Report

The Year in Film, 2008: Ideas, experiences, innovations

By Susan Gerhard

There’s certainly no shortage of ideas about the films and film trends of 2008 from the select crew of Bay Area filmmakers, critics and industry pros SF360.org polled for our Year-in-Film series. One respondent reasonably called for a device that would vaporize anyone who dared text message during a screening. Many asked for the end of shaky camerawork and comic book adaptations. Most had thoughts, fears or hopes about the oncoming era of digital distribution. The questions we asked were: What were the most/least auspicious trends of 2008? What was your favorite San Francisco-made film? Film-related event? Innovation? We also asked what films were most eagerly anticipated for 2009. As it turns out, there’s a lot to look forward to as we ring in the New Year. Please feel free to add your own thoughts in the public "comments" section below and please feel free to refer back to the Top 10 lists (of both distributed and not-yet-widely-released films of 2008), which we published Monday and Tuesday.

Most/Least Auspicious Trends

I am looking forward to seeing how the VOD experience will effect independent and foreign films. I think IFC has made a great foray into the marketplace with an innovative idea of day and date broadcasts for high profile foreign and independent films.
Marcus Hu, Co-President, Strand Releasing

Most auspicious: Filmmakers distributing their own work in a variety of innovative ways.
Least: High School Musical.
Rod Armstrong, Programming Associate, San Francisco Film Society

Most of this year’s best summer popcorn movies did away at last with shaky-cam. I only hope it dies for good.
Jeffrey M. Anderson, critic, Cinematical, Combustible Celluloid

Most auspicious: great work being made on small budgets in unlikely places all around the world. Least auspicious: the pronounced uptick in punditry as the specialty film industry continues to contract (if I hear the phrase "the sky is falling" one more time I’m going to spit).
Graham Leggat, Executive Director, San Francisco Film Society

Most: The San Francisco Film Society’s French Cinema Now, Quebec Film Week and the SFFS Screen at the Sundance Kubuki. Least Auspicious: The continued decline of the Latino Film Festival.
Michael Hawley, critic, Film-415, The Evening Class

Best: The diversification of screening formats and venues. I love going to film events at Mezzanine, El Rio, etc. It becomes community based and allows for the exhibition of a wider variety of work, often introducing an interactive component. Worst: The distribution of fewer and fewer foreign films. Second Worst: The firing and laying off of film critics at papers across the country.
Chris Wiggum, Director of Public Relations and Business Development, Global Film Initiative

Least: The increasingly narrow gap between theatrical and DVD release discourages audiences from seeing films in local theaters, which in turn discourages distributors and exhibitors from taking chances on what used to be called "sleepers." Gems need more time to be discovered, which requires nurturing from distributors, a careful balance of programming from exhibitors, and significant audiences willing and able to stop futzing with their Netflix queues long enough to see a foreign or indie film in its first week or release, thus encouraging hold-overs.
Steven Jenkins, Director of Finance and Administration, San Francisco Film Society

Least: Movies made from comic books.
James T. Hong, filmmaker, A Portrait of a Sino-American Friendship

On the outs: big-budget musicals, Tom Cruise, comic book adaptations, period pieces, ethnically coded sidekicks in animated films. Expect more: Romantic comedies, big-budget multilingual films, hallmark indie films (a la Little Miss Sunshine or Juno), short theatrical runs.
Matt Sussman, critic, Flavorpill, SF360.org, SF Bay Guardian

I’ll stick to the positive: The rise of small, "freestanding" entities for 16mm and 35mm programming. Two exemplary local examples, kino21 and the Film on Film Foundation, both began screenings in 2007, but showed particular success in 2008, using occasional screenings to increase the diversity of San Francisco offerings, at Artists’ Television Access and SF Camerawork (kino21), the Roxie and Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive (FOFF). I also love the FOFF Bay Area Film Calendar, managed by Carl Martin (www.filmonfilm.org/filmcalendar/).
Brian Darr, critic, Hell on Frisco Bay

