June 2011 brought the fantastic news that—come September—the San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) would be transforming Japantown's New People Cinema into its very own year-round venue. Well summer's almost over and true to its promise, SFFS has revealed an auspicious line-up of September movies with which to inaugurate this new venture. This is exactly what I was hoping for: week-long runs of acclaimed films with limited distribution that were passed over by the likes of Landmark Theaters, the Roxie, YBCA and others. I'm doubly impressed by the commitment to daily matinee and evening showtimes.
While the Official Grand Opening doesn't happen until later in the month, programming unofficially gets going on Friday, September 2 with the Bay Area premiere of Jean-Luc Godard's Film socialisme. This latest polemic from France's cranky, 80-year-old master provocateur is purportedly about the decline of Western civilization, vis-à-vis a Mediterranean cruise and portrait of a provincial French gas station-owning family—with purposefully oblique / misleading subtitles to boot. While the 1985 Hail Mary riots outside the Roxie Cinema are a lovely memory, I need to think back 40 years to come up with a Godard film I unequivocally "liked." Through the decades I've dutifully slogged my way through each new work that's come to the Bay Area (and not all of them have), so I'm feeling no less compelled to see this, the director's first new feature since 2004's Notre musique. My reticence is lessened just knowing Patti Smith is in it. Here's a Film socialisme trailer that appeared several months before the 2010 Cannes premiere. It appears to be the entire movie fast-forwarded in 4 1/2 minutes.
While Godard might be a hard pill for some, the following week brings a surefire crowd-pleaser to the SFFS / New People Cinema with the September 9 SF premiere of Natalia Smirnoff's Puzzle. I missed this Argentine film when it screened at last autumn's Mill Valley Film Festival, eventually catching up with it at January's Palm Springs fest. It was the most rapturously received of the three dozen movies I saw there. Puzzle is an accomplished, low-key charmer about a put-upon Buenos Aires housewife who finds personal validation and companionship in the world of competitive jigsaw puzzle tournaments. (Who knew?) It features a captivatingly understated performance by María Onetto, whom we last saw in Lucrecia Martel's The Headless Woman. Furthering the Martel connection is that director Smirnoff, making an assured directorial debut with Puzzle, served as Martel's assistant director on La ciénaga and The Holy Girl. My only complaint with Puzzle is a late-film plot development which rings so completely false, it might have derailed a lesser work. See the film and let me know if you agree.
On Friday, September 16, the SFFS Cinema ping-pongs from crowd-pleaser back to hardcore art film with Cristi Puiu's Aurora. This three-hour, slow-burning Romanian character study cum crime thriller screened at this year's SF International Film Festival and is Puiu's follow-up to The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. It was my favorite narrative feature of the festival and has an assured place in my year-end Top 10. While I anticipate seeing it again, Aurora's SF return will be especially welcomed by those who attended a fateful screening late in the festival. The 35mm print broke just before the crucial event at the film's mid-point, resulting in a canceled screening and a room of traumatized cinephiles.
The less informed you are going into Aurora the better. Simply know that your patience for the mundane "events" which frontload the film will be amply rewarded and that the film's peevish protagonist, who appears in nearly every frame, is portrayed by the director himself. There's a note on the SFFS website advising that the September 20 and 21 showings of Aurora will be on Blu-ray, which I assume means the first four days will be 35mm. On Thursday, September 22, following Aurora's six-day run, the SFFS / New People Cinema will celebrate its Official Grand Opening with an open house reception. Festivities will include a ribbon-cutting ceremony, sake ceremony and a selection of short films.
