More than age-qualified now for the Social Security that none of us might be getting in the near future, SFFilm—nee the San Francisco International Film Festival—sees its 68th annual edition commence this week. Running for 11 days Thurs/17 through Sun/27, it’s a bit more sprawling than in the last year or two, with shows at venues in the Marina, the Presidio, the Mission and at Berkeley’s BAMPFA. The 150+ plus films being shown represent over 50 countries, as well as an array of content from narrative and documentary features to shorts, experimental works, archival favorites, and more.
Speaking of government programs we may soon be nostalgic for (and phenomena that directly effect us), opening night selection Rebuilding takes place largely in a FEMA camp for evacuees from a devastating wildfire that has torched cowpoke Dusty’s (Josh O’Connor) Southern Colorado ranch. Writer-director Max Walker-Silverman’s drama won acclaim at its Sundance premiere earlier this year, including raves for the always-compelling O’Connor of God’s Own Country, The Crown and Challengers fame.
While such fires are now an all-too-relatable issue here in No. Cal., closing night film Outerlands gets very local indeed with its story of a struggling, non-binary SF gig worker (Asia Kate Dillon) whose multiple-job-juggling becomes additionally burdened by the care of a friend’s pubescent daughter (Ridley Asha Bateman). Elena Oxman’s debut has earned comparisons to The Last Black Man in San Francisco for its perceptive view of the city as both beloved by and hostile towards economically marginal populations.
There are numerous other special events scattered throughout the schedule. In-person tributes include one to actor Andre Holland (on Sat/19), who will be seen onscreen in both Rachael Abigail Holder’s romantic comedy Love, Brooklyn and (Sun/20) Andre Gaines’ The Dutchman, a new version of Amiri Baraka’s incendiary 1964 play. Locally-based Hollywood veteran Chris Columbus, who helped shape many a childhood with Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire and the first two Harry Potter films, will be honored Sat/26 with a screening of his 2005 translation of the Broadway musical smash Rent, plus revival on Thurs/24 of his 1995 SF-set romcom Nine Months, with Hugh Grant and Julianne Moore.
Turning the celluloid clock back yea further on Wed/23 is a presentation of the Mel Novikoff Award to (and at) the Roxie Theater, the 113-year-old movie house on 16th St. that for decades has been our leading independent arthouse. Now a non-profit, keeping theatrical attendance alive and kicking against all odds, its current staff will honor that past with a showing of Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 Rashomon—one of the legendary imports that ignited a post-WW2 US boom in foreign cinema. The annual Persistence of Vision Award will be given to frequent Bay Area visitor Sky Hopinka, whose experimental films explore Native American identity, history and geography. That Thurs/24 presentation at BAMPFA, which includes his feature-length 2020 malni—towards the ocean, towards the shore, is followed the next evening by a program of shorter Hopinka works at the Marina Theatre.
SFFilm has not traditionally been a hotbed of genre-film programming, so one surprise this year is a sidebar entitled “The Horror!,” which provides a retrospective of familiar fan favorites in that idiom. They encompass Herk Harvey’s eerie 1962 indie classic, the B&W Carnival of Souls; two from John Carpenter, 1980’s The Fog (in a free outdoor screening) and 1988’s authoritarian allegory They Live; Tobe Hooper’s hair-raising 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as well as Alexandre O. Philippe’s recent Chain Reactions, a documentary exploring the original film’s huge influence on subsequent artists. Some titles in the festival’s general program also explore similar terrain, including Japanese horror specialist Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s new Cloud, R.T. Thorne’s Canadian dystopian-future thriller 40 Acres, and Noaz Deshe’s Xoftex, in which equally nightmarish reality and fantasy blur as Syrian expats shoot a zombie flick while stuck in a refugee camp.
Several of the US narrative features are world premieres and/or beneficiaries of SFFilm’s own development-assistance programs. Among them are Nastaya Popov’s reality-TV satire Idiotka, Thomas Percy Kim’s adoptive teen drama Isle Child, and Rashad Frett’s post-prison character portrait Ricky. The same goes for full-length US documentaries, notably Jessica Zitter’s The Chaplain and the Doctor (about palliative care at Oakland’s Highland Hospital), Alexandra Shiva’s autobiographical Her/Mine, Brittany Shyne’s Black farmlife chronicle Seeds, Julie Forrest Wyman’s pulse-taking of the diverse little-people community The Tallest Dwarf, and veteran film editor Vivien Hillgrove’s reflective Vivien’s Wild Ride.
Other subjects spotlit in documentary features include multimedia artist Kahlil Joseph (BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions), poet Andrea Gibson (Come See Me In a Good Light), Irish author Edna O’Brien (Blue Road), and a trailblazing astronaut (Sally, as in Ride). Elsewhere there are investigations of Norwegian Folktales, race cars (Ferrari: Fury & the Monster), Bosnian luge competitors (The Track), China’s drastic shortage in eligible bachelorettes (The Dating Game), previously-undiscovered oceanic lifeforms (How Deep Is Your Love), and climate change on fire in Spain (Only On Earth). Deaf President, Now! and Marlee Marlin: Not Alone Anymore both chart deaf community struggles in a hearing world. Cutting Through Rocks and The Brink of Dreamsfind women challenging strict gender norms in rural Egypt and Iran, respectively. Plus nonfiction missives from Kenya (How to Build a Library), Ukraine (Timestamp), Colombia (I Dreamed His Name), Mongolia (The Wolves Always Come at Night) Sardinia (Sonaggios), Sudan (Sudan, remember us), and more.
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International narrative features circle the globe, with contributions from Mexico (The Devil Smokes, The Last First Time), China (The Botanist), Chile (The Hyperboreans), Romania (Ink Wash), Vietnam (Viet and Nam), Brazil (The Best Mother in the World, Manas), Tunisia (Red Path), Dominican Republic (Olivia & The Clouds), India (Cactus Pears), Panama (Beloved Tropic), Bulgaria (Triumph), Argentina (Magic Farm), South Korea (3670, Winter in Sokcho), Japan (Happyend), the U.K. (Hot Milk, Surviving Earth), and so forth. Francophiles will have plenty to choose from amongst Ghost Trail, Magma, The Quiet Son, Souleymane’s Son and That Summer in Paris, while in addition to the documentaries noted above, there are also fictions from Ukraine (Honeymoon), Colombia (Horizon, Rains Over Babel).
As usual, many screenings will have filmmakers, stars and other guests in attendance. There will be opening/closing night parties, seven thematically grouped shorts programs, a section of “mid-length” works (including the 40-minute ORIGINS, featuring local choreographic luminary Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet Company), panels, workshops and lectures.
SFFILM Fest runs Thurs/17-Sun/27 at various San Francisco and Berkeley locations. For full program, schedule, ticket and pass information, go to www.sffilm.org
