FILM/SNEAK PEEK : THE STORIES OF IMMIGRANTS.

Byline: - Bob McCarthy

Life in the big city can be cold, lonely and debilitating to the human spirit, even more so for the modern immigrants who arrive in New York with expectations that the streets are paved with prosperity. David Riker, a still photographer-turned-cinematographer, offers a compelling dramatization of their existence in his fictional ``La Ciudad,'' which has been chosen to close the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival on Sunday.

Riker's black-and-white film is broken into four vignettes - ``The Puppeteer,'' ``Bricks,'' ``Home'' and ``Seamstress'' - that tell differing aspects of the isolation and hand-to-mouth reality that awaits the wave of newcomers. His storytelling and camerawork convey the powerlessness of his characters, who are not actors but immigrants from the Americas, the Dominican Republic and Cuba.

While despair is never far away, Riker never lets his characters wallow in self-pity. Instead, they demonstrate a life-affirming resilience and a sense of community in spite of aching misfortune and unscrupulous bosses who exploit them for cheap labor.

``La Ciudad'' will screen at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Paramount Studios Theatre, 5555 Melrose Ave., Hollywood. A gala party follows at the Conga Room, and a ticket for both event costs $25.

For festival information, call [phone].

`Lolita' story

For anyone curious why this summer's remake of ``Lolita'' dropped out of sight immediately after it opened, the answer is simple. It ran for one week in late July at the Landmark Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills to qualify for Oscar consideration, before being pulled from theaters - as planned - so Showtime could screen it in early August. It goes into wider release today in nine major cities after reopening here in theaters late last month.

The film, which co-stars Jeremy Irons, Melanie Griffith and fresh-faced Dominique Swain in the title role, is director Stephen Schiff's retelling of Vladimir Nabokov's novel about a man's obsession with a sexually precocious teen-age girl.

``Lolita'' is playing at the Laemmle Town Center Cinema in Encino, the Laemmle Esquire in Pasadena, the Cineplex Broadway Cinemas in Santa Monica and the Westside Pavilion in Los Angeles.

Music of Gershwin

``Rhapsody in Blue'' and ``Shall We Dance,'' a pair of films filled with the brilliant melodies of the late American composer George Gershwin, will screen at 7 p.m. Oct. 16 as part of the Academy Standards series.

``Rhapsody'' is the lavish film biography of Gerswhin, who died in 1937 at the age of 37, that features an Oscar-nominated score. Robert Alda portrays Gershwin and Herbert Rudley his lyricist brother, Ira. ``Shall We Dance'' is the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical-comedy for which Gershwin wrote the musical score. The song ``They Can't Take That Away From Me'' was nominated for an Oscar, but even more memorable is ``Let's Call the Whole Thing Off.''

The screening in the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre commemorates Gershwin's 100th birthday.

Tickets are $5 for general admission, $3 for academy members, and may be purchased in advance during business hours at the academy or by mail. The academy is at 8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills. Call [phone] for information.

The interactive USC 

Mark Pesce, who has earned a reputation as a cyberspace and virtual reality innovator, has been named director of the interactive media program at the USC School of Cinema-Television.

Among his accomplishments, Pesce is credited with inventing the Virtual Reality Modeling Language, or VRML, the standard computer language used to create three-dimensional worlds on Internet Web browsers. Most recently, Pesce was chairman and chief technology officer of Web-based entertainment company blitcom LLC, and has been a consultant to Apple Computer Corp. and Sega of America. He has written three books about the World Wide Web and articles dealing with virtual reality and the information superhighway, and he serves as an adviser to several companies in the field.

As director, Pesce plans to expand the school's noted writing, directing and production courses into areas of game design, interactive narrative and techniques. ``We expect that graduates of this program will generate the best of the next generation of interactive works,'' he added.

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Photo

Photo: Stephanie Viruet and Jose Rabelo star in ``The Puppeteer'' segment of ``La Ciudad,'' screening Sunday at the Paramount Studios Theatre.