AFI Fest 07: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days... & 1 Dinner

Saturday marked the first AFI Fest screening of upcoming IFC First Take release 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu. The 2007 Cannes Palm d'Or winner (and prohibitive favorite for a best foreign language Oscar nod) has been getting rave reviews and since I missed it at the New York Film Festival last month, I decided I had to catch it here (and did so on Monday). I wish I'd seen it before the dinner so I could have told Mungiu what an extraordinary film he's made, but I suspect I'd not have been the first. More on this moving and delicate film in another post but as for the dinner, despite a few more attendees than planned for (extra tables were the order of the evening) the dinner was a pleasant gathering of friends new and old. The wine flowed and my head hurt the next morning.

Photos top to bottom: SXSW Film Festival producer Matt Dentler; editors in chief of indieWIRE.com and Screen International (l to R) Eugene Hernandez and Colin Brown...(Colin is not a giant and Eugene is not tiny. It's just a little forced perspective in action); The poster for the film.