Q&A

Red Vic Reprising 'Lesh Sabreen?'

Muayad Alayan, a 24-year-old filmmaker from the only remaining Arab neighborhood in West Jerusalem, was not even aware there was such a think as Palestinian cinema until, as a teenager, he came to the Bay Area to visit his brother and sister. Later, after a stint at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, he returned to San Francisco as a film student at City College. Among his teachers was local filmmaker Christian Bruno, who this year traveled to Jerusalem as the director of photography for Alayan’s Lesh Sabreen? (Why Sabreen?, now taking donations).

topics: activism, arab cinema, bay area, exhibition, red vic movie house

Experience

San Francisco Cinematheque Springing into Action

The spring edition of the San Francisco Cinematheque calendar is making the rounds, and my copy is already dog-eared with wishful thinking. Beyond the usual bounty of local premiers and filmmaker spotlights, it’s exciting to see Cinematheque continue to cultivate unusual collaborations, programming formats and venues—even the most seasoned Bay Area filmgoer may need to consult the key to decipher some of this calendar’s site abbreviations (Quick, what’s PTUSF? NNC?). So grab your datebook and get ready for a rundown.

topics: audiences, avant-garde, curators, diy, documentary, exhibition, experimental film, yerba buena center for the arts

Report

Citizen critics found new outlets, faced challenges in 2009

The silver lining to a decade that saw traditional critics in conventional media dwindle? The explosion of socially networked citizen critics who’ve helped create a multidimensional, democratic dialogue about the movies. San Francisco, with its panoply of film festivals, has, not surprisingly, spawned a wealth of such web-based writers. We checked in with a few of these writers, some of whom call themselves bloggers, to get a snapshot of what ’09 brought the web’s way as the economy faltered, and the community tweeted.

topics: bay area, blogs, cinephiles, critics, exhibition, festivals, world cinema

Take Two

Holiday film preview, part II

I don’t know about you, but I know what I want for Christmas (and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, for that matter): Some decent movies. Hope springs eternal, especially at this time of year. It’s Hollywood custom now to reserve the majority of its prestige titles for an annual late onslaught, the idea being that award-bestowing organizations’ voters naturally gravitate toward whatever is freshest in their memories. In the indie sector, too, there are some goodies timed for holiday gifting.

So, here’s part II of our glancing, far-from-exhaustive preview of what we’ve got to look forward to between now and New Year’s Day.

topics: activism, art film, bay area, cinephiles, critics, documentary, exhibition, experimental film, genre films, hollywood

Platform

David Sherman brings desert exposé to S.F. oasis

For a decade and a half, multi-hypenate David Sherman was a major figure in San Francisco’s vigorous experimental film scene. A probing artist, Sherman’s numerous films included the 1997 Whitney Biennial selection Tuning the Sleeping Machine. A tireless curator, the Tucson native and his future wife Rebecca Barten founded the 30-seat Total Mobile Home microCINEMA in the mid-‘90s, presenting more than 120 shows during its five-year run. Sherman was also the administrative director of venerable Canyon Cinema and—yes, there’s more—taught at California College for the Arts. Marking his first trip to town with a new film since he and Barten moved to Bisbee, Arizona (80 miles southeast of Tucson) shortly after the millennium, Other Cinema unspools the underground premiere of Wasteland Utopias in a rare Sunday show on Dec. 6. He gave us the scoop on Wilhelm Reich and other shadowy figures on the phone and via email.

topics: bay area, curators, directors, diy, exhibition, experimental film, world cinema

Critic's Notebook

San Francisco Cinematheque fall program gets underway

A year after Jonathan Marlow took the helm as Executive Director, working in close collaboration with longtime veteran Steve Polta and program director Vanessa O’Neill, the organization is showing fresh signs of life. A smart new website design that corrals a grove of archival materials and useful pointers to kindred screenings is one indicator that the organization is recommitting itself as the public face of “visionary film” in the Bay Area.

P. Adams Sitney, author of the foundational Visionary Film study, himself takes part in the current Cinematheque calendar with a lecture-screening based on his new book, Eyes Upside Down. This time around, the Princeton professor convenes American avant-garde cinema under the sign of Emerson. His appearance confirms Cinematheque’s role in an ongoing conversation—one never far from San Francisco.

topics: bay area, cinematography, cinephiles, critics, cult cinema, curators, exhibition, experimental film

In Production

Hess and Janos salute the volunteers of America

Look what’s happening out in the streets: 65 million Americans volunteer every year. That may not be what Paul, Grace and Marty had in mind, but there is a revolutionary aspect to community participation these days. Via Volunteer Nation: Stories of Service, veteran producer-directors Ben Hess and Dan Janos are using the latest technology to mobilize the millennials (18-35). “That demographic consumes content online and on mobile devices, but not on traditional television sets,” Hess notes. “We’re looking at the convergence of activism, social awareness and digital media.”

topics: activism, bay area, directors, diy, documentary, exhibition, festivals, independent film, internet, political film, producers, public