Insider

SFIFF51: California Newsreel at 40

What will you do on your 40th anniversary? If you’re California Newsreel, you’ll continue to do the same as you always have: producing and distributing film and video as a means of social change. Founded in 1968, the San Francisco-based Newsreel is the oldest nonprofit, social-issue documentary film center in the United States, with a library that includes Made in L.A. (Hecho en Los Angeles), which follows three Latina garment workers through a groundbreaking lawsuit and consumer boycott; This is Nollywood, an examination of the technical, economic, and social infrastructure of Nigeria’s booming film industry; and The Other Europe, which (among other stories) looks at the 2004 deaths within a group of illegal Chinese immigrants in Morecambe Bay, England — the worst industrial accident in Britain in 25 years.

How have audiences, and Newsreel itself, changed over the years? California Newsreel principal Cornelius Moore sat down with SF360 via email and gave his thoughts on the state of the company, film’s role as an instrument of social change, and Newsreel’s status on MySpace.

The 51st S.F. International Film Festival celebrates California Newsreel’s 40th with a panel on Bay Area political documentary May 3, and screens the CA Newsreel film Faubourg Tremé May 3, 6, and 7.

topics: african american cinema, african cinema, bay area, directors, distributors, documentary, political film, san francisco, world cinema

Found

Why skaters heart Spike

Most of the kids you see tooling around the streets on skateboards these days don’t know this, but there was once a time when spotting a professional skateboarder in a movie or on television was about as likely as finding a hundred bucks on the ground. But that was a long time ago. Skateboarding’s popularity has boomed a thousand-fold over last ten years and skate-related media coverage is now ubiquitous. It’s great for money-minded professional skateboarders and for large corporations, but skateboarding’s mainstream presence just seems strange to people like me who have been skating their entire lives. On one hand you have the MTV extreme sport stuff—the Rob and Big show, The Life of Ryan, the X-games, etc. And on the other you have contrived docu-dramas, like Larry Clark’s Kids, that treat skate-culture as a symptom of urban decline. It’s interesting stuff, but none of it has anything to do with skateboarding. Thank god for Spike Jonze, the patron saint of real skateboarders and the only real “skate director” out there.

topics: directors, san francisco, san francisco film society

The List

10 reasons to see "Cinema Piemonte"

This weekend the Associazone Piemontesi of Northern California, in association with the Italian Cultural Institute and Regione Piemonte, is presenting “Cinema Piemonte,” a brief survey of movies made in that beautiful area of the mother country. The four films run the gamut, from comedy to melodrama to spectacle to agitprop. They also span a whoppin’ nine decades of cinematic history. Admission is free to all programs. Beyond that obvious lure, here are further reasons to attend:

topics: directors, italian cinema, san francisco

Experience

Danny Glover, "Honeydripper," and us

Danny Glover is 61 years old, a born-and-raised San Francisco resident. He’s best known to the masses by far as the calm co-star to a much crazier (both on- and off-screen, it seems) Mel Gibson in those Lethal Weapon movies, though he (and we) would probably cite his best work as being elsewhere, in films seen much less widely.

One of them might well turn out to be Honeydripper, which opens this Friday. An all-too-rare instance these days of a (more or less) starring vehicle for him, this latest from writer-director John Sayles—a filmmaker whose track record of pro-labor projects must have made him simpatico with the longtime unionist actor—casts Glover as Tyrone “Pine Top” Purvis, piano-playing proprietor of the titular blues joint in 1950 rural Alabama. Facing financial ruin, he needs a big windfall, fast. So he creates one, claiming that he’s secured a show from famed (if fictive) electric guitarist Guitar Sam. But the latter doesn’t turn up as promised, forcing Pine Top to try saving his club via a desperate gambit.

topics: african cinema, directors, documentary, political film, san francisco

Global Lens

Since its inaugural year in 2002, the Global Lens film festival has gotten around, rather restlessly around, crisscrossing the country from Manhattan to Vashon Island with many far-flung points in between like a Beatnik with a yen for riding the rails. Which is more or less the idea. Except that instead of setting out to discover America, the traveling series of recent Third World cinema — a cornerstone of the nonprofit Global Film Initiative (GFI) — is out to help overwhelmingly passportless Americans discover the world.

There is, you might agree, a certain urgency involved. Formed in the wake of 9/11 by Susan Weeks Coulter and Noah Cowan (the latter of the Toronto International Film Festival), GFI seeks to harness the power of cinematic storytelling to promote what its founders see as much needed cross-cultural dialogue between Americans and their neighbors at home and in the so-called developing world.

Combing through, as well as cultivating, the Third World’s often fledgling independent film industries through its grant and acquisition programs, San Francisco-based GFI has been bringing some of the best narrative cinema being produced today in the Global South to American audiences unlikely to encounter it any other way. It’s not just that Americans don’t travel abroad much either. With independent movie theaters and art houses a thing of the past in many American towns, a series like Global Lens can present an all too rare alternative to the multiplex fare.

