SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — The San Diego International Film Festival kicks off with a provocative drama starring A-list talent and promises to spark conversations about power, secrets and accountability.
Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, and Ayo Edebiri star in the festival's opening film "After the Hunt." Roberts plays a college professor whose star student levels an accusation against one of her colleagues, threatening to expose a dark secret from her past.
"It is going to be a conversation starter, that's for sure," said Tonya Mantooth, CEO and artistic director of the San Diego International Film Festival. "And so that is going to be, I think that's definitely going to get some attraction on the award circuit."
The festival also features "Hamnet," which chronicles William Shakespeare and his wife dealing with the death of their son, an experience many believe led him to write "Hamlet."
Oscar winner Brendan Fraser stars in "Rental Family" as an American actor who lands an unusual job with a Japanese talent agency playing stand-in roles for strangers.
The festival includes shorts and documentaries, including "Ugo: an Artist at War." On D-Day, Ugo Giannini came ashore with the first assault wave on Omaha Beach. An artist, Ugo made drawings and wrote letters about his service, which his wife discovered after his death.
The last day of the festival focuses on culinary cinema with "The Chef & the Daruma," which introduces audiences to Hidekazu Tojo, a Japanese immigrant to Canada who rose to prominence and is credited with inventing the California roll.
"He flipped it around, put the rice on the outside, and introduced it, but it's also a really interesting spiritual journey for him, and it ties in the spirituality of Japan and the craft in which they take when they do the food," Mantooth said.
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