big nights - San Francisco International Film Festival

BIG NIGHTS
Special Gala Screenings and Events
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Opening Night: La Mission
55
Midnight Awards
56
Film Society Awards Night
Centerpiece: 500 Days of Summer
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58Closing Night: Unmade Beds
53
Big Nights
La Mission
OPENING NIGHT
THURSDAY, APRIL 23
FILM
7:00 PM CASTRO THEATRE
429 CASTRO STREET (NEAR MARKET)
PARTY
West Coast Premiere
USA
2009
117 min
DIR Peter Bratt
PROD Peter Bratt, Benjamin Bratt, Alpita Patel
SCR Peter Bratt
CAM Hiro Narita
ED Stan Webb
MUS Mark Kilian
CAST Benjamin Bratt, Erika Alexander, Jeremy
Ray Valdez, Jesse Borrego, Talisa Soto Bratt
PRINT SOURCE San Francisco Film Commission,
City Hall, Room 473, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett
Plaza, San Francisco, CA 94102. FAX: 415554-6503. EMAIL: [email protected].
CAUSES Bay Area Community, Family Issues,
LGBT Issues
Peter Bratt’s powerful and moving film is an ardent love
letter to the vibrancy of San Francisco’s Mission District
and an urgent corrective to the violence that plays out in
its streets. Full of affection for its characters and despair
for their situations, La Mission is a story of community
and family and one man’s struggle to unlearn a lifetime
of destructive habits. Che, in a commanding performance
by Benjamin Bratt, is an ex-con who has turned his life
around and now devotes himself to his lifelong Mission
Boyz friends, his passion for building classic lowrider
cruisers and his honor student son, Jess (Jeremy Ray
Valdez). On the eve of Jess’s graduation, as Che’s new
romance with an attractive neighbor (Erika Alexander)
starts to bud, a sudden revelation shatters the peace,
drawing a brutal reaction from Che. Lashing out at
those around him, he finds himself emotionally broken
and isolated, before beginning a hard climb toward
understanding and acceptance. And it is a hard climb.
Handsome, charismatic bad-ass though he may be, Che
gets no slack from best friend Rene (Jesse Borrego)
or his pals, all of whom are trying to live decent lives in
difficult circumstances, and doing a better job of it. The
film’s greatest virtue, and the crux of Che’s redemptive
journey, is its refusal to accept violence as a necessary
outcome of, far less a solution to, troubling conditions. Full
of compassion and love, La Mission is not only tough but
hopeful, beautiful and true.
—Graham Leggat
9:30 PM BRUNO’S/EL CAPITAN
2389 MISSION STREET (19TH/20TH)
The 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival kicks
off with a premiere screening, special guests and a
festive celebration with live entertainment, dancing, hors
d’oeuvres, drinks and a complimentary gift bag. Director
Peter Bratt and actors Benjamin Bratt, Erika Alexander,
Jeremy Ray Valdez and Talisa Soto-Bratt are expected to
attend the evening’s screening. After the film, celebrate
Opening Night Mission style at two historic venues, the
iconic Bruno’s and an adjoining outdoor setting within the
remains of the former El Capitan theater. Treat yourself
to cool cocktails and international culinary delights while
dancing to the Latin beats of salsa and rumba. You must
be 21+ to attend the party.
Peter Bratt
San Francisco–based Peter Bratt’s well-received independent
debut feature, Follow Me Home, screened at SFIFF in 1996.
He is back in 2009 with La Mission, which stars his brother,
actor Benjamin Bratt. Follow Me Home explored race and
identity from the multiple perspectives of Chicanos, African
Americans, and Native Americans. The film earned Bratt the best
director award at the American Indian Film Festival as well as the
Audience Award at SFIFF.
THU APR 23 7:00 CASTRO OPEN Film & Party
THU APR 23 7:00 CASTRO OPENVVIP Film & Party
54
BIG NIGHTS
evan Rachel wood
ELIJAH WOOD
MIDNIGHT AWARDS
SATURDAY, APRIL 25
10:30 pm, W San Francisco Hotel
181 Third Street
The Midnight Awards honor a dynamic young American
actor and actress who have made outstanding
contributions to independent and Hollywood cinema
and who bring striking intelligence, exemplary talent and
extraordinary depth of character to their roles. The third
annual Midnight Awards go to Evan Rachel Wood and
Elijah Wood.
This after-hours cocktail reception is one of the Festival’s
most sought-after special events and a key event for the
city’s most discerning film lovers. With a relaxed late night
talk show format, it is a unique opportunity to mingle with
the actors in an intimate setting. Beth Lisick, local literary
luminary and budding actor (Everything Strange and
New, see page 75), will interview the two recipients, show
film clips of their work and present their awards.
Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres will be served, accompanied
by live musical entertainment. Festive dress is required!
You must be 21+ to attend.
Special thanks to Miracle Pictures.
Evan Rachel Wood
Born in 1987 into a theater family in Raleigh, North
Carolina, Evan Rachel Wood started acting in outdoor
plays and television before 2002’s Little Secrets. Her
breakthrough performance in Catherine Hardwicke’s
controversial Thirteen (2003)—as a teen mired in drugs, sex
and petty crime—earned Golden Globe and Screen Actors
Guild nods. Equally memorable roles followed, including
Pretty Persuasion (2005), Running with Scissors (2006)
and Across the Universe (2007), until 2009’s turn as
Mickey Rourke’s estranged daughter in Darren Aronofsky’s
The Wrestler. Wood voices alien Mala in Battle for Terra,
the animated feature in SFIFF’s New Directors section.
ELIJAH WOOD
Born in 1981, Elijah Wood made his film debut with a cameo
in Back to the Future Part II (1989). He has contributed
remarkable performances to such critically acclaimed
films as The Ice Storm (1997), Eternal Sunshine of the
Spotless Mind (2004), Sin City (2005), Everything Is
Illuminated (2005) and Bobby (2006), as well as playing
the unforgettable Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson’s Lord
of the Rings trilogy. He was the voice of Mumble in the
animated film Happy Feet (2005). Elijah’s next project is
the upcoming Iggy Pop biopic The Passenger.
SATAPR 25 10:30 midn25w
W HOTEL
55
Big Nights
FILM SOCIETY AWARDS NIGHT
francis ford coppola
robert redford
JAMES TOBACK
francis ford coppola
This Film Society honors this year’s directing, acting and screenwriting
awards recipients at a glamorous black-tie evening featuring onstage
appearances, dining and dancing.
BENEFITS THE FILM SOCIETY’S YOUTH EDUCATION PROGRAM
THURSDAY, APRIL 30
Penelope Wong and Tim Kochis, Chairs
Celeste and Anthony Meier, Honorary Chairs
ROBERT REDFORD
AWARDS NIGHT GALA
6:00 PM Cocktail reception with celebrity guests
7:00 PM dinner and awards program
Westin St. Francis Hotel, Grand Ballroom
TABLES $5,000/$10,000/$15,000/$25,000
TICKETS $500/$1,000/$1,500
The Founder’s Directing Award is given in memory of Irving
M. Levin, and is made possible by Nancy Livingston and
Fred M. Levin.
The Peter J. Owens Award is made possible by a grant from
the Peter J. Owens Trust at The San Francisco Foundation,
Gary Shapiro and Scott Owens, trustees.
The Kanbar Award is given for excellence in screenwriting.
JAMES TOBACK
For Awards Night tickets and information, call 415-5615005. For all other ticket information, call 925-866-9559 or
visit www.sffs.org.
No cameras please. Proceeds benefit the San Francisco
Film Society Youth Education Program.
