It is possible to get too much of a good thing, and local cineastes may well experience that kind of happy overload this week as no less than six film festivals open in the Bay Area—half running through this Sun/20, the other half through Sun/27, some with streaming-access options extending further.
First up on is the San Francisco Dance Film Festival, whose 15th edition commences this Wed/16 evening at Delancey Street Theater with a program of narrative shorts, then the US premiere of Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby, a film record of a stage adaptation of the popular BBC series by choreographer-director Benoit Swan Pouffer.
The next four days at various venues mix further shorts bills with features including German documentary Pol Pot Dancing (about the history of traditional Cambodian dance); world premiere French L(oo)ping (another filmed record of a multimedia stage performance, featuring electronica artist Rone); Breaking Form, a portrait of veteran downtown NYC dance-scene maven Jane Comfort; and Obsessed With Light, which recalls the hugely influential and prescient career of internationally renowned American dancer Loie Fuller, who combined movement, costumes, lighting and projections to unprecedented effect over a century ago.
Much of this in-person programming will also be available via Marquee TV between Oct. 21-Nov. 3 for those who purchase a streaming pass. That access includes reprise of the documentary feature whose world premiere had provided the festival with a fundraising gala earlier this month: Lisa Le Lievre’s Closer Than Yesterday follows young SF Ballet performers Carmela Mayo and Alexis Francisco Valdes as they prepare to compete in the prestigious Helsinki International Ballet Competition, coached by former SFB principal Tiit Helimets. For full info on all of SF Dance Fest, go here.
Not long ago, the folks at SF Indiefest had the very good idea of combining the calendar dates for two of the newer specialized festivals in their annual roster, hopefully bringing different audiences together and offering patrons a particularly diverse selection of viewing options on any given night. Ergo, this Thu/17-Sun/27 sees the simultaneous run of their Green Film Festival and Short Film Festival, both unspooling at SF’s Balboa and 4 Star Theaters in addition to on-demand access during the same timespan.
Greenfest (more info here) kicks off Thursday with Babette Hogan and Julie Eisenberg in person at the 4 Star to present Running for the Mountains, an expose of political corruption enabling environmental despoilage (not to mention global climate change) in mineral-rich West Virginia. Friday brings Ben Kolak’s Cat City, about the problem (and virtues) of feral felines in Chicago.
Other features getting a theatrical playdate run a gamut of eco-conscious terrain: Rescuing pets in war-torn Ukraine (Searching for Nika); a survey of efforts to prevent species extinctions (Just Above the Surface of the Earth); a fabled photographer of California nature (Arthur Tress: Water’s Edge); redwoods (Giants Rising); fungi (Web of Life); glaciers (Chasing Time); ocean pollution (The Cigarette Surfboard); basic human rights battles in Latin America (Water for Life); etc. There are titles of local interest, ones from around the globe, a newly restored golden oldie (Judy Irving & Chris Beaver’s 1982 nuclear industry indictment Dark Circle), a guided off-screen “forest bathing” excursion, and even a program of “eco-horror” shorts.
The Shortsfest (more info here) offers even greater diversity, its nearly 100 works encompassing ’toons, documentary, drama, music, comedy, history, thrillers, the avant-garde, drag, sports, and just about anything else you could think of. There are themed programs (“Frightening Tales,” “Get Animated,” “Life Is Funny,” etc.), and while there’s a great deal of US invention on display, you can also find individual shorts from Canada, the UK., Nigeria, France, and elsewhere. The Green and Shorts festivals play at their theaters through Thurs/24, then continue in On Demand virtual form through Sun/27. For further info on all the above (as well as other upcoming Indiefest events), go here.
But if it’s possible to do those last two festivals’ opening nights as a double-header, you’ll still have the dilemma of two more area fests also commencing Thurs/17. One of them is the tenth anniversary edition of SFFilm’s Doc Stories, an annual showcase for some of the year’s most acclaimed nonfiction cinema. Taking place at the Vogue, it officially starts (after a free 4 pm screening of the 2015 Joplin tribute Janis: Little Girl Blue) with Kevin MacDonald’s One to One: John & Yoko, a flashback following hot on the heels of last week’s Daytime Revolution,about the same superstar counterculture duo.