Beginning Friday, September 23 the cinema shifts gears with a week of special events, starting with SFFS' first ever three-day mini-festival of recent Hong Kong Cinema. As mentioned in the press release, "SFFS has played a pioneering role in introducing Hong Kong cinema to Bay Area audiences through the SF International Film Festival, which has shown over 70 Hong Kong films, beginning in 1959." The seven films in this series range from opening night indie Merry-Go-Round (partially set in San Francisco) to the latest from veteran Johnnie To (an atypical romantic dramedy, Don't Go Breaking My Heart). Other recognizable Hong Kong directors in the fest include Ann Hui (All About Love, in which pregnant, lesbian ex-partners re-connect) and Benny Chan (sci-fi actioner City Under Siege).
Benny Chan's most recent film, martial arts epic Shaolin, screens later that week for two days (September 28 & 29), separate from the Hong Kong mini-fest. Set in early 20th century China, this tale of a warlord's spiritual redemption boasts a cast of HK superstars (Andy Lau, Nicholas Tse, Jackie Chan) and fight sequences performed by real Shaolin monks. In between Hong Kong Cinema and Shaolin, SFFS hosts a special screening of the documentary The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan on Monday, September 26. Directed by Henry Corra (who will attend the evening shows), this doc is about the mysterious 40-year-old disappearance of an African American G.I. in the jungles of Viet Nam and Cambodia.
And that takes us up to Friday, September 30 and a one-week run of Passione, John Turturro's valentine to the music and people of Naples which opened this year's Cinequest in San Jose. The month of October also finds SFFS into the full swing of its Fall Season, so save these dates: Taiwan Film Days (Oct. 14-16), NY/SF International Children's Film Festival (Oct. 21-23) and French Cinema Now (Oct. 27-Nov.2).
Cross-published on film-415 and Twitch.
The full line-up for the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF) was announced at an unusually subdued press conference last week. With Executive Director Graham Leggat taking an uncustomary silent role in the proceedings, it was left for new Director of Programming Rachel Rosen and her staff to guide attendant journalists and Bay Area film community members through this year's impressive roster of 177 films from 46 countries. Rosen admitted that while the festival doesn't program according to "themes", certain ones inevitably emerge. 2010's program is characterized by "a return to basics and beauty in filmmaking," films that could be deemed "unclassifiable," films with an "intense interest in the creative process" and the beginnings of an "era of co-auteur theory" (15 of this year's selections have two or more directors). Rosen also joked that she has indulged her taste for "nuns, old men and farm animals."
In a previous entry I covered the films and events announced prior to the press conference. I won't be revisiting them here, except for these few addendums. Joining the list of on-stage "friends" at the Roger Ebert tribute will be writer/director Philip Kaufman and documentarian Errol Morris. At the world premiere of All About Evil, director Joshua Grannell (aka Peaches Christ) is expected to duet with actress Mink Stole on the theme song from John Waters' Female Trouble. Animator Don Hertzfeldt will be the youngest person to ever receive the fest's Persistance of Vision Award. The documentary Presumed Guilty so wowed the programming staff that they've already declared it winner of the Golden Gate Awards competition for Best Bay Area Doc, leaving one less decision for the jury.
Each year when the SFIFF line-up is revealed—and I've attended every single fest since 1976—I experience a mixture of elation and disappointment. This 53rd edition is no exception. Only six of the 20 films I most hoped for are in evidence, and several dozen more are MIA. That said, there are fully 25 films I'm very excited about seeing, with another dozen of possible interest. So here's my very subjective wander through what's in store from April 22 to May 6.
I'll begin, as I'm wont to do, with the French language selections. And right off, here's a big Evening Class kiss to whoever programmed Joann Sfar's Gainsbourg (Je t'aime…moi non plus). I'm a monster fan of musical iconoclast Serge Gainsbourg, but know very little about his life apart from the scandals (which include making the only pop record ever condemned by a Pope). This biopic only opened in French theaters three months ago, so once again, bravo. Somewhat relatedly, SFIFF has also programmed visionary Hong Kong director Johnnie To's Vengeance, which stars grizzled veteran rock 'n' roller Johnny Hallyday, aka the French Elvis Presley, as a chef avenging the Hong Kong slaughter of his daughter's family.
