Festivals and Awards 1999

This year, the festival travels overseas for the first time, to east Berlin, former front-line city of the Cold War, to commemorate the 10th anniversary year of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the liberation of eastern Europe. On Sunday, February 14, director Andrzej Wajda received the ACF Freedom Award, and a week-long retrospective of his best-known work followed. At the Balasz-Kino Hungarian cultural center in the former East Berlin, the ACF presented a week of new films from eastern Europe.

The Freedom Film Festival 1999 opened in Los Angeles with one of 1998?s most successful Russian films,"Land of the Deaf." We paid tribute to the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, Europe?s oldest film festival. German film producer Regina Ziegler was honored for her 25-year career as one of the most creative producers in international film. Ziegler-produced films about the Berlin Wall and the division of Europe were shown in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles.

The second part of our festival opened: Freedom Film Festival Latin America. The filmmakers of Latin America are in the process of re-defining themselves—the popular culture of the 1990s is just beginning to find its voice in the film medium—and the people of Los Angeles have, surprisingly, had almost no opportunity to see this work.

Freedom Festival 1999

Six new Eastern European films from The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and Eastern Europe, plus three special programs: a salute to Andrzej Wajda and a 25th Anniversary Tribute to German film producer Regina Ziegler, screening in Berlin and Los Angeles, and Freedom Film Festival Latin America (Los Angeles). Also press notices and guest interviews.

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