A Move to Avoid the Glitter Glut

When it burst upon the scene in October, the Hollywood Film Festival immediately generated controversy. For starters, it was viewed by some in the film industry as a brazen upstart out to eclipse the glitter and glamour of the much older, more traditional American Film Institute’s Los Angeles International Film Festival, held later that same month. Some complained that it was confusing for Hollywood to host two film festivals back to back. A few prominent filmmakers also said that had they known the Hollywood Film Festival would compete with the AFI, they would never have lent their name to the fledgling festival. Now, the Hollywood Film Festival is back for a second year. The event has been moved up to August, which, if nothing else, removes the specter of dueling events. The six-day festival will get under way Wednesday with conferences at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and film screenings at Paramount Pictures’ Melrose Avenue studio. The festival will conclude Aug. 10 with a gala awards show at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where lifetime achievement awards will be bestowed on actress Shelley Winters, director Norman Jewison, producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown, and film composers Dave Grusin and Stewart Copeland. The festival is the brainchild of Carlos de Abreu, a former marketing executive at Cartier jewelers, who had long dreamed of hosting a film festival. As luck would have it, he discovered that no one had ever obtained the rights to the name “Hollywood Film Festival.” De Abreu said he chose to shift this year’s event to August to avoid scheduling conflicts. “We don’t want to be close to any major festival,” he said. “Some of our friends said, ‘Don’t do the festival in July because most of the blockbuster summer films come out.’ ” And September, he noted, is the month when distributors attend London screenings and film markets in Toronto and Milan. “What is left is the first week of August,” De Abreu said. As for the controversy his festival sparked last year, he noted: “It no longer matters what people think or not. They know [the festival] is good for the city. I believe people, at this time, believe they should be part of it because it is a good project. It’s good for the community. Everybody benefits. We are bringing tourists to Hollywood.”

ABC’s ‘Practice’ Finds New Office Space

Fresh off its Emmy nomination as best drama series, “The Practice” opens shop on a new night beginning Sunday. The ABC legal program, which stars Dylan McDermott, is certainly well-traveled, occupying its fourth time slot in less than 18 months--having premiered in “NYPD Blue’s” Tuesday precinct, returned on Saturdays last September, then moved again in January after the “Monday Night Football” season ended. ABC’s latest maneuver requires eliminating its 9 p.m. Sunday movie--something the network has done only once, briefly, since 1964. (The movie was bumped in 1987 to make room for “Dolly,” a variety show featuring Dolly Parton, and “Buck James,” a medical drama starring Dennis Weaver.) ABC will run the newsmagazine “20/20” opposite Fox’s “The X-Files” and CBS’ and NBC’s movies at 9 p.m., meaning “The Practice” will be the night’s lone 10 p.m. drama and, in theory, could attract some “X-Files” viewers reluctant to join a movie in progress. The ABC series has ridden Fox’s coattails before, benefiting from a cross-over episode connecting the show with another David E. Kelley production, “Ally McBeal.” ABC’s Sunday movies performed terribly in the ratings last season, so “The Practice’s” attorneys should at least find that bar easy to pass.

--Compiled by Times staff writers and contributors