Other features include Raoul Peck’s Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, about the famed South African photographer; bizarre Chinese relationship saga Mistress Dispeller; No Other Land, collectively crafted by Palestinian and Israeli activists; Union, about corporate behemoth Amazon’s resistance to guess-what; surprising online-gaming-world inquiry The Remarkable Life of Ibelin; and The White House Effect, which chillingly chronicles how propaganda and political mechanizations began subverting the fight against climate change decades ago.
There are also shorts programs, panel discussions, workshops, and more. The closing night selection on Sun/20 is Suburban Fury, a look at President Ford’s would-be assassin Sara Jane Ford. It’s a rare new work by Robinson Devor, whose sparse but striking screen ouevre to date commenced a quarter century ago with cult-adored B&W noir throwback The Woman Chaser. For full Doc Stories info, go here.
Alternately, you can sojourn to Silicon Valley (there are also a couple later events in SF on Oct. 23-24) for the start of the 27th United Nations Association Film Festival. This year’s theme “Shared Humanity” underlines the increasingly global nature of hazards facing our species, from the narrowing of press and political freedoms to escalating environmental crises. It’s an all-documentary event with countries represented from Afghanistan to Zambia, and programming that is over 50% by women and people of color. Opening night in Palo Alto features veteran actor and climate activist Matthew Modine in person (see 48 Hills’ interview with him here), presenting his short Ripple Effect, plus the features Water for Life (also in Greenfest above) and Zucchero Sugar Fornaciari, about the famed Italian bluesman.
Other subjects addressed in the wide-ranging schedule include childhood education (Make a Circle, the official closer on Sun/27), corrupt systems enabling income inequality (Tax Wars), social justice-themed art in the Bay Area (Rock Paper Paint), healthcare (American Delivery), the bromance between Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu (Mission: Joy), treatment of sexual assault in the courts (Loud Enough: Surviving Justice), Mexico’s kidnapping epidemic (Norma), creativity amidst political crisis (Venezuelan Children of Las Brisas), Julian Assange (Ithaka), refugee camp life (Radio Dadaab), long-term prison solitary confinement (The Strike), a homeless San Franciscan’s musical odyssey (Moses), ISIS atrocities (Mediha), the cost of algorithmia (The Click Trap), nuclear history (First We Bombed New Mexico), and much more…not least the self-explanatory likes of Hong Kong: Final Days of Freedom and Journeys of Black Mathematicians. There will also be free panel discussions at various South Bay locations throughout the schedule, and a free kids show in Palo Alto on Sat/19. For full program info, go here.
Finally, Friday night brings the return of 3rd i, aka the San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival. Taking place in-person-only this weekend Oct. 18-20 at the Roxie Theater, the venerable local institution’s 22nd edition offers a “Beyond Bollywood” bill of new works from a diaspora scattered around the world. Among them are two of the year’s most acclaimed features, Shuchi Talati’s Sundance prize winner Girls Will Be Girls (which we previously wrote about here) and Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light, another female-driven narrative set in India.
The opening night selection is Fawzia Mirza’s The Queen of My Dreams, a mother-daughter tale bridging a generation gap between conservative religious upbringing in Pakistan and rebellious independence in rural Nova Scotia. Also reflecting on roots is Dear Jassi, an Indian feature from Tarsem Singh, who is better known for the baroque visual imagination of his pop music videos (for REM, Lady Gaga et al.) and Hollywood features (The Cell, Immortals). It’s a tragic class-conflict romance betwixt a worldly Indian-Canadian lass and a rickshaw driver she meets while visiting Punjabi, one complicated further by the bureaucratic cruelties of international immigration. Shalini Ushadevi’s Now and Forever finds another couple flummoxed by futuristic technology in an “alternative dystopian present.”
There are also documentaries, shorts, and a free Sunday afternoon live presentation entitled “Two Paths, One Nation” on two hugely popular films—2001’s Lagaan and the more recent RRR—that offer contrasting perspectives on colonialism, nationalism, and the struggle for independence. For full program and ticket info, go here.
