The press conference for Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona was a packed affair. Buzz on the film has been mostly positive, and most of those trying to get in were, unfortunately, shut out. The line of press trying to get shots of Allen and the cast walking in was an utter madhouse; picture something akin to a prison riot, with a mob of press stomping on feet, shoving with elbows, and generally doing their damnedest to jostle into position in the hopes of scoring one or two decent shots in the 15 or so seconds you have to point and click.

I had my foot crushed by a large Belgian woman who muscled her way to the front of the pack on my right, and got smacked quite hard in the head by a Chinese photojournalist's video camera. Working a film fest isn't always quite the glamorous event one might imagine.

I've said before that a new film from Woody Allen is something like getting a Christmas gift from your eccentric aunt; you never know if you'll get a crocheted toilet paper cozy, or a piece of priceless heirloom jewelry. Fortunately, Allen's newest film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, turns out to be more like the latter. The story opens with Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), two best friends heading to Barcelona for eight weeks of fun.

Vicky's distant relations Judy (Patricia Clarkson) and Mark (Kevin Dunn) live in Barcelona, and have invited the girls to spend the summer there, where Vicky will do research for her Masters and Cristina will soak up the local culture. Vicky is engaged to be married to Doug (Chris Messina), a stalwart, likable, but rather boring young man, and Cristina is recovering from her latest breakup and looking for an artistic outlet for her pent-up creativity.

Hey campers, it's time for another edition of The (Mostly) Indie Film Calendar, in which we tell you about the non-blockbuster, non-studio offerings that you can find in theaters this week. In a world where the multiplexes are packed, we proudly say: Chronicles of what now? If you know about something cool happening -- a local festival, repertory films, retrospectives, etc. -- let me know and I'll put it in the calendar! You'll find me at Eric.Snider (at) Weblogsinc (dot) com.

First up, we have a few...

INDIE THEATRICAL RELEASES

• Reprise is a Norwegian film about two friends, both would-be authors, who submit their manuscripts on the same day and go through all the rigors of an artist's life together. Cinematical's James Rocchi lavishes all kinds of praise on it in his review. Opens today in New York and L.A.

• How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer is a comedy about three generations of Mexican-American women enjoying their sexuality (not with each other, gross) one summer. Girl power! Ugly Betty is in it, but the film is from before she became Ugly Betty: It premiered at Sundance in 2005 (!) and is just now finally being released. Opens today all over California, as well as in Chicago, Miami, Houston, Dallas, Amarillo, Phoenix, and Mesa.

After the jump, more theatrical releases, plus our city-by-city rundown of special events taking place this week.

Arnaud Desplechin's film Un Conte de Noel (A Christmas Tale), playing in competition here at Cannes, is a tragically comic tale of love, death, and familial strife and forgiveness. The film centers around Junon (Catherine Deneuve) and her husband Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon), whose oldest child, Joseph, is diagnosed at a young age with Burkitt's lymphoma.

The boy's disease is curable only with a bone marrow transplant, and neither the parents nor his younger sister, Elizabeth, are compatible. The couple conceives another child in the hopes of making a match to cure their son, but the third child, Henri, is also incompatible, and Joseph dies at the age of six. Eventually the grieving parents have a fourth child, Ivan, and in time the family's wounds over the death of the eldest son heal ... but not really.

Philip (Anders Danielsen Lie) and Erik (Espen Klouman-Hoiner) are best friends. They're both aspiring novelists. And at the beginning of Reprise, they both stand, hesitant, on the street in front of a mailbox, and put their manuscripts in. And the camera follows their hopes and aspirations into the darkness, and the film rockets forward, a narrator detailing the reception of their novels and what that does to their lives, who finds acclaim and who does not, the setbacks and triumphs of each of their careers, with jump cuts and film clips and rambling elaborations and bizarre left-field concepts and rapid-fire narration piled one atop the other. And then we're back in the here-and-now, as Phillip and Erik stand in front of the postal box, looking slightly abashed, wondering what exactly it is they're supposed to do next. Maybe what we saw was a dream, or a lie; we're going to have to wait and see what happens next, just like they have to.

Directed by Joachim Trier, Reprise is one of the most brilliant, heartfelt, exciting and exuberant feature film debuts in recent memory, and works not just as a demonstration of Trier's substantial talents but also as a superbly-made collaboration. Trier co-wrote alongside Eskil Vogt, and the film's ensemble (including Lie, Klouman-Hoiner and Viktoria Winge as Phillip's gamine girlfriend Kari) is also superb, down to seemingly-minute supporting roles that are nonetheless perfectly cast, like Eindreide Eisvold's all-seeing but hardly certain dry tone as the narrator.

While David Lynch prepares to team up with Werner Herzog to make a guerilla-style murder drama, his daughter is doing quite well on her own, thank you very much. indieWIRE reports that Surveillance, the first film by Jennifer Chambers Lynch in 15 years, has been picked up by Magnet Releasing for distribution in the US. The thriller will be playing out of competition at Cannes next week in one of the three Midnight screening slots.

