Mar 29, 2011
Festival
The San Francisco International Film Festival (April 21-May 5) opens its 54th year with an exhilarating lineup of films from around the world and an inspired variety of accompanying festivities. Highly anticipated by its loyal and passionate audiences, championed by civic and community leaders, admired by filmmakers and closely watched by industry professionals, SFIFF is one of the most important events on the Bay Area cultural calendar and an important stop on the international festival circuit. SFIFF54 opens April 21 and runs through May 5, with 188 films from 48 countries, including three world premieres, one international premiere, seven North American premieres and five US premieres.
It all begins Thursday, April 21 with Beginners (USA 2010), as Opening Night at 7:00 pm at the historic Castro Theatre raises the curtain on director Mike Mills’ charming autobiographical tale inspired by his own father’s decision to come out late in life. A graphic artist (Ewan McGregor) who has always been unlucky in love embarks on a new relationship and gradually absorbs the lessons imparted by his father (Christopher Plummer), who emerges from a passionless marriage at 75 and comes out of the closet, refusing to let even a cancer diagnosis blunt his eagerness to let love into his life. After the screening, the Opening Night party kicks off at 9:30 pm at the elegant Terra Gallery in SOMA, where partygoers can celebrate and mingle while enjoying refreshing cocktails, international culinary delights and live music.
The Festival’s Centerpiece screening is a not-to-be-missed night showcasing the latest work from a celebrated new director. This year features Azazel Jacobs’ Terri(USA) followed by a chic party at one of San Francisco’s hottest nightspots. A heavy, shambling junior high student, Terri is the physical incarnation of all the insecurity and awkwardness that accompanies emerging adolescence, befriended by vice principal and fellow misfit Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly) in this hilariously touching, deeply humane tale of youth in transition. Terri will screen at 7:30 pm on Saturday, April 30 at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, followed by the Centerpiece party at 9:30 pm at CLIFT, located at 495 Geary Street (at Taylor). Cool cocktails and delectable hors d’oeuvres will add up to one hot scene.
The Festival’s Closing Night offers a rousing finale at 7:00 pm on Thursday, May 5, beginning with a screening of On Tour (France/Germany). Acclaimed French actor Mathieu Amalric directs and stars in this sexy yet wistful comedy about a disgraced French TV producer making a comeback with a troupe of buxom, brassy American burlesque performers touring the French countryside. After the screening, the Closing Night party commences at 9:30 pm at the Factory (525 Harrison Street near First Street) one of San Francisco’s most vivacious nightclubs, where partygoers will dance the night away to sizzling beats and enjoy delicious hors d’oeuvres and cocktails.
Three major award recipients will be feted at the annual Film Society Awards NightThursday, April 28 at Bimbo’s 365 Club in North Beach. This year’s Founder’s Directing Award will go to a soon-to-be-named director who has had a major impact on world cinema. The recipient will also appear at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas on Wednesday, April 27, at 7:00 pm where a special onstage tribute will include a clip reel of career highlights, an interview and a film screening. The Peter J. Owens Award honors an actor whose work exemplifies brilliance, independence and integrity. The soon-to-announced recipient will be on hand at the Castro on Friday, April 29 at 7:30 pm for an onstage interview, retrospective film clips and a screening of a film. The Kanbar Award, honoring excellence in screenwriting, goes this year to the legendary Frank Pierson. The scribe behind some of the freshest and most enduring films in the canon of American cinema, including Cool Hand Luke and Dog Day Afternoon, Pierson also directed and helped write the storied (and infamously difficult) production of Barbra Streisand’s A Star Is Born. In addition to Awards Night, Pierson will join the Festival on Saturday, April 30, at 12:30 pm at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas for an onstage interview followed by a screening of the iconic film for which he received the Academy Award, Dog Day Afternoon (USA 1975). On Friday, April 29, 5:00 pm at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas Pierson will conduct a master class, Frank Pierson: A Writer’s Life, with an intimate discussion about the craft of screenwriting.
