In Production

Bay Area narrative filmmakers are thriving in doc capital in '09

When I received the proposal last January to write a weekly “In Production” column for SF360.org, I had no concerns about finding sufficient material—that is, local works in various stages of progress. As you well know, the Bay Area is the only place in the country outside of the industry town of Los Angeles and the megalopolis of New York that could sustain a weekly column on independent filmmaking. The challenge I expected was (un)covering a halfway respectable number of narrative features to balance the famously overwhelming output of documentary makers. But as the year unfolded, the trickle of fiction films built to, well, not a flood but a very healthy stream—in the middle of a depressing recession. While I’m not quite ready to anoint the Bay Area as Indiewood North (or West), I have found that something’s certainly going on.

topics: activism, actors, bay area, digital distribution, digital filmmaking, directors, distributors, diy, documentary, features, filmmakers, frameline, independent film, mill valley film festival, narrative feature filmmaking, san fra, san francisco international film festival

Platform

Parker and di Napoli on parody and high art in "(Untitled)"

If you were intrigued by Ben Lewis’s documentary The Great Contemporary Art Bubble at the recent San Francisco DocFest, or if you’ve picked up one of the copies available throughout the San Francisco Public Library branches of Sarah Thornton’s compelling anthropological study of the contemporary art world, Seven Days in the Art World, you will definitely want to check out Marin-based director Jonathan Parker’s latest film, which played the SF International this past spring and opens in the Bay Area this coming Friday. The hilarious romp through the comic fodder available in the world of conceptual art and atonal music, (Untitled) is a film destined to be seen in the theater for the benefits of the sound systems theaters provide; its sound design, provided by San Francisco local Richard Beggs, is integral to the film—as is the score provided by Pulitzer Prize-winning new music composer David Lang. I sat down briefly with Jonathan Parker and co-writer Catherine di Napoli (also a Bay Area local) to discuss (Untitled) and the following is a snapshot of what transpired.

topics: art, bay area, san francisco international film festival

Take Two

Heddy Honigmann and the art of interview

With Heddy Honigmann’s latest portrait in resilience, Oblivion, opening at the SFFS Screen at the Sundance Kabuki this Friday, it’s a good time to celebrate one of documentary’s most engaging storytellers. Honigmann is not without accolades—she won the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award at the 2007 San Francisco International Film Festival and has had retrospectives in Berlin, New York, Paris and elsewhere—but one still wishes the ongoing doc boom would have done better by her. Watch Oblivion, and you’ll see a master in full stride, gracefully handling a subject (class inequity and political disillusionment in Lima) that would turn to putty in lesser hands. The film is a deceptively smooth ride—we only realize the tremendous moral sense required to coordinate so many different stories into a common circuitry of experience and expression in the afterglow of Oblivion’s final notes of solace.

topics: documentary film, san francisco international film festival, sffs screen, world cinema

Platform

Franny Armstrong's S.O.S. to the world

Franny Armstrong is a force of nature. Boundlessly energetic and impassioned about something most people only joke about—saving humankind—Armstrong gained a strong following at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where she’s screened two films. Her latest, The Age of Stupid, tackles the effects of climate change, and offers a plea to all who will listen: Change your ways. The plea goes public in a massive way this coming Monday, when The Age of Stupid makes its debut to the world, screening from a tent in New York, to 115,000 people in 400 movie theaters across the country. The evening features 40 live minutes with Kofi Annan, Gillian Anderson, Mary Robinson, Armstrong herself, the star of the film Pete Postlethwaite, and other leading thinkers, celebrities and political figures from around the world. Audiences will hear from scientists working in the Himalayas and Indonesian rainforest via live satellite link and from a group of children speaking from the very room in Copenhagen in which all our futures will be decided at the UN climate summit in December. Radiohead’s Thom Yorke will wrap up the evening with a short acoustic performance. Armstrong allowed us to conduct an interview with her via internet chat.

topics: activism, bay area, directors, diy, environmental films, music, political film, public, san francisco international film festival, women filmmakers, world cinema

Report

Rachel Rosen returns to San Francisco Film Society

Rachel Rosen, who served as assistant director of programming at the San Francisco Film Society from 1994 to 2001, has rejoined the organization as director of programming, effective today. She succeeds Linda Blackaby, who held the post with distinction for the past eight years. Rosen was the director of programming of Film Independent (FIND) and the Los Angeles Film Festival since 2001, where she significantly increased attendance through innovative programming and a broader spotlight on foreign films.

topics: bay area, castro theatre, film festivals, hollywood, san francisco international film festival, toronto international film festival, world cinema

Take Two

Instinct propels "Lion's Den"; a fact-fiction mix animates "24 City"

The best filmmakers working in the neorealist tradition today—the Dardenne brothers, Kelly Reichardt, Ramin Bahrani—turn the ordinary into the extraordinary with deceptive ease. Argentinian director Pablo Trapero has joined them with a growing list of films whose protagonists battle the pressures of the everyday in stories that turn out to be phenomenally unique.

He gained public attention at festivals, including the SF International, in 1999 with Mundo Grua (Crane World), a 16mm black-and-white character study of an ex-musician with an obesity problem attempting to find work in construction. His demons were beef and pasta and his charms, against a wide-open South American sky, were many.

topics: asian cinema, bay area, film festivals, landmark theatres, san francisco international film festival, sffs screen, south american film, world cinema

Platform

Richard Levien, from "Immersion" to "La Migra"

New Zealand transplant Richard Levien, a longstanding fixture of the San Francisco indie film community, has until recently been known primarily as an editor. That changed forever during this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival when Levien’s directorial debut Immersion won the Golden Gate Award for Bay Area Short. Shortly thereafter, Levien was named as the first recipient of a $35,000 award from the first SFFS/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grant for the script development of what will be his first narrative feature, La Migra. Both projects focus on the tribulations of immigrant children trying to live normal lives in the United States in the face of stigmatization, xenophobia and an often-vindictive legal code.

topics: actors, bay area, children's issues, digital filmmaking, diy, drama, exhibitions, film festivals, funding, immigration, latin american cinema, san francisco international film festival, sundance film festival