56
BIG NIGHTS
500 Days of Summer
West Coast Premiere
USA
2009
95 min
DIR Marc Webb
PROD Jessica Tuchinsky, Mark Waters, Mason
Novick, Steven J. Wolfe
SCR Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber
CAM Eric Steelberg
ED Alan Bell
MUS Mychael Danna, Rob Simonsen
CAST Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel,
Geoffrey Arend, Matthew Gray Gubler, Chloe
Moretz
PRINT SOURCE Fox Searchlight Pictures, 10201
W Pico Blvd, Bdg 78, Rm 8, Los Angeles, CA
90035. EMAIL: [email protected].
Tom is an architect by training, a romantic by nature and a
“perfectly adequate” greeting-card writer by trade (“Today
you’re a man. Mazel tov on your Bar Mitzvah!”). He meets
Summer—the sexy, quirky dream girl who doesn’t believe
in love—when she takes a job in his office. This is Day
1 of their 500 days together, and if the set up sounds
predictable, veteran music-video director Marc Webb does
much to turn this tale on its head. For starters, Webb tells
the story out of llinear sequence, with Summer dumping
Tom over pancakes in the first ten minutes. The rest of the
film reveals how they got to that point, and its aftermath,
each segment beginning with the number of the day the
couple is on—a delicious clue as to whether what follows
will involve awkward courtship, playful flirtation, shower
sex or the breaking of common household objects.
With a soundtrack that includes the Smiths, Belle and
Sebastian and current punks Black Lips, there’s a lot to
love here: crisp dialogue, drunken karaoke, a bar fight,
ironic voiceover, a split-screen fantasy sequence and a
dance number set to Hall and Oates that’s nothing short
of glorious. Leads Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey
Deschanel sizzle onscreen, with fine support from Geoffrey
Arend and Matthew Gray Gubler as Tom’s well-intentioned,
inept-at-love friends and Chloe Moretz as his wise-beyondher-years sister. 500 Days of Summer is a slickly made
anti-romantic comedy that happens to have plenty of
romance and lots of comedy.
—Benjamin Friedland
CENTERPIECE
SATURDAY, MAY 2
FILM
7:30 PM SUNDANCE KABUKI CINEMAS
1881 POST STREET (AT FILLMORE)
PARTY
9:30 PM, clift hotel
495 GEARY STREET (AT TAYLOR)
This not-to-be-missed date night features the West Coast
premiere of Sundance Film Festival favorite 500 Days of
Summer, followed by a chic lounge party at the CLIFT
hotel, one of San Francisco’s hottest nightspots. Buy a
ticket and be a part of one of the Festival’s sexiest events,
with star Joseph Gordon-Levitt and director Marc Webb in
person. You must be 21+ to attend the party.
Marc Webb
Marc Webb made his name directing music videos for the likes
of My Chemical Romance, Regina Spektor, Snow Patrol, Green
Day and many more. His short film Seascape premiered at
the Aspen Comedy Festival. 500 Days of Summer, which
premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, is his feature
directorial debut.
SAT MAY 2 SAT MAY 2 7:30 KABUKI DAYS02K 7:30 KABUKI DAYS02 Film only
Film & party
57
Big Nights
Unmade Beds
CLOSING NIGHT
THURSDAY, MAY 7
FILM
7:00 pm Castro Theatre
429 Castro Street (near Market)
PARTY
West Coast Premiere
England
2008
92 min
DIR Alexis Dos Santos
PROD Soledad Gatti-Pascual, Peter Ettedgui
SCR Alexis Dos Santos
CAM Jakob Ihre
ED Olivier Bugge Coutté
CAST Déborah Francois, Fernando Tielve,
Michiel Huisman, Iddo Goldberg, Richard Lintern
PRINT SOURCE The Bureau Film Company, 2nd
Floor/18 Phipp Street, London EC2A 4NU,
UK. FAX: 44-20-7033- 0555. EMAIL: mail@
thebureau.co.uk.
In English, Spanish and French with English
subtitles.
The youthful, sensuous and beautifully assured second
feature from Argentine filmmaker Alexis Dos Santos
(Glue, 2006) is a lyrical tale of two solitary expats,
wayward young souls crossing paths in the cosmopolitan
art-rock milieu of a sprawling East London squat. Twentyyear-old Axl (played with striking, reckless innocence
by a superb Fernando Tielve) has come from Spain to
find his long-lost English father. Raised traveling, Axl’s
rootlessness has become a restless way of life. He drinks
himself into forgetting at night, awaking like a promiscuous
foundling among another set of nonchalant hosts and
lovers. Meanwhile, posing as a student in need of housing,
he hires his realtor father but hovers on the edge of
revealing himself. Vera (an achingly vulnerable, gently arch
Déborah François) is a wounded French-speaking beauty
who oozes continental ennui at her bookstore job—where
she’s not above discouraging a customer from buying
a book she finds ridiculous. Responding to a stranger’s
flirtation by wrapping caution and control in adventure
and mystery in pursuit of a casual affair, she finds herself
falling (like him) desperately in love. Visceral yet dreamlike,
Unmade Beds lolls moodily and infectiously in a fluid
visual style, heightened by a stirring soundtrack featuring
cameos by contemporary U.K. bands. When Axl and Vera
finally meet, the encounter is both decidedly low-key and
deeply resonant, a drunken tête-à-tête between strangers
wearing costume animal heads. It is Dos Santos’ sly, pitchperfect nod to both our most basic natures as well as the
masks we hide them behind.
-Robert Avila
9:30 pm–1:00 am
Mezzanine
444 Jessie Street (at Mint)
Join us for an extraordinary closing night celebrating the
wrap of another great Festival. Following a screening of
Unmade Beds, the exuberant feature from Argentine
filmmaker Alexis Dos Santos (with actors Déborah
François and Fernando Tielve and director Santos in
person), mingle with fellow film lovers and dance the night
away at Mezzanine, one of SOMA’s hottest clubs. You
must be 21+ to attend the party.
Alexis Dos Santos
Alexis Dos Santos’s first feature was 2006’s internationally
hailed, multiple award–winning Glue, an improvisationfueled coming-of-age story set in a small town in his
native Argentina. Having studied film in Buenos Aires and
Barcelona, Dos Santos came to London’s National Film
and Television School in 1998, honing his craft under
Stephen Frears and making several shorts, including
the award-winning Sand. It’s striking, if appropriate, that
his second feature, a film about people trying to find
themselves in a chaotic and uncertain world, comes
grounded in such confident cinematic instincts.
THUMAY 7 7:00 CASTRO UNMA07C Film Only
THUMAY 7 7:00 CASTRO CLOSE Film & Party
THUMAY 7 7:00 CASTRO CLOSEV VIP Film & Party
58
tributes
Big Awards, Big Talents, Big Statements
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63
64
65
66
Mel Novikoff Award
Bruce Goldstein
Nights of Cabiria
Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award
Lourdes Portillo
Al Más Allá
Founder’s Directing Award
Francis Ford Coppola
Peter J. Owens Award
Robert Redford
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Kanbar Award
James Toback
Tyson
61
tributes
Nights of Cabiria
La notti di Cabiria
Italy
1957
117 min
DIR Federico Fellini
PROD Dino De Laurentiis
SCR Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli,
Pier Paolo Pasolini
CAM Aldo Tonti
ED Leo Cattozzo
MUS Nino Rota
CAST Giulietta Masina, François Périer, Franca
Marzi, Dorian Gray
PRINT SOURCE Rialto Pictures. EMAIL: rialto.
[email protected].
The humorous and deeply affecting story of a spunky
prostitute’s misfortunes in postwar Rome, Nights of
Cabiria still resonates with the same transformative
power audiences first encountered in 1957. The third film
in Fellini’s so-called trilogy of loneliness, which includes
La Strada and Il Bidone, Nights of Cabiria again stars
Fellini’s wife and muse, Giulietta Masina, this time as the
waiflike Cabiria, whose brassy, boisterous exterior masks
a wistful yearning for love that makes her constantly
vulnerable to heartache and exploitation. Even though
she spends a lot of time bucking up and sticking her chin
out to meet the bad luck that inevitably comes her way,
underneath her survivor’s armor Cabiria is a woman of
great compassion and feeling. If it is this capacity for love
that inevitably proves Cabiria’s undoing, it is also what
allows her to survive beyond the tragedy that befalls her.