But what, you may ask, has Global Lens to offer a cosmopolitan film fest feeding-ground like the Bay Area? In some cases, it’s a Bay Area premiere, in others, it’s a deserved second chance to see fine independent films like opening night’s “Of Love and Eggs” (2004), by Indonesia’s Garin Nugroho, which screened (along with his most recent work, the stunning “Opera Jawa”) at the San Francisco International but failed to find an American distributor despite wide acclaim on the international festival circuit. GFI (whose collection numbers 37 films to date) takes up such films in its flexible filmmaker-friendly acquisition agreements and not only tours with them but — in partnerships with First Run Features and First Run/Icarus Films, respectively — eventually makes them available to the home video and education markets. Supplemented by an educational program of free screenings of select films to high school students and downloadable discussion guides for educators, Global Lens also reaches out to Bay Area youth like few other film festivals.

“As a curated series, Global Lens differs from festivals because it is both a cinematic showcase, and distribution source for new and emerging works from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East,” explains director of programs Santhosh Daniel. “Films are screened theatrically as part of our touring series, and then released in home video, on television, and non-theatrically as part of our Global Lens film collection, providing longevity beyond a one-time festival screening.”

Another film clearly worthy of a second look this year is “Kilometer Zero,” the spare and sardonic 2005 feature by Paris-based Iraqi Kurdish filmmaker Hiner Saleem (“Vodka Lemon”), which impressed but also ruffled feathers at Cannes in 2006 with its distinctly Kurdish perspective on the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. With a little distance from that moment (much like the implication of an evolving journey in the title’s reference to a practical and symbolic starting point), the film’s ambivalent stance from the Kurdish north of Iraq concerning the US toppling of the genocidal and deeply despised regime of Saddam Hussein seems less an uncomfortable retort to the indictment of US imperialism (marked the previous year by Palme D’Or-winner “Fahrenheit 9/11”), than a historically and culturally rooted viewpoint that is at the same time a sly send-up of militarism and nationalism itself. With a complex set of human loyalties and relationships at play, as well as an understated theatricality mocking top-down nationalism’s callow certainties and patriotic platitudes, “Kilometer Zero” reveals the theater of war as a theater of the absurd, full of needless pain and strife as well as alternately gentle and bitter human comedy — all of it amid a land that both the film’s unlikely Kurdish hero and his equally unlikely Arab traveling companion agree is paradise on earth, while vehemently disagreeing about whether it is properly Kurdistan or Iraq.

In addition to “Of Love and Eggs” and “Kilometer Zero,” Global Lens 2007’s choice lineup offers seven more features and a program of seven shorts from more than a dozen countries. The series pulls into town next weekend (following stops in Memphis, Scranton, Little Rock, and other hinterlandings) for more than two weeks worth of screenings in a dozen Bay Area locations — including off-the-beaten-track film venues with strong neighborhood cultural centers like St. John’s Presbyterian and the Bayview Opera House, as well as stalwart fest housers like the Roxie. Countries explored by contributing films this year include Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Croatia, India, Indonesia, Iraqi Kurdistan, Iran, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, and South Africa.

“Global Lens has no political bent or cultural leaning as a series,” stresses Daniel. “All the films are chosen solely based on their artistic and narrative quality. Some films may have had a strong run on the festival circuit, but for the most part, the cinematic perspectives one finds in the series are fresh and unique.”

topics: film festivals, san francisco, world cinema

Jamie Meltzer, welcoming us to "Nollywood"

When last we saw Jamie Meltzer, the S.F. State grad was paying tribute to the most unlikely group of would-be artists ever assembled in one documentary. “Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story” was an unusually mature first film that treated its assortment of oddball amateur songwriters with respect as well as bemusement. A poignant, priceless slice of Americana, it received a national public television broadcast as well as a permanent spot in the unofficial cult fave Hall of Fame. For his next film we half-expected Meltzer to make another expedition into a homegrown world of weird art-makers, but instead he went to far-off Nigeria, where the digital revolution enables entrepreneurs to churn out movies quickly and inexpensively on DVD — to the tune of 2,400 movies a year. Many of the filmmakers profiled in the amusing and eye-opening “Welcome to Nollywood” make straight-ahead action flicks, but a few want to be serious artists. (There is a connection, after all, with “Off the Charts.”) A good chunk of “Welcome to Nollywood” screened at a benefit for Film Arts Foundation last November at the Castro, and the finished film is on view Oct. 7 and 9 in the Mill Valley Film Festival. (It seems inevitable that the doc will have a theatrical run at a local arthouse in the not-too-distant future.) Meltzer lives in San Francisco and teaches film production at Stanford’s esteemed graduate doc program, but we caught up with him in Chicago for a wedding, parked in his car under the “El” tracks.

