Mar 6, 2012
Festival
The 55th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 19-May 3) is proud to present the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award to veteran documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple. Kopple will be presented with the POV award Sunday, April 22, 3:30 pm at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, preceding the screening of her masterful landmark documentary Harlan County, USA (USA 1976).
“Barbara Kopple is a pioneering documentarian who brings the highest level of craft to her work whether she is pursuing stories that focus on workers rights and social justice or on great entertainers and athletes,” said Rachel Rosen, San Francisco Film Society director of programming. “We’re delighted to be able to honor her.”
Throughout her long and remarkable career, Kopple has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to documenting life as it happens, made evident by her obvious courage. From her historic debut documentary feature about a Kentucky coal miners’ strike, Harlan County, USA, to her most recent film on the controversy over the right to bear arms, 2011’s Gun Fight, Kopple has brought a boldly objective approach to the thorniest social issues of our time.
Kopple’s two Oscar wins for the documentary features Harlan County, USA and American Dream (USA 1990, SFIFF 1991), about the Hormel Foods meatpacker strike in Minnesota, are signature achievements. While some of her trademark techniques can be traced back to her early work in cinema vérité filmmaking with the Maysles Brothers, what distinguishes her career as a whole is its breadth of vision, subject matter and style. Kopple’s fascination with the American story has led her to tackle subjects as varied as Mike Tyson’s disgrace (1993’s Fallen Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson), Woody Allen’s musical career (1997’s Wild Man Blues), the clash between urban and suburban life (2005’s fiction feature Havoc), the Dixie Chicks’ run-in with the George W. Bush campaign (2006’s Shut Up & Sing) and the fate of a baseball icon (her contribution to ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, The House of Steinbrenner).
Established in 1997, the Persistence of Vision Award each year honors the achievement of a filmmaker whose main body of work is outside the realm of narrative feature filmmaking, crafting documentaries, short films, television, animated, experimental or multiplatform work.
Previous winners of the Persistence of Vision Award include multidisciplinary artist Matthew Barney (2011), animator Don Hertzfeldt (2010), documentarians Lourdes Portillo (2009), Errol Morris (2008) and Heddy Honigmann (2007), cinematic iconoclast Guy Maddin (2006), documentarians Adam Curtis (2005) and Jon Else (2004), experimental filmmaker Pat O’Neill (2003), Latin American cinema pioneer Fernando Birri (2002), avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger (2001), animator Faith Hubley (2000), documentarians Johan van der Keuken (1999) and Robert Frank (1998) and animator Jan Svankmajer (1997).
Tickets $20 for SFFS members, $25 for the general public. Box office now open for SFFS members online at sffs.org and in person at SF Film Society Cinema (1746 Post Street, Webster/Buchanan). Box office opens March 8 for the general public.
For interviews contact hhart@sffs.org.
To request screeners contact bproctor@sffs.org.
For photos and press materials visit sffs.org/pressdownloads.
Upcoming San Francisco Film Society programs
March 8: The Long Day Closes with director Terence Davies in Person New 35mm print of Davies’s expressionistic autobiographical scrapbook of working-class family life in Northern England in the mid-1950s.
Opening March 16: Kill List Ben Wheatley’s non-traditional approach to the horror genre moves effortlessly from kitchen-sink realism to gritty thrills.
March 20: The Island President Jon Shenk’s beautifully shot documentary follows the globe-trotting journey of Mohamed Nasheed, former president–he was forced to resign on February 7, 2012–of the Maldives, the lowest-lying country in the world, who, after bringing democracy to his country, takes up the fight to keep it from disappearing under the sea. Followed by an in-depth Q&A with the filmmaker and special guests.
Opening March 23: Sound of Noise A delightful comic cocktail mixing a modern urban symphony, a police procedural and a love story.
Opening March 30: House of Pleasures Ambitious and elegantly made, Bertrand Bonello’s film depicts life in a Paris brothel at the turn of the 20th century.
April 3: Qarantina Artist-in-Residence Oday Rasheed’s melancholic, beautifully shot sophomore feature about a family struggling to survive in today’s Baghdad, followed by a discussion with the director and a special guest moderator.
Opening April 6: This Is Not a Film In this profound reflection on the nature of making art, banned Iranian director Jafar Panahi (along with his collaborator Mojtaba Mirtahmasb) discusses his plans for a film he knows he cannot make.
Opening April 13: The Turin Horse This apocalyptic story of the domestic life of a horse-cart driver and his daughter is purportedly Béla Tarr’s last film.
April 21: SFIFF State of Cinema Address: Jonathan Lethem New York Times bestselling novelist, essayist and short story writer Lethem investigates the “ecstasies of influence” constituting the cinematic experience.
April 23: SFIFF Merrill Garbus (tUnE-yArDs) with Buster Keaton Shorts Garbus, who dazzles in live performance with her band tUnE-yArDs, will play, in collaboration with virtuoso guitarist Ava Mendoza, live scores for four shorts featuring the genius of physical comedy Buster Keaton.
May 1: SFIFF The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller The world premiere of Sam Green’s new work about utopian visionary R. Buckminster Fuller and his radical design proposals for the Bay Area includes live narration by Green and a score performed live by indie legends Yo La Tengo.
55th San Francisco International Film Festival
The 55th San Francisco International Film Festival runs April 19-May 3 at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, the Castro Theatre, SF Film Society Cinema and SFMOMA in San Francisco and the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. Held each spring for 15 days, the International is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in one of the country’s most beautiful cities, featuring 200 films and live events, 14 juried awards and $70,000 in cash prizes, upwards of 100 participating filmmaker guests and diverse and engaged audiences with more than 70,000 people in attendance.