The 12th annual Sacramento Film and Music Festival opens its SummerFEST program tonight by honoring another long time Festival director.  This year's Film Arts Service Award will be presented to Cecile Mouette Downs, director of the Sacramento French Film Festival.  Cecille has worked previously for the Film Department of the French Embassy in New York City, and as a Press Officer for the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel in Paris. She has a master’s degree in history, is a regular contributor to “France Today” magazine, and was the 2010 recipient of the Arts Executive of the Year Award from the Sacramento Arts & Business Council. This is the fifth Film Arts Service Award to be presented

Programming a film festival is an odd and varied process. Some events go out and pro-actively seek the best films that they can find, in an extensive search process – and we see this approach in such local great events as the Sacramento Jewish, French, Japanese, and Gay and Lesbian Film Fests. Other events are submission-based: A call for films is distributed, and filmmakers from a given area submit their works in the hopes of making it to the top of the pile. This latter approach, perhaps best exemplified on a grand scale by the Sundance Film Festival, is also used (on a more modest level) by the Sacramento Film & Music Festival and that given area is the entire world. This year, films

On Sunday, author of “Sacramento’s Southside Park” and board member of the Sacramento Old City Association (SOCA) William Burg led a walking tour of Southside Park and the surrounding area. “The tours stemmed from Jane’s Walk USA, a national organization that began in 2007 using neighborhood walking tours as a way to help people get in touch with their environment,” said Kay Knepprath, event coordinator and fellow board member of SOCA. This is the event’s second year in Sacramento. The tour of Southside Park was one in a series of five tours that occurred throughout Sacramento on Saturday and Sunday. While the morning was a bit gray and chilly, a group of about 20 gathered together just

The Muslim Mosque Association of Sacramento announced plans to expand its presence in the Southside Park community by converting a nearby building at 2110 Fifth St. into a multiuse facility and community center. Southside Park Neighborhood Association President Beverly Bumpas said it was the first time the MMA had sent representatives to a neighborhood meeting. Bumpas said she believed their desire to build a new facility has now given them “reason to make the effort to be involved.” A vibrant Muslim community has existed in Southside Park since the first mosque west of the Mississippi River was constructed there in 1946. The Muslim presence in the community has aided in transitioning Mu

The California office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CA) recently published an annual report revealing civil rights abuses, and harassment against Muslims in California. Verbal harassment, employment discrimination and the denial of religious accommodation all increased by double digit percentage points, 41 percent 19 percent and 12 percent respectively, while the number of workplace incidents rose from 88 cases in 2007 to 103 cases in 2008. In 2008 CAIR-CA processed a total of 480 incidents, a decrease from the 553 reported in 2007. The report noted that despite the number of incidents against Muslims is down from the year prior, certain areas of discrimination saw a

What do a Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist and atheist have in common? Besides the fact that they all perform stand-up on the "Coexist? Comedy Tour," they are all from Northern California and have spent time in the same Prius while on the road. Saturday night, the Coexist Tour will stop at the Crest Theatre for a live taping. The show features Tissa Hami (the Muslim), Mike Winfield (the Christian), Tapan Trivedi (the Hindu), Moshe Kasher (the Jew), Keith Lowell Jensen (the atheist) and Sammy Obeid (the Buddhist) performing stand-up about their religious differences. It started a little over two years ago, with a conversation between Jensen and Trivedi about God. Jensen told Trived