In Production

On the road before "The Recess Ends"

By Michael Fox

Some documentaries are made to stand forever; others matter at a particular moment in time or not at all. Austin Chu is quite clear which category The Recess Ends belongs to. Shot earlier this year in a host of depressed burgs and ‘burbs across the country, the verité documentary is a pulsing snapshot of the United States at its lowest economic ebb in generations. “I feel it’s one of those pieces that needs to be seen now,” Chu declares. “I can’t wait for anyone. If someone buys it and distributes it next year, we’ve missed the mark.” Made on a shoestring and rushed out into the world, The Recess Ends reflects both the new economy and the future of independent filmmaking.

topics: activism, bay area, diy, documentary film, genre films, political film

Fear-Free Fundraising

How to entice and reward potential donors

By Holly Million

So you’re drafting a fundraising prospect list for your indie film. Looks like it’s shaping up to be the most extensive list of individual donor prospects known to mankind. Good job! It covers your personal connections (everyone from Uncle Ernie to your former Econ 101 professor), people your personal connections can introduce you to who care about the same issues your film covers and known suspects in the community who just love film. You have really done your homework and you even know how much you plan to ask each one of these prospects for. So what’s the problem? Well, I’ll bet you know what you want from them. But do you have any clue what they want from you?

topics: bay area, filmmakers, funding, how-to

Platform

Russell Merritt animates the archives for SFIAF

By Sura Wood

Celebrating the Bay Area’s status as a hotbed for animation creators as well as enthusiasts, the now annual San Francisco International Animation Festival kicks off Wednesday, November 11, with an historic live event that features Lawrence Jordan among others. It then officially opens Thursday, November 12 with the premiere of Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, a stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s fantasy featuring George Clooney. And it continues through the weekend with experimental shorts, commercial features and family cartoon classics that push the boundaries of the medium. Among them are rarities gleaned from the archives: Walt Disney’s Alice Comedies, a series of Disney shorts produced between 1923 and 1927, in which a live-action girl is inserted into an imaginary cartoon world. J.B. Kaufman and Russell Merritt, authors of Walt in Wonderland and Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies will introduce a selection of films and lead the program, presented with the help of the Walt Disney Family Museum. Merritt, a lively raconteur and Professor of Film Studies at UC Berkeley, where, for over 20 years, he has taught animation, art-house cinema and film history, will share a portion of his vast knowledge of film lore, Disney and otherwise, with the audience. First, he offered a preview for SF360.org readers. (SFIAF runs November 11-15; the Alice Comedies program takes place November 14, 1 p.m. at Landmark’s Embarcadero Center Cinema.)

topics: animation, archives, avant-garde, music, san francisco film society

Take Two

PFA offers a look at the exiled Ingrid Bergman

By Dennis Harvey

Before Ingrid Bergman, European starlets exported to Hollywood tended to be exotics, femmes fatales, mystery women—always the “other,” whether a grand tragedienne like Garbo or a vamp like Pola Negri.

Bergman was the first girl next door whose door happened to originate several thousand miles from Anytown, U.S.A. Even when she played “bad girls,” the American public trusted she was really above reproach. When they decided otherwise, she was virtually exiled for some years—sent back to Europe, where (diehard American Puritans imagined) such fallen women belonged.

topics: actors, european film, genre films, hollywood, immigration, italian cinema

Experience

A tour through Taiwan Film Days

By Adam Hartzell

For the regular film festival attendee, Taiwanese Cinema has been associated with three names: Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang and the late Edward Yang. But for three days starting November 6, the San Francisco Film Society offers a chance to see contemporary Taiwanese cinema beyond the work of those three masters.

Two of the films screening in Taiwan Film Days were official Oscar entries for the Best Foreign Language film from Taiwan. Opening-nighter Cape No. 7 (Wei Te-sheng, 2008) was 2009’s submission; it follows an unlikely rock band—unlikely in that the ages of the members range from about that of the Jonas Brothers to about the Rolling Stones.

topics: art film, asian cinema, authors, bay area, san francisco film society, world cinema