REEL LIFE / FILM & VIDEO FILE : At Ventura City Hall It’s Lights, Camera, Action : Building is one of the locations for a movie thriller titled ‘Enemies Within.’ Several city employees have parts.

If you wondered what all the commotion was at Ventura City Hall when you went to pay your water bill, it was a film crew using the east portico for a movie to be titled “Enemies Within.”

Rick French, a desk officer with the Ventura Police Department, is the assistant director for the picture, which follows an investigative reporter who uncovers a deadly virus that began as part of a government germ warfare project.

If you spend much time in the city’s budget department, you might recognize a couple of the extras in the film. They are Ruby Newsome and department manager Mike Solomon.

The movie is slated for limited theatrical release before general release on video next year.

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If you’re tired of watching the classics on the small screen and feel like checking the gas mileage on your car, San Luis Obispo is putting on a film festival Monday through Thursday.

Featured films are “Top Hat,” “Public Enemy,” “Double Indemnity,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and a restored version of “El Cid,” among others. For more information call the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce at 781-2777.

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Ojai Film Society presents “Close to Eden” on Sunday Oct. 31. Voted best film at the Venice Film Festival and nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Film, this French and Russian collaboration is about culture clash on the steppes of Inner Mongolia.

Gombo, a nomadic shepherd befriends Sergei, a Russian truck driver who is building a road to connect Gombo’s remote village to the outside world, and persuades Sergei to drive him into the city so he can obtain the condoms and television set his city-bred wife has been urging him to buy.

Critic Bruce Williamson described it as “a poignant and beguiling movie.” It’s also one of the few films featuring an accordion rendition of Mozart. Screening is at 4:30 p.m. at the Ojai Playhouse, 145 E. Ojai Ave. Admission is $6.

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The New Vic Theater is showing a film called “Flirting,” a love story between a stuttering white youth and a Ugandan girl who fall in love despite the lake that separates their two boarding schools, and the social norms keeping them apart. There are two shows tonight at 6 and 8 p.m. at the Plaza Player’s Theatre, 35 N. Palm St. in Ventura.

Pancho Doll compiles Reel Life each week for Ventura County Life. If you have information on local film, television or video events or personalities write to him at 5200 Valentine Road, Suite 140, Ventura, 93003 or send faxes to 658-5576.

TOP VIDEO RENTALS

Here is a list of the 20 most popular video rental movies as reported by rental stores in Ventura County. 1. Indecent Proposal 2. Loaded Weapon 1 3. Fire in the Sky 4. Indian Summer 5. Falling Down 6. Jack the Bear 7. Cop and a Half 8. Sidekicks 9. The Temp 10. Groundhog Day 11. Aladdin 12. Boiling Point 13. The Sandlot 14. The Crush 15. Point of No Return 16. Alive 17. Chaplin 18. Mad Dog and Glory 19. A League of Their Own 20. Afraid of the Dark