SFIFF has always done a fine job of keeping tabs on the work of France's l-o-n-g established auteurs. This year brings us Alain Resnais' Wild Grass, which won a special jury prize last year at Cannes, and Jacques Rivette's circus-set Around a Small Mountain. I sheepishly confess to not being a particular fan of the latter director's work, but I adored 2007's The Duchess of Langeais and this new one stars favorites Sergio Castellitto and Jane Birkin (ex-wife of Serge and mother of Charlotte Gainsbourg).
A number of mid-career French auteurs also pop up this year, starting with the Opening Night screening of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Micmacs, his first film since 2004's A Very Long Engagement. Bruno Dumont returns to SFIFF with his latest provocation, a tale of religious extremism called Hadejwich. Although it's received tepid reviews, everyone I know is dying to see White Material because a) it stars Isabelle Huppert and b) it's directed by Claire Denis. This is Huppert's second film in as many years playing a white colonialist, the other being Rithy Panh's mysteriously as-yet-unseen in the Bay Area The Sea Wall. Director Jan Kounen, whom Variety once called "the Carlos Castañeda of hipster helmers," gets a crack at the Coco Chanel legend in Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky. The story takes place at a time when reviled and penniless Igor (due to "The Rite of Spring" and the Russian Revolution respectively) moves his wife and four kids into Coco's sprawling estate. The film stars Anna Mouglalis (who also plays chanteuse Juliette Gréco in Gainsbourg) and Danish dreamboat Mads Mikkelsen. Then in Christophe Honoré's Making Plans for Lena, put-upon wife and mother Chiara Mastroianni gets to spend a disastrous weekend at her parent's home in Bretagne. And yes, there's a part in it for Louis Garrel. SFIFF53 will also be showing a special sneak preview of a new-ish film by François Ozon.
Four other French language films I'm anticipating are by directors at or near the beginning of their careers. I was thrilled to find Patric Chiha's debut film Domain in the line-up because it stars the world's scariest actress and a personal favorite of mine, Béatrice Dalle. Who can believe it's been almost 25 years since Betty Blue? Here she plays an increasingly unhinged, alcoholic mathematician who has a special relationship with her gay, teenage nephew. The lead actress is also my reason for wanting to see Dutch director Dorothée van den Berghe's My Queen Karo. Déborah François (The Child, The Page Turner) stars in this story of a squatting family in 1970s Amsterdam, as seen through the eyes of a young girl, Karo. Making her second appearance at SFIFF is director Mia Hansen-Løve with Father of My Children. I wasn't as taken by 2008's All is Forgiven as many were, but I've heard nothing but great things about this true story of a French film producer's suicide and its effect on those he leaves behind. In her third feature, Lourdes, Austrian director Jessica Hausner enlists the help of yet another incomparable French actress. Sylvie Testud plays a wheelchair-bound, quasi non-believer who nonetheless makes a pilgrimage to Lourdes.
Finally, there are three French documentaries I've got my eye on. Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea's Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno attempts to reconstruct a lost masterpiece by the director of Diabolique and The Wages of Fear, while recounting the story of its troubled production. Documentarian Nicolas Philibert had a 2003 arthouse hit with To Be and To Have, about a contemporary one-room schoolhouse in rural France. His latest film Nénette looks at a 40-year-old orangutan who lives the caged life in Paris' Jardin des Plantes. Jean-François Delassus's 14-18: The Noise and the Fury is a WWI doc that programmer Rosen especially singled out as being "unclassifiable." Using a mix of newsreel footage, movie clips and the voice of an unseen soldier narrator, the film attempts to fathom a reason for the "war to end all wars" 10 million dead.
