Flashback Friday: State of Cinema by Tilda Swinton

/

The San Francisco International Film Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary of the State of Cinema Address this year with Steven Soderbergh. The Festival has had many talented speakers including: author Jonathan Lethem, film producer Christine Vachon, film editor Walter Murch, photographer Mary Ellen Mark, Wired publisher Kevin Kelly, writer/directore Brad Bird, cultural commentator B. Ruby Rich, longtime editor of the influential French film magazine Positif Michel Ciment and actress Tilda Swinton.

Here are a few highlights from the magnificent Tilda Swinton's speech when she delivered the annual State of Cinema address at the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival in 2006.

SFIFF56 In-Depth: Live & Onstage

/

We just announced that Steven Soderbergh, one of the world’s most celebrated figures in contemporary filmmaking, will deliver the tenth annual State of Cinema Address at the 56th San Francisco International Film Festival. The State of Cinema will headline the Festival’s Live & Onstage program of unique one-time-only events featuring elements of live music, multimedia presentations and audience participation - read what we have lined up below:

State of Cinema Address by Steven Soderbergh
Saturday April 27, 1:00 pm
Sundance Kabuki Cinemas

On the 10th anniversary of SFIFF’s annual State of Cinema Address, we are excited to present iconoclast and (currently designated) filmmaker Steven Soderbergh as he discusses the intersecting worlds of contemporary cinema, culture and society. Always riveting and defying expectation, Soderbergh doubtlessly will clarify and challenge one’s current views on where cinema is going and what it should be.

$20 for SFFS members - On sale today! Not a member? Join here.
$25 for the general public - Box office opens March 15.

Show or Tell
Friday April 26, 9:15 pm
New People Cinema

Bay Area artists and visiting filmmakers of SFIFF present their passions, experiences, relationships and obsessions with the moving image. This will be a true variety show with music, an illustrated lecture, surprises and a behind-the-scenes story or two. The show will include musician/cinephile Mark Eitzel (American Music Club), writer/editor/designer Eli Horowitz (former McSweeney’s managing editor), artist/filmmaker Lucy Raven (RP31, China Town) and musician/activist Boots Riley (The Coup) and others to be announced. (Photo by Tommy Lau.)

Inside the Drunken Mind of Derek Waters
Saturday April 27, 9:15 pm
Sundance Kabuki Cinemas

Friend of the Festival, writer-producer-actor-comedian, hyphenate Derek Waters (A Drunken Evening with Derek Waters SFIFF 2010, Only the Young SFIFF 2012) will be on stage presenting a program whose origins are best described as welling from deep inside Waters’ mind. Waters will share his personal discoveries of media from around the world, plus we get a peek at his new Drunk History television show for Comedy Central.

No More Road Trips?
Sunday May 5, 4:30 pm
Castro Theatre

Founder of the Prelinger Archives, Rick Prelinger brings us No More Road Trips?, a dream ride through 20th-century America made entirely from home movies that asks whether we’ve reached the end of the open road. The soundtrack for this fully participatory film is created by audiences at each screening.

Waxworks with Mike Patton, Scott Amendola, Matthias Bossi and William Winant
Tuesday May 7, 8:30 pm
Castro Theatre

As has become a tradition at SFIFF, we again unite vital contemporary musicians with classic silent film. Mike Patton and three percussionists—Scott Amendola, Matthias Bossi and William Winant—team to create an original score for the classic German expressionist film Waxworks (1924) that they will present in a live world premiere.

Tickets on sale now!

Go Watch SFFS Supported Films

/

The Film Society just wanted to send out a quick shout-out and cheers to a few Filmmaker360 films that are making their rounds at exciting festivals and Bay Area screenings!

While You Wait...

/

While you wait for the San Francisco International Film Festival to start at the end of next month (April 25-May 9), we thought it might be fun to catch another film festival. This week PBS launched its 2013 Online Film Festival, showcasing 25 films, including award-winning films from independent filmmakers, with a wide array of styles, perspectives and subject matter.  Vote for your favorite and get ready for next month!

56 Years Later and We Still Celebrate Being in the Dark

/

The mystery of what exactly will be happening in the dark at this year's festival is slowly unraveling with exciting announcements , including: Waxworks, New Directors Narrative Feature Competition and Golden Gate Awards Doc Feature Nominees, as well as a hint of the SFIFF56 Creative! While you wait for the next announcement, enjoy another hint of what to expect at the festival with the SFIFF42 trailer.

SFIFF56 In-Depth: Golden Gate Awards Documentary Feature Competition

/

Yesterday the 56th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 25–May 9) announced 22 films in competition for the New Directors Prize and the Golden Gate Award nominees for documentary feature (in-depth look about the New Directors Prize were posted yesterday). The International will award $20,000 to the GGA documentary feature winner and $15,000 to the Bay Area documentary feature winner. Independent juries will select the winners, which will be announced at the Golden Gate Awards, Wednesday, May 8.

View this year's documentaries below and remember the best value to watch them all is to purchase an Early Bird CineVoucher 10-pack!

After Tiller
Martha Shane and Lana Wilson
USA

After the assassination of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas in 2009, there are now only four doctors left in the country who provide third-trimester abortions for women. After Tiller moves between the rapidly unfolding stories of these doctors, all of whom were close colleagues of Dr. Tiller and are fighting to keep this service available in the wake of his death.

Before You Know It
PJ Raval
USA

Before You Know It explores the fascinating, but until now, rarely seen world of aging gay men. This provocative, poignant and life-affirming documentary details the lives of three different and remarkable individuals, the joys and hardships they experience, the difficulties of aging and being overlooked and also the support and uplift they find in their particular communities.