Masina won the best actress award at Cannes for her
portrayal, and it is her brilliantly mannered and emotionally
touching performance—recalling the expressive physicality
of Charlie Chaplin-that is at the heart of the film’s success.
The final sequence is a beautifully realized parable of hope
and disillusionment that ends in a now famous coda, one
of cinema’s greatest depictions of the resilient human
spirit. It’s all there in Masina’s face, and in Fellini’s genius
at capturing it.
—Beverly Berning
One of the world’s most beloved filmmakers, Federico Fellini
(1920-93) was born in the Italian seaside town of Rimini, which
figures heavily in the autobiographical La Strada (SFIFF 1976),
Nights of Cabiria (SFIFF 1980), 8 1⁄2 (1963) and Amarcord
(1973), which won best foreign film Oscars. Fellini’s La Dolce
Vita is widely considered one of the greatest films of all time.
His last, The Voice of the Moon, screened at SFIFF in 1991.
Fellini married actress Giulietta Masina in 1943. Their lifelong
partnership spawned a fruitful creative collaboration as well as a
great love story.
62
AN AFTERNOON
WITH BRUCE
GOLDSTEIN
SUNDAY, MAY 3
5:00 pm Castro Theatre
429 Castro Street (near Market)
BRUCE GOLDSTEIN
The distinguished recipient of this year’s Mel Novikoff
Award—bestowed on an individual or institution whose
work has enhanced the filmgoing public’s appreciation
of world cinema—is the innovative programmer, archivist
and showman extraordinaire Bruce Goldstein. He will
present a reel of trailers from his distribution company,
Rialto Pictures, followed by an onstage interview with Anita
Monga, and capped by a screening of Fellini’s enthralling
Nights of Cabiria, in what is destined to be a fascinating
treat for all citizens of film culture at large.
A complete article with biographical information on Mel
Novikoff Award recipient Bruce Goldstein can be found on
page 44.
SUN MAY 3 TUE MAY 5 5:00 CASTRO AWAR03C
8:30 PFA NIGH05P
TRIBUTES
Al Más Allá
U.S. Premiere
USA
2008
43 min
DIR Lourdes Portillo
PROD Lourdes Portillo
SCR Lourdes Portillo
CAM Kyle Kibbe, Antonio Scarlata
ED Vivien Hillgrove
MUS Todd Boekelheide
CAST Ofelia Medina, Kyle Kibbe, Jose Araujo
PRINT SOURCE Xochitl Films, 981 Esmeralda
Street, San Francisco, CA 94110. FAX: 415642-1609. EMAIL: [email protected].
CAUSES The Arts
A documentary film crew arrives at a tranquil aqua-toned
beach town on Mexico’s Mayan coast, chasing the story
of three fishermen who happened upon a wayward
package of cocaine—flotsam from a steady narco-stream
flowing up from South America en route to northern
markets. The fishermen sold it to the local police chief,
who warned them (in vain) not to spend their money
in town and prophesied, “Whatever comes from the
ocean, has to go back to the ocean.” “I think it will take
a few days to nail this one down,” opines real-life sound
recordist Jose Araujo to the crew’s somewhat flustered
and self-important director, played by renowned Mexican
actress Ofelia Medina-a delightfully arch stand-in for
this sly, prodding film’s real-life director, acclaimed Bay
Area-based filmmaker Lourdes Portillo. Gazing at a nearby
ruin, meanwhile, Portillo’s fictional alter ego resolves, “I
have to find out what this has to do with the Mayas.” A
playfully serpentine, semi-fictionalized investigation of a
true incident thus de-centers its ostensible subject-three
fishermen who never do appear, increasingly seeming the
stuff of parable-while undercutting the “heroic” pretensions
of the documentary genre itself. What emerges is a
rumination on globalization’s violent erasure of local
culture-but also on the manufacture of stories and the
circulation of “truths” as the counterparts, and uneasy
accomplices, of circulating goods, services and people in
a voracious economic system that leaves much more than
the occasional bag of narcotics in its wake.
AN EVENING WITH
LOURDES PORTILLO
MONDAY, APRIL 27
7:00 pm Sundance Kabuki Cinemas
1881 Post Street (at Fillmore)
This year’s Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award
goes to acclaimed Bay Area–based filmmaker Lourdes
Portillo, whose three-decade focus on Latino experience
on both sides of the Latin America–U.S. border has taken
myriad forms through a keen, interdependent harnessing
of imagination, self-reflection and narrative excavation,
always with a profound commitment to the justice and
dignity owed her subjects. Portillo will discuss her work
in an onstage interview with film critic John Anderson,
followed by a screening of her latest film, Al Más Allá.
A complete article with biographical information on POV
Award recipient Lourdes Portillo can be found on page 42.
Lourdes Portillo
—Robert Avila
FRI APR 24 MON APR 27 7:00 PFA 7:00 KABUKI ALMA24P
AWAR27K
63
tributes
AN EVENING WITH FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA & FRIENDS
Francis Ford Coppola has opened an exciting new
chapter in an already encyclopedic career, signaled by
a return to more personal independent films. Beginning
with Youth Without Youth (2007) and the highly
anticipated Tetro, which opens in mid-June, Coppola is
recapturing a youthful flair and curiosity in both subject
and style. “In a funny way I became an important studio
director when I was very young,” he recalled in a 1992
interview, “but I always wondered what happened to the
director I wanted to be.” Now, about to turn 70 and as
vigorous and questioning as ever, he’s giving himself the
chance to find out.
The Founder’s Directing Award is presented each year
to one of the “masters of world cinema” and is given
in memory of Irving M. Levin, who founded the Festival
in 1957. It was first bestowed in 1986 upon iconic
filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, and for many years was given
in his name. The award has over the years brought many
of the world’s most visionary directors to San Francisco,
from A-list American directors such as Clint Eastwood
and Spike Lee to well-respected international talents
such as Korean filmmaker Im Kwon-Taek, English
director Mike Leigh and Germany’s Werner Herzog.
The recipient will be presented with the award at the
Film Society Awards Night on April 30 at the Westin St.
Francis Hotel.
FRIDAY, MAY 1
7:30 PM CASTRO THEATRE
429 CASTRO STREET (NEAR MARKET)
Join us for a special evening at the Castro Theatre
honoring the brilliant career of one of the seminal
figures in American film, director and producer Francis
Ford Coppola. In a variation on the Festival’s standard
interview format, Coppola will be joined onstage by
a number of his esteemed friends and collaborators,
who, in a moderated discussion, will cover all manner of
subjects, cinematic and otherwise. Film clips, including
the new Tetro trailer, and extended audience Q&A will
round out this remarkable evening.
A complete article with biographical information on
Francis Ford Coppola, this year’s Founder’s Directing
Award recipient, can be found on page 36.
FRIMAY 1
64
7:30 CASTRO
AWAR01C
TRIBUTES
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
WORLD PREMIERE RESTORED PRINT
USA
1969
110 min
DIR George Roy Hill
PROD John Foreman
SCR William Goldman
CAM Conrad Hall
ED John Howard, Richard Meyer
MUS Burt Bacharach
CAST Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Katharine
Ross, Strother Martin, Cloris Leachman, Sam
Elliott
PRINT SOURCE 20th Century Fox, 10201
W. Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90035.
EMAIL: [email protected].
When Robert Redford and Paul Newman leapt off that
cliff in the climactic scene of Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid, they leapt straight into movie mythology.
The exploits of two 19th-century bank robbers who find
it increasingly difficult to stay ahead of the law, the film
reinvented the Western even as it mourned its passing.
