Mar 1, 2012
SFFILM
The Turin Horse (A Torinoi lo, Hungary/France/Switzerland/Germany 2011), Béla Tarr’s ominous yet awe-inspiring reflection on seemingly insignificant lives, opens an exclusive San Francisco premiere engagement April 13 at SF Film Society Cinema (1746 Post Street).
Purportedly Béla Tarr’s final film, this masterpiece takes its scenario from a traumatic incident in Friedrich Nietzche’s life when he witnessed a horse being mercilessly whipped. Wondering what happened to the horse, the Hungarian auteur crafts a relentless film depicting the domestic life of a horse-cart driver and his daughter. Detailing the bare components of their impoverished daily lives, their existence worsens when their horse refuses to eat, drink, or pull a cart. Hinting at apocalypse with howling winds, scorched-earth terrain and gas lamps going mysteriously dark, Tarr’s incomparable but challenging film shows the persistence (and fruitlessness) of human effort in spite of everything. Written by Béla Tarr, László Krasznahorkai. Photographed by Fred Kelemen. With Erika Bók, János Derzsi, Mihály Kormos, Ricsi. In Hungarian with subtitles. 146 min. Distributed by Cinema Guild.
Showtimes 2:00, 5:30, 8:30 pm
Tickets $9 for SFFS members, $11 general, $10 senior/student/disabled. Box office opens March 2 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.
Upcoming San Francisco Film Society programs
March 8: The Long Day Closes with director Terence Davies in Person New 35mm print of Davies’s expressionistic autobiographical scrapbook of working-class family life in Northern England in the mid-1950s.
Opening March 16: Kill List In Ben Wheatley’s artfully made and unsettling second feature paranoia unravels two former army buddies-turned-contract killers.
March 20: The Island President Jon Shenk’s beautifully shot documentary follows the globe-trotting journey of Mohamed Nasheed, former president–he was forced to resign on February 7, 2012–of the Maldives, the lowest-lying country in the world, who, after bringing democracy to his country, takes up the fight to keep it from disappearing under the sea. Followed by an in-depth Q&A with the filmmaker and special guests.
Opening March 23: Sound of Noise A delightful comic cocktail mixing a modern urban symphony, a police procedural and a love story.
Opening March 30: House of Pleasures Ambitious and elegantly made, Bertrand Bonello’s film depicts life in a Paris brothel at the turn of the 20th century.
Opening April 6: This Is Not a Film In this profound reflection on the nature of making art, banned Iranian director Jafar Panahi (along with his collaborator Mojtaba Mirtahmasb) discusses his plans for a film he knows he cannot make.