Apr 17, 2018
Festival
San Francisco, CA — For the fourth time since its launch in 2015, the SFFILM Screening Room, a curated year-round film streaming service available exclusively to SFFILM members through an innovative web platform and mobile app, will again feature many official selections of the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival. Twelve feature films from the 2018 lineup will be made available on the service April 17 and will remain available for streaming through mid-June. New films will continue to be added to the site throughout the year.
The SFFILM Screening Room service is available exclusively to SFFILM members on the web at sffilm.org/watch. Members can also access streaming 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
Available for streaming beginning April 17
Carcasse
Gústav Geir Bollason, Clémentine Roy, (Iceland/France, 2016, 61 min)
Extraordinary images abound of an imagined future or past: the abandoned husk of a downed airplane used as an animal shed, chickens pecking feed from an old construction helmet, a raft with a roof made from an old car, transporting sheep across a river. Carcasses both animal and industrial litter the landscape as people perform indecipherable tasks with scraps of industrial material in this gorgeous and mysterious black-and-white portrait of a world that may or may not be real. Is this the first science-fiction documentary?
City of the Sun
Rati Oneli (Georgia/USA/Qatar/Netherlands, 2017, 100 min)
The lives, dreams, and desires of three stalwart denizens of a desolate Georgian mining town provide the framework for this observational and gorgeously rendered film. With precise attention to landscape and architecture, director Rati Oneli focuses on Archil, a miner with an operatic flair for theater, the workouts of twin sprinters, and Zurab, an impassioned man working to keep Georgian music and culture alive.
Claire’s Camera
Hong Sangsoo (France/South Korea, 2017, 69 min)
In Hong’s effervescent new work, a trio of Koreans in Cannes for the film festival circle around one another and a camera-toting tourist from Paris, played by Isabelle Huppert. While predominantly paying tribute here to the dialogue-rich films of Eric Rohmer with extended conversations about love and art and poetry, Hong also continues to send up himself and his industry through the film’s only male character, a relentlessly self-involved director named So Wansoo.
Djon África
João Miller Guerra, Felipa Reis (Brazil/Cape Verde/Portugal, 2018, 98 min)
At loose ends in Lisbon, Miguel (Miguel Moreira) is prompted by a chance encounter to search for the father he has never known in Cape Verde, where he encounters a diverse mélange of residents. From cheeky bus riders to a ribald farmwoman who serves as a kind of cultural griot, Guerra and Reis’s winning and funny debut uses the road movie format as its jumping-off point for a culturally rich portrait of the verdant and beautiful landscapes of Cape Verde.
Louise Lecavalier – In Motion
Raymond St-Jean (Canada, 2017, 103 min)
Pathbreaking and playful, Louise Lecavalier revolutionized the art of dance in the 1980s working with Montreal’s Édouard Lock and the La La La Human Steps troupe, followed by a stint with David Bowie, and is now a world-renowned choreographer. This spellbinding documentary gives Lecavalier’s true method of communication—movement—valuable screen time, and her frenzied, athletic performances amaze and enchant. Archival footage and pithy interviews fill in the picture of a 58-year-old mother of two teenagers still asking questions, pushing limits, and leaving audiences in awe.
The Next Guardian
Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbó (Hungary/Netherlands, 2017, 74 min)
In the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan, teenage siblings Gyembo and Tashi share a passion for soccer, Facebook, and girls. Gyembo enjoys reading classmates’ Facebook posts while Tashi turns heads with her confident, boyish demeanor. As technology and social media become more accessible, these youthful amusements collide with the father’s desire for Gyembo to inherit the family monastery. Co-directors Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó present a penetrating and compassionate portrait of globalization and fundamental change in a country immersed in tradition and culture.
The Other Side of Everything
Mila Turajlić (Serbia/France/Qatar, 2017, 102 min)
In 1945, filmmaker Mila Turajlić’s (Cinema Komunisto, Festival 2011) family apartment was divided and redistributed by the state government. Her mother’s political activism meant that they were spied on from the very rooms they used to own. Now her fascinating mother, Srbijanka, can talk about that “other side.” A staunch public advocate and voice of resistance against Slobodan Milosevic for years, she discusses with her daughter their complicated personal and political histories, while reflecting on the divided past they share. Winner of Best Documentary Feature at IDFA.
Purge This Land
Lee Anne Schmitt (USA, 2017, 80 min)
Weaving the story and letters of radical American abolitionist John Brown and the attack on Harper’s Ferry with her own personal history, filmmaker Lee Anne Schmitt (The Last Buffalo Hunt, Festival 2011) uses her signature essay style to create a profound portrait of America today. The narrated histories are told over striking images, shot on film, of the sites of racial violence, creating a haunting and poetic account of the past that is still very much a part of our present.
Salyut-7
Klim Shipenko (Russia, 2017, 119 min)
When a Russian space station goes mysteriously offline in 1985, it’s up to a forcibly grounded cosmonaut and an engineer who’s never been in space to rescue the unmanned Salyut-7 before the Americans intercept it or blow it up. Facing one-in-a-million odds, the two travelers battle exhaustion, fire, and oxygen depletion in this phenomenally entertaining and dramatic thriller that brings history to life with visual splendor and edge-of-the-seat tension. Winner of Best Film at the Golden Eagle Awards, Russia’s equivalent to the Oscars.
Suleiman Mountain
Elizaveta Stishova (Kyrgystan/Russia, 2017, 103 min)
Without preamble, a young Kyrgyz boy is taken out of an orphanage and into the lives of his supposed parents who make ends meet by running various cons on unsuspecting villagers. Director Stishova weaves mythological and even comedic elements into a beautifully filmed tale that centers around the titular mountain, a mysterious and holy place where the prophet Solomon is said to be buried and where the film’s characters aim to find their destinies.
Those Who Are Fine
Cyril Schäublin (Switzerland, 2017, 71 min)
Through striking framing, intense angles, fragmented scenes, and amusing conversations that at first seem to be unrelated, Those Who Are Fine weaves together stories of a young woman at a telemarketing company who takes advantage of the elderly by convincing them to give her large sums of cash. Director Cyril Schäublin’s bold and precisely assembled debut astutely captures a world where every character is either on or using a device and surveillance is everywhere but fails to protect.
Tigre
Ulises Porra Guardiola and Silvina Schnicer (Argentina, 2017, 116 min)
In a boarded-up family estate situated in Argentina’s mysterious and ancient Tigre delta, three generations gather to decide whether to sell their property to developers. As the family navigates their relationship to their home, and local kids engage in forbidden games, various interpersonal conflicts arise that lead to a powerful crescendo.
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2018 San Francisco International Film Festival
The longest-running film festival in the Americas, the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM Festival) is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in one of the country’s most beautiful cities. The 61st edition runs April 4-17 at venues across the Bay Area and features nearly 200 films and live events, 14 juried awards with close to $40,000 in cash prizes, and upwards of 100 participating filmmaker guests.
SFFILM
SFFILM is a nonprofit organization with a mission to champion 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 organization delivering screenings and events to more than 75,000 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.
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