SF360: So how the heck did you end up in Nigeria?

Jamie Meltzer: “Off the Charts” took me, I think, four years to get done, a great project but a really frustrating project in terms of the process because it took so long, going from state to state and visiting all these different people. At that time I read about this industry going in Lagos, in Nigeria, where they were making films in 10 days, where they were getting those films out in a couple weeks and they were connecting with an audience, and that had the sort of immediacy that I really responded to. Especially being in my situation, mired in the end of making a documentary. That just sort of stuck in my mind. And I started thinking about it more, and the whole idea of it really appealed to me, of challenging myself to exist within that context. I wanted to investigate how they did it. I started to read more about it and then started to contact people, and I thought it was the perfect follow-up film, in a way, because it would have all these limitations built into it.

SF360: What was your plan?

Meltzer: My goal was to go there, shoot for a month and follow a couple different productions and then edit it maybe in the year or six months following. Of course, two years after I went there I’m done with it, so I wasn’t quite on the time schedule that I wanted to be on. But I still think it sort of kicked me in the butt and was a good experience as far as changing my point of view on the process of filmmaking, which is what I wanted to do all along.

SF360: Was there a point when it seemed like less of a departure from’“Off the Charts’ than you’d originally imagined?

Meltzer: On the thematic and subject side, as I was doing it I realized it did fit with the song-poets and these people who were trying to do something against all odds, which is what Nollywood is about. They’ve created this industry out of nothing, from the ground up with no support at all from the government, from any outside governments or agencies, and they’ve created something that’s incredibly successful. How do they do this? The film, for me, was an investigation, discovering what’s behind this miraculous industry of Nollywood.

SF360: Even as you were challenging yourself to work faster, you were on another continent in a foreign culture. What was it like working in Lagos?

Meltzer: It was almost impossible. The conditions for making anything are terrible. Our power was going out all the time. It’s incredibly hot. It’s very difficult to get across town because you get caught in traffic jams that are legendary there. That affects anyone meeting with you. Sometimes you’re supposed to have an interview with someone and they wouldn’t show up, and it would be hours. We couldn’t really use lights because of the energy problems. So we improvised, and again that’s the lesson of Nollywood. I took them as my inspiration and as my teachers while I was there. If they could do it, then I could certainly do a documentary, which required a little bit less than the full-blown environment that they needed to make their film.

SF360: I understand the appeal of making feature films the Dogme way, without all the gear and crew and bloat. But verityé documentaries are already lean, run-and-gun productions. Are you saying you found a way to make them even lighter, faster and quicker?

Meltzer: I’m saying I think people are precious a little bit about documentaries. They’re precious about making the perfect film and precious about filmmaking in general. They have to look and sound and be a certain way. Yeah, you’re right, there is a certain looseness to documentary that’s always existed in a certain on-the-run production, but I think that this did push that beyond what I imagined it to be. I had to give up a certain level of control, and I enjoyed doing that because I just feel, whatever happens, that’s what I’m going to end up working with. It’s a bit scary; if you’re making a documentary you still want a level of control and I really had to give that up in this project.

SF360: So how do you maintain some sense of craft? How do you achieve an aesthetic that’s raw and immediate without being slapdash?

Meltzer: There can be a sacrifice in terms of craft if you approach filmmaking in a certain sort of extremely loose and spontaneous way. Obviously, that has its dangers. I was just responding to what was there. For instance, there’s the story in the film about the filmmaker Izu [Ojukwu], who built this homemade projector in his garage without even ever knowing what a projector was or what a film was, and he used that experience of showing films as a way to learn filmmaking. I knew that story had a lot of resonance for my film, because [that] was sort of a metaphor for what the larger Nollywood industry was getting done with nothing basically. I slowed down when I came to that story and I spent two or three days just getting everything I needed, having him recreate the projector and recreate the moment, the magic of cinema that he had shared with his friends years back. And now, in my film, he’s sharing with his younger siblings and people that are in the neighborhood now. Every day presented different material, and sometimes I would take what I got and sometimes I would slow down and be a little more precious with it.

SF360: Now, you could move through production quickly and then take an inordinately long time cutting the film.

Meltzer: Yes, in Nollywood I noticed there’s two different trends, and in my film I have two directors represent those trends. On the one hand, you have a sort of run and gun, do a film in 10 days. And that’s this guy Chico Cachero, Mr. Prolific. He epitomizes that approach, which is what everyone who knows anything about Nollywood thinks of it as [the Nollywood] approach: a film in 10 days. Now that’s sort of a myth and a legend. To some degree it’s not really true. It’s just a good story. On the other side there’s Izu Ojukwu. He’ll spend, in the case of the film that we followed [“Laviva,” also playing the Mill Valley Film Festival], [several months] shooting, which was unheard of at the time in Nollywood, and probably still somewhat unheard of now. They just don’t have the budget to support that. And he would also spend a year or even more on the editing, just getting it perfect, just getting it right. [While] Chico would probably spend four or five days editing a film. He really had it down to a science. I just sat back in amazement. I was editing my film and I was trying to keep that spirit of his manic energy alive in the edit. Izu, [who] I admired and respected from the moment that I met him, I tried to respect the care and precision and labor that he puts into his creative process.

