Read Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com To read this entire feature FREE with photos cut and paste this link: http://www.jetsettersmagazine.com/archive/jetezine/film/seattle/focus/focused.html

Film festivals are a great way to travel: either to travel to a city where a film festival is happening, or to "travel" through wonders of cinema.

Some film festivals have become so famous that cities they are in have become destinations: Cannes, San Sebastian, Park City (Sundance), Telluride. Other festivals are in famous cities such as New York or Toronto. The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) is now in its 27th year (they skipped 13, so this one was dubbed "28th annual") and provides a great way to get to know Seattle. Since venues are spread out over downtown and Capitol Hill, I spent a great deal of time walking between theaters, finding restaurants along way, and just admiring views of Puget Sound, Elliott Bay, and majestic Olympic Mountains.

As far as travel through film goes, I spent three hours in far north with Inuktituts of northern Canada (The Fast Runner), some time in a cab in Santiago, Chile (A Cab for Three), bopped along to musicals from Thailand and Japan (Mon-rak Transistor and The Happiness of Katikuris, respectively), and learned a sobering lesson about AIDS orphans in Uganda (ABC Africa).

Film festivals also challenge your perceptions about other countries. For example, who knew that usually bleak Finns could produce a comedy similar to a "Kids in Hall" sketch (On Road to Emmaus) or that Swedish actresses had a sense of humor (Gossip)? Or for instance, that a Japanese vampire/samurai/gangster/zombie movie (Versus) could have a higher mousse::actor ratio than a John Waters film? If you want to see truest movie about gay lovers that I've ever seen, mainland China would not be first place I would think of, but Lan Yu floored me with its brutally honest portrayal. No Will or Grace here.

Read Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com To read this entire feature FREE with photos cut and paste this link: http://www.jetsettersmagazine.com/archive/jetezine/hotels/calif/roosevelt/roosevelt.html

The first Academy Awards presentation took place at brand-new Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California, in Blossom Room on May 16, 1929.

Today that same hotel, albeit with a recent multi-million dollar restoration, is only historic hotel in Hollywood still serving travelers, and one of only three such properties in Los Angeles area. This year marks Roosevelt's 75th Anniversary.

Amenities that those original Hollywood movie celebrities missed are new nightclub, Feinstein's at Cinegrill, with state-of-the-art sound and lighting, top entertainment and cuisine. We wonder what Janet Gaynor, Emil Jennings, and Clara Bow would have thought of Precor elliptical trainers, Star Trac treadmills, and free weights in multi-gym fitness center?

The Hollywood Roosevelt was dream of local real estate baron, Charles E. Toberman, who wanted to create a hotel befitting rapidly growing film world and its attendant social circles. The name of 26th President of United States, Theodore Roosevelt, was chosen to convey buoyant optimism of Hollywood throng at time. Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were on committee that formulated hotel because they, too, wanted a showplace in Hollywood.

Across from Grauman's Chinese Theatre on legendary Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood Roosevelt is now on National Register of Historic Places. One step into lobby lounge area, with its massive European brass chandelier - originally holding candles - and high, ornately carved and painted ceilings and one can see why. The same intricate ceiling work dominates Blossom Room, which also has Mexican tile wainscoting and three original seven-foot double entry doors of carved oak. Public area floors combine saltillo and Mexican pottery tiles, stained oak and thick, deco-patterned carpets. The balcony wall features historic black and white Hollywood photography, and soft piano jazz wafts throughout.