The Film Society’s Mel Novikoff Award, named for the pioneering San Francisco film exhibitor, is bestowed annually on an individual or institution whose work has enhanced the filmgoing public’s knowledge and appreciation of world cinema. This year’s recipient is the tireless Serge Bromberg, an indispensible force for film restoration and preservation as well as a film programmer, filmmaker and first-rate showman to boot. At An Afternoon with Serge Bromberg, Sunday, May 1 at 5:00 pm at the Castro Theatre, Bromberg will take part in an onstage interview followed by a special program featuring some of the earliest examples of 3-D motion pictures as well as some contemporary gems, and hosted and accompanied on piano by the inimitable Bromberg himself.
This year’s Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award, which honors a filmmaker working in forms other than narrative feature, goes to internationally celebrated artist Matthew Barney. Best known for his Cremaster cycle (1994-2002) of experimental films and related art works, Barney has changed the way we look at and make film. At An Afternoon with Matthew Barney, Saturday, April 30 at 5:00 pm at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, Barney will be presented with the award and participate in an onstage interview prior to a screening of his latest cinematic creation, Drawing Restraint 17.
The Festival’s Midnight Awards honor a dynamic young American actor and actress who have made outstanding contributions to independent and Hollywood cinema and who bring striking intelligence, exemplary talent and extraordinary depth of character to their roles. This year’s recipients will be announced soon. The Midnight Awards will be presented at a festive late-night ceremony and cocktail reception conducted by a special guest host at 10:30 pm Saturday, April 23 at the W San Francisco.
Twelve feature documentaries are in the juried Golden Gate competition for three prizes with total prize money of $60,000: Investigative Documentary-$25,000; Documentary-$20,000; and Bay Area Documentary-$15,000. The contenders are Better This World, Kelly Duane de la Vega, Katie Galloway, USA; Cinema Komunisto, Mila Turajlic, Serbia; Crime After Crime, Yoav Potash, USA; Detroit Wild City, Florent Tillon, France/USA; Foreign Parts, Véréna Paravel, J.P. Sniadecki, USA; The Good Life, Eva Mulvad, Denmark; The Green Wave, Ali Samadi Ahadi, Germany/Iran; Marathon Boy, Gemma Atwal, England/USA/India; The Pipe, Risteard Ó Domhnaill, Ireland; Position Among the Stars, Leonard Retel Helmrich, Netherlands; The Redemption of General Butt Naked, Eric Strauss, Daniele Anastasion, USA; and The Tiniest Place, Tatiana Huezo, Mexico.
Eleven films are in juried competition for the Festival’s New Directors Prize, a $15,000 cash award given to a narrative first feature that exhibits a unique artistic sensibility. This year’s contenders are Autumn, Aamir Bashir, India; Circumstance, Maryam Keshavarz, USA/France/Iran/Lebanon; The High Life, Zhao Dayong, China; The Journals of Musan, Park Jung-bum, South Korea; Kinyarwanda, Alrick Brown, USA/Rwanda; My Joy, Sergei Loznitsa, Germany/Ukraine/Netherlands; The Place in Between, Sarah Bouyain, France/Burkina Faso; The Salesman, Sébastien Pilote, Canada; She Monkeys, Lisa Aschan, Sweden; Tilva Rosh, Nikola Lezaic, Serbia; and Ulysses, Oscar Godoy, Chile/Argentina.
The Golden Gate competition also awards eight prizes and $20,000 to short films and youth-produced works.
The Golden Gate winners, New Directors Prize and FIPRESCI Prize (international critics prize for best film) winners will all be announced at the Golden Gate Awardson Wednesday, May 4 at Temple Nightclub-Prana Restaurant.
Each year, the Film Society asks a culturally prominent public figure to address one or more of the pressing issues facing the intersecting worlds of contemporary cinema, visual arts, technology, viewership, images and ideas. The 2011 State of Cinema Address will be delivered at 9:00 pm, Sunday, April 24 by indie film maverick Christine Vachon. During the course of her remarkable career Vachon has produced often controversial films such as Kids (Larry Clark, 1995), I Shot Andy Warhol (Mary Harron, 1996), Happiness (Todd Solondz, 1998), Boys Don’t Cry(Kimberly Peirce, 1999), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell, 2001) and Cairo Time (Ruba Nadda, SFIFF 2010), as well as all of Todd Haynes’s films including Poison (1991), Safe (1995), Far From Heaven (2002), I’m Not There (2007) and the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce (2011). Vachon will speak on the current state of independent film and the role of producers of provocative cinema going forward. One of indie film’s most formidable and well-respected figures, Vachon’s take on the State of Cinema promises to enlighten and provoke.