Most auspicious: Roberto Benigni’s continuing hiatus. Least auspicious: American documentaries’ overemphasis on narrative.
Michael Fox, critic, SF360.org, SFWeekly

Most: the further fragmenting of the film distribution system. It made for a tough haul sometimes on our own film, and the dissolution will probably continue to be painful for filmmakers and independent distributors, but eventually things will sort out for the better. The amazing article about cell phone novels in the New Yorker recently was really inspiring. Every day folks writing novels from their cell phones that are uploaded to a site that gets several billion hits a month. This kind of direct communication is where video will go eventually, and though there will be frustrating parts to that, ultimately the less middle-people the better. Least auspicious: the continuing explosion of people wanting to make documentary films who haven’t thought much about why they’re making a film. Too many people see a subject that looks quirky or funny or exciting and dive in without a clue as to why they or anyone else should care. Video and movies seem easy to people in a way that no one would claim a novel is, so they start without thinking or feeling their way through the material. I know that in some ways that counters what I think is the auspicious trend, as I want everyone to have access, but that is the path of tension I think things are moving in. How to create access without swamping that access with movies that have no center so that it’s impossible to find the gems….
Arne Johnson, filmmaker, Girls Rock!

Least: I’m not one much for trend spotting, but I do think it’s time to give World War II a rest. None of the films that came out this year dealing with either the war directly or the Holocaust had anything new to add. The only thing the filmmakers created with them was nostalgia for older, better films.
Pam Grady, critic, Boxoffice Magazine, Filmstew, and Reel.com

The most and least auspicious trend of 2008 is the death of the American independent film business model as we’ve known it circa Sex, Lies, and Videotape to the present. Money gave rise to indies entering the mainstream and money killed it. Sundance became a star magnet, Miramax promoted indies like blockbusters, and studios smelled profits and devoured indie distribution only to find that personal director-driven films weren’t ever meant to perform like Spiderman. (A fact well-known in parts overseas, where states support less commercial fare. Consider that “foreign” films now dominate Cannes, Venice and Berlin.) Now what? That’s the question no one can answer. I have a hunch—just as the last American indie movement was born of no means, the next movement will be, too. Digital distribution has yet to be effectively monetized—meaning there’s no incentive for the next wave of filmmakers to constrict or conform their vision to market dictates. Will this mean the end of the feature-length format? The emergence of shorter, more lunch-hour digestible content? Or will filmmakers simply have to re-think how they launch longer-form material? (i.e., a more event- and online-community based approach, versus the traditional and now almost lottery-based festival/sale/theatrical model?) Stay tuned….
David Munro, filmmaker, Full Grown Men

Most: DIY filmmakers barnstorming the country and self-distributing their films theatrically. Least: Financially failing independent film distributors and the closure of boutique distributors.
Chris Metzler, filmmaker, Plagues and Pleasures of the Salton Sea

Most: Studios settling only for smart talent for their genre franchises. Least auspicious: The studios not encouraging those same filmmakers to develop their own fresh material.
Peter Canavese, critic, Groucho Reviews

Good/bad: The move towards Digital in theaters has many advantages and some films look better. But with it comes another 3-D boom and bust. Distributors mostly not listing theaters in their newspaper ads thus hurting terribly independent neighborhood theaters. Demise of print newspapers and how that affects film criticism. There are more critics than ever, but it is hard for audiences to focus on the meaningful ones, resulting in many worthy small films dying at the box office. Too many specialized films opening each week with little or no planning by exhibition to avoid similar audience appeal films from opening the same day. Too many film festivals showing movies the same week. We need a master calendar and better cooperation. It isn’t fair to filmmakers, audiences and the presenters.
Gary Meyer, Co-Director, Telluride Film Festival, owner, Balboa Theatre

