Feb 24, 2012
SFFILM
This Is Not a Film (In film nist, Iran 2011), Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb’s reflection on making art while under government sanction, opens an exclusive San Francisco premiere engagement April 6 at SF Film Society Cinema (1746 Post Street).
Banned from making films for twenty years and under house arrest, Iranian director Jafar Panahi circumvents the edict through a technicality. He will read his latest screenplay aloud on-camera and invites his friend, documentarian Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, to record him. They start out with a relatively straightforward day-in-the-life presentation as Panahi discusses the creative process, fields phone calls, feeds his pet iguana and watches clips from his prior films for inspiration. But, unable to resist his calling, he begins performing as though he were directing, mapping off his rug to set the scene, acting out some of the roles and interviewing a visitor who works in his building. The line between what is and is not a film is broached with reverberating import. Filmed on HD and camera phone, this is do-it-yourself, imaginative, revolutionary filmmaking at its zenith. Written by Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb. Photographed by Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb. With Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb. In Farsi with subtitles. 75 min. Distributed by Palisades Tartan.
Showtimes 1:00, 3:00, 5:00, 7:00, 9:00 pm
Tickets $9 for SFFS members, $11 general, $10 senior/student/disabled. Box office opens February 27 online at sffs.org and in person at SF Film Society Cinema.
To request an interview contact hhart@sffs.org.
To request screeners contact bproctor@sffs.org.
For photos and press materials visit sffs.org/pressdownloads.
At SF Film Society Cinema, the stylish state-of-the art theater located in the New People building at 1746 Post Street (Webster/Buchanan) in Japantown, the San Francisco Film Society offers its acclaimed exhibition, education and filmmaker services programs and events on a daily year-round basis. For complete up-to-date information on all SFFS Cinema programming, including buying tickets, visit sffs.org/cinema.
Upcoming San Francisco Film Society programs
Through February 29: Roadie Michael Cuesta’s compellingly honest look at youthful rock ‘n’ roll dreams gone awry.
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 In Ben Wheatley’s artfully made and unsettling second feature paranoia unravels two former army buddies-turned-contract killers.
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 filmmakers 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.
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.