Writer William Goldman had been fascinated by the
exploits of the real-life Butch and Sundance, and spent
years researching the story. The studio intended it for
Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, but McQueen balked
at Newman getting top billing. Director George Roy
Hill suggested Redford, not yet a major star. Redford’s
chemistry with Newman was immediate and launched
an enduring partnership. The film’s tone—at once elegiac
and comic, modern and traditional—confused some critics
but resonated with audiences, who made it the biggest
grossing film of the year, success that boosted the careers
of both its principals: Newman, used to playing brooding
loners, proved he could handle comedy, and Redford
became a star. The film won Oscars for Conrad Hall’s
burnished cinematography, Burt Bacharach’s score and
Goldman’s screenplay. Hill moved to the top ranks of
Hollywood directors, reuniting with Redford and Newman
for another phenomenally successful buddy caper, The
Sting (1973). The importance of Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid to its stars is reflected in the names they
gave to their personal projects: Newman’s Hole in the
Wall Gang Camp for critically ill children, and Redford’s
Sundance Institute.
—Margarita Landazuri
AN EVENING WITH
ROBERT REDFORD
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29
7:30 pm Castro Theatre
429 Castro Street (near Market)
The Film Society is honored to present this year’s Peter
J. Owens Award to the incomparable Robert Redford.
Leaping to the pinnacle of Hollywood stardom after his
breakthrough role as the Sundance Kid, Redford’s several
decades of vital work express an intention of purpose and
unwavering quality that remain exceptional. He will be
celebrated in a series of retrospective clips followed by
an onstage interview and a world premiere screening of a
brand new print of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
A complete article with biographical information on Peter
J. Owens Award recipient Robert Redford can be found
on page 38.
George Roy Hill
Born in Minneapolis in 1922, George Roy Hill graduated
from Yale and served in World War II and Korea. He began
as an actor, turning to writing and directing for television
and Broadway in the 1950s. His first film was Period of
Adjustment (1962). Hill proved equally adept at box office hits
like Hawaii (1966) and critical successes like The World of
Henry Orient (1967). After his Oscar for The Sting (1973), he
worked with Redford in The Great Waldo Pepper (1975) and
Newman in Slap Shot (1977). He taught at Yale after 1988.
Hill died in 2002.
WED APR 29 7:30 CASTRO AWAR29C
65
tributes
Tyson
USA
2008
90 min
DIR James Toback
PROD Damon Bingham, James Toback
CAM Larry McConkey
ED Aaron Yates
MUS Salaam Remi
PRINT SOURCE Sony Pictures Classics, 550
Madison Avenue, 8th Floor, New York NY
10022. EMAIL: [email protected]
Mike Tyson was a boxer raised on the streets and trained
by Cus D’Amato, but he was a character who might have
been dreamed up by Norman Mailer or Dostoyevsky. In the
bloated and fraudulent world of professional boxing, he
made “the most frightening man on earth” seem reliable
yet modest as a label. After the charms and poems of
Muhammad Ali, Tyson was Black Vengeance Returns. And
in the entire history of boxers on film, he is perhaps the
most tragic and enlightening. But how can the ear-biter,
the man who squandered $300 million and the convicted
rapist be the central figure in a poignant, thoughtful
entertainment? The answer to that is the astonishing
chemistry made between Tyson the lifelong fighter and
James Toback, the relentless pursuer of heroes caught in
their own existential chaos. And how does it work? Tyson
talks. The film Tyson is a documentary-with clips from the
many fights-but it is a heart song, too, as Tyson talks about
a life of near constant abuse and humiliation. And as he
talks, so his innate violence becomes clearer. Tyson is not
an apology or an apologia, but a piercing insight into how
our society creates its villains and then despises them for
behaving badly. Whatever you think of Mike Tyson now
(before you see this film), we guarantee your mind will be
changed.
AN AFTERNOON
WITH JAMES
TOBACK
SATURDAY, MAY 2
4:00 pm Sundance Kabuki Cinemas
1881 Post Street (at Fillmore)
The Film Society proudly presents this year’s Kanbar
Award for excellence in screenwriting to the inimitable
James Toback. The brilliantly scandalous pen behind such
films as Fingers and The Gambler, Toback will discuss
and show clips from his work during the course of an
onstage interview. A screening will follow of Toback’s
latest project, a fascinating portrait simply titled Tyson,
capping this very special evening with a fearless writer.
A complete article with biographical information on Kanbar
Award recipient James Toback can be found on page 40.
—David Thomson
JAMES TOBACK
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LIVE & ONSTAGE
FILMS, Music, Performances
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the boys: the sherman brothers’ story
The Lost World with Dengue Fever
Proving Ground
State of Cinema Address
Mary Ellen Mark
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Live & Onstage
the boys: the sherman brothers’ story
World Premiere
USA/England
2009
DIR Jeffrey C. Sherman, Gregory V. Sherman
PROD Gregory V. Sherman, Jeffrey C. Sherman
CAM Richard Numeroff
ED Rich Evirs
MUS Richard Sherman, Robert Sherman
CAST Dick Van Dyke, Angela Lansbury, Lesley
Ann Warren, John Landis, Karen Dotrice, John
Lasseter, Jim Dale, Micky Dolenz, Jon Turteltaub
PRINT SOURCE Walt Disney Studios, 500 South
Buena Vista Street, Burbank, CA 91521.
CAUSES The Arts, Family Issues
This world premiere screening will be followed
by a special reception for film and party ticket
holders with the filmmakers in the reception
space of the Disney Family Museum (which will
open this coming fall).
When asked how long it takes to write a song, the
Sherman Brothers often say, “It takes your entire life . . .
plus the time required to jot it down.” And what unexpected
lives surface in this intriguing story of the sibling
songwriting team behind such classic scores as Mary
Poppins, The Jungle Book and It’s a Small World, told
against a backdrop of some of the most popular works of
our time. As staff songwriters for Walt Disney and popular
hitmakers on their own, the Shermans’ credits read like a
virtual history of the American family musical: Winnie the
Pooh, The Aristocrats, Charlotte’s Web, Chitty Chitty
Bang Bang and many more. Their personal relationship,
however, is far from child’s play. The two became so
estranged that their own sons grew up without knowing
each other, despite living only a few blocks apart. How
the brothers could collaborate so extensively on Oscarwinning soundtracks, most of which defined wholesome
family entertainment, and yet have a relationship so volatile
they could never bring their own families together, is
very much at the heart of this remarkable dissection of
creativity, genius and family ties. It’s made, after all, by the
sons themselves, first cousins Gregory and Jeff Sherman,
who upon meeting for the first time as young adults were
moved to do some collaborating of their own.
Gregory V. Sherman
Directors Gregory and Jeffrey Sherman are cousins. Before
directing the boys, each was a successful screenwriter in his
own right. The documentary the boys is their feature debut.
SAT SAT 68
JEFFREY c. Sherman
APR 25 APR 25 2:00 LETTERMAN BOYS25L FILM ONLY
2:00 LETTERMAN BOYS25film & party
LIVE & ONSTAGE
The Lost World with Dengue Fever
USA
1925
100 min
DIR Harry O. Hoyt
PROD Jamie White, Earl Hudson
SCR Marion Fairfax
CAM Arthur Edeson
ED George McGuire
MUS Dengue Fever
CAST Wallace Beery, Bessie Love, Lewis Stone
PRINT SOURCE George Eastman House, 900
East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607. FAX: 585271-3361. EMAIL: [email protected]
Based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel of the same
name, The Lost World revels in adventure-flick thrills
but is equally effective as a cinematic document of our
fascination with our own prehistory. Featuring amazing
stop-motion sequences by animation pioneer Willis
O’Brien, who later animated King Kong, and enlivened by
outlandish costumes and sets, this dyno-dino epic was a
smash hit upon its release in the mid-Roaring Twenties. An
explorer’s journal points to the existence of dinosaurs in a
far-flung locale, so reporter Edward Malone makes a deal
with the robust Professor Challenger and joins a pseudoscientific expedition to find the mythical monsters. Vicious
battles with a menagerie of real and imagined creatures
ensue. If only Malone and his fellow explorers stopped to
consider the grave consequences before hauling a madas-hell Brontosaurus back to their ultramodern metropolis.
