by MATTHEW HAYS

This year marks the eighth rendition of Festivalissimo, the superbly curated film festival of Spanish-language movies. This year's event unreels at the Cinéma du Parc, Cinémathèque and the NFB downtown, again highlighting this too-often-overlooked cinema. (One hopes that the current runaway success of City of God and its four Oscar nominations will continue to open doors for Latin American features.)

Among the standouts at this year's event: Common Places is a Spanish-Argentine coproduction concerning the plight of a sexegenerean couple as they try to cope after he's forced into an early retirement due to the Argentine fiscal crisis. Playing Swede is a Cuban film about a Swedish writer who boards with an older Cuban couple. The couple, as it turns out, are not so wild about the intrusion, but desperately need the cash. Then, a friendship develops between them. What the Eye Doesn't See is Francisco J. Lombardi's fascinating glimpse into the corruption in Peru's government, so severe it brought down the Fujimori administration. Six stories overlap in this engaging narrative. Festavilissimo's film screenings begin on Friday, March 5, and run throughout the week. Details: www.festivalissimo.net

Our eighth annual Alternative Academy Awards race is over. Understandably, readers didn't have a difficult time predicting who would win, given the can-see-it-coming-a-billion-miles-away outcomes. The most mysterious thing here is why so many chose Diane Keaton as the best-actress winner; come come now, people, it was sooooo obvious that Charlize was going to take that category! Anyway, a whack of you got all six categories correct. Of those ballots, three of you were chosen from a hat by our lovely news editor. The winners are as follows: Lisa B. Mendes takes first prize, an Ex-Centris Ciné-carte and several Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm run-of-engagement passes; second prize goes to Denys Landry, who wins a Cinéma du Parc membership card and several Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm run-of-engagement passes; last but by no means least is Gordon Gottlieb, who takes third prize, several Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm run-of-engagement passes. Thanks to all those who entered and special thanks to our sponsors who supplied the prize packages. See you all next year at the Oscars and let's hope they're not as terminally boring as they were this year!

In the deeply embarrassing corrections department, it must be stated that in the results of our Alternative Academy Awards race last week, the "Most Overlooked Movie" responses were screwed up, due to the incompetence of one silly bitch (that would be me). Here are the results to that crucial question as they should have appeared:

Elephant 31%; Kill Bill Vol. 1 25%; 28 Days Later 16%, Shattered Glass 11%; A Mighty Wind 10%; School of Rock 7%. I hope I got it right this time, or else next week I'll have to print a correction to my correction.

Student filmmakers should take note that the second annual city-wide Montreal Student Film Festival, held in April, is now taking submissions. The deadline is March 19. Check their web site (www.kurvits.com/msff) for details.

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