Well, one possible trend I do appreciate is the sort of lo-fi neo-neo-realism by which we were blessed with such reticent yet eloquent works as Ballast and Wendy and Lucy. What’s more, and possibly not on point but I’ll be brief, I hope that the deserved interest and acclaim for Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg will trickle down to renew interest and acclaim for the lovely personal-essay films of SF’s own Jay Rosenblatt. Otherwise…hmmm…random: Have you noticed how often we see people vomit in movies nowadays? I’m serious. It’s a lot. Look for it now, and you’ll see what I mean. I guess everybody’s just trying to keep it real. But still: Has there been a faux-puke technology breakthrough or something?
Jonathan Kiefer, critic, Sacramento News & Review

Most: The return of concern for a broader contemporary reality in such American independent features as Ballast, Wendy and Lucy or Sugar. New cinema from Quebec, Turkey, Bulgaria, Taiwan.
Linda Blackaby, Director of Programming, San Francisco Film Society

Least auspicious: Computer game movies, comic book movies, and—the worst—movies about torture, like The Strangers.
Mick LaSalle, critic, San Francisco Chronicle

Least and most auspicious simultaneously: Our legendary quantity of local film festivals are going to have a very tough road ahead this year, and unlike certain museums that have been in the news of late, the festivals don’t have any $3 million dollar paintings they can auction off or endowments to whittle away at. So now is the time for all us movie-lovers to chip in more cash that won’t be flowing so freely from many of the major corporate sponsors of years past (nor, in many cases, from the public and foundation funding sources who are also facing challenges). In particular, given the current grave state of the LGBT film festival circuit I hope that some of the fallout and inevitable downsizing for 2009 will result in a return to our queer roots as a community of people who want to see films that are politically engaged, and that appeal to our above average intelligence and our deeply-ingrained interest in the avant-garde: all that good stuff that came out of our being societal outcasts! We should at least be able to have that back in the wake of Prop 8!
Jenni Olson, filmmaker, The Joy of Life and Director, E-Commerce & Consumer Marketing, Wolfe Releasing

Good/bad: Economic downturns might mean fewer risky, non-popcorn projects get funded. On the plus side, maybe fewer enormously expensive FX-dominated interchangable fantasy action films will get funded.
Dennis Harvey, critic, Variety, SF360.org, SF Bay Guardian

Most: (tie) the quality of online streams and live cinema programming. Least: the deaths of Paul Arthur, Bruce Conner and Manny Farber.
Max Goldberg, critic, SF360.org, Flavorpill, S.F. Bay Guardian

Least: Fewer and fewer foreign and independent films distributed in theaters.
Hilary Hart, Director of Publicity, San Francisco Film Society

Good/bad: As always, I’m out of step. I can’t remember anything memorable about the mainstream films I saw, although there weren’t that many. I saw Batman but wish I hadn’t. I liked watching Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises but Cronenberg is too controlling for me. He starches the life out things. I’m sure there were good foreign films to see this year, but I’ve been working too hard to get out to see them.
Rob Nilsson, filmmaker, 9 @ Night film series

Other trends, good: The thriving Microcinema scene and increase in distribution of niche titles through companies like Microcinema DVD or Other Cinema DVD; indie filmmakers are at last getting smart about promoting their movies—in some respects, this is also an unauspicious film trend.

Other trends, bad: "Salad shooter" editing (as in the nigh-invisible fight scenes in Quantum of Solace) or the post-*Crash* relay-race script in which we learn, to our astonishment, that we’re linked to people we don’t know; cookie cutter, calling card, riskless filmmaking by the tones; most of what is coming out of Hollywood today—big budget rehash of comic book or bad TV series or remakes of marginal films…we need to give voice to the artists that speak from a new place of truth—like Kim Massey, Rob Nilsson, Gaspar Noe, etc.

