273 movies in queue for MSP film fest

The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival gets under way Thursday evening at the St. Anthony Theatre in Minneapolis, where for the next three weeks some 273 films will be screened nearly continuously from noon to midnight. The films come from 70 countries.

The festival will also feature a series of 51 of films with a Minnesota connection. Tom DeBiaso, a filmmaker and professor at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, put that series together.

Tom DeBiaso told MPR's Daily Circuit program the Minnesota-themed films faced the same scrutiny to get into the festival as did other movies.

"That was one of the reasons we brought in a large jury of nine working professionals in the film community that looked at the work and brought their expertise in that selection process," he said.

Films in the Minnesota series are either made by a director who lives in Minnesota, comes from Minnesota, or used the state in his or her movie.