Mar 16, 2016
Artist Development, Festival
San Francisco, CA — The San Francisco Film Society today announced the first program in the Live & Onstage section of the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival, Vampyr with Mercury Rev and Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins). Continuing the Festival’s popular tradition of uniting vital contemporary musicians with classic films, Mercury Rev and Simon Raymonde will illuminate Carl Theodore Dryer’s atmospheric 1932 horror classic Vampyr with their shimmering sonic compositions live at the historic Castro Theatre on Monday, May 2 at 8:00 pm.
Mercury Rev has been bringing its expressive power to alternative rock since the band formed in Buffalo, New York, in the 1980s. Their 1998 strings-drenched release Deserter’s Songs was named Best Album of the Year by NME Magazine, and recently voted in the Top 200 albums of all time by Uncut Magazine. The critically acclaimed album featured appearances by Garth Hudson and Levon Helm of the Band. The songs on their recently released 4 star album, The Light in You, the band’s first in seven years, have been described as “jubilant odes to music itself.”
The alt-rock iconoclasts have released a nine-LP discography spanning decades. The fact that critics have a difficult time defining the band is evidence of their musical curiosity and refusal to tread water creatively. The now duo of Mercury Rev—Jonathan Donahue (vocals, guitars) and Sean Mackowiak aka “Grasshopper” (guitars, clarinet)—were students of the famous beat poet Robert Creeley and the legendary maverick filmmaker Tony Conrad and have been described as having a “righteous contempt for anything that looks like a boundary fence.” Together they possess an overwhelming ability to create reverb with dimension as well as orchestral psych-pop that twists into lush cinematic soundscapes. The group will accompany Vampyr as a five-piece band that includes Simon Raymonde of Cocteau Twins (who is also the head of their label Bella Union), Jesse Chandler of Midlake and Michael Jerome Moore of Better than Ezra.
“Mercury Rev is such an exciting band for the Festival’s live score,” said Rachel Rosen, San Francisco Film Society’s director of programming. “They’ve studied film and have an avid appreciation for movies on top of their dynamic sound which is wonderfully suited to accompany images on the big screen. Adding Simon Raymonde to the mix makes the evening even more exceptional. As always, this will be one of the evenings I’m most looking forward to at this year’s Festival.”
Vampyr, the great Danish filmmaker’s follow-up to The Passion of Joan of Arc, is based on elements from a book of stories by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Dreyer’s first sound film was originally shot in three languages, but is largely told with silent film-style intertitles. A student visiting a village inn becomes embroiled in the strange goings-on of a mysterious doctor, an old crone and a young woman afflicted with a terrible curse. Filled with Dreyer’s atmospheric black-and-white images—autonomous shadows, brooding fogs, strange reflections—the film progresses in a dream-like mood of haunted dread.
Tickets to Vampyr with Mercury Rev and Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins) are $20 for SFFS members, $25 for the general public. Box office is now open online at sffs.org for members and opens March 17 for the general public.
In recent years the San Francisco Film Society has presented these works—many of which were commissioned as world premieres—at the San Francisco International Film Festival: Kronos Quartet Beyond Zero: 1914-1918; Cibo Matto New Scene; The Unknown with Stephin Merritt; Short films with Thao and the Get Down Stay Down; Waxworks with Mike Patton, Scott Ammendola, Matthias Bossi and William Winant; Buster Keaton Shorts with Merrill Garbus (tUnE-yArDs); Claire Denis Film Scores 1996-2009 with Tindersticks; 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea with Stephin Merritt; The Lost World with Dengue Fever; The Golem with Black Francis; The Phantom Carriage with Jonathan Richman; Heaven and Earth Magic with Deerhoof; Street Angel with American Music Club; Sunrise with Lambchop; A Page of Madness with Superchunk; Jean Painlevé: The Sounds of Science with Yo La Tengo; and Tom Verlaine: Music for Film.
For general information visit festival.sffs.org.
To request interviews or screeners, contact your Festival publicist.
59th San Francisco International Film Festival
The 59th San Francisco International Film Festival runs April 21-May 5 at the Castro Theatre, the Alamo Drafthouse New Mission, the Roxie Theater and the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco and BAMPFA in Berkeley. Held each spring for 15 days, SFIFF is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in one of the country’s most beautiful cities, featuring nearly 200 films and live events, 14 juried awards with nearly $40,000 in cash prizes and upwards of 100 participating filmmaker guests.