The Albuquerque Public Library and Bernalillo County launch their annual Books to the Big Screen film series this weekend. KiMo Theatre (423 Central Ave. NW) hosts this four-day festival, running Feb. 7 though 10. The goal is to highlight great works of literature by screening their most famous Hollywood adaptations. This year’s festival focuses entirely on books by English novelist Graham Greene. Thursday at 7pm it’s 1959’s Our Man in Havana, the comedic spy caper staring Alec Guinness, Noël Coward and Maureen O’Hara. On Friday at 7pm, it’s 1972’s Travels with My Aunt, starring Alec McCowen as a retired bank manager pulled into a life of adventure and crime by his eccentric aunt (Maggie Smith). On Saturday at 7pm, catch 1955’s The End of the Affair, in which a writer (Van Johnson) engages in an affair with a married woman (Deborah Kerr) during the London Blitz. The series closes out at 2pm on Sunday with 1944’s Ministry of Fear, in which a man (Ray Milland) is released from a mental asylum only to stumble across a deadly Nazi spy plot. All films are free and open to the public. For more information go to kimotickets.com.
Reel World: Talking Pictures Talking Pictures
The New Mexico Film Foundation’s Tale Writers Screenwriting Program hosts a live stage reading for several proposed local film productions this Monday, Feb. 11, 7 to 8:30pm, in Santa Fe. Among the script snippets being performed by a cast of local actors are Bruce King’s Leave ’Em Laughing, Christopher Thomas’ Not Dead Enough and Dusty McGowan’s I Can’t Make You Mine. Tickets are $10 and are available at the Jean Cocteau box office (418 Montezuma Ave.). For more info go to nmfilmfoundation.org.
Reel World: Films In Fe Films In Fe
Andrew Heckler’s Burden
The 2019 Santa Fe Film Festival kicks off on Wednesday, Feb. 13 in conjunction with the annual New Mexico Film Week at the state Legislature. Between Feb. 13 and 17, the SFFF is set to screen more than 50 features, documentaries and short films. This year’s special guest is longtime film and television actor Ed Asner, who will be there to receive the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award. The festival’s opening night film—screening Wednesday, 7pm, at The Screen (1800 St. Michael’s Drive)—is the Audience Award-winning drama from last year’s Sundance Film Festival, Burden. Garrett Hedlund, Forest Whitaker, Tess Harper and Tom Wilkinson star in this “inspiring true story” of a rising leader in the Ku Klux Klan who breaks away when the girl he falls in love with urges him to leave for a better life. Director Andrew Heckler will be on hand to introduce the film. Individual tickets are $10.50. For a complete list of films and events going on throughout the festival, head to santafefilmfestival.com.
