Nov 14, 2014
SFFILM
The San Francisco Film Society will present its fifth annual Essential SF event at 4:00 pm on Sunday December 7 at the Roxie Theater (3117 16th Street). Essential SF is the Film Society’s ongoing compendium of the Bay Area film community’s most vital figures and institutions, and each fall a new group of local cinematic luminaries is added to the growing list of diverse talent. At a brief ceremony, this year’s inductees—actress and filmmaker Joan Chen, arts journalist Cheryl Eddy, film curator Liz Keim, author and film professor B. Ruby Rich, production company and distributor ro*co films and sound designer Kent Sparling—will be feted by special guest presenters and Film Society staff. This event is free and open to the public. Essential SF 2014 is made possible by the generous support of the San Francisco Film Commission.
For complete program information, visit sffs.org/exhibition/special-presentations
“The depth of knowledge, innovation and unique voices of the Bay Area film community continue to make it a truly inspiring place to live and work,” said Rachel Rosen, SFFS director of programming. “With Essential SF, the San Francisco Film Society can highlight the contributions some of the incredible people an organizations who make our film culture so special.”
A key event in the Film Society’s year-round appreciation of local talent, Essential SF was inaugurated in 2010 to shine a light on the region’s exciting and diverse contributions to the filmmaking world. Those honored previously at Essential SF include: Richard Beggs, Les Blank, Canyon Cinema, Ninfa Dawson, Nathaniel Dorsky, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, Susan Gerhard, Joshua Grannell, David Hegarty, Kontent Films, Karen Larsen, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Allie Light and Irving Saraf, Anne McGuire, H.P. Mendoza, Anita Monga, Rick Prelinger, Marlon Riggs (posthumously), Gail Silva, Judy Stone, Wholphin and Terry Zwigoff.
2014 ESSENTIAL SF INDUCTEES
Joan Chen
Joan Chen, who has most recently finished production on the Netflix original series Marco Polo, is one of the most widely recognized and respected Asian stars in the international film industry. Among her most notable acting credits are Bernardo Bertolucci’s Oscar-winning The Last Emperor (1987), David Lynch’s Twin Peaks series (1990-91), and Oliver Stone’s Heaven and Earth (1993). In 1997, Chen made her directorial debut with the critically acclaimed Xiu Xiu, The Sent-Down Girl (SFIFF 1998); the film has received numerous awards internationally. Chen has won many acting awards throughout her career, including Best Actress at the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards and the Hong Kong Critics Awards for Red Rose and White Rose (Stanley Kwan, SFIFF 1994); the Best Actress award in the Australian Film Institute Awards, the Inside Film Awards and the Australian Critics Awards for The Home Song Stories (Tony Ayres, 2007); and Best Supporting Actress at the Asian Film Awards for The Sun Also Rises (2008), among others.
Cheryl Eddy
Cheryl Eddy moved to San Francisco in 1997 to get her MA in Cinema Studies at SF State University. In 1999, she began interning at the San Francisco Bay Guardian and hung around for nearly 16 years, eventually becoming the Senior Arts and Entertainment Editor—a title she held until the paper folded in October 2014. Over the years she has written hundreds of film reviews; covered film festivals locally and internationally; cohosted SF360 Movie Scene, a TV program produced by the San Francisco Film Society; and spent many, many hours off the clock watching films at the Castro, the Roxie, the Red Vic (RIP), the Pacific Film Archive and other venues. Eddy has recently been working as a freelance writer, and will soon join io9.com as a Senior Editor. Her favorite director is John Carpenter.
Liz Keim
Liz Keim, the Exploratorium’s Director of Cinema Arts and Senior Curator, initiated the organization’s Cinema Arts Program and film collection in 1982 and has since worked to integrate the visions of independent media artists into museum programming, public exhibition and education. She frequently guest lectures, has served on many local film juries, participates in symposiums nationwide and has curated cinema programs internationally. Keim studied with Edith Kramer, former director of the Pacific Film Archive, and Robert Frank, the noted photographer and cinematographer. She is published in Left in the Dark: Portraits of San Francisco Movie Theaters and in Visitor Voices in Museum Exhibitions. On occasion Keim co-teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of San Francisco and lectures at various campuses around the San Francisco Bay Area. Her film In the Red on late 1970s Bay Area punk rock (codirected by Karen Merchant) has screened internationally.
B. Ruby Rich
B. Ruby Rich is the author of New Queer Cinema: The Director’s Cut and Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of the Feminist Film Movement. She is Professor in the Film and Digital Media Department and Social Documentation Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the editor of Film Quarterly, published by UC Press. She has written, as a journalist, for The Guardian (UK), The Nation, Village Voice, New York Times, Sight and Sound (UK), San Francisco Bay Guardian, and many others. On radio, she has been a film commentator for The Arts Today on CBC and The World, for PRI, and on All Things Considered on NPR. On television, she won an Emmy for her work as a correspondent on Independent View, produced by KQED and aired internationally, and collaborated on shows for the IFC and Sundance cable channels, including Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema.
ro*co films
Since its founding in 2000, ro*co films (which includes ro*co films international, ro*co films educational, ro*co films digital and ro*co films productions) has represented and distributed award-winning feature documentaries—including 13 Oscar-nominated films—such as Born Into Brothels, Jesus Camp, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, Gunner Palace, The Weather Underground, Promises, Street Fight, No End in Sight, Hoop Dreams, The Devil Came on Horseback, How to Survive a Plague, The Invisible War, Blood Brother, Particle Fever, The Internet’s Own Boy and E-Team. ro*co’s credo of service and accountability to filmmakers has helped establish ro*co films, and its collection of films, as one of the most highly respected companies among buyers, commissioning editors and producers worldwide.
Kent Sparling
Kent Sparling is a visual and recording artist born in San Francisco. After early stints in theatrical sound and lighting design, Sparling spent three years at Sound Transform Systems, hand-building Serge Modular analog synthesizers for musicians such as John McEntire and Trent Reznor. He departed STS in 1995 to work in film sound in Vancouver, BC, and since 1997 has been employed as a sound designer and re-recording mixer at George Lucas’ Skywalker Sound, with credits on Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette; Mike Mills’ Thumbsucker; Spike Jonze’s Adaptation and her; and We Own the Night and Two Lovers by James Gray. His deep ties to independent film are exemplified by his work on Lance Hammer’s Ballast, Miranda July’s The Future, Braden King’s Here, Bluebird from Lance Edmands, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints by David Lowery, Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves and Ira Sachs’ Love is Strange.
To reserve a ticket to Essential SF, RSVP at sffs.org/exhibition/special-presentations
To request interviews contact bproctor@sffs.org.
For photos and press materials visit: sffs.org/pressdownloads.