Chimeras
Mika Mattila
Finland

This revelatory and visually striking documentary follows a pair of political pop artists—the hugely successful middle-aged painter and sculptor Wang Guangyi and the gifted young photographer Liu Gang—as they grapple with their place and purpose in a new China of pervasive materialism and Western influence.

Cutie and the Boxer
Zachary Heinzerling
USA

After 39 years of marriage, painter Ushio Shinohara and his wife, Noriko, have weathered many storms of creative conflict. Clearly the nurturer in the relationship, Noriko endeavors to support her fiery partner while also endeavoring to find space for her own artistic efforts. Capturing them both, at work and at play, the result is a skillfully crafted portrait of art and long-term companionship.

God Loves Uganda
Roger Ross Williams
USA/Uganda

A powerful exploration of the evangelical campaign to change African culture with values imported from America’s Christian Right, the film follows American and Ugandan religious leaders fighting “sexual immorality” and missionaries trying to convince Ugandans to follow Biblical law.

Inori
Pedro González-Rubio
Japan

In the small mountain community of Kannogawa, Japan, the laws of nature reshape the human blueprint of what used to be a lively town. While the younger generations have gone to the cities, the few people who remain perform the everyday activities with a brave perspective on their history and the cycles of life.

The Kill Team
Dan Krauss
USA

In this chilling documentary, Bay Area–based Dan Krauss (The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club, Golden Gate Award winner, SFIFF 2005) explores the deeply disturbing story of U.S. soldiers, stationed in Afghanistan in 2009, who were convicted of murdering innocent civilians. Their motives, and the culture that enabled their crimes, are as complex as they are nightmarish.

Let the Fire Burn
Jason Osder
USA

In 1985, the Philadelphia Police Department dropped two pounds of military explosives on the house belonging to the radical black liberation group known as MOVE. Constructed entirely of archival materials and judicious intertitles, the film cannily juxtaposes startling images from the bombing, the resulting fire—left to burn for over an hour—and their aftermath to create a vivid portrait of a tragic injustice. 

Rent a Family Inc.
Kaspar Astrup Schröder
Denmark

Filmmaker Kaspar Astrup Schröder’s (The Invention of Dr. Nakamats, SFIFF 2009) alternately fetching, absorbing and offbeat documentary revolves around a 44-year-old Japanese family man who owns and operates a professional stand-in business that rents out fake relatives, spouses, friends and parents to a rapidly growing Japanese customer base “desperate…to cover up a secret.”

A River Changes Course
Kalyanee Mam
Cambodia/USA

Bay Area filmmaker Kalyanee Mam presents an intimate and moving portrait of the vanishing world of rural farmers and fishermen in Cambodia.  Focusing on three families in vivid cinéma vérité style, Mam reveals how the encroaching modern world is destroying the rich and sustaining cultures of the past and forcing the young to seek work in factories or plantations. 

The Search for Emak Bakia
Oskar Alegria
Spain

In 1926, avant garde artist Man Ray shot a film titled Emak Bakia, a Basque expression that means “Leave me alone.” Intrigued by the fanciful conundrums and coincidences of Ray and his art, filmmaker Oskar Alegría ignores Ray’s dictum and sets out to plumb the mysteries of Emak Bakia, leading to an unforgettable journey of whimsical discoveries and charming surprises

Sofia’s Last Ambulance
Ilian Metev
Germany/Bulgaria/Croatia

On the front lines of a degraded emergency-care system in Sofia, Bulgaria, an over-extended, yet emphatically humane, paramedic crew hurtles frantically from one call to the next in a dilapidated ambulance. Filmed primarily through the lenses of three dashboard-mounted cameras, Sofia’s Last Ambulance unfolds in a series of unflinching, real-time vignettes shot over the course of two years. 

SFIFF56 In-Depth: New Directors Narrative Feature Competition

/

Today the 56th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 25–May 9) announced 22 films in competition for the New Directors Prize and the Golden Gate Award nominees for documentary feature (in-depth look about the documentaries will be posted tomorrow). The International will award $15,000 for the New Directors Prize, which will be given to a narrative first feature that exhibits a unique artistic sensibility and deserves to be seen by as wide an audience as possible. Independent juries will select the winners, which will be announced at the Golden Gate Awards, Wednesday, May 8. 

View this year's narrative features below and remember the best value to watch them all is to purchase an Early bird CineVoucher 10-pack!

The Cleaner
Adrián Saba
Peru

As a mysterious epidemic eviscerates Lima’s adult population—but spares its children—a solitary middle-aged forensic worker discovers an orphaned boy at one of his cleanup sites and decides to shelter the traumatized youth until he can find a relative to take him. As time passes, a subtle transformation takes hold of both man and child in this gently haunted and affecting study of social alienation and redemption. 

Habi, the Foreigner
María Florencia Álvarez
Argentina/Brazil
North American Premiere

Highlighted by an impressive and subtle performance by Martina Juncandella, first-time director María Florencia Álvarez’s film traces a 20-year-old woman’s spontaneous attempt to create a new identity for herself as a Lebanese orphan in Buenos Aires. Sensitively examining the role of culture in self-definition, Habi, the Foreigner is a beguiling coming-of-age story detailing the feeling of being an outsider in your own land.

Memories Look at Me
 Song Fang
China    

In this strong feature debut, Song Fang directs and plays herself as she pays a visit to her parents at their home in Nanjing. Intimate and contemplative, Memories Look at Me muses on life, death and tradition while touching on the essence of family life with a mixture of melancholy and serenity.