Mar 2, 2011
Artist Development, SFFILM
The San Francisco Film Society will present SFFS Film Arts Forum: Beyond Film School, a panel discussion focusing on making the tricky transition from film student to working filmmaker, 7:30 pm, Monday, April 4 at the Lab, 2948 16th Street (at Capp).
The transition from film school to the working world can be tough. Will a degree and some great student projects lead to a career in filmmaking? Must a filmmaker move to LA or New York, or can a successful career be sustained here in the Bay Area? Keynote speaker Tiffany Shlain will set the stage for a discussion of education and opportunity, and panelists Mark Decena, Rob Epstein, Barry Jenkins, Lexi Leban and Jenni Olson will share their experiences and stories of how they’ve sustained their careers over time and made the Bay Area their city of choice for filmmaking. Network with promising filmmakers from numerous Bay Area film schools and celebrate today’s emerging talents with the first-ever SFFS Colleges & Universities screening of a selection of the best student work being produced in the Bay Area. The evening will feature audience-award voting with prizes including classes and consulting services. SFFS Filmmaker Education Manager Michael A. Behrens will moderate the panel discussion.
The Film Society’s Colleges & Universities program was created in 2009 to support and encourage students as they prepare to transition from the academic arena to the professional world. With an array of creative, educational, social, financial and professional opportunities, it is a valuable bridge that connects and engages students with the Film Society and the Bay Area filmmaking community. Current offerings include scholarships, internships, a Golden Gate Awards pre-screening program, SFIFF College Days program and an SFFS Speakers Bureau series. For more information, visit sffs.org/colleges-and-universities.
For complete program information visit sffs.org/Screenings-and-Events/SFFS-Film-Arts-Forum
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Honored by Newsweek as one of the “Women Shaping the 21st Century,” Tiffany Shlain is a filmmaker, artist, founder of the Webby Awards and cofounder of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Her films have screened at more than 100 film festivals including San Francisco International, Sundance, Tribeca and Rotterdam, have won 20 awards including audience and grand jury prizes, have been translated into eight languages and shown at museums including LACMA and Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. Shlain’s films are a fusion of documentary and narrative and are known for their whimsical yet provocative approach to unraveling complicated subjects such as politics, cultural identity, technology and science. Her films include Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, about reproductive rights in America and The Tribe, an exploration of American Jewish identity through the history of the Barbie doll. Her feature documentary Connected: A Declaration of Interdependence premiered in the US Documentary Competition at Sundance 2011 and received the Women in Film Award from National Geographic.
PANELISTS
Mark Decena is a cofounder of Kontent Films. As a writer, director and producer, Decena’s body of work includes award-winning feature films, shorts, television programming, commercials and web films. Decena’s first feature, Dopamine, premiered in the 2003 Sundance Film Festival’s Dramatic Competition, winning the Alfred P. Sloan Prize, and was the closing night film at the 2008 SFIFF. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times said, “In one way or another, Dopamine is about us… it holds as its treasure a belief in the possibility of love.” With his next feature, Unflinching Triumph, Decena continued to embrace the digital paradigm in both production and distribution. He has also written narration for PBS’s e2 design and directed “Portland: A Sense of Place” for the critically acclaimed series. Having served as a mentor for the ITVS Filmocracy project through AFI’s Digital Content Lab, Decena is an active member of the San Francisco Film Society and a two-time screenwriting finalist for the SFFS/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grant.
Rob Epstein answered a classified ad seeking a production assistant on a documentary in early development and met his mentor Peter Adair, thus beginning his filmmaking career. He gained early prominence with The Times of Harvey Milk, which he conceived, directed, coproduced and coedited. The film won the Academy Award for best feature documentary as well as the New York Film Critics Award for best nonfiction film of 1985. He won his second Oscar for the documentary Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, made with Jeffrey Friedman, with whom he started Telling Pictures in 1987. Epstein and Friedman’s new film Howl-their first dramatic narrative, featuring James Franco and a stellar cast-premiered at last year’s Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals, and is currently in theatrical and VOD release by Oscilloscope Laboratories. In addition to his filmmaking career, Epstein is a professor at California College of the Arts, where he also serves as chair of the film program.
Barry Jenkins is an award-winning writer/director whose feature film debut Medicine for Melancholy was acquired for distribution and released theatrically by IFC Films. The film garnered three Spirit Award nominations, a Gotham Award nomination as well as awards from the San Francisco International, Sarasota and Woodstock Film Festivals. The film also earned Jenkins a slot on Filmmaker magazine’s 25 Faces of Independent Film before embarking on an international festival tour highlighted by screenings at the Vienna, BFI Times London and Toronto International Film Festivals. After spotlighting the microbudget film as a critic’s pick at the time of its release, A.O. Scott of the New York Times hailed Medicine for Melancholy as one of the best releases of 2009. Jenkins’ recent projects include the short films Tall Enough and A Young Couple.
Lexi Leban is an independent filmmaker and educator. She is currently producing and directing with Lidia Szajko By The Power Vested in Me, a documentary about the California battle for marriage equality. Her most recent feature documentary Girl Trouble aired on PBS’s acclaimed series Independent Lens in January of 2006 and won the Best Bay Area Documentary award at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Her short films More than a Paycheck, Her Tattoo, labor, Tic Tock Bio Clock and Jennifer at 17 have screened at film festivals from Mill Valley to Berlin. Leban has an MFA in film production from San Francisco State University and is the academic director of digital filmmaking and video production at the Art Institute of California, San Francisco.
Jenni Olson is director of ecommerce at WolfeVideo.com and one of the world’s leading experts on LGBT cinema history. Author of The Queer Movie Poster Book(2005, Chronicle Books), Olson was also one of the founders of PlanetOut.com, where she established the massive queer film industry resource PopcornQ. She continues to write about queer films, as well as curating, collecting and creating them. Her feature debut The Joy of Life (2005), an experimental landscape documentary about the history of suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge and the adventures of a butch lesbian in San Francisco, received its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and won Best Outstanding Artistic Achievement at the 2005 Outfest and Best US Narrative Screenplay at the 2005 Newfest. It also garnered Olson the Marlon Riggs Award from the San Francisco Film Critics Circle.
Following the discussion, filmmakers in the audience are invited to participate in the Laptop Shop, a professional show-and-tell during which attendees screen clips from their current or recent projects on their laptops and solicit feedback from peers. It’s a lively exchange and a unique opportunity to see what’s brewing in the Bay Area film world. Filmmakers wishing to screen their work should bring a short clip, headphones and a well-charged laptop.
Tickets $7 year-round SFFS members; $10 general; available in advance at sffs.org/tickets or at the door beginning at 7:00 pm.