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Sedona Film Festival Honors Orson Welles

sedona film festival 2015Sedona AZ (February 10, 2015) – The 21st annual Sedona International Film Festival will celebrate the 100th birthday of film icon and former Sedona resident Orson Welles with screenings of Citizen Kane, Othello, Touch of Evil, Falstaff – Chimes at Midnight, several documentaries about his life and career with post-film Q&As hosted by his daughter, Beatrice, including a discussion about his last, unfinished film, The Other Side of the Wind, from February 21 through March 1, 2015, at screening venues throughout Sedona.

Documentaries will include the controversial, The Battle Over Citizen Kane, and Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles.

Beatrice Welles, a part-time Sedona resident, has helped Festival organizers pull together not only the feature films to be screened, but panels and speakers for each screening including critic Jeffrey Lyons, The Other Side of the Wind producer Filip Jan Rymsza, cameraman Mike Ferris, actors Pat McMahon and Peter Jason; Josh Karp, the author of the upcoming book, Orson Wells’ Last Movie: The Making of the Other Side of the Wind; Ray Kelly, the driving force behind Wellesnet, the leading online source about Welles life and career; and, other special guests.

The 2015 Sedona International Film Festival features 160 films from around the world, workshops, panel discussions and special events. The full schedule is found at SedonaFilmFestival.org.

Orson Welles lived in Sedona from 1977 to 1979, eventually moving to California to accommodate a hectic work schedule. Daughter Beatrice, the manager of his estate, is planning to write a book about her father,  “whom I worship,” she said. “When I talk about my father, I wear two hats: I look at him as he was in my mind and that’s a separate person from my father. It’s impossible to think of Daddy as the genius who did all that he achieved.”

Beatrice is quick to point out that 2015 is not only her father’s 100th birthday, but the 30th anniversary of his death. Her father’s ashes were buried at Spanish Villa in Ronda, Spain, at the country house of retired bullfighter, Antonio Ordonez, where the American filmmaker spent vacations. “Spain is very emotional for me because it was very special for my father,” she explained.

Although she did not have a hand in selecting the documentaries, and does not necessarily like or agree with content in Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles, Beatrice described The Battle Over Citizen Kane, originally a made-for-TV special by WGBH in Boston, as “an incredibly interesting documentary that you should watch first and then watch the movie because you will know what happened behind the scenes. They almost burned that negative.”

Selecting Citizen Kane, though, was a no-brainer. “Every time I see that film there’s something that I hadn’t seen before,” she said, adding, “It is truly a remarkable film.”

Othello, which won the Palme D’Or at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival, has a special place in Beatrice’s heart because of what it meant to her father, “When it premiered at Cannes, there was a four-to-five minute standing ovation. Nothing in my life could top that.”

Touch of Evil (1958, Welles, Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh) has been restored and includes 14 minutes that producers removed from the original film after Welles was removed as director. “They found notes on each scene that was cut, and put it together with the ending he originally wrote,” Beatrice said.

Falstaff — Chimes at Midnight (1965, Welles, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford) “was the movie my father wanted to be remembered by” and, until recently, she said the film had only been available on the black market. “Being able to show it is a very rare occurrence.”

Sedona International Film Festival films will run all day beginning Saturday, February 21 on four screens at Sedona Harkins 6, 2081 W. Highway 89A; the Mary D. Fisher Theater, 2030 W. Highway 89A, and, the Sedona Performing Arts Center at Sedona Red Rock High School, 995 Upper Red Rock Loop Road, all Sedona.

Platinum All-Access Passes are $990; Gold Priority Passes, $490; 20-ticket packages, $210; 10-ticket packages, $105. Full-time students can get the 10-ticket package for $85. Individual film tickets go on sale to the public on February 16.

Packages, other than for full-time students, are available online at www.sedonafilmfestival.org or through the Festival Box office at (928) 282-1177. Student packages must be purchased through the Box Office and student ID’s are required.

For more information, visit the Sedona Film Festival website.

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3 Comments

  1. BHY says:

    Another great festival thanks to Patrick. Nice to see young people in the city for a change. Don’t even mind the extra traffic.

  2. In agreement with the comment above…and am concerned that all the helpers and attendees are aging gracefully but aging and who will take the reins? Something to think about for the future of the festival. Without Patrick at its helm it may not succeed. Thank you, Patrick and family, for all you’ve done for our beautiful Sedona.

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