While the film exemplifies groundbreaking cinematic
techniques and razzle-dazzle storytelling, it also serves
as a reminder of (hopefully) obsolete American attitudes
toward the big, bad world at large. Amid its now dissonant
charms are anachronistic cultural stereotypes regarding
science, marriage and race (complete with a white actor in
blackface). Dengue Fever’s score will playfully and lovingly
evoke worlds both known and unknown and elevate the
The Lost World’s offbeat humor and singular beauty.
DENGUE FEVER
Dengue Fever’s repertoire isn’t simply Cambodian music or a
Cambodian/American hybrid. Bollywood glitz, psychedelic rock,
spaghetti Western twang, klezmer, ska, funk and Ethiopian jazz
all contribute to the band’s unique sound. Singer Ch’hom Nimol’s
powerful singing voice, in Khmer and more recently also English,
is a luminous vibrato that adds exotic ornamentations to her
vocal lines and complements the band’s driving sound.
Harry O. Hoyt
Born in Minneapolis in 1885, Harry O. Hoyt sent scripts to
Hollywood businessmen while attending Yale. He directed his
first film in 1915, and over the span of a 30-year career he
wrote or directed over 100 films. The Lost World is Hoyt’s best
known film project and was hailed for the stop-motion animation
wizardry created by Willis O’Brien. Hoyt’s final directing project
was the talkie The Jungle Bride (1933). He died in 1961 in
Los Angeles.
—Sean Uyehara
TUE MAY 5 8:00 CASTRO LOST05C
Esurance is proud to support
animation in all its forms.
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Live & Onstage
Proving Ground
USA
2007
60 min
DIR Travis Wilkerson
SCR Travis Wilkerson
ED Travis Wilkerson
MUS Los Duggans
CAST Travis Wilkerson
PRINT SOURCE Extreme Low Frequency, 855
East Kensington Road, Los Angeles, CA 90026.
EMAIL: [email protected].
Is now the right time to present a Leninist agitation
on the history of American imperialism and war? The
answer may depend on whether you believe that things
like carpet-bombing, the tactics of decimation and the
role of capitalism have something to teach us moving
forward. We think it does. Leading the way is filmmaker
Travis Wilkerson (An Injury to One, Who Killed Cock
Robin?), whose unapologetic diatribe—some might call
it screaming—is set against the surprisingly engaging
music of death-folk musicians Los Duggans of Los
Angeles. Wilkerson mans the Kaptivator, a tiny box filled
with images and video intended for use in dance clubs.
Wilkerson stocks his toy with visual evidence of the
history of worldwide conflict and destruction, and Los
Duggans provides the live soundtrack. The result is an
intense mixture of theater, punk show, political rally and
film screening. No matter which side you are on, you
won’t be able to leave this performance without questions,
ideas and conversations about the politicization of art
or the aestheticization of politics. Proving Ground, first
presented at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007, has
undergone many changes and incarnations, and the crew
is prepared to get back in the saddle and lay it down. You
won’t want to miss this rare chance at thought-provoking,
enjoyable and powerful political theater.
—Sean Uyehara
Travis Wilkerson
A chance meeting in Havana with legendary Cuban film
propagandist Santiago Álvarez changed the course of Travis
Wilkerson’s life. He now makes films in the Third Cinema
tradition, wedding politics to form in an indivisible manner.
His best-known work is an agitprop essay on the lynching of
Wobbly Frank Little called An Injury to One (2002). His other
films include Accelerated Underdevelopment (2003) on
Santiago Álvarez, and Who Killed Cock Robin? (2005), one of
the most divisive films ever screened in the Sundance dramatic
competition. Wilkerson is an assistant professor of film studies at
the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Los Duggans
With their release CD Cavalry in 2007, Los Duggans appeared
to hail from Appalachia, by way of CBGB’s and the Sunset
Strip. Featuring “honest music about American working people,”
the death folk rockers take American roots music in and send
it out as electrified, punk-style metal riffs. Most recently, Los
Duggans played at Café du Nord as part of the alternative lineup
at the San Francisco Bluegrass and Old-Time Festival. For this
performance, Los Duggans performs as a duo with electric
guitar, gutbucket and drums and amplification at full volume.
THU APR 30 10:00 KABUKI Esurance is proud to support
animation in all its forms.
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LIVE & ONSTAGE
FEDERICO FELLINI
MARLON BRANDO
STATE OF CINEMA ADDRESS
MARY ELLEN MARK
SUNDAY, MAY 3
1:00 PM Sundance Kabuki Cinemas
1881 Post Street (at Fillmore)
Each year, the Film Society invites a well-known
public figure to talk about the intersecting
worlds of contemporary cinema and visual arts,
culture and society, images and ideas. This year,
the State of Cinema Address will be delivered
by acclaimed photographer Mary Ellen Mark.
PREVIOUS ADDRESSES
2008 Kevin Kelly
2007 Peter Sellars
2006 Tilda Swinton
On Set with Mary Ellen Mark
By Michael Read
For 40 years Mary Ellen Mark has been publishing
photographs of uncommon immediacy and insight. Her
signature imagery and particular genius belong in the realm
of the long-form photo essay. With an uncanny ability to
forge deep, extemporaneous connections with her subjects,
she has proven to be a consummate storyteller, be it among
Bombay prostitutes, Seattle street kids or residents of an
Oregon mental hospital. Through several seminal exhibitions
and books her body of work—inspired as much by Diane
Arbus and Garry Winogrand as by the hallowed traditions of
the Magnum photo agency—has long been recognized as an
inimitable touchstone in the photo documentary canon.
2005 Brad Bird
2004 B. Ruby Rich
2003 Michael Ciment
Presented with support from Lynn Kirshbaum.
The sensibilities that anchor Mark’s personal work—strength,
compassion, and fearlessness—have also brought her
great success on assignment for many of the world’s best
magazines. In this capacity she has been much sought-after
by legendary directors as a “special stills photographer” on
more than 100 movie sets. Beginning with Arthur Penn’s
Alice’s Restaurant and a Look magazine assignment
documenting Federico Fellini directing Satyricon in Rome,
she quickly has established herself as a photographer
unusually suited to capturing actors and directors at work
on what she knowingly calls the surreal atmosphere of the
film set.
Her newest book, Seen Behind the Scene: Forty Years
of Photographing on Set (Phaidon, 2008), collects scores
of illuminating portraits of consummate actors—Brando,
Nicholson, Deneuve, Blanchett and Depp—and superlative
directors, including Coppola, Forman, Allen, Forman, Buñuel
MARY ELLEN MARK
and Truffaut. Many of these images—a bloodstained Marlon
Brando contemplating a dragonfly perched on his fingertip
on the set of Apocalypse Now, for instance, or Benicio Del
Toro, shrouded in cigar smoke, channeling Che Guevara—
transcend the photographic to become objects of beauty
and contemplation in themselves.
Mark’s experience as a producer on documentaries
Streetwise, Twins and Alexander, as well as on the
feature American Heart—inspired by her own photographs
of homeless Seattle teens, and directed by her husband,
Martin Bell—further adds to her insight into the state of
cinema. “I’ve seen amazing people work,” she acknowledges
modestly, “and I’ve learned some things.”
In this year’s State of Cinema Address, Mark will take the
audience on a private tour of her film-set images, discussing
the legendary figures in the frame, as well as what was
going on around them, and how what she experienced has
informed her photographic and film work. She will also
show and discuss her photo essay Twins and screen its
companion short film, made with Martin Bell; and discuss
photography and film with the audience.