The Festival’s Live & Onstage events this year include New Skin for the Old Ceremony, a three-part evening Tuesday, April 26 at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, featuring films and music produced in response to the profound beauty and unexpected humor in the work of Leonard Cohen. Cohen’s 1974 album New Skin for the Old Ceremony inspires 11 new short films by 11 directors and is followed by a classic documentary focusing on Cohen’s writing and public persona in the late ’60s, Ladies and Gentlemen . . . Mr. Leonard Cohen (Donald Brittain, Don Owen, Canada 1967, 45 min). Rounding out the evening will be live renditions of several Cohen songs in performances anchored by local songsmith Kelley Stoltz and the duo Pale Hoarse. From A to Zellner features Austin-based brothers David and Nathan Zellner presenting selections from their considerable oeuvre of short films, including the newest, Sasquatch Birth Journal 2. The Zellners write, direct, produce, shoot, edit and often act in their films, which run the gamut from heartfelt and touching to raucous and absurd, Sunday, April 24 at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas. With Porchlight, Beth Lisick and Arline Klatte bring their acclaimed nonfiction storytelling series to SFIFF in a special night of true, sometimes titillating, often absurd tales about making movies, Tuesday, May 3 at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas. And in Tindersticks: Claire Denis Film Scores 1996-2009 Stuart Staples and his colleagues in the British chamber-rock band Tindersticks present an unforgettable live performance, accompanying a meticulously prepared montage of scenes from six Denis films for which Staples and his bandmates have composed original soundtracks; Monday, May 2 at the Castro Theatre.
The International’s Cinema by the Bay selections celebrate films produced in the creative heart of the West. SFIFF54 is proud to showcase the established and emerging talent in the Bay Area, continuing the Festival’s longstanding tradition of culling the fertile local scene to present cinematic gems on their hometown screens. Feature-length films in the selection are American Teacher (USA 2010) from filmmaker Vanessa Roth, chronicling the stories of four teachers in different areas of the country to reveal the frustrating realities for today’s educators; Better This World(USA 2011), by Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway, a poignant portrait of two young activists caught in the web of an opportunistic mentor and a desperate justice system following the protests at the 2008 Republican National Convention; Crime After Crime (USA 2011), Yoav Potash’s intimate look at the coming together of a female prisoner and the two pro bono lawyers fighting for her release, a saga that resounds with broader social implications; Miss Representation (USA 2011) a documentary by Jennifer Siebel Newsom that explores women’s underrepresentation in positions of power, challenging their limited, often disparaging portrayal in the media; The Selling (USA 2010), Emily Lou’s startlingly funny debut about a real estate agent trying to unload a haunted house; Something Ventured (USA 2011) by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine, an intriguing and often funny documentary detailing the stories and conflicts behind the enterprising inventors and financiers who joined forces to create a new approach to business called “venture capitalism;” and !Women Art Revolution (USA/Canada 2010), Lynn Hershman Leeson’s first-hand chronicle of the feminist artists in the late 1960s and 1970s who took on the old-boy art establishment in an all-out WAR: Women Art Revolution.
The Late Show section offers adventurous audiences a selection of edgy, thrill-filled and outrageous films from around the world designed to arouse, amuse and shock. The gripping quartet of films in this year’s lineup are Outrage (Japan 2010), Takeshi Kitano’s long-awaited return to the gangster genre, which delves into the morally corrupt power structures and honor system of the Japanese yakuza in the story of a low-level syndicate chief (played by Kitano) who, after being dispatched to “send a message,” triggers an all-out gang war; The Selling (USA 2010), Emily Lou’s witty and original take on many of the tropes of haunted house films; Stake Land (USA 2010), Jim Mickle’s gritty dystopian tale in which the human survivors of a post-apocalyptic land of rampaging vampire zombies prove even worse than the beasts running amok; and The Troll Hunter (Norway 2010), in which a group of journalism students making a documentary in the Norwegian countryside stumble upon a secret war between government operatives and stony giants, encouraging them to pursue the intrigue and bone up on troll defense.