Looking Forward To

The Fan, Humpday.
_George Rush, Attorney, SF360.org columnist _

The next installment of Jackass, Ang Lee’s historical epic on Woodstock, and the new Gaspar Noe film, Enter the Void.
Marcus Hu, Co-President, Strand Releasing

Where the Wild Things Are.
Rod Armstrong, Programming Associate, San Francisco Film Society

The Road, Jarmusch’s next one—*The Limits of Control*—*The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Midnight Meat Train on DVD.
Jeffrey M. Anderson, critic, Cinematical, Combustible Celluloid

Lake Tahoe, Three Monkeys, Julia, Summer Hours, 35 Rhums, Desert Within, United Red Army, Che, The Headless Woman, Lorna’s Silence, Of Time and the City, The Beaches of Agnes, The Sea Wall, Service, Still Walking, Tokyo Sonata, Tony Manero, I’m Going to Explode, The Lion’s Den, Liverpool.
Michael Hawley, critic, Film-415, The Evening Class

Carlos Reygadas Silent Light, more Midnites for Maniacs programs.
Chris Wiggum, Director of Public Relations and Business Development, Global Film Initiative

New films by Tsai Ming-liang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
Steven Jenkins, Director of Finance and Administration, San Francisco Film Society

Whatever Asia Argento is in next.
Matt Sussman, critic, Flavorpill, SF360.org, SF Bay Guardian

Monsieur Verdoux at YBCA, Kings of the Road at Berlin & Beyond, A Kiss For Mary Pickford at the Silent Film Festival, The Human Condition at the Pacific Film Archive, and Jeanne Dielmann at SFMoMA. I’m always excited to learn what Bay Area film programmers have up their sleeves.
Brian Darr, critic, Hell on Frisco Bay

The American release of the Joris Ivens box set, Atom Egoyan’s Adoration, Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man.
Michael Fox, critic, SF360.org, SFWeekly

All the movies I fell behind on this year: Paranoid Park, Rachel Getting Married, Milk, The Class.
Arne Johnson, filmmaker, Girls Rock!

The entire line-up of SF Docfest.
Chris Metzler, filmmaker, Plagues and Pleasures of the Salton Sea

My inner child has set phasers to "fun" for JJ Abrams’ Star Trek reboot.
Peter Canavese, critic, Groucho Reviews

Surprises on the festival circuit.
Gary Meyer, Co-Director, Telluride Film Festival, owner, Balboa Theatre

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, Opal, and, god help me, the Star Trek movie.
Jonathan Kiefer, critic, Sacramento News & Review

I’m starting a book on women in French Cinema, and I’m looking forward to seeing dozens and dozens of movies for the book. Also looking forward to the Berlin festival in February.
Mick LaSalle, critic, San Francisco Chronicle

Night Fliers by Sara St. Martin Lynne has a terrific teen cast and a sweet story. I’m hoping to see it premiere at Frameline in June! And of course I’m even more excited to have the local premiere of my new short film, 575 Castro St.!
Jenni Olson, filmmaker, The Joy of Life and Director, E-Commerce & Consumer Marketing, Wolfe Releasing

The Road.
Dennis Harvey, critic, Variety, SF360.org, SF Bay Guardian

Wendy and Lucy, Hunger, Of Time and the City, Che, 24 City, The Headless Woman, 35 Rhums, The Beaches of Agnès, Summer Palace, the Murnau, Borzage and Fox DVD sets.
Max Goldberg, critic, SF360.org, Flavorpill, S.F. Bay Guardian

Silent Light, Dean and Britta, The 13 Most Beautiful …, Songs For Warhol, Screen Tests*, Frost/Nixon, Gran Torino, The Class.
Hilary Hart, Director of Publicity, SF Film Society

Favorite San Francisco Film?

Milk (10 votes) ; Medicine for Melancholy (8 votes); Pig Hunt, Circles of Confusion; Mock-Up on Mu; Easter Morning (“by Bruce Conner, RIP”—Brian Darr); La Corona; Wall-E (2 votes) (“all that cinema has been and all that it might be, as dramatized through the romantic adventure of an anthropomorphized trash compactor”—Jonathan Kiefer) ; Need; 9 @ Night Series (2 votes); Lost Coast (“The most original film I saw this year. Ambitious and bold and innovative”—Jenni Olson); The Princess of Nebraska; A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.

