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A movie buff who wants to see the biggest, most comprehensive film festival of the season should choose:
a) South by Southwest in Austin, Texas
b) Tribeca Film Festival in New York
c) Wait until summer and hit the Los Angeles Film Festival
The correct answer, of course, is d) none of the above. In terms of sheer volume, the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival, with a bigger-than-ever slate of 190 features, leaves its higher-profile rivals in the dust. MSPIFF 2011 offers one-third more choices than does SXSW or L.A. and beats Tribeca by more than 2 to 1.
In an era of belt-tightening, MSPIFF, one of the nation's longest-running and most highly attended film festivals, continues to expand. With something for virtually every type of movie lover, the 29th edition is an event designed for voracious, terminally inquisitive film geeks.
This year's lineup is a cavalcade of Mosts, Largests, New and Improveds. The program, opening Thursday at the five-screen St. Anthony Main Theatre, is the first 22-day run since the event began in 1983. The programmers have pushed to include more diverse fare. A sidebar on film music, a strong slate of French movies and programs on ecological sustainability and current affairs were created "to reflect the interests of the community, but in a different way than in the past," said...