NEWS
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Telluride announces Manny Farber celebration
Press release: The Telluride Film Festival (September 4-7, 2009), announced a special program in honor of artist and film critic Manny Farber, ‘The Celebration of Manny Farber,’ a three-part... more
SEEN
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Global Film Initiative’s Santhosh Daniel (left) and Jeremy Quist (right) mingle with Kay Sato of the SF Jewish Film Festival at the GFI Happy Hour event at Custom Lounge... more
Indie Toolkit
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Awesome music is almost always a hallmark of a really great film. It can evoke the tone of a scene – high drama, nostalgia, alienation, warm fuzzies – in seconds.... more

A year to remember: Cary Grant (left) was quite possibly never funnier than as the most feral fellow amongst three British Army buddies in "Gunga Din," which plays the Castro's 1939 series. (Photo courtesy Castro Theatre)
"The Greatest Year in Film" turns 70 at the Castro
By Dennis Harvey
What was the best year ever for painting? Music? Literature? Any answers would be arbitrary at worst, debatable at best—the truth being, of course, that these art forms are just too vast, historied and changeable for the question to be useful at all.
Yet ask when was the best year for movies (Hollywood movies, that is), and there is actually a consensus so widespread it’s gone from opinion to virtual fact. That year would be 1939, when for whatever reasons—some explicable, others just accidents of timing—Hollywood’s “golden age” went platinum, delivering so many classic features it still beggars belief they all arrived in such close proximity.
topics: actors, castro theatre, exhibition, genre films, hollywood, oscars
moreMORE FEATURES
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The horror, the horror: ‘Tweaker With an Axe’
Flynn Witmeyer’s debut feature sports a title you’d expect to see on a one-sheet mockup at the market in Cannes or a grindhouse marquee on Market... more
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Documentary story structures that funders love
We all know an editor who needs to get out of the edit room more often. (I just have to look in the mirror.) I recently... more
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Richard Levien, from "Immersion" to "La Migra"
New Zealand transplant Richard Levien, a longstanding fixture of the San Francisco indie film community, has until recently been known primarily as an editor. That changed... more
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Suspense, stillness, and beauty in "Three Monkeys"
When Nuri Bilge Ceylan won the Best Director prize at Cannes last year for Three Monkeys—which opens on the SFFS Screen at the Sundance... more
Opportunities
FILMMAKERS.COM SCREENWRITING AWARDS
offer cash prizes ranging from $100-2,500 plus the opportunity to pitch the winning script to industry professionals. The top 50 scripts will be read... more
BLOGS
Hey, Watch It! - Thursday's TV Picks
Look, either you're the kind of person who likes to watch terrifying "caught on tape" crashes, explosions, and armed robberies, or you're not. If you aren't, I recommend you skip the show "Moments of...
[From SFGate: SFGate: Culture Blog!]
CALENDAR
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Fireworks for the cineaste arrive via the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on this Independence Day week. SFMOMA kicks off a terrific program of films chosen to screen... more
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1939: The Golden Year of Cinema--July 1-9
The Castro celebrates a banner year in Hollywood history. The Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, Garfield, Cagney, Garbo and Crawford are among the stars on offer, and the week includes... more
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"Queer Icon: The Cult of Bette Davis"--Jul. 2
This documentary explores Bette Davis’ cult status in the gay community, and profiles several burlesque impersonators. The Roxie hosts the San Francisco premiere.
actors, african american cinema, african cinema, american indian film, animation, arab cinema, archives, argentine cinema, art, art film, artists' television access, asian american cinema, asian cinema, audiences, authors, avant-garde, awards, bay area, bollywood, british cinema, canadian film, cannes film festival, castro theatre, center for asian american media, cerrito speakeasy, children's issues, cinematography, cinephiles, comedy, critics, critics year end polls, cult cinema, curators, dance, digital distribution, digital filmmaking, directors, distribution, distributors, diy, documentary, documentary film, documentary film institute, drama, dramatic films, dvd, eastern european film, environmental films, exhibition, exhibitions, experimental film, f, features, festivals, film, film arts foundation, film festivals, film groups, film history, filmmakers, frameline, french cinema, funding, games, gay lesbian cinema, genre films, german cinema, hbo, hollywood, horror, how-to, immigration, independent film, international film, internet, iranian cinema, irish cinema, italian cinema, itvs, japanese cinema, jewish cinema, kabuki cinemas, kino21, landmark theatres, latin american cinema, latin cinema, legal issues, letterman digital arts center, lists, middle eastern film, midnight movies, mill valley film festival, music, musicals, native american film festival, noir, oakland museum of california, opera, oscars, pacific film archive, performance, photography, poetry, political film, producers, public, public television, q&a, queer cinema, red vic movie house, rep houses, reviews, roxie, russian cinema, san francisco, san francisco art institute, san francisco film critics circle, san francisco film society, san francisco international film festival, san francisco museum of modern art, san francisco state, san jose, science fiction, screenwriting, sex, sf cinematheque, sffs screen, sffs screen at the sundance kabuki, sf indiefest, sf international asian american film festival, sf international lgbt film festival, sfmoma, shorts, silent film, sonoma, south american film, sports film, sports movies, sundance, sundance film festival, sundance kabuki, technology, telluride film festival, theatres, the web, toronto international film festival, tv, vancouver international film festival, web, westerns, women filmmakers, world cinema, yerba buena center for the arts, youth
SF360.org, the San Francisco Film Society’s online magazine, is devoted to daily coverage of the local film and media scene with features, news briefs, columns, editorials, photo galleries, daily listings and a calendar of events.

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