ALMOST ELVIS
United States - World Premiere

75 mins. Raleigh Studios, Chaplin Theater, 9:00 p.m., Aug. 4, Saturday.

Almost Elvis is the definitive documentary on Elvis impersonators, a world where imitation is truly the sincerest form of flattery and no matter how cruel the persecution or costly the jumpsuit, every Elvis will stop at nothing to master his or her tribute to the indisputable master of showmanship.

Director/Writer/Producer/Editor: John Paget
Director of Photography: Matt Valentine
Print Contact: 323-845-1455, Seventh Art Releasing

CHILDREN UNDERGROUND
United States - Los Angeles Premiere
108 mins. Paramount Theater, 1:00 p.m., Aug. 4, Saturday.

This modern tale ventures below the streets of Bucharest, Romania, to reveal the lives of the many abandoned children who live there. Primarily told through the eyes and words of five of these forgotten children, the film poignantly captures their daily struggles against hunger, drug abuse and violence. The intimate cinema verite style allows the children to speak for themselves with striking naturalness, revealing both the horrific conditions of their existence and their uninhibited, distinctive personalities.

Director/Producer: Edet Belzberg
Executive Producers: Sheilah Kitt McKinnon, Michel Negroponte
Co-Producers: Jonathan Oppenheim, Alan Oxman
Director of Photography: Wolfgang Held
Editor: Jonathan Oppenheim
Cinemaxreel Life: Executive Producer Sheila Nevins
Print Contact: 212-579-6988, Belzberg Films

CUNNAMULLA
WINNER - BEST DOCUMENTARY
Australia - U.S. Premiere
82 mins. Raleigh Studios, Chaplin Theater, 5:00 p.m., Aug. 4, Saturday.

Cunnamulla, 800 kilometers west of Brisbane, is the end of the railway line. Here, Aboriginal people and white Australians live together but apart. In the months leading up to a scorching Christmas in the bush, there's a lot more going on than the annual lizard race. Sometimes sad, often hilarious, this is an astonishingly honest portrait of life in a small, isolated outback community.

Director/Producer/Director of Photography: Dennis O'Rourke
Editors: Dennis O'Rourke, Andrea Lang
Print Contact: +61 2 9413 8636, Film Australia

THE DIPLOMAT
Australia - Los Angeles Premiere
82 mins. Paramount Theater, 8:30 p.m., Aug. 5, Sunday.

For 24 years East Timor's freedom fighter and Nobel Peace Prize winner, José Ramos-Horta, campaigned to secure independence for his country, a Portuguese colony invaded by Indonesia in 1975. The Diplomat takes up Ramos-Horta's story in the final dramatic stages of his long journey.


Director: Tom Zubrycki
Writers: Wilson Da Silva, Tom Zubrycki
Producers: Sally Browning, Wilson Da Silva (Co-Producer)
Executive Producers: Stefan Moore, Megan McMurchy
Cinematography: Robert Humphreys, Tom Zubrycki, Jo Parker, Joel Peterson
Editor: Ray Thomas
Print Contact: +61 2 9413 8636, Film Australia

FRANCISCO BOIX: A PHOTOGRAPHER IN HELL
Spain - U.S. Premiere
55 mins. Studio Theater, 2:00 p.m., Aug. 4, Saturday.

This documentary recounts the life of photographer Francisco Boix (Barcelona, 1920 - Paris, 1952). After the Spanish civil war, exile led him to the concentration camp of Mauthausen. Once there, he was sent to the photographic laboratory, from which he surreptitiously removed over 2,000 photographs in a resistance operation unique in the history of Nazi repression. After liberation, Boix took some of these photos to the Nuremberg Trial.

Director/Writer/Cinematographer: Lorenzo Soler
Executive Producer: Oriol Porta
Editor: Angels Tous
Print Contact: +34 93 467 10 10, Area de Televisión

FREAKS, GLAM GODS AND ROCK STARS . . . THE NYC STORY
United States - West Coast Premiere
86 mins. Studio Theater, 9:00 p.m., Aug. 4, Saturday.

This movie is an unabashed celebration of New York as the one place on earth where you can be your most outrageous, gender-bent self. This is a real, unvarnished downtown New York culture: tough, defiant and proud, and presented without a trace of leering condescension that is often lavished on the scene in a spirit of exploration.

Director/Producer/Director of Photography/Editor: John T. Ryan
Print Contact: 212-866-6229, Ryan Island Films

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