The Festival continues to foster opportunities for audiences to interact with the ideas raised by films and filmmakers through the Conversations series of events, including master classes and salons with filmmakers and film experts. Jean-Michel Frodon, former editor-in-chief of Cahiers du Cinéma, explores the task and purpose of the critic in cinema today in a master class titled Jean-Michel Frodon: The Critic’s Response and Responsibility, Thursday, April 28 at 7:30 pm. The Producer/Director Collaboration, Sunday, May 1 at 1:00 pm, brings together producer Alison Dickey and director Azazel Jacobs for an in-depth discussion about working together to bring this year’s Centerpiece film (Terri) to the screen. For Frank Pierson: A Writer’s Life, Friday, April 29 at 5:00 pm, the legendary screenwriter and this year’s Kanbar Award recipient leads an intimate discussion about the craft of screenwriting. A new discussion series, Salons, provides audiences opportunities for in-depth conversations beyond the typical postscreening Q&A. Salon host Susan Weiner, author and former Yale professor of French cultural studies, leads a discussion of several Festival films (Children of the Princess of Cleves, Hands Up, I’m Glad My Mother Is Alive and The Place in Between) in Expressions of French Cinema, Sunday, May 1 at 3:15 pm. Film professor and author Bill Nichols hosts a salon on The Social Justice Documentary, Monday, April 25 at 8:30 pm, with three stimulating Festival films up for discussion: Better This World, Crime After Crimeand Hot Coffee.
The International, under the auspices of an ongoing partnership with The Film Foundation, will present a new print of a true masterpiece of world cinema, Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (Italy/France 1960) at the Castro Theatre, Sunday, May 1 at 12:30 pm. Journalist Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) pursues “the sweet life” in postwar Rome-floating between the decadent high society lifestyle he seeks with his rich lover and a Swedish bombshell, and the stifling domesticity offered by his suicidal girlfriend. In this iconic panorama of a society in glamorous decay, Fellini brilliantly brings together Otello Martelli’s sparkling black-and-white cinematography, Nino Rota’s jazzy score and one of Mastroianni’s finest performances in a film that encapsulates Fellini’s many gifts to cinema.
The International is pleased to present the SFIFF54 Online Screening Room, featuring a program of short films culled from this year’s Festival via the Festival website: fest11.sffs.org. Launch date for the Online Screening Room is Tuesday, March 29 at 12:00 noon. The five films being made available are Into the Middle of Nowhere (Anna Francis Ewert, England/Scotland 2010, 15 min), a warm and funny film that lovingly captures the wonder of childhood as kids explore and test boundaries of reality through play and imagination; Get with the Program (Jennifer Drummond Deutrom, USA 2010, 4 min), a film that answers two age-old conundrums: “Tell me why my love is hot” and “Should I have a cell phone attached directly to my head?”; Delmer Builds a Machine (Landon Zakheim, USA 2010, 3 min), a wordless comic gem in which a tiny engineering genius builds an unusual device made up of sundry items, with calamitous results; Young Dracula (Alfred Seccombe, USA 2010, 15 min), in which a misunderstood adolescent boy runs away from home and is picked up by a family that makes him feel relatively normal; and Self Portrait as a PowerPoint Proposal for an Amusement Park Ride (Jonn Herschend, USA 2010, 6 min), which uses motion graphics to present an entirely text-based narrative that is as engaging as it is ridiculous.
The San Francisco International Film Festival, established in 1957, is the longest-running festival in the Americas. Over the past 54 years, SFIFF has shown more than 6,000 films from 150 countries to an audience of more than two million film lovers. The International is deeply rooted in the strongest and finest traditions of appreciation of film both as an art form and as a meaningful agent for social change. It is a cultural treasure for Bay Area audiences who embrace new ideas, compassionate humanity and world citizenship. Remarkably intimate for a festival of its size and scope, the International combines a range of marquee premieres, international competitions, hard-hitting documentaries, digital media work and star-studded gala events.
For tickets and information visit fest11.sffs.org.
For photos and press materials visit sffs.org/pressdownloads.
54th San Francisco International Film Festival
The 54th San Francisco International Film Festival runs April 21-May 5, 2011 at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, the Castro Theatre, New People and SFMOMA in San Francisco and the Pacific Film Archive Theater in Berkeley. Held each spring for 15 days, the International is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in the country’s most beautiful city, featuring 15 juried awards, 200 films and live events with upwards of 100 participating filmmakers and diverse audiences of 75,000+ people.