Michael Read was the editor of Film Arts magazine and is
now the SFFS publications manager.
SUN MAY 3
1:00 Kabuki
STAT03K
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CINEMA BY THE BAY
THE CREATIVE HEART OF THE WEST
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Empress Hotel
Everything Strange and New
Ferlinghetti
My Suicide
(Untitled)
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Empress Hotel
cinema by the bay
West Coast Premiere
USA
2008
85 min
DIR Allie Light, Irving Saraf
PROD Allie Light, Irving Saraf, Roberta Goodman
CAM Andrew Clark, Irving Saraf
ED Allie Light, Irving Saraf
MUS Larry Seymour
PRINT SOURCE Light-Saraf Films, 264 Arbor
Street, San Francisco, CA 94131. FAX: 415469-0139. EMAIL: [email protected].
CAUSES Disabilities, Economic Justice,
Family Issues, Bay Area Community
The tenants of the Empress Hotel, a Tenderloin facility
established by the San Francisco Department of Public
Health to house the recently homeless, come from
widely diverse backgrounds. Each resident of these
small furnished rooms has a story to tell, including
the amateur boxer who has spent years of his life
behind bars and still struggles with violent urges, the
woman with two master’s degrees who found herself
homeless when her specialized area of expertise fell
into technological obsolescence, the former publisher
who follows the spiritual voices he hears almost to
the point of suicide and the recovering crack addict
desperate to get her weight to rise above 84 pounds.
Local filmmaking duo Allie Light and Irving Saraf
masterfully imbricate the residents’ life stories and
their daily interactions with service providers and
building staff to craft a moving portrait of a building, a
neighborhood and all of the lives that intersect within.
Light and Saraf won an Academy Award in 1991 for
their look at the S.F. Opera, In the Shadow of the Stars,
and their most recent film bears the mark of two lifetimes
of documentary craftsmanship, perhaps most admirably
in its resolute reluctance to sentimentalize the plights of
its marginalized subjects as they struggle with mental
illness, drug addiction and poverty. The film leaves some of
its stories hopefully, others precariously close to despair,
but its patron saint, building manager Roberta Goodman,
provides the greatest reason for optimism as she tirelessly
tries to improve her residents’ lives.
ALLIE LIGHT
irving saraf
Allie Light and Irving Saraf won the Academy Award for
Best Documentary Feature for In the Shadow of the Stars
(1991) and an Emmy for Dialogues with Madwomen
(1994). As filmmaking partners, they have directed a number
of documentaries, including Visions of Paradise (1982), a
series of five portraits of folk artists, and Rachel’s Daughters:
Searching for the Causes of Breast Cancer (1997), which
aired on HBO. Longtime residents of the Bay Area, they both
taught for many years at San Francisco State University.
—David Gray
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Everything Strange and New
USA
2008
83 min
DIR Frazer Bradshaw
PROD Laura Techera Francia, A.D. Liano
SCR Frazer Bradshaw
CAM Frazer Bradshaw
ED Frazer Bradshaw, Jesse Spencer
MUS Kent Sparling
CAST Jerry McDaniel, Beth Lisick, Luis Saguar,
Rigo Chacon Jr.
PRINT SOURCE Lucky Hat Entertainment,
1438 North Gower Street, Box 28, Hollywood,
CA 90028. FAX: 323-993-7001 EMAIL:
[email protected].
CAUSES Family Issues, Bay Area Community
Married with two young sons and mired in a state of
arrested development, Wayne surveys his life as if from
a great distance. Enduring a daily regimen steeped in
malaise, he reports to his carpentry job dressed in dingy
overalls to make payments on a house that will soon be
worth less than its mortgage. Meanwhile, at home his
marriage is buckling under the weight of disillusionment
and parental exhaustion. An unflinching contemplation of
spiritual inertia and downward mobility, Frazer Bradshaw’s
feature debut chronicles a life that is in actuality neither
strange nor new. Invoking in its title Robert Browning’s
“The Pied Piper of Hamelin” (It’s dull in our town since
my playmates left! / I can’t forget that I’m bereft / Of
all the pleasant sights they see / Which the Piper also
promised me), Everything Strange and New ponders a
bewildered life in which holding onto what one has is a
losing proposition. “No one really ends up wanting what
they think they want,” Wayne tells his drinking buddies
who, like him, are adrift in introspection and ineffectuality.
Photographed in Oakland with an evocative visual style
all its own, Bradshaw’s film is moored by lingering,
artfully composed shots of urban traffic, nondescript
rooftops and rundown streets. Equally resonant is the
brilliant soundscape, tempered by Kent Sparling’s hushed
electro-acoustic score and featuring a recurrent explosive
composition by East Bay saxophonist Dan Plonsey. All
coalesce to create a piercing, meditative film that raises
uncomfortable questions about the broken promises of the
American dream.
CINEMA BY THE BAY
West Coast Premiere
Frazer Bradshaw
“Being a middle class American is an infinitely more complex
experience than it’s given credit for,” Frazer Bradshaw remarked
recently in indieWire. Building on a foundation laid in the visual
arts and experimental music, his first semi-narrative short film,
Every Day Here, played the 2000 Sundance Film Festival
and went on to the New York Film Festival. Harnessing a deep
connection with the visual aspects of the medium, Bradshaw has
built a substantial résumé as director of photography for over
200 independent productions. Everything Strange and New,
which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, is his first
narrative feature.
—Michael Read
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75
Ferlinghetti
cinema by the bay
World Premiere
USA
2009
76 min
DIR Christopher Felver
PROD Christopher Felver, Bruce Ricker
CAM Christopher Felver
ED Brett Marty
MUS Rick DePofi
with Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Billy Collins,
Robert Scheer, Dennis Hopper, Dave Eggers,
Michael McClure, Amiri Baraka, Lawrence
Ferlinghetti
PRINT SOURCE Felver Photography, 511
Johnson Street #1, Sausalito, CA 94965. FAX:
415-332-4499. EMAIL: [email protected].
CAUSES The Arts, Free Speech, Social Justice,
Local Bay Area Community
One of the most powerful moments in Christopher
Felver’s portrait of Lawrence Ferlinghetti takes place
during World War II, when the young Navy serviceman
found himself walking through the ruins of Nagasaki, less
than two months after the atomic blast. “It made me an
instant pacifist,” he says simply. The realization that his
own country was capable of such an act, coupled with
exposure to radical San Francisco poet Kenneth Rexroth,
helped Ferlinghetti forge his path from disillusioned G.I.
to philosophical anarchist, bookstore owner and publisher
under the famed City Lights moniker (poet Billy Collins
compares City Lights’ impact to “rolling a grenade into
a library”), free-speech icon and, eventually, the world’s
most-read poet. Felver’s long friendship with Ferlinghetti
yields some rare interviews with his subject, supplemented
by an impressive set of testimonials from, among others,
Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Anne
Waldman, Dennis Hopper, Amiri Baraka, Dave Eggers and
Jack Hirschman. Deftly interspersing these voices with
archival photos, video and audio, Felver vividly reveals a
true American literary legend, turning 90 this year and still
writing, painting, publishing and speaking out. At the dawn
of the age of television, despite the complacent mood
of the nation, a generation of American youth actually
became excited about literature as a means of pushing
the culture forward. That powerful contradiction, and the
vibrant literary community that continues in San Francisco
today, is a direct result of Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Christopher Felver
Christopher Felver is a photographer and filmmaker whose work
has been presented at libraries and museums worldwide. He has
chronicled the lives and work of many creative American artists,
from Beat icons Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac to musician
John Cage and sculptor Donald Judd. His collaborations with
Lawrence Ferlinghetti span over 20 years. He lives in Sausalito,
California.
