Highlights of the Wine Country Film Festival

The Wine Country Film Festival opens Sept. 16 in Kenwood with a new film by Jean-Jacques Annaud - a naturalistic adventure with shades of Jack London featuring real wolves.

“Wolf Totem” was filmed in Inner Mongolia under daunting conditions over a period of a year and a half. Relying on few visual effects, Annaud lets nature stir the senses with magnificent scenery and the 30 wolves with whom he cultivated a relationship over three years.

The environmental allegory takes place during the 1967 Chinese Cultural Revolution. Student Chen Zhen arrives from Peking to teach the nomadic Mongols how to read and write Chinese and becomes fascinated by a pack of wolves that Party officials are hoping to thwart by killing their cubs.

Annaud’s previous film “Enemies at the Gate” was banned by Chinese officials.

The festival runs Sept. 16 to 21. Admission is $10 to $20 per film or $75 for a six-day pass for Sonoma County residents. A festival pass is $100 for non-county residents. For show times, locations, tickets and other details visit wcff.us.

Other festival highlights include:

“The Intern,” a studio comedy with Robert De Niro as a retired phone book company executive who signs up for a “senior” internship at a fashion website to get out of the house and finds it’s never to late to learn.

“Little Forest: Winter / Spring,” about a young woman who retreats to a remote mountain village in Japan to rediscover the nature-based life of her grandmother who cooked fabulous food foraged from the fields and forest.

“Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning,” the story of the photographer who captured the iconic image of a migrant mother that came to symbolize the despair of The Depression. The film incorporates never-seen photos as well as photos of the old Monticello town that was flooded to make way for Lake Berryessa. The film was directed and narrated by Bay Area native Dyanna Taylor, who will appear at the screening.

“Kiss The Water,” a documentary by Eric Steel (The Bridge, Julie & Julia, Angela’s Ashes) about Scottish fly-fishing fly maker Megan Boyd. The film will be followed by a fly contest and a talk by Josh Leland of Leland Fly Fishing Ranch in Sonoma.

“Beatbox,” an independent dramatic feature set in Manhattan featuring a young underdog who discovers his talents as a Beatbox musician. After the film producer Jon Furay will oversee a BeatBox competition.

“Trials Of Spring.” Oscar-nominated director Gini Reticker will attend the screening of this film which is the journey of a young Egyptian woman who sets out from her village in search of freedom and social justice in a country rocked by internal power struggles and repression.

“Rewined.” Director Ferdinando Vicentini will appear at the screening of this film about a revered wine expert charged with his wife’s murder, setting into motion an investigation that crosses the boundaries of reality.

“The Poet Of Havana - Carlos Varela” looks at the man whose underground music is beloved throughout Cuba. The film features Jackson Browne and Benicio del Toro. Producer Jack Lenz and director Ron Chapman will attend.

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com or 521-5204.