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A terrific Eleanor Roosevelt anecdote -- and a timely one, today -- is how she opened her address to those blue-blooded DAR dames (Daughters of the American Revolution): "My fellow immigrants ..."
The sainted Eleanor's approval has been channeled for this year's Carnegie Mellon International Film Festival, which opens tonight at the Melwood Screening Room in Oakland and continues over three weekends into April. Its theme is "Faces of Migration," and it offers a brilliant baker's dozen movies about the tribulations of immigrants and emigrants the world over.
Consider "First of All, Felicia" (****) -- my favorite. How many Romanian-Dutch films are you familiar with? I thought so. But you'll be glad you got familiar with this delightful black comedy, whose title character (Ozana Oancea) is desperate to escape from a stressful visit to her parents in Bucharest and get home to Amsterdam in time to pick up her son from summer camp.
Trouble is, her overbearing mother's obsessive fussing over her ailing father causes frazzled Felicia to miss her flight. Even worse, Mama (Ileana Cernat) insists on accompanying her to the airport and complicates the nightmarish rebooking process. Razvan Radulescu's brilliant script and deft direction sparkles with wry humor and captures the complexities of...