—Jack Boulware
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My Suicide
USA
2008
105 min
DIR David Lee Miller
PROD Todd Traina, Larry Janss,
David Lee Miller, Eric J. Adams
SCR Eric J.Adams, David Lee Miller,
Gabriel Sunday
CAM Lisa Wiegand, Angie Hill
ED Jordan J. Miller, Gabriel Sunday
MUS Tim Kasher
CAST Gabriel Sunday, Brooke Nevin, Mariel
Hemingway, Joe Mantegna, David Carradine,
Nora Dunn
PRINT SOURCE Red Rover Films, 8265 West
Sunset Blvd. Suite 202, West Hollywood,
CA 90046. FAX: 805-497-8609. EMAIL:
[email protected], todd@redroverfilms.
com.
CAUSES Youth
“Have you ever felt like your life is just one big movie?”
asks lost 17-year-old Archie Williams (played with moody
madcap brilliance by multitalented Gabriel Sunday) near
the beginning of My Suicide. The normally ignored Archie
provokes a vortex of charged reactions in his suburban
Southern California community when he announces his
intention to commit suicide on camera. David Lee Miller
and crew deftly capture the fragile psychic world of
contemporary teens—its dancing demons, devouring angst,
suffocating alienation, dysfunctional family dynamics,
surging sexuality and dark narcissism—all within the
maddening and accelerating swirl of media overload
Archie’s generation endures. Born a “TV fetus,” Archie can
only tolerate the life he perceives through his ever-present
cameras. His voluminous digital video output is edited and
regurgitated into a cacophonous suicide documentary
comprised of hilarious skits, animation, clips from 1950s
films, family movies and video game effects. Archie’s
project brings unintended but devastating consequences,
forcing everyone to confront the duplicitous chasm
between fantasy and reality. The dizzying emotional pace
of My Suicide is fed and enhanced by music from Bright
Eyes, Radiohead, Joanna Newsom, My Morning Jacket,
Devandra Barnhart, The Eels, Daniel Johnston and the
Pixies. David Carradine, Mariel Hemingway, Joe Mantegna
and Nora Dunn all appear as characters ranging from the
slightly disturbed to greatly tweaked. My Suicide breaks
new ground in presenting a portrait of teen despair to
which teens can actually relate and respond.
CINEMA BY THE BAY
West Coast Premiere
David Lee Miller
My Suicide evolved from David Lee Miller and his son’s work
in Regenerate, a nonprofit organization they created in 2002
to address the leading causes of death among teenagers:
car crashes, suicides and violence. A graduate of Stanford
University’s film and journalism programs and Princeton’s
creative writing program, Miller has written several screenplays,
composed scores and produced and created video games. He
wrote and directed the comedy horror feature Breakfast of
Aliens (1993).
—Gustavus Kundahl
FRI MAY 1 TUE MAY 5 WED MAY 6 6:00 KABUKI 1:00 KABUKI 9:00 KABUKI MYSU01K
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(Untitled)
cinema by the bay
USA
2009
96 min
DIR Jonathan Parker
PROD Catherine di Napoli, Jonathan Parker,
Andreas Olavarria
SCR Jonathan Parker, Catherine di Napoli
CAM Svetlana Cvetko
ED Keiko Deguchi
MUS David Lang
CAST Adam Goldberg, Marley Shelton, Eion
Bailey, Vinnie Jones, Lucy Punch
PRINT SOURCE Parker Film Company, 1101
Fifth Ave. Ste. 300, San Rafael, CA 94901.
FAX: 415-456-2414. EMAIL: catherine@
parkerfilmcompany.com.
CAUSES The Arts
The director of cult favorite Bartleby returns with
this satiric comedy on that battleground of creativity,
commerce and love: the downtown art scene and the
self-obsessed, remarkably dressed individuals that pose
and preen within. Busy crumpling paper and kicking
buckets during his “sound performance,” avant-garde
composer Adrian (Adam Goldberg, Two Days in Paris) at
first has little time for his brother’s date, the aggressively
fashionable art gallery dealer Madeleine (Marley Shelton).
Finally aroused by the sounds of her vinyl clothes and
apparently sincere flattery (“I’m still shaking from your
bucket kick: Is it a death knell? A call to manual labor?”),
Adrian soon finds himself in a new world of fancy gallery
openings, collector courtships and difficult artistes, where
opinions are “judgments” and the one with the most jargon
wins. Unfortunately, his brother, a painter whose work is
better suited to hotel lobbies than museums, also wants
Madeleine’s love and (even worse) a chance to prove he’s
a real artist. A former modernist musician and collector of
abstract expressionism, director Jonathan Parker flavors
his smart and sexy love triangle between three narcissists
with an insider’s perspective on the pretensions and
passions of the contemporary art and new music scenes,
ably assisted by a razor-sharp script and excellent support
from a cast that includes Vinnie Jones as a Damien
Hirst–like firebrand and Zak Orth as a befuddled collector.
“Sometimes you hide behind intellectual mannerisms,”
notes one character about another’s artwork. As this
urbane film makes clear, it’s a comment that applies
both hilariously and sometimes horrifyingly to everyone
onscreen.
Jonathan Parker
Bay Area–based writer, composer and director Jonathan Parker
debuted in 2001 with Bartleby, an update of the classic Melville
tale. It was nominated for the Grand Prize at the Deauville Film
Festival and was selected to be the opening night film of the
prestigious New Directors/New Films series. A musician in
his youth, he is also a collector of the San Francisco school of
abstract expressionism, using many of his experiences in both
worlds as a basis for (Untitled).
—Jason Sanders
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THE LATE SHOW
THRILLS AND CHILLS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
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Grace
Hansel and Gretel
The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle
Zift
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Grace
THE LATE SHOW
West Coast Premiere
USA
2008
85 min
DIR Paul Solet
PROD Ingo Volkammer, Cory Neal, Adam Green,
Kevin DeWalt
SCR Paul Solet
CAM Zoran Popovic
ED John Coniglio, Darrin Navarro
MUS Austin Wintory
CAST Jordan Ladd, Samantha Ferris, Gabrielle
Rose, Malcom Stewart, Stephen Park, Serge
Houde
PRINT SOURCE Anchor Bay Entertainment.
EMAIL: [email protected].
With Nadya Suleman’s extreme maternal cravings all over
the news, the shocks and chills of Paul Solet’s debut
feature could hardly be timelier—or more disturbing. In
Grace, protagonist Madeline Matheson (Jordan Ladd) isn’t
carrying octuplets, but she is bearing the result of three
years of fertility drugs. With a history of miscarriages and
eight months into her current pregnancy, Madeline and
her husband are doing all they can to ensure a healthy
child—soy milk, tempe, a trusted midwife. Tragedy strikes
the hopeful mom, however, rendering the baby dead in her
womb. Determinedly, she carries the child to term—and
wills the newborn to life. But, as little Grace develops
cravings for “special food,” matters take a much darker
turn. Madeline’s mother-in-law starts making demands,
an evil doctor enters the picture and flies start appearing
around the crib. As Solet ratchets up the tension, he also
broadens the scope of the film to make compassionate
but critical points about maternal desperation. The images
are full of shadows and mired in gloom as Madeline keeps
her house in low light and shuns visitors and friends. Ladd,
meanwhile, sharply conveys Madeline’s acceptance of her
predicament and unconditional love for her child. There is
a history of horror movies involving pregnancy and wicked
kids, but Grace references Cronenberg and Polanski more
than It’s Alive. Solet’s discomfiting film makes one actually
question human desire for procreation, when the result
could be a creature as demanding as Grace.
Paul Solet
Paul Solet studied film and psychology at Emerson College. He
has made two prize-winning shorts, one of which he expanded to
make Grace. Commenting on the film and its hoped-for impact,
he says, “This isn’t your average horror film. When the hairs on
your neck go down and you swallow the knot of terror in your
throat, you’re going to take this film home like a cancer.”
