Jun 1, 2017
SFFILM
San Francisco, CA — SFFILM has announced the lineup of new films premiering on the SFFILM Screening Room, the curated film streaming service available exclusively to SFFILM members through an easy-to-use web platform and mobile app. Five new feature films join the already robust slate of titles from the recent San Francisco International Film Festival on June 1. New international features will be added each month.
The SFFILM Screening Room service is available to SFFILM members on the web at sffilm.org/watch. Members can also access films and supplemental content by downloading the SFFILM app and logging into their membership accounts. The SFFILM app is available for iOS, Apple TV, and Android devices as a free download on iTunes or Google Play. The web platform and app have been created with the generous support of Margaret and Will Hearst.
FEATURE FILMS ADDED JUNE 1
Blind
Eskil Vogt (Norway 2014, 96 min)
Blind focuses on Ingrid (Ellen Dorrit Pettersen), a woman contending with the loss of vision. In trying to navigate her life without sight, she spends her days attempting to reconstruct the visual world as she once knew it. As she struggles with her newfound predicament, she begins writing salacious fictional stories that slowly morph into fantasies of what her husband does when she’s not around. When real-life events seamlessly give way to Ingrid’s creations, she is able to find a means to come to terms with her disability. Provocative, sexy and deeply-felt, Blind premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival where it won the World Cinema Screenwriting Award and received the Label Europa Cinemas Award at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.
Happy Hour
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Japan 2015, 317 min)
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s wise, precisely observed, compulsively watchable drama about four female friends and their midlife awakening runs over five hours, yet the leisurely duration is not an indulgence but a careful strategy—to show what other films leave out. By unfolding some sequences in what feels like real time, it creates a space for everyday moments that are nonetheless charged with possibility, and yields an emotional density rarely available to a feature-length movie.
Radio Dreams
Babak Jalali (USA/Iran 2015, 93 min)
Hamid, the often exasperated program director of a Farsi-language radio station based in San Francisco, awaits a much-anticipated meeting between Metallica and real-life Afghani band Kabul Dreams at his studio. Meanwhile, he has to contend with the commercial imperatives handed down by the no-nonsense daughter of the station’s owner, and the film (winner of the Tiger Award at the 45th International Film Festival Rotterdam) presents it all with gentle humor and a deadpan eye towards cultural differences.
The Strange Little Cat
Ramon Zürcher (Germany 2013, 72 min)
A day in the life of a middle-class Berlin family becomes the stuff of domestic surrealism in Ramon Zürcher’s strikingly original debut feature. The action rarely leaves their apartment confines, yet this “plotless” miniature reveals a whole alternative universe of mysterious occurrences and unspoken tensions that have a droll, yet poignant impact.
Vic + Flo Saw a Bear
Denis Côté (Canada 2013, 95 min)
At 61 and newly released from jail, Victoria (Pierrette Robitaille) is trying to start over. Laying low at the home of her paralyzed uncle Émile, she’s visited by her former cellmate and younger lover Florence (Romane Bohringer), who wants to move in. With their days bordering on the mundane—driving around the isolated countryside in a golf cart or splashing about in a wading pool—Flo becomes frustrated at their hemmed-in existence and their bucolic life together is threatened. Upending viewer expectations with surprising tonal shifts, director Denis Côté (Curling) memorably reinvents the romantic drama genre.
For general information visit sffilm.org
To request interviews or screeners, contact lmolinari@sffilm.org
SFFILM Presents
SFFILM produces a robust slate of public programs throughout the year, including red carpet premiere events, advance member screenings, and in-depth film series. With diverse offerings and a commitment to excellence in world cinema, SFFILM is the home of great film in the Bay Area all year long. For more information visit sffilm.org/presents.
SFFILM
SFFILM champions the world’s finest films and filmmakers through programs anchored in and inspired by the spirit and values of the San Francisco Bay Area. Presenter of the San Francisco International Film Festival, SFFILM is a year-round nonprofit organization delivering screenings and events to more than 100,000 film lovers and media education programs to more than 10,000 students and teachers annually. In addition to its public programs, SFFILM supports the careers of independent filmmakers from the Bay Area and beyond with grants, residencies, and other creative development services. For more information visit sffilm.org.
###