Surveillance is set in the Santa Fe desert, where a blood-curdling killing spree has been unleashed, according to the official synopsis. The FBI arrives and listens to three eyewitnesses, including an eight-year-old girl whose family was brutally murdered. It becomes clear that the little girl knows something about the FBI agents ... and then two more bodies are found.

Creepy, eh? But not nearly as creepy as Lynch's first film, Boxing Helena, in which a surgeon held a woman captive and started amputating her limbs, all in the name of love. Based on the premise, Surveillance sounds much more straightforward, but perhaps the younger Lynch has some surprises up her sleeve.

The film stars Julia Ormond and Bill Pullman (David Lynch's Lost Highway) as the FBI agents, Pell James, Ryan Simpkins, and Kent Harper as the witnesses, and Michael Ironside as the local police chief. French Stewart and Cheri Oteri are also featured. Harper co-wrote the script with Lynch. Magnet Releasing, the genre arm of Magnolia Pictures, plans a fall theatrical roll-out.

Bonjour! Before I run out to the luncheon and roundtable for Blindness, I thought I'd get up a gallery with some scene pics around the festival and the lovely town of Cannes. I hope they'll give you something of a feel for what it's like to he here.

Cannes is a beautiful city -- lots of old buildings and winding streets, little shops, cafes and restaurants. There's so much to see and do here (besides, of course, watching tons of fabulous films) -- between the view of the Mediterranean Sea, the boats and yachts in the harbor, the islands off in the distance, and the people in designer clothing and fancy cars, it's a bit overwhelming to the senses.

Later in the fest, I plan to get out to wander through the Old Town area of Cannes, and hopefully will take the ferry across to at least one of the islands -- either the Île de Saint-Honorat, which houses a monastery, or the Île Sainte-Marguerite, where the Man in the Iron Mask was held captive. Later tonight or tomorrow, I'll also post some photos of the black-tie folks heading to premieres. Until then, merci, au revoir!

If you're a fan of Red Road, and were itching for the next part of the trilogy, I'm sorry to say that this isn't it. (Is the trilogy plan even continuing?!) It is, however, the second feature for the film's director, Andrea Arnold. Variety reports that Artificial Eye has pre-bought the UK rights to her next film, Fish Tank.

Unfortunately, the piece then goes on to talk about Eye's other projects and executive info, rather than the film. So, we've got this mysterious second picture. However, thanks to the Internet, I can fill in a tiny hole at least. According to MoveThat.com, Arnold was/is looking for her female lead for the film. "We're looking for young looking, white 16-19 year old girls who speak with strong London/South East accents who have attitude and who can street dance. Female breakers, poppers, lockers, and krumpers all very welcome."

UK readers out there, you'll have to fill us North American folk in on the slang, but I think it's safe to say that this is going to be some girl-headed film about dancing. Unfortunately, because of the language request, it'll probably also have really annoying English subtitles that don't match up with the words like Red Road.

That's all Google is allowing me to find right now, but please comment below if you've heard anything else about this feature.

The Cannes Film Festival got off to a kind of dark and depressing start, with two movies about the worst side of humanity screening. But hey, it wouldn't be a film festival without some nice movies about human suffering to brighten your day, right?

Seriously, though, we can see light-hearted rom-coms anytime; a festival like Cannes is where you go to see movies that make you ponder life, wax philosophical with friends about the use of voice-over in film and the deeper metaphorical meanings of this or that scene, and geek out over things like editing and cinematography.

I spent three days at the very first Marfa Film Festival, plus two days in transit -- more than 1,000 hard miles of driving -- and it was worth every effort to get there; even the post-fest illness that felled me for an entire week. I saw wonderful outdoor screenings, enjoyed some good docs and short films, and witnessed the debut of two music videos directed by Heath Ledger. Oh, and met many friendly local residents, talented filmmakers, and visiting film lovers.

Located in West Texas, roughly halfway between El Paso and San Antonio, the town of Marfa (population 2121) has the rare distinction of being the setting for two recent films that won Academy Awards: No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Some of the sets for the latter film are still standing, and I traveled there on a sunny afternoon with a small group of intrepid friends over a bumpy, curving, tail-bouncing dirt road that stretched for miles across a ranch just south of town. After depositing our load of bottled water for the opening night reception that would begin a few hours later, we wandered around the fictional town of Little Boston.

As authentically aged and real as the buildings look, it's not a real town, of course, it's a set, meant to evoke Bakersfield, California, circa 1911. Check out the gallery for pictures of the Blood set, visiting filmmakers and other sights of the festival. Read on for more about the festival itself.

The horrors of war and the atrocities of which humans are capable of have, of course, been documented extensively in film since the birth of the medium. From the recent slew of documentaries on the Iraq war to Atom Egoyan's controversial 2002 Cannes debut Ararat (about the 1915 massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman empire); from Schindler's List to The Killing Fields; from The Battle of Algiers to Apocalypse Now; from Ousmane Sembene's last film, Moolaadé (inspired by the genital mutilation of young girls in Burkina Faso) to The Devil Came on Horseback (a documentary chronicling the genocide in Darfur), recent cinematic history is filled with tales of human suffering, inflicted not by natural disasters, but by human beings upon one another.