Favorite Innovation

The red camera.
George Rush, Attorney, SF360.org columnist

The fact that the Internet is continuing to change the rules for filmmakers. Allowing us to connect with our audience directly. It is a very exciting time to be an independent filmmaker.
Tiffany Shlain, filmmaker, founder of The Webby Awards and co-founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences

I don’t have Blu-Ray yet… maybe 3-D? I thought Journey to the Center of the Earth looked pretty good. Wouldn’t it be amazing if something like Wendy & Lucy could be done in 3D?
Jeffrey M. Anderson, critic, Cinematical, Combustible Celluloid

The gizmo that vaporizes anyone who texts/emails during a movie.
Michael Hawley, critic, Film-415, The Evening Class

More *instant downloading*—though I love the theatrical experience, it’s great to be able to pick out a movie online and watch it five minutes later.
Chris Wiggum, Director of Public Relations and Business Development, Global Film Initiative

Javier Bardem’s eyes in Vicky Christina Barcelona.
Steven Jenkins, Director of Finance and Administration, San Francisco Film Society

Letting Sylvia Miles sing over the closing credits in Go Go Tales. God bless her.
Matt Sussman, critic, Flavorpill, SF360.org, SF Bay Guardian

U23D. Looks like it’s time for the superimposition to make its comeback!
Brian Darr, critic, Hell on Frisco Bay

Solar panels on the rooftop of the Red Vic Moviehouse. The thought that not only the projector is working on solar energy, but that the popcorn is being popped with that same energy from the sun. Good feelings abound.
Chris Metzler, filmmaker, Plagues and Pleasures of the Salton Sea

Christopher Nolan proving IMAX can be a viable format for narrative filmmaking (with a little work and a lot of money).
Peter Canavese, critic, Groucho Reviews

Flip Mino HD camera.
Gary Meyer, Co-Director, Telluride Film Festival, owner, Balboa Theatre

That IMAX photography in The Dark Knight? Robert Downey Jr‘s performance in Tropic Thunder? The SFFS Screen at the Kabuki?!
Jonathan Kiefer, critic, Sacramento News & Review

I am very excited about Ted Leonsis’s latest venture, SnagFilms.com, which seems like a terrific showcase for social issue documentaries online where people can watch high quality films for free and then connect with the organizations doing the work on those issues.
Jenni Olson, filmmaker, The Joy of Life and Director, E-Commerce & Consumer Marketing, Wolfe Releasing

SFFS Screen.
Hilary Hart, Director of Publicity, San Francisco Film Society

As far as innovation and cutting edge cinema goes, I’d say that American "indie" film has collapsed into non-competing versions of political certainty and harmless chit chat. Between film school-fueled careerism and wanting to make sure no one is offended, there’s a small door no one seems to want to go through. Inside, is everything that matters.
Rob Nilsson, filmmaker, 9 @ Night film series

Other innovations: iTunes apps; medium shots, establishing shots; cheaper, better cameras.

Best Film-Related Experience This Year

Being the producer’s rep on Medicine for Melancholy. It was great working on a film I loved.
George Rush, Attorney, SF360.org columnist

Going to the premiere of Milk at the Castro and going to City Hall for the post party, which felt eerie as the Prop 8 goings-on mirrored the film’s Prop 6 issues.
Marcus Hu, Co-President, Strand Releasing

Milk. The film was brilliant in every respect. The acting..Sean Penn, off the charts, and the theater was packed, the energy like a activist rally and the subject so prescient in light of Prop 8 and Obama’s recent win. It was my favorite film experience this year by far.
_Tiffany Shlain, filmmaker, founder of The Webby Awards and co-founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences _

Having sushi with Guy Maddin and then moderating his Q&A after the SFIFF screening of My Winnipeg.
Rod Armstrong, Programming Associate, San Francisco Film Society

