Two of France's favorite actors, Line Renaud and Dany Boon, open Orinda's California International Film Festival with a subtle intergenerational movie, Driving Madeleine, which is just one of the 29 remarkable movies presented by the Orinda Theatre from Nov. 9 to Nov. 16.
The Orinda Theatre’s annual California International Film Festival (CAIFF) kicks off Nov. 9 with a sweetly nuanced French movie, Driving Madeleine, which begins with an impatient cab driver honking his horn while his 92-year old passenger makes her way, too slowly in his opinion, toward his car. He is, after all, parked slap bang in the middle of a pedestrian crosswalk.
Madeleine has been advised to move to a nursing home, but first she wants to make one final tour around her old neighborhood. What follows is a poignant journey for both the nonagenarian and her cab driver as she relives her teenage years in Nazi-occupied Paris. Meanwhile we, the audience, are right there in the cab with them, cruising through leafy Parisian boulevards, immersing ourselves in French culture, as Madeleine’s disturbing past slowly unfolds.
France is not the only country featured in the theater’s two-week festival. Efi Lubliner, its director of programming, and his committee of two, Jo Alice Canterbury and Lucyna Boyle, have also delivered carefully curated gems from Germany, Israel, Poland, the UK, Ireland, Italy, South Korea, Belgium, Iceland, the United States and Czechia, about half of which are Bay Area premières.
Derek Zemrak, founder and president of the festival for the past 25 years, has lovingly restored the theater since taking over in 2010. As well as the annual event, Zemrak presents the monthly International Film Showcase, which has become more relevant to East Bay moviegoers since the February closure of Berkeley’s 90-year old art deco movie palace.
Zemrak and Lubliner have two wonderful weeks planned: comedies, dramas, documentaries, biographies, horror, adventure and shorts. Some of the movies are new and some are old favorites. There are also double features, like the documentary Sean Connery vs. James Bond alongside the 1965 drama, The Hill, in which Connery gives one of his best performances.
General admission is $13, while that ageless family favorite, E.T., is free. A regular pass for the entire festival, excluding opening and closing films can be had for $160. The Early Bird Pass, for everything beginning before 5 p.m., is $100 – a savings of more than $200 compared to watching them all individually.
The All-Access Supporter Pass (a bargain at $250) allows you to watch every movie from Driving Madeleine to An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl) on Nov. 16, the first Irish-language film to be nominated for an Academy Award. Being an honored CAIFF guest at their closing night reception is included.
Along with Lubliner’s eclectic movie selection, the festival includes Zoom appearances from various overseas directors, ready to interact with the Orinda audience, and a Grease singalong, which Zemrak promises to make an annual treat.
One stunning short film Zemrak is proud to showcase is the animated War is Over, inspired by John Lennon and directed by local resident and Oscar nominee, Dave Mullins, who will also be opening the festival.
The Orinda Theatre has had a checkered history since it opened in Dec. 1941, almost three weeks after the Pearl Harbor attacks. Eventually falling out of favor as multiplexes took over, it was described in 1983 as an “an ugly monolithic mausoleum… with no aesthetic value whatsoever” by its new owner, who planned to tear it down.
To his surprise, however, he found he was no match for the Friends of the Orinda Theatre and their 22,000-signature petition. Forty years on, Zemrak continues to breathe new life into Orinda’s favorite landmark.
