Mar 15, 2017
Festival
San Francisco, CA — SFFILM today announced the seventh annual World Cinema Spotlight at the 60th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 5-19), a thematic series that calls attention to international filmmaking by bringing to light hot topics, reinvigorated genres, underappreciated filmmakers, and national cinemas.
A dynamic quartet of vibrant feature films comprises this year’s Festival Spotlight, Argentina: A National Cinema in Movement, presenting a robust reserve of works whose most definitive quality can be expressed as being endlessly in motion, continually challenging viewers with inventive, expectation-breaking storytelling, and surprising stylistic choices made in service of examining a palette of unforgettable characters.
Unlike what happened in the 1960s and 1990s, when, despite differences, it was possible to speak of “generations” and “new” cinemas, today-at least from a formal perspective-in Argentine cinema a sort of chaos reigns, revealing a vitality and variety not easily experienced in the cinemas of other countries. This is something that will become obvious to those who see the Argentine films in this Festival.
WORLD CINEMA SPOTLIGHT PROGRAMS
The Future Perfect (Argentina 2016)
Eighteen-year-old Xiaobin travels from China to Buenos Aires to join her conservative family who refuse to learn Spanish. They want her to stay within their culture, but she rebels, taking a Spanish class where new lessons learned often lead to specific fantasies, like a “future perfect.” Locarno prizewinner Wohlatz recruited most of the cast from actual language school students, and brilliantly uses their innocence and naivete to create an atmosphere of spontaneity, realism, and camaraderie. The Future Perfect screens Wednesday April 12, 6:30 pm at the Roxie Theater, Friday April 14, 8:45 pm, at BAMPFA in Berkeley, and Wednesday April 19, 4:15 pm, at the Victoria Theatre.
Hermia & Helena (USA, Argentina 2016)
Foreknowledge of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is by no means required to enjoy Argentine writer-director Matías Piñeiro’s quasi-adaptation, in which a young theater director comes to New York from Buenos Aires on a fellowship to translate Shakespeare’s play into Spanish-and discovers its relation to her life. Piñeiro handles heady stuff with a wonderfully light touch, and the film casts a lasting spell with its genuine intimacy, ephemeral beauty, and unpretentious vitality. Hermia & Helena screens Tuesday April 11, 6:15 pm, at the Roxie Theater, Thursday April 13, 8:45 pm, at BAMPFA in Berkeley, and Tuesday April 18, 3:30 pm, at the Victoria Theatre.
The Human Surge (Argentina, Brazil, Portugal 2016)
Eduardo Williams has steadily made a name for himself with a series of indelible shorts featuring young protagonists adrift in strange environments. In his debut feature, a prizewinner at Locarno, he takes the premise further, crafting a dreamlike three-part drama where youths from Argentina, Mozambique, and the Philippines are connected by invisible, electronic, or even subterranean means. Consistently inventive, The film burrows into three continents and finds surprising associations. The Human Surge screens Friday April 14, 6:00 pm, at the Roxie Theater and Saturday April 15, 8:30 pm, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
The Winter (Argentina, France 2016)
In Emiliano Torres’s observant, measured feature debut, the onset of winter affects both the aging foreman of a hardscrabble Patagonian sheep ranch and the younger man who comes to work for the season. Austerely set against the strata of sky and scrub brush in cinematographer Ramiro Civita’s stark widescreen vistas, Torres’s tale never loses sight of its human struggle between two very different men. The Winter screens Friday April 14, 8:30 pm, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Saturday, April 15, 6:30 pm, at BAMPFA in Berkeley.
Tickets to each of the four programs highlighted in the World Cinema Spotlight are $13 for SFFILM members, $15 for the general public. Box office is open now for SFFILM members online at sffilm.org and opens for the general public Friday, March 17.
For general information visit sffilm.org/festival
To request interviews or screeners, contact your Festival Press Office contact.
For photos and press materials visit sffilm.org/press
60th 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 60th edition runs April 5-19 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.