Being so thoroughly surprised and impressed—in so many ways—by the IMAX screening of The Dark Knight.
Jeffrey M. Anderson, critic, Cinematical, Combustible Celluloid

Mike Relm at SF360 Film+Club.
Graham Leggat, Executive Director, San Francisco Film Society

Seeing Patti Smith: Dream of Life at the Lumiere, with Patti there in person. Before the film she walked the ticket-holders line, greeting every single person and thanking them for coming. Then afterward, she stayed for a very generous 45-minute Q&A. Runner-up: Watching the SFIAAFF audience at the Castro go berserk watching Shahrukh Khan dance half naked in Om Shanti Om.
Michael Hawley, critic, Film-415, The Evening Class

Watching a sold out Om Shanti Om screening at the Castro during the SF Int’l Asian American Film Fest—my first Bollywood experience with an audience, and what a way to do it! And watching Paranormal Activity in the middle of the night at the Roxie during IndieFest—there sure were some screamers in that crowd!
Chris Wiggum, Director of Public Relations and Business Development, Global Film Initiative

Premiere of Milk at the Castro Theatre (where else?), with "No on 8" supporters lining the streets, politicos strolling the red carpet alongside Sean Penn and local luminary Lulu, and an unflappable Gus Van Sant deflecting the spotlight to shine it on the occasion’s true hero, Harvey. A classic San Francisco evening, if not quite the classic film that everyone wanted it to be.
Steven Jenkins, Director of Finance and Administration, San Francisco Film Society

The introduction by Craig Baldwin of Mock Up on Mu at the San Francisco International Film Festival.
James T. Hong, filmmaker, A Portrait of a Sino-American Friendship

Kino21 and Johnny Ray Huston’s presentation of Warren Sonbert’s films and Pedro Costa’s residency at the PFA.
Matt Sussman, critic, Flavorpill, SF360.org, S.F. Bay Guardian

Seeing two spheres I circle come together in a somewhat magical way at a Delancey Street event in August. It was a celebration the S.F. premiere of Rob Nilsson’s 9 @ Night cycle of feature films work-shopped in the Tenderloin, and also a benefit for a nonprofit I’ve been volunteering with for several years now: the Faithful Fools Street Ministry. I got to watch filmmakers and film lovers mingle with homeless activists, and I had a blast.
Brian Darr, critic, Hell on Frisco Bay

Peter Bogdanovich spinning anecdotes between films on the Castro stage in March, during the retrospective organized by Jesse Hawthorne Ficks.
Michael Fox, critic, SF360.org, SFWeekly, J.

I know this sounds self-indulgent, but it was really attending multiple screenings of our movie. Just when I thought I was over it, or had forgotten why we made the movie, having some 11 year old girl (at a documentary!) stick up her hand afterward and ask a question would make me feel new all over again. It was really an overwhelming experience over and over again.
Arne Johnson, filmmaker, Girls Rock!

Seeing Robert Mitchum and Jason Miller as middle-aged tough guys facing the end of the line in, respectively, The Friends of Eddie Coyle and The Nickel Ride on a March double bill at the Castro.
Pam Grady, critic, Boxoffice Magazine, Filmstew, and Reel.com

Robb Moss talking shop with documentary students. Brunch with Arnaud Desplechin. Just arrived on an overnight flight from Pusan he was eager to reorient himself and set about exploring bookstores and finding DVDs. The first open house at the SFFS FilmHouse residencies. A preview screening of Wall-E at Pixar Seeing Milk at a completely full Castro. Meeting Chilean Judge Juan Guzman (the judge who prosecuted Pinochet) and British brain surgeon Henry Marsh (who donates his time and equipment to help patients in Ukraine) at the SFIFF51.
Linda Blackaby, Director of Programming, San Francisco Film Society

The Bay Area Women in Film and Television (BAWIFT) holiday party. Rockin’!
Chris Metzler, filmmaker, Plagues and Pleasures of the Salton Sea

