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    Maria Bello, honored with the Peter J. Owens award, greets fans. She told the Film Society Awards Night audience that she recently returned to New York a found-object golden shoe... more

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  • Cannes. Boogie.
    "Drinking, smoking and whoring ain't what they used to be in Boogie [site], Radu Muntean's attenuated reflection on friends whose paths since high school have taken starkly different routes," writes Jay Weissberg for ...
    [From The Latest from GreenCine Daily]

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SF IndieFest announces program for Another Hole in the Head

SF IndieFest announced the lineup Tuesday for its Another Hole in the Head Film Festival June 5-19 at the Roxie Film Center in San Francisco. U.S. premieres open and close the festival: The Gene Generation, starring Bai Ling, and Tunnel Rats by Uwe Boll. Twenty-eight other films, including Ryan Harper’s Circulation and Phillip Hudson’s Home World, fill out the slate of contemporary horror, horror-comedy, sci-fi and dark fantasy films. More at SF IndieFest.

SFFS: SF International closes its 51st

Press release: "The San Francisco Film Society wrapped its 51st San Francisco International Film Festival (April 24 – May 8) with 292 screenings, 150 filmmaker guests and more than 70 industry guests from 16 countries in attendance, with an estimated 80,000 filmgoers celebrating the best cinema from around the world. The Festival sold out 94 screenings during its 15-day run, illustrating the demand for the unique programming that the Film Society brings to the Bay Area and setting the stage for the San Francisco Film Society Screen at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, which opens on Friday, June 13. The SFFS Screen will offer daily programming of international, independent and documentary films year-round." More at San Francisco Film Society.

SF Chronicle: "French Consulate fete for Film Festival"

"The San Francisco International Film Festival had 25 entries from France—more than any other country outside the United States. That called for a celebration, and French Consul General Pierre-François Mourier obliged with an elegant cocktail party Monday at the consulate in Pacific Heights," reports Ruthe Stein. "Three of those to be honored arrived late, dressed in jeans and gym shoes and looking slightly bedraggled. Actors Andy Gillet and Ludivine Sagnier and director Mia Hansen-Love had spent the day in Muir Woods and lost track of time strolling among the redwoods. The fog slowed down their return." More at SFGate.

Scoop du Jour: "Ask away"

"It was an energized Saturday afternoon at the Castro following the screening of Johnny Symons’ Ask Not, a documentary exploring the repercussions of the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy. The crowd applauded enthusiastically and rose to its feet as Symons took the stage, joined by several participants in the film, including former Staff Sergeant Fred Fox, professor of political science at UC Santa Barbara, Aaron Belkin and retired U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Al Steinman, the highest ranking official ever to come out of the closet," writes San Francisco Film Society staffer Rachel Aloy. "The initial question raised was why anyone would want to join the military, especially now. Steinman answered, ‘We join the military for the same reasons our straight counterparts do, we love the military, we love our country.’ The strong sense of duty felt by closeted soldiers comes with a price, as Fox emotionally admitted when asked about what regrets he had at the end of his service. He replied that he didn’t know what he was missing until he got out and found himself free to fall in love. He remarked on how angry he felt watching the film. ‘I spent 12 years in the army defending what I thought was democracy and freedom and I just sat for 70 minutes and watched people get arrested for trying to enlist.’ While the sense of frustration over the policy ran high, Professor Belkin noted, ’70 percent of the country, [in] poll after poll, says that discrimination is wrong,’ adding that while Congress is deeply divided over the issue, ‘Change is inevitable.’ More reports as well as videos at Scoop du Jour the SF International web site.

SF Chronicle: "A super-heroic effort revives Marina Theater"

"Much like the comic-book superhero who will grace the screen within, the Marina Theater is back in business, with a serious makeover," writes G. Allen Johnson. "Closed since 2001, when it was called the Cinema 21, the former Chestnut Street staple reopens as a two-screen theater today under its original name with ‘Iron Man’ in its main 264-seat auditorium." More at SFGate.

Lynn Hershman on Steven Kurtz

As reported last week in many publications, the charges from the U.S. government case against Steven Kurtz, docu-dramatized in Lynn Hershman’s Strange Culture last year, have been dismissed. Of her role in the victory, Hershman responded, "The aim of the film was to bring attention and visibility to this case. If Strange Culture brought the awareness to drop the charges, it is a small but important victory. It will most likely be appealed and it that happens, it will go to the Supreme Court."

SFBG Pixel Vision: "SFIFF, weekend one: city songs and auteur-itis"

"The Castro had the day’s best films, starting with Carlos Saura’s magical Fados," writes Johnny Huston in the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s Pixel Vision blog, "so far one of my favorites in the festival. Fado has recently come back in a big way and Saura does little more than stage several music videos back-to-back with no commentary. But each segment overflows with its own narrative and emotional power, aided by Saura’s expert staging and cinematography (the screen fills with huge squares of bold colors)." More at SFBG.

SF Chronicle: "Jason Lee, Rose McGowan nab Midnight Awards"

"A stepping-out kind of crowd, dressed in cocktail party finery, gathered at the W Hotel late Saturday night to honor Rose McGowan and Jason Lee with the San Francisco International Film Festival’s Midnight Awards. At 11:59 and 50 seconds, everybody began to count down to the witching hour. No clock struck 12 but if it had, you wouldn’t have heard it above all the cheering," reports Ruthe Stein. More at SFGate.

SF Chronicle: "SF slowly disappearing from silver screen"

"Ever since 1925, when Erich von Stroheim turned a camera on Hayes Valley for his silent movie ‘Greed,’ film crews have encamped in San Francisco to capture its hazy orange light reflecting off the Golden Gate Bridge and roller-coaster hills affording breathtaking bay vistas. The city has inspired great movies like ‘Vertigo’ and ‘The Conversation,’ silly ones like ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ and ‘So I Married an Axe Murderer,’ and even the musicals ‘Flower Drum Song’ and ‘Pal Joey.’ But these days, the big movie cameras – responsible for much of the city’s image over the years – are virtually shuttered here," writes Ruthe Stein. More at SFGate.

UC Berkeley: Lawrence Rinder announced as new Director of BAM/PFA

Press release: "Robert J. Birgenau, Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, today announced the appointment of distinguished curator, critic, and educator Lawrence Robert Rinder as the new Director of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA). Mr. Rinder, who has held prominent museum positions on both coasts, joins the organization at an important period in its forty-five-year history, as it finalizes plans for a new building and expanded programming."

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