Mar 27, 2012
Festival
The 55th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 19-May 3) announced today that its Centerpiece screening will be Lynn Shelton’s endearing relationship comedy Your Sister’s Sister, starring Emily Blunt, Mark Duplass and Rosemarie DeWitt. The Festival’s Centerpiece is designed to showcase a celebrated young director and his or her latest film. Your Sister’s Sister will screen Saturday, April 28, 7:00 pm at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas followed by the Centerpiece party at 9:00 pm at CLIFT‘s Velvet Room. Director Lynn Shelton is expected to attend the screening and party.
Lynn Shelton’s last film, Humpday (2009), took what sounded like the premise of a raunchy joke-two straight pals dare each other to star in their own gay porn movie-to explore male relationships and thirty-something anxiety. Now she ups the emotional stakes. Still grief-stricken a year after his brother’s death, Jack (Mark Duplass) travels to a remote cabin on Puget Sound at the suggestion of his best friend, Iris (Emily Blunt), who thinks that he’ll benefit from the isolation. He arrives to find Iris’s sister, Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt), recovering from a bad breakup, and they quickly bond over their shared misery. When Iris turns up to surprise Jack, she notes a new connection between him and her sister. What begins as a happy reunion soon deteriorates into a fractious encounter, the trio caroming off one another amid misunderstandings, betrayals and secret affections. Improvising much of the dialogue, the three actors are terrific, imbuing their complex, sometimes maddening characters with genuine heart. Shelton and her cast develop an idea initially conceived by Duplass into a funny, truthful story about sibling bonds, friendship, love and miscommunication.
Following the screening, party-goers can head over to the Centerpiece party for chic cocktails, delectable hors d’oeuvres and dancing. The party will begin at 9:00 pm in CLIFT’s elegant Velvet Room at 495 Geary Street.
Admission to the Centerpiece film and party is $28 for SFFS members/$35 general. Admission for the Centerpiece film only is $20. You must be 21+ to attend the party.
The SFIFF55 Centerpiece is sponsored by Comcast, 7×7 Magazine and CLIFT.
For tickets and information visit festival.sffs.org.
To request interviews or screeners contact your SFIFF publicist.
For photos and press materials visit sffs.org/pressdownloads.
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.