Q: What do an American woman playing an 18th Century Irish woman pretending to be a man, a 31-piece hip hop orchestra, a pair of 20-something breakout stars, a Chinese actress’ portrayal of a Burmese democracy activist, an heir to an Indian classical music throne and a webcast connecting Java, Istanbul and Tehran have in common? A: One of the most diverse Mill Valley Film Festivals in recent memory. The 11-day festival that always strives for a diverse offering seemed to do itself one better with its 34th edition, serving up 178 screenings and drawing 40,000 people in the process. “We had a …

"Bang!" The Artist, the remarkable closing night film of the 34th Mill Valley Film Festival. The festival itself echoed that with a raucous twist of its own Sunday night, ending 11 days of cinematic excellence with a thunderous Closing Night party performance from the daKAH Hip Hop Orchestra, a 31-piece band that used every square inch the San Rafael Community Center's stage.

"Alam never plays alone - he is always accompanied by his heritage." So said Rohnert Park filmmaker Joshua Dylan Mellars in introducing the "Play Like a Lion Live" musical tribute to Alam Khan's father, the late Indian classical musician Ali Akbar Khan, at 142 Throckmorton Theatre Saturday night. The point was made clear by Mellars' documentary itself, which screened at the 34th Mill Valley Film Festival last week. On this night, sarod player Alam Khan had plenty of accompaniment beyond his esteemed lineage, including his brother Manik Khan on tampura, Salar Nader on tabla and Arjun Verma on …

Under the water is a perfect, serene world beautifully depicted in Jim Sugar's Swimming in a Dream. "It's a positive addiction. It makes me feel strong and light and smooth," one swimmer told Sugar. You're almost levitated or transformed into somewhere else. You're in what I think of as a inner space. The hypnotic sound of the rhythm of the breathing, the rhythm of the strokes, it's a very spectacular sensation."A member of the North Bay Aquatics Masters group, Sugar turned the camera on himself and his fellow swimmers to produce the short film that has its Mill Valley Film Festival debut …

"It's not the years, it's the mileage." Thirty years after its original release, neither the years nor the mileage have diminished Raiders of the Lost Ark. A capacity crowd cheered as the famous adventurer/archaeologist Indiana Jones delivered the classic line during a 30th anniversary celebration and screening Monday night at the Century Cinema in Corte Madera as part of the 34th Mill Valley Film Festival. The line of ticket holders, including an array of fedora-sporting, would-be adventurers, stretched around the outside of the theater, with a second line growing as fans hoped to get a late…

Actress Michelle Yeoh was at the Rafael Film Center Saturday night for a Spotlight event centered on a screening her new film, The Lady, which chronicles the lives of Burmese pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi and her husband Michael Aris. Yeoh and The Lady director Luc Besson sat down for a Q&A with MVFF Executive Director Mark Fishkin after the screening.

There’s no shortage of documentary films in recent years that touch down in a remote place to unveil a tragic tale of woeful conditions or something far worse. Many of them have drawn well-deserved critical acclaim. Those are not the projects Mill Valley filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia seeks. “For many of them, just because you watched the film doesn’t mean anything has changed,” she said. “I want to make the kind of films that highlight an idea where people say, ‘I think I can do that too.’ They are specifically to model behavior that people can go out and actually do something.” Koons Garcia…

Mill Valley resident Marsha Heckman experienced seemingly contradictory emotions Thursday night, and had Mark and Jay Duplass - and their film Jeff, Who Lives at Home - to thank for it. “Thank you for making me laugh and cry at the same time,” Heckman told the filmmakers at a post-screening Q&A at the Cinearts at Sequoia Theatre for the 34th Mill Valley Film Festival’s opening night. Heckman’s sentiments seemed to sum up the overall crowd reaction to the film, and the Duplass brothers explained that its mix of emotions was a major theme in the script they wrote. “They see the world very much …

From the Lennons to the Marleys and a bevy in between, the history of music is rife with stories of children inheriting a massive sonic legacy from their superstar musician parents and trying to build upon it – some better than others. Although he spent most of his 70-year career far from the spotlight of Western popular music, few can match the multi-faceted legacy of Indian classical music icon Ali Akbar Khan. Play Like a Lion: The Legacy of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, which screens Sunday, Oct. 9 and Wednesday, Oct. 12 during the Mill Valley Film Festival, tells the story of that legacy and …

Starting tonight, our little town places itself at the center of the film universe for the 34th year, transforming Mill Valley into a cinematic mecca. Opening night at this year's Mill Valley Film Festival offers audiences a choice between the 19th century and the 21st: Albert Nobbs, with Glenn Close as a top-hatted Victorian in the much-acclaimed role that she created off-Broadway, and the very of-the-moment Duplass brothers' slacker comedy, Jeff Who Lives at Home. MVFF's closing night film on Oct. 16, The Artist, stars Cannes Best Actor Jean Dujardin and takes place in Hollywood in 1927, …