Tie: The Dark Knight screened in IMAX and My Winnipeg screened on DVD in my living room.
Peter Canavese, critic, Groucho Reviews

Various programs at Silent Film Festival but most especially The Kid Brother and Her Wild Oat; (Biased but) Balboa Birthday Party recreation of a night at the movies in 1926 with The Black Pirate; Jean Simmons tribute and first public showing anywhere of Slumdog Millionaire at Telluride. ; Benefit Premiere of Milk at Castro; Robert Breer retrospective at Rotterdam Film Festival.
Gary Meyer, Co-Director, Telluride Film Festival, owner, Balboa Theatre

Tie: Tucking in to David Thomson’s ginormous new book, Have You Seen…? A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. And The Bruce Baillie films at the Canyon Cinema showcase at the PFA. Runner up: Tucking in to the Facets DVD release of The Lawrence Jordan Album.
Jonathan Kiefer, critic, Sacramento News & Review_

I don’t usually like doing interviews—I usually hate it—but I considered it a privilege to interview Sandrine Bonnaire this year. A 70-minute interview. No other journalist was interested. It was like having Greta Garbo to myself. Or Duse. Amazing. The Venice Film festival wasn’t bad either, getting to meet Lina Wertmuller, who was on a panel with me, and also getting to see their These Phantoms retrospective, of unknown Italian films from the great age of Italian cinema (1946-1975).
Mick LaSalle, critic, San Francisco Chronicle

This past January I discovered the joy of watching movies on my iPhone. Not just average movies but special ones, the ones that are great touchstones and warrant repeated viewings—like The Hours or Vertigo. It is a terrific feeling to hold Chinatown in the palm of your hand. A film so big, so rich—this giant work of art so elegant and compact and you are so much in control of it, your fingertips pausing or rewinding to catch a detail and the wide, crisp screen is inches from your nose to create the most intimate viewing experience. And you own it. This magnificent work of art. More valuable than a Picasso, perfect as a Mapplethorpe, this two gigabyte file encapsulating so much beauty and emotion and power.
Jenni Olson, filmmaker, The Joy of Life and Director, E-Commerce & Consumer Marketing, Wolfe Releasing

Seeing Bergman’s Summer with Monica and Claude Jutra’s Mon Oncle Antoine for the first time were both great experiences.
Dennis Harvey, critic, Variety, SF360.org, SF Bay Guardian

Pedro Costa’s Regent’s Lecture at the PFA; seeing a print of Go Go Tales with French subtitles; the 5th season of The Wire; kino21’s Warren Sonbert revival; the applause after Wild Combination at Frameline; Terence Davies at the PFA; Moonrise at Noir City; Playtime in 70mm at the Castro; getting to see Zidane on the big screen.
Max Goldberg, critic, SF360.org, Flavorpill, S.F. Bay Guardian

Watching Ballad of a Soldier on DVD.
Hilary Hart, Director of Publicity, SF Film Society

I enjoy every second of my work with Citizen Cinema’s Player’s Ensemble. We’re in production on Collapse, a film about a ballet company in a time of economic crisis, and post-production on three others: Sisters, Maelstrom and Sand. I had a great experience making Imbued (last stages of post production) with Stacy Keach, Liz Sklar, Michelle Anton Allen and Nancy Bower. Most particularly I enjoyed working with producers Marshall Spight and David and Carol Richards on all of my recent work. Extraordinary people and great producers.
Rob Nilsson, filmmaker, 9 @ Night film series

Other experiences if ’08: MetaFest at the Roxie in November; seeing Pig Hunt at the Clay; One good one and one good bad one: seeing The Dark Knight at the Metreon’s IMAX screen and finally understanding the purpose of a screen that large, and going (with a refreshing amount of cineastes) to the Roxie to see just about the worst movie ever made, Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness on a double bill with Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie. A night to remember. Seeing Cowboy Angels in Paris and meeting a number of interesting artists from the film.

12.31.2008