Palm Springs Film Fest Gets More International : Movies: Although the budget was trimmed by $200,000, the second event, which runs through Sunday, features 70 films from around the world-- 15 more than last year.

When Mayor Sonny Bono launched the Palm Springs International Film Festival last year with gusts of hyperbole that it would become the Cannes of the West Coast, some people scoffed that the mayor was simply having a few of his old Hollywood friends out for a clambake at the desert community’s expense.

But, say event organizers, the first festival earned $15,000 more than its $900,000 budget and with the West Coast premieres of the films that went on to win Oscars for best foreign-language picture (“Cinema Paradiso”) and best documentary (“For All Mankind”), they are now claiming that within five years they could have the best-known film festival in America.

“Last year, I admit I was really nervous when we opened with ‘Cinema Paradiso,’ ” said festival director Denis Pregnolato, who has been Bono’s business manager since 1972. “I was worried whether people would sit still for subtitles, but they loved the film. People told me that it had been the first time they’d been to the movies in 20 years. I became convinced we should look for films that would tell universal stories, despite the language barrier, and provide audiences something that they weren’t getting in regular theaters.”

Although the budget was trimmed by $200,000, the second Palm Springs festival, which runs through Sunday, has upped the ante in movies, featuring 70 films from around the world--15 more than last year.

And the menu is decidedly international.

Pregnolato has joined with Rome-based Felice Laudadio of EuropaCinema to present a showcase of 10 new European films, including Margarethe Von Trotta’s love story, “The Return,” and Robert Dornhelm’s Romanian saga, “Requiem for Dominic” (which is Austria’s Oscar entry).

The New Directors Showcase offers premieres of American films as well as foreign films, and the 24-film world cinema section will include the West Coast premieres of two Aki Kaurismaki films, “ I Hired a Contract Killer” and “The Match Factory Girl,” plus Eric Rohmer’s new “A Tale of Springtime,” and Jiri Menzel’s long-banned “Larks on a String.”

For the nostalgia-minded, there will be a tribute to the American musical plus an offering of student films and various seminars.

“Ever since I was chairman of tourism for the city I felt that the physical surroundings of Palm Springs, plus the proximity to our motion picture industry, lent itself to a film festival,” said Bono, at a VIP reception after Tuesday night’s opening premiere of Yves Robert’s “My Father’s Glory” at the Plaza Theater. “Now that we’re having our second year what’s significant is the consistency. You can’t skip a year; you need that stability.”

Bono and the other backers of the Palm Springs film venture acknowledge their desire to get the Hollywood film community interested in their event.

“I hope our own industry will become more involved,” Bono said. “I wish they’d come here to look at these new films without thinking of them in terms of dollars--not to care how much they cost or how much they will gross, but just for the sake of seeing a work of art and getting emotionally involved. There’s an unspoiled quality to foreign films because foreign filmmakers haven’t the luxury of Hollywood’s big budgets. They take us back to the basics.”

The festival doesn’t come at a time when Palm Springs merchants need the most help, but business leaders say the event helps perpetuate an image that goes back to the days when Palm Springs was Hollywood’s Hawaii.

“I can’t give you numbers per se, but the restaurateurs, hoteliers and merchants held a meeting after last year’s festival and universally agreed that it did a good job,” said Ted Grofer, executive director of the Downtown Business Improvement District. “The festival brings back some of the glamour of old Palm Springs, a mystique that needs to be maintained.”