Waltz with Bashir documents the struggle of the filmmaker, Ari Folman, to come to terms with the gaps in his memory surrounding the part he played in the first Lebanese war and the 1982 massacre of Palestinian civilians in the West Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Where Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (to which this film will be inevitably, if somewhat inaccurately, compared) used stark black-and-white animation based on Satrapi's graphic novels to tell the history of one girl growing up during the Iranian revolution, Waltz with Bashir uses vivid, hand-drawn animation to bring to life interviews Folman conducted with friends who were involved in the Lebanese war in the early 1980s to bring to life harrowing memories of death, guilt and regret.

Baby, when I met you there was peace unknown. I set out to get you with a fine tooth comb..

Okay, sorry. I couldn't resist. Like Ryan back in January, I had to start this with a little "Islands in the Stream," Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers style. (Btw: Did you know it was written by the Bee Gees?) Anyhow, back in January, we learned that Tommy Lee Jones was circling a new adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's first posthumous novel, Islands in the Stream. Now The Hollywood Reporter posts that Jones has signed on to adapt, direct, produce, and star in the project, which will be presented to buyers at Cannes.

Stream follows an American painter, Thomas Hudson, tucked away in the Bahamas. Through three acts, the reader is introduced to Hudson's life, from the arrival of his sons to his island getaway, to alcoholism and naval reconnaissance during WWII, to Hudson's desire to pursue a ship of German soldiers who killed an entire village. At one point, there was also a fourth part, but it was removed and became the epically popular The Old Man and the Sea.

Next time Terry Gilliam gets down about his bad luck, he should talk to Constantin Film about Pope Joan. In October of 2006, Franka Potente signed on. In April 2007, John Goodman got sued for backing out of the feature. That made production stop. Then director Volker Schlöndorff was fired over comments he made to a paper. Last we heard, there was a new director, Sönke Wortmann, but that was last August.

And I just had to go and say: "How funny would it be if she could no longer do it? Also disappointing, since I'd love to see her really command a period piece." The Hollywood Reporter posts that due to scheduling conflicts from the rampant delays, Franka is out and German actress Johanna Wokalek is in as Pope Joan. That news just, well, sucks. It would've been a great opportunity for Franka, and Wokalek isn't well-known stateside, which could affect the production further.

But here's where things get weird. It seems that although he was sued and left eons ago, "Constantin said Wednesday that it remains in talks with Goodman and that the actor could still join the cast." That would certainly help foreign cred, but is he really still around? Is this just due to the lawsuit? The whole production just seems like a mess.

Should I even bother saying that principle photography is now set for August, with the film's release set for 2009? Will this come to fruition, or are more problems on the way?

The deals are already flying fast and furious in Cannes. As befits an international marketplace, most of the action involves far-flung territories, but we're keeping an eye out for US distribution deals too. indieWIRE has a great round-up of the first day's activity, which includes the news that IFC Films has acquired distribution rights to two films.

Good buzz about 24-year-old Joshua Safdie's feature debut The Pleasure of Being Robbed began when it world premiered at SXSW in March. Somehow, the Cinematical crew missed seeing it (hey, we're only human, we miss things sometimes), but David Lowery at Spout raved: "It's pure cinema, and as such it's one of the best films I've seen this year." The comedy revolves around a kleptomaniac, played by co-writer Eleonore Hendricks, with a philanthropic streak. Pleasure is the only US title in the Director's Fortnight this year.

In 2005, Tom Hall declared: "There is not a more important filmmaker working today than Arnaud Desplechin." He previously made Kings & Queen and Esther Kahn, among other critically-acclaimed work. The French filmmaker's latest, A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël), features Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon and Mathieu Amalric "in a contemporary family drama set in France." The film plays in Official Competition and has its first screening on Friday night before opening theatrically in France next week.

We'll have to wait to hear about IFC's specific plans for distribution.

But can Sisto deliver them from evil?

The Hollywood Reporter posts that Kristin Chenoweth is going to star with Jeremy Sisto in an upcoming indie drama called Into Temptation. And finally, a link in my brain is showing up on the big screen. News of Chenoweth (Running with Scissors), always makes me think of Sisto, the Chenowiths, and Six Feet Under, so it's about time the two were combined.

And just like the dead-filled show, this is far from an upper. "Chenoweth will play a suicidal prostitute who confesses to a priest her plans to end her life on her birthday. The priest (Sisto) then searches for her to intervene."

Firstly, I really like the idea of a priest getting emotionally involved with a story he hears during confession. It breeds a million possibilities, but really -- do we need a struggling stripper on the big screen YET AGAIN? I feel like a broken record saying this, but it keeps continuing, so how can I not? There's enough flipping strippers on the big screen, people. Use those creative juices of yours to come up with new material!

The film is written and will be directed by Patrick Coyle, and production begins next week.