—Rod Armstrong
FRI MAY 1 11:59 KABUKI MON MAY 4 12:30 KABUKI 80
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Hansel and Gretel
Hansel gua Gretel
South Korea
2008
116 min
DIR Yim Phil-Sung
PROD Choi Jae-Won, Seo Woo-Sik
SCR Kim Min-Sook, Yim Phil-Sung
CAM Kim Jee-Yong
ED Kim Sun-Min
MUS Lee Byeong-Woo
CAST Chun Jeong-Myoung, Eun Won-Jae, Shim
Eun-Kyoung, Jin Ji-Hee
PRINT SOURCE Finecut, 4F, Incline Bldg, 891-
37, Daechi-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South
Korea. FAX: 822-569-9466. EMAIL: cineinfo@
finecut.co.kr.
Talents as varied as Angela Carter, Jean Cocteau, Walt
Disney and Terry Gilliam have all mined the fertile ground
of Grimm fairy tales to create memorable work. In Hansel
and Gretel, director Yim Phil-Sung takes the familiar story
and transforms it to offer an unsettling cautionary tale
about what happens when kids get everything they want.
It all begins when Lee Eun-Soo (Chun Jeong-Myoung)
crashes his car and is rescued by a girl in a bright red
cape. She brings him to her house in the woods, and
introduces him to her two siblings and the overly cheerful
parental figures residing there. Everything in the toy-laden
home smacks of spoiled children and hyper-attentive
parents—but the truth is a little more sinister than that.
When Lee tries to return to his car, for example, he finds it
impossible to find his way back to the road. His cell phone
doesn’t get a signal and can’t make outgoing calls from
the house. And the television plays without being plugged
in. When the mother disappears and a strange new couple
arrives, matters get even more disturbing. Twisting the
fairytale to constantly disrupt viewer assumptions about
heroes and villains, Yim cleverly riffs on the story’s conceits
while commenting on kids’ expectations of their parents
and vice versa. With eye-popping art direction, a trio of
terrific child actors and a passel of disquieting moments,
Hansel and Gretel is a Grimm delight.
THE LATE SHOW
U.S. Premiere
Yim Phil-sung
Director Yim Phil-Sung began making films in 1997. His short
Baby played at the Venice and Karlovy Vary festivals. His first
feature, Antarctic Journal, explores a series of mysterious
deaths in the Antarctic and won the Orient Express Award at
the 38th Sitges Festival of Fantastic Film. He made Hansel and
Gretel under the aegis of film company Barunson, which also
produced The Good, the Bad and the Weird.
—Rod Armstrong
FRI APR 24 11:15 KABUKI MON APR 27 3:15 KABUKI THU APR 30 7:00 ROXIE HANS24K
HANS27K
HANS30R
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The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle
THE LATE SHOW
West Coast Premiere
USA
2009
100 min
DIR David Russo
PROD Peggy Case
SCR David Russo
CAM Neil Holcomb
ED Billy McMillin
MUS Awesome
CAST Marshall Allman, Natasha Lyonne, Tania
Raymonde, Tygh Runyan, Matt Smith, Vince
Vieluf
PRINT SOURCE Visit Films, 89 Fifth Ave, Suite
1002, New York, NY 10003. FAX: 718-3624865. EMAIL: [email protected].
David Russo’s witty and imaginative film debut explores
key issues of today, including corporate malfeasance, the
search for religion and, of course, male pregnancy. Dizzle’s
protagonist is Dory (Marshall Allmann), a toiler in the world
of data, who processes useless information about necrotic
kitten kidneys as he looks for life’s meaning. After getting
fired, he joins the ranks of Spiffy Jiffy, a ragtag bunch of
stoner janitors led by Oliver (Vince Vieluf) who dreams
of attending art school. One of the offices within Spiffy
Jiffy’s purview is a market research firm, which happens
to be testing a batch of self-heating “oven fresh” cookies.
Dory and his fellow sweepers sample the product, become
addicted and are soon experiencing some comical but
worrisome side effects. When these include giving birth
to semi-animate beings, Russo’s film takes on additional
hilarity and weight. For beyond all the toilet humor and
ribald observations about men’s fears of their own bodies,
Little Dizzle is basically an affirmation of the miraculous, a
message of hope tucked inside in a bottle of despair and
alienation. As Dory wends his way through a multitude of
belief systems—conveyed by a variety of witty T-shirts—
and Oliver gets his shot at artistic stardom, the film
suggests that meaning and fulfillment arise in surprising
ways. Incorporating Russo’s prize-winning animation
techniques—and a bravura sequence by Dutch animator
Rosto—The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle is
a fable about creation, scurrilous and scatological, but also
deeply felt and passionately rendered.
David Russo
David Russo is an independent film artist based in Seattle,
Washington. Named by Filmmaker magazine one of the “25
New Faces of Independent Film,” he has made a number of
prize-winning short films including I Am (Not) Van Gogh (SFIFF
2006) and Populi (SFIFF 2007). He worked as a janitor for
11 years and believes that the “janitorial perspective informs
everything I do.” The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle
is his first feature-length work.
—Rod Armstrong
SAT MAY 2 11:00 KABUKI WED MAY 6 3:30 KABUKI Esurance is proud to support
animation in all its forms.
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Zift
Bulgaria
2008
91 min
DIR Javor Gardev
PROD Georgi Dimitrov, Ilian Djevelekov, Matey
Konstantinov
SCR Vladislav Todorov
CAM Emil Christov
ED Kevork Aslanyan
MUS Kalin Nikolov
CAST Zachary Baharov, Tanya Ilieva, Vladimir
Penev, Mihail Mutafov
PRINT SOURCE IFC Films, 11 Penn Plaza, 18th
floor, New York, NY 10001. FAX: 646-2737250. EMAIL: [email protected].
Communist slogans, valuable diamonds, rare poisons,
glass eyes and scatological humor—these are just a
few of the elements driving the plot of Javor Gardev’s
immensely energetic debut feature. Using a film noir
framework, exquisite black-and-white cinematography
and rapid-fire dialogue, Zift depicts an ex-con named
Moth (Zachari Baharov) on the night after his release
from prison. Falsely incarcerated for murder in the 1940s,
he proves himself a model Communist while inside and
is released on good behavior two decades later into a
drastically different Bulgaria. On the run from local officials
who want to know the whereabouts of a diamond he is
suspected of stealing, while searching for his ex-girlfriend
and the son he’s never met, Moth is a hardboiled hero who
nevertheless finds time for the poignant reminiscences of
his one-eyed cellmate. With its breathless leaps among
the multiple stories nestled in its overarching narrative,
Zift recalls the masterpieces of American film noir, the
cinema of the Coen brothers or the literature of Roberto
Bolaño. Even with all of these referents, however, Gardev
and screenwriter Vladislav Todorov—adapting his novel of
the same name—have created something sui generis, a
darkly comic riff on Bulgaria’s Communist past. Featuring
a bathhouse scene that equals in visceral audacity the
one in Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises, and a revelation
concerning a cache for jewels that tops The Maltese
Falcon, Zift is an unforgettable story about fate, freedom
and society’s various notions of justice.
THE LATE SHOW
West Coast Premiere
Javor Gardev
Javor Gardev graduated from Sofia University with a Master’s
degree in philosophy and later received another M.A. from the
Krastyo Sarafov Academy in stage directing. He has directed
several stage productions as well as two prior short films. With
Zift, Gardev and screenwriter Vladislav Todorov decided to
employ a “radical attack” on contemporary Bulgarian cinema
in order to trigger productive debate. One of their goals was to
“frame the banality of communist evil . . . to render it utterly odd
by using a set of genre devices.” He is currently working with
Todorov on two other film projects.
—Rod Armstrong
SAT APR 25 11:00 KABUKI MON APR 27 2:00 KABUKI THU APR 30 3:30 KABUKI ZIFT25K
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ZIFT30K
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