Jun 12, 2012
Festival, SFFILM
Bonsái, (Chile/France/Argentina/Portugal 2011), a story of awkward young love told with a supple synthesis of comedy, melancholy and romantic sensuality by writer/director Cristián Jiménez, opens an exclusive San Francisco engagement July 13 at San Francisco Film Society Cinema (1746 Post Street).
Jiménez brings a keen comic sense to Chilean author Alejandro Zambra’s contemporary classic novella Bonsái, crafting an existential romance with deep insight into the psychology of love, finding meaning through literature and caring for sensitive plants. Making several leaps forward and backward in time, the film follows its protagonist Julio in his sincere but deadpan fumbling through early adulthood. Quirky, cerebral, lost and vaguely traumatized, Julio enters into the one big love of his life lying about having read Proust and oblivious that his lover Emilia is fibbing, too. Bonsái strikes the perfect balance of humor and angst, wisdom and folly, and brings home a universal emotional truth-though the story Julio tells may be idealized, delusional and partially fictional, nothing has more power to move his soul. Written by Cristián Jiménez. Photographed by Inti Briones, With Diego Noguera, Natalia Galgani, Gabriela Arancibia. In Spanish with subtitles. 95 mins. Distributed by Strand Releasing.
Showtimes 5:00, 9:00 (Fri, Sat, Tues); 3:00, 7:00 (Sun, Mon, Wed); (3:00 pm only on Thursday, July 19)
Tickets $9 for SFFS members, $11 general, $10 senior/student/disabled. Box office opens June 14 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.
More upcoming San Francisco Film Society programs
Continuing on consecutive Saturdays through July 21: The Story of Film: An Odyssey
Through June 14: The Wages of Fear
Opening June 15: The Woman in the Fifth
June 21: Master Class: The Politics of the Cutting Room Floor
Opening June 22: Found Memories
June 22-July 7: KinoTek: Adriane Colburn: Ways, Points and Means
Opening June 29: Corpo Celeste
Opening July 6: Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present
Also Opening July 13: Ballplayer: Pelotero
July 14 only: The Storytellers Show Back by popular demand! A reprise of the popular family shorts program from this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival.
July 19 only: Dark Horse – Filmmaker in person – Todd Solondz’s unsettling tale of a 35-year-old man-child who hopes to add a wife to his possessions.
Opening July 20: A Burning Hot Summer The stormy relationship between a painter and an Italian film actress is seen through the eyes of another young couple in Philippe Garrel’s latest exploration of twisted emotional ties.
July 20-August 11: KinoTek: Nate Boyce, video and sculpture
Opening July 27: Sacrifice Chen Kaige’s latest is a character-driven epic of retribution and regret written in the Yuan Dynasty.
August 24: Master Class: Les Blank on Documentary
September 15-October 20: KinoTek: Brent Green, sculpture and animation
December: KinoTek: Kota Ezawa, animation