laura Linney, Samuel L. Jackson and Bryce Dallas Howard.

The biggest surprise for me this year were four excellent films about Nazi Germany, and, more surprising still, they were all made by the Germans! An absolute knockout was the very powerful "Downfall," directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, about the last 12 days — and especially the final hours — of Adolf Hitler, with normally soft-spoken Bruno Ganz as Der Fuhrer in an amazing tour-de-force performance. It is gripping from the start and becomes even more so as it shows the lives and fates of all of those who were close to Hitler.