SF Indiefest announces 10th program

By Susan Gerhard

San Francisco Indiefest announced the program for its 10th San Francisco Independent Film Festival at the Roxie New College Film Center Tuesday. The festival opens February 7th with the David Gordon Green-produced “Shotgun Stories,” set in Southeast Arkansas, and directed by Jeff Nichols. The festival closes 12 days later with Gus Van Sant’s “Paranoid Park,” with Van Sant — who’s in San Francisco shooting the Harvey Milk biopic — expected to attend.

This year, festival founder Jeff Ross was assisted by veteran programmer Anita Monga, formerly of the Castro Theatre, and now with a variety of film festivals in the west, including the Seattle and Palm Springs International Film Festivals, and Joanne Parsont, who works with both the SF International Film Festival and Mill Valley Film Festival.

Said Parsont, who programmed through the “call for entries” in her first year with Indiefest, “I was blown away by the high quality, production values and filmmaking. I thought it was going to be a struggle to slog through all the dreck, but I was really impressed with the work and the diversity. We have films from all over the world — France, Canada, England, Armenia.”

The festival offers a world premiere of Erik Sharkey’s “Sexina: Popstar, PI, “ as well as the American premiere of a “Dragons & Tigers” selection from Vancouver, an anxious teen drama called “This World of Ours.”

A whirl through the titles of its narrative selections finds promising titles: Stuart Gordon’s “Stuck,” based on a true story about a woman hiding her hit-and-run crime, Adam Wingard’s “Popskull,” about a young pill popper, Ilya Chaiken’s “Liberty Kid,” about two out-of-work former Statue of Liberty staffers, Nicole Ballivian’s “Driving to Zigzigland,” the story of a Palestinian actor trying to make it in Hollywood, as well as the all-improvised film by Canadian Matt Austin, “Most Likely To.”

The documentary selections include work with San Francisco Bay Area connections: Carl Brown’s “2nd Verse” looks at local teens preparing for ht e8th annual Brave New Voices International Poetry Slam Competition. Local filmmakers Jon Reiss (“Bomb It!”), Britton Caillouette (“Sliding Liberia”), and Luke Wolbach (“Row Hard No Excuses”).

Not to be missed is the revival screening of Eric Zala’s incredible “Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation,” which, 2003 Indiefest goers may remember as the shot-by-shot remake of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” by three Mississippi adolescents who basically turn into adults during the 7-year course of filmmaking.

Indiefest always excels at parties, and promises more than ever this year, as well as a first Indiefest Jury Prize and a surprise screening Feb. 7 at 9:15 p.m. at the Castro.

01.16.2008