Experience

Returning to Alcatraz at ATA

Among the many empowerment movements that burgeoned in the 1960s was Red Power—an unprecedented wave of activist zeal among Native Americans who’d had their land, languages and cultures systematically taken away by the government. If the 19th-century Indian experience was defined by broken treaties, in the 20th it had suffered from dubiously well intentioned efforts to relocate and assimilate tribal peoples in mainstream society. This had the effect of cutting them off from their roots while dumping them in cities with minimal institutional support.

topics: activism, american indian film, archives, artists' television access, bay area, directors, diy, documentary, world cinema, youth

In Production

Local makers line up next shot after SFIFF

A film festival can be a launching pad for a brand new release, a gratifying encounter with a live audience on the way to a national TV broadcast, a hometown celebration or just another stop on the circuit. The 2009 SFIFF has been all that and more for the numerous Bay Area filmmakers with feature-length works in the program, and who are already plotting their next moves.

The crowd-pleasing opening night film, La Mission, is slated to screen May 30 and 31 in the Seattle International Film Festival. Beyond that, director Peter Bratt and company wait to hear from other fests while they maintain ongoing negotiations for distribution that commenced with the film’s Sundance premiere.

topics: actors, american indian film, arab cinema, bay area, center for asian american media, digital filmmaking, distribution, diy, documentary, drama, film festivals, latin american cinema, san francisco international film festival, sundance film festival, sundance kabuki

Experience

SFIFF52: La Mission at el Castro--a beautiful day in the neighborhoods

San Francisco is a city of neighborhoods—and an argument can be made that there is no more lively and fascinating neighborhood in the city than the Mission. It’s a place where stories intersect: Historic murals depicting Latin American indigenous struggles butt up against well-worn Irish bars, which have themselves been transformed into trendy nightspots for a whole new demographic. Street vendors, workers for hire and school kids waiting for Muni buses share small strips of sidewalk just inches away from the slope of sunbathers at Dolores Park who offer an entry to another world altogether in the Castro.

Diverse populations, dense city: conflict naturally will occur. What’s challenging for city planners can be wonderful for film writers—especially when conflict leads as thoughtfully and passionately to resolution as it does in Peter Bratt’s opening night feature for the San Francisco International Film Festival, La Mission.

topics: actors, african american cinema, american indian film, bay area, castro theatre, diy, drama, film festivals, filmmakers, latin american cinema, san francisco international film festival

Experience

"The Exiles," a return engagement

Despite a handful of more sympathetic portrayals (as in Anthony Mann’s 1950 The Devil’s Doorway), Hollywood’s record on Native American imagery before the late 1960s was one of condescension when not outright "savage" caricature. And that’s just counting the thousands of period-set Westerns—in movies about modern life, American Indians simply didn’t exist.

Ergo there was a startling sense of discovery for viewers when Kent Mackenzie’s The Exiles premiered in 1961 at the Venice and San Francisco International film festivals, then other such showcases over the next couple years. This long-in-making naturalistic drama was an unvarnished look at "twelve hours in the lives of a group of Indians who have come to Los Angeles, California."

topics: american indian film, directors, filmmakers