While the above titles represent a formidable effort at bringing the latest French cinema to the Bay Area, there are a number of curious omissions. Will the latest works by such notable directors as Robert Guédiguian (The Army of Crime), Lucas Belvaux (Rapt), Gaspar Noé (Enter the Void), Tony Gatlif (Korkoro), Costa Gavras (Eden is West), Patrice Chereau (Persecution) and Sebastien Lifshitz (Going South), as well as Isabelle Adjani's Cesar-winning performance in Skirt Day pop up at the SF Film Society's autumn French Cinema Now festival? Or will they already be considered old hat and forgotten by then?
Cross-published on film-415 and Twitch.
The Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF) announced its 2009 line-up last week, adhering to what has become a proven formula for the 32-year-old festival: Start with a dozen or so indie-ish, autumn-release prestige pics, often with stars and directors in tow. Next, throw in a couple big name tributes and high profile selections from the year's fest circuit. Then round things out with a big helping of docs, shorts, live music events and largely unheralded narrative features from around the globe. There are close to 100 programs from 34 countries this year, and what follows is a picky, subjective look at a portion of what's in store from October 8 to 18.
First off, MVFF has become the Bay Area festival for movie-stargazing. This year offers the opportunity to ogle Uma Thurman (appearing at a tribute with her new film Motherhood), Clive Owen (star of the co-Opening Night film The Boys Are Back, followed the next night with a tribute and screening of 1998's Croupier) and Woody Harrelson (also getting the tribu-treatment alongside a look at his acclaimed new film The Messenger). For those who like their stars a bit more edgy and obscure, MVFF presents veteran character actor Seymour Cassel—best known for his collaborations with John Cassavetes—in conversation with iconoclastic Bay Area filmmaker Rob Nilsson. Cassel's latest film, the LeVar Burton-directed Reach For Me, screens the following night. And while we're at it, Nilsson's got a new film in the festival, too (Imbued).
The tribute which really had Bay Area cinephiles oohing and aahing, however, is sadly not to be. Iconic French new wave actress, singer and director Anna Karina recently had an accident which prevents her from attending the festival. Happily, she has issued a rain check and promises to come here next spring. Meanwhile, MVFF will still be screening Karina's first directorial effort in 30 years, Victoria (described as Some Like it Hot meets Breathless), as well as a revival of 1965's Pierrot le fou, one of seven features she made with then-husband Jean-Luc Godard.
Of all the "stars" attending MVFF32, perhaps none will be on the lips of movie-goers in the next few months more than Gabourey Sidibe, the star of co-Opening Night film Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire. The film, which won Sundance's Jury Prize and Audience Award back in January, just got a huge push at Toronto (where it snagged another audience prize) with newly onboard executive producers Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey beating the drum. Precious is the inspirational story of a derided, African-American teen who's pregnant for a second time with her father's baby. TV actress/comedienne Mo'Nique has won accolades for her portrayal of the mother-from-hell, and even Mariah Carey has been singled out for her small role as a social worker. MVFF Director of Programming Zoe Elton is predicting that Precious will go on to become this year's Slumdog Millionaire, i.e., the little film that could. Director Lee Daniels is also expected to attend the screening. (Precious opens in limited release on November 6.)
There were two British films in competition at Cannes this year (well, three if you count Jane Campion's Bright Star), and MVFF has got them both. Ken Loach's Looking For Eric is one of two Closing Night films (along with Jean-Marc Vallée's The Young Victoria), and stars ex-Manchester United soccer champ Eric Cantona as an apparitional life coach to a put-upon postman. The other is Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank, in which a council flats teen (a much lauded performance from newcomer Katie Jarvis) experiences sexual tension with her mother's new boyfriend (Hunger's Michael Fassbender). Fish Tank is Arnold's second feature, and just like its predecessor, 2006's Red Road, was the winner of Cannes' Prix du Jury. It's my second most anticipated film in the festival.
