Fallow 14th

Less is more in the Boston Film Festival

by Peter Keough

It's been an off year for independent filmmaking, and so the Boston Film Festival has retrenched a bit. Reduced from two weeks to 11 days in length (September 10 through 20), trimmed down to a svelte 44 features (as well as 27 shorts in six programs), the ever-evolving shindig has wisely sacrificed quantity for quality. Quality certainly was the operating principle in choosing the winners of this year's Film Achievement award: Robert Towne, screenwriter of such masterpieces as Chinatown and The Last Detail, and here represented by Without Limits, which he wrote and directed; and Holly Hunter, Oscar winner for her performance in The Piano, here starring in Living Out Loud. We can also applaud such choices as John Boorman's The General, Udayan Prasad's My Son the Fanatic, and Walter Salles's Central Station, to name a few of those upcoming. Next Thursday's four opening-night offerings are more of a mixed bag. Here's the line-up:

| Digging to China | Monument Ave. | Rounders | With Friends like These |

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More Boston Film Festival information, film descriptions, and show times

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