SF360: How do you distill the Nollywood philosophy into two sentences for your students?

Meltzer: The lessons of Noillywood that I took, and anyone making films — whether they’re documentary or not — can take, is that there’s really no excuse and no obstacle that you can’t overcome. They show that by building this industry in this completely inhospitable environment that’s actively against them in a lot of ways — the heat, the traffic, the lack of infrastructure. But they have managed to create a thriving industry that you don’t see all around the world, an industry that can stand up to the cultural influence of Hollywood and the larger film industries that are silencing these smaller national voices. They’ve been able to create this successful cultural film industry that is going to be around for a long time. Now they’ve created a desire in Nigerians and Africans at large to see their films, so they’ve come a long way.

SF360: Last question: What is your favorite filmmaking tool?

Meltzer: I try not to get too caught up in tools because it’s my personal philosophy that it’s much more about telling stories. I’m not tied to one particular camera, I’m not tied to one particular editing tool. I’m not so much technologically oriented as I am oriented towards amazing stories. I wouldn’t want to single out a tool or a camera or a piece of technology because in a way it’s all irrelevant; in a way nothing’s changed while everything’s changed. I’m saying that in the face of the fact that Nollywood exists entirely due to the digital video revolution. Everything they shoot is on digital video cameras, edited on digital nonlinear [systems] and distributed on video CDs. It’s an entirely digital system, and in that sense it’s far ahead of what Hollywood is

topics: documentary, q&a, san francisco

Ariella Ben-Dov, Madcat mastermind

As the Madcat Women’s International Film Festival heads into its final stretch this coming week in San Francisco, SF360.org felt it was important to catch up with its chief curator, Ariella Ben-Dov. The “catching” part wasn’t exactly easy. As you read this, Ben-Dov is traveling at warp speed through various neighborhoods of San Francisco, working the last-minute arrangements at an assortment of locations, and creating the illusion that the globe-spanning, genre-busting festival of the people is an operation run by hundreds of hands. It actually comes mostly down to two: Ben-Dov and her very close associate, Rebecca McBride. Throughout the year, they get help from a graphic designer, projectionist, 10-15 volunteers, and a small pre-screening committee. But when you consider the scope of the shows and varieties of venues, you see what they’ve accompolished is no small feat — in fact, it’s not being replicated anywhere else in the world. Wonder why? We did eventually find Ben-Dov, and she offered her thoughts, mid-festival, over the phone.

SF360: I think midway through is probably the best time to ask: What’s the most challenging part of running a film festival like this one?

Ariella Ben-Dov: I wish it were a more interesting answer, but it’s probably the same for any arts organization in the U.S.: money and resources. It’s never about the work. There’s never a dearth of work.

SF360: How big is Madcat?

Ben-Dov: The two main people are myself and Rebecca McBride. We bring on a graphic designer and projectionist. We have 10-15 volunteers throughout the year, and we also have a pre-screening committee of about 10 people. It’s very small, and definitely we rely on interns and volunteers for support throughout the preparations.

SF360: I’m so impressed by the scope and variety of the films this year; can you describe your curatorial process and how it did or didn’t differ from years past?

Ben-Dov: We do send out an open call for submissions. This year we received a bit over 1,400. I’m always seeking out movies, whether it’s filmmakers who’ve shown at Madcat in the past, or filmmakers recommended by other curators. I go to a few other international film festivals each year. The process of reviewing the films and curating is a very long organizing process. There’s of course a few programs each year I have an idea of doing. I knew when Helen Hill passed away this year, I wanted to have an evening dedicated to her films. But most of the films come from submissions. It’s really exciting, because I don’t know what I’m going to get. I know what filmmakers are going to send work, but I don’t know what themes are going to arise. It’s a process of watching and rewatching. There are many films that don’t fit our guidelines…. It’s easy to weed those out. There are many films that could work, but I don’t say ‘Yes’ to until I see it fits our program.

Every year I feel like I hold on to more and more tapes of films I wanted to show but couldn’t find a place for, that’s what makes the shorts programs at Madcat so strong. The body of work is as important as each individual piece in the program. My hope as a curator is that audiences are going to walk away and be talking and thinking about the movies they see — not only that individual film, but how these films play off each other….

Obviously the filmmakers have an intention with their films

topics: film festivals, q&a, san francisco, women filmmakers