And what's first? That would be André Téchiné's The Girl on the Train, starring Émilie Dequenne (best known for her titular role in the Dardenne Brothers' Rosetta) as a young woman who falsely accuses some black and Arab youths of an anti-Semitic attack. Based on true events, the film co-stars my favorite Israeli actress Ronit Elkabetz (The Band's Visit, Late Marriage), vet actor Michel Blanc, and Catherine Deneuve, making her sixth appearance in a Téchiné film. The Girl on the Train premiered at this year's Berlin Film Festival along with another anticipated French film on the MVFF roster, François Ozon's flying baby movie, Ricky.
Unfortunately, Latin America is grossly underrepresented at Mill Valley this year, a lamentable programming decision given the fact we no longer have an exclusively Latin American film festival in the Bay Area. I've scoured the line-up and come up with only one narrative feature from the region—Sebastian Silva's The Maid. Happily, this social satire about a maid becoming unhinged after 23 years of service to the same upper class Chilean family is one I've been looking forward to ever since it won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema.
Asian film enthusiasts will be thrilled to learn that master Hong Kong director John Woo is expected to attend the MVFF screening of his new film, Red Cliff. This two-part historical epic represents Woo's return to Chinese language films after a 15-year stint in Hollywood. It's also purported to be the most expensive film ever made in Asia, with an all-star cast that includes Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Takeshi Kaneshiro. With the aim of celebrating the 100th anniversary of Hong Kong cinema, MVFF will also be screening Johnnie To's Sparrow, which had a theatrical run at San Francisco's 4 Star Theater earlier this year. A more impressive choice might have been Red Cliff II, which has been touring festivals since January. Or even To's more recent Vengeance, starring craggy French rock n' roller Johnny Hallyday.
A last-minute addition that you won't find in the printed program is the latest from Polish maestro Andrzej Wajda. Many incorrectly assumed that 2007's Katyn, which screened at MVFF last year and was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, would be the 83-year-old director's last. But he turned up in Berlin this year with Sweet Rush, an older woman/younger man film-within-a-film romance that surprisingly copped the festival's boundary-pushing Alfred Bauer Prize. Kudos to the programming staff for securing this one.
As for the rest of the World Cinema section, it's mostly filled with unknown entities (to me at least), making it difficult to know quite what to spotlight here. I'm a fan of Czech director Jan Hrebejk (Up and Down, Beauty in Trouble) and am pleased to see his latest, Shameless, in the line-up. I'm also intrigued by the made-for-$500 Romanian film about two teens trapped in an Elevator. Hipsters is a splashy Russian musical about rebellious Soviet youth in 1955 Moscow, while another period piece Hellsinki, concerns young Finnish criminals in the 1960s/1970s. The clip from Israel's Surrogate shown at the MVFF press conference made it look pretty darn sexy. Jermal is an Indonesian father/son drama set on a remote deep-sea fishing depot. A film about a narcissistic, egomaniacal movie star would seem to be an unlikely entry from Iran, but nonetheless we have Tahmineh Milani's Superstar. In addition there are a couple films each from India, South Africa, Australia, Denmark and Sweden that look promising. Finally, anyone planning to wait until the marvelous An Education opens in theaters on October 16 should know that director Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners, Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself) will be attending that film's MVFF screening.
I've touched on a handful of the fest's U.S. narrative features and here are a few more worth considering. First off, director Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking, Juno) will receive a tribute accompanied by his recent Telluride/Toronto triumph Up in the Air, starring George Clooney. Miguel Arteta (Chuck & Buck) directs his first feature in seven years, Youth in Revolt, with Michael Cera as a dull teen with a seriously rebellious alter ego. I'm not sure which of these two films has the more intriguing cast—Mitchell Lichtenstein's Happy Tears with Parker Posey, Demi Moore, Rip Torn and Ellen Barkin, or Rebecca Miller's The Private Lives of Pippa Lee with Keanu Reeves, Alan Arkin, Robin Wright Penn and Maria Bello. Admirers of Larry Blamire's affectionate 1950s sci-fi spoofs The Lost Skelton of Cadavra and its sequel The Lost Skelton Returns Again, surely won't want to miss his parody of 1930's "old dark house" movies, Dark and Stormy Night.
Amongst the two dozen non-fiction features in the festival's Valley of the Docs section, perhaps none will draw more attention than Rick Goldsmith and Judy Ehrlich's The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg himself is scheduled to attend both MVFF screenings. Traditionally the fest brings us several fascinating music documentaries and this year they've come up with Meredith Monk—Inner Voice and Soundtrack For a Revolution, which explores the music that accompanied the American Civil Rights Movement. The Blind Boys of Alabama are expected to perform live at the October 10 screening of the latter film. And finally, the Bay Area's own counter-cultural cheerleader and ice cream flavor gets the bio-doc treatment in Michelle Esrick's Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie.
10/07/09 UPDATE: Of related interest, Dennis Harvey offers up his "Mill Valley Menu" for Variety. MVFF, he writes, is "starting to look like kudos season preview, Northern California edition."
Cross-published on film-415 and Twitch.
While the Official Grand Opening doesn't happen until later in the month, programming unofficially gets going on Friday, September 2 with the Bay Area premiere of Jean-Luc Godard's Film socialisme. This latest polemic from France's cranky, 80-year-old master provocateur is purportedly about the decline of Western civilization, vis-à-vis a Mediterranean cruise and portrait of a provincial French gas station-owning family—with purposefully oblique / misleading subtitles to boot. While the 1985 Hail Mary riots outside the Roxie Cinema are a lovely memory, I need to think back 40 years to come up with a Godard film I unequivocally "liked." Through the decades I've dutifully slogged my way through each new work that's come to the Bay Area (and not all of them have), so I'm feeling no less compelled to see this, the director's first new feature since 2004's Notre musique. My reticence is lessened just knowing Patti Smith is in it. Here's a Film socialisme trailer that appeared several months before the 2010 Cannes premiere. It appears to be the entire movie fast-forwarded in 4 1/2 minutes.
On Friday, September 16, the SFFS Cinema ping-pongs from crowd-pleaser back to hardcore art film with Cristi Puiu's Aurora. This three-hour, slow-burning Romanian character study cum crime thriller screened at this year's SF International Film Festival and is Puiu's follow-up to The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. It was my favorite narrative feature of the festival and has an assured place in my year-end Top 10. While I anticipate seeing it again, Aurora's SF return will be especially welcomed by those who attended a fateful screening late in the festival. The 35mm print broke just before the crucial event at the film's mid-point, resulting in a canceled screening and a room of traumatized cinephiles.
Beginning Friday, September 23 the cinema shifts gears with a week of special events, starting with SFFS' first ever three-day mini-festival of recent Hong Kong Cinema. As mentioned in the press release, "SFFS has played a pioneering role in introducing Hong Kong cinema to Bay Area audiences through the SF International Film Festival, which has shown over 70 Hong Kong films, beginning in 1959." The seven films in this series range from opening night indie Merry-Go-Round (partially set in San Francisco) to the latest from veteran Johnnie To (an atypical romantic dramedy, Don't Go Breaking My Heart). Other recognizable Hong Kong directors in the fest include Ann Hui (All About Love, in which pregnant, lesbian ex-partners re-connect) and Benny Chan (sci-fi actioner City Under Siege).
Benny Chan's most recent film, martial arts epic Shaolin, screens later that week for two days (September 28 & 29), separate from the Hong Kong mini-fest. Set in early 20th century China, this tale of a warlord's spiritual redemption boasts a cast of HK superstars (Andy Lau, Nicholas Tse, Jackie Chan) and fight sequences performed by real Shaolin monks. In between Hong Kong Cinema and Shaolin, SFFS hosts a special screening of the documentary The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan on Monday, September 26. Directed by Henry Corra (who will attend the evening shows), this doc is about the mysterious 40-year-old disappearance of an African American G.I. in the jungles of Viet Nam and Cambodia.
