Interview with director Monty Miranda and writer/star Spencer Berger about their film “Skills Like This” which opens around the San Francisco Bay are on Friday, April 10. Shot during the San Francisco Independent Film Festival.
Interview with director Jon Bowden about the film “The Full Picture” which plays on Sat. Feb 21 at 9:30 PM at the Shattuck Theater in Berkeley, California. Shot during the San Francisco Independent Film Festival.
Interview with director Kevin Chapados about his film “Abraham Obama” which focuses on a grass-roots campaign to promote Barack Obama’s campaign for the Presidency through street art. Shot during the San Francisco Independent Film Festival.
Interview with producer/writer Karim Ahmad about the film “Harrison Montgomery” which plays on Fri. Feb 20, at 7:15 PM at the Shattuck Theater in Berkeley, California. Shot during the San Francisco Independent Film Festival in San Francisco.
Several excellent films from the San Francisco Independent Film Festival make their way across the bay to the Shattuck Cinema in Berkeley, CA for an extended run this weekend. FilmClick recommends these films from local filmmakers which are playing this weekend in Berkeley:
“The Full Picture”
Bay Area filmmaker Jon Bowden’s feature “The Full Picture” plays on Sat. Feb 21 at 9:30 PM. The film is about unresolved family history and the lengths that people will go to keep uncomfortable secrets even in their closest relationships. The main character, Mark, lives in San Francisco with his long-time girlfriend, Erika. The couple is headed toward marriage, at least that’s what Erika thinks, but Mark has been keeping some secrets about his family’s sordid past. A visit from Mark’s mother leads to some uncomfortable revelations for all involved. This is a well-written film; I particularly enjoyed the relationship between Mark and his brother, Hal, played by Joshua Hutchinson. Hutchinson and Lizzie Ross, who plays Erika, stand out in this film for me.
“Harrison Montgomery”
Daniel Davila’s “Harrison Montgomery” plays on Fri. Feb 20, at 7:15 PM. This film follows an aspiring artist, Ricardo, played by Octavio Gómez Berríos, who lives and creates his art in San Francisco’s rough Tenderloin neighborhood. Ricardo deals drugs to get by. He ends up in a tangle; owing money to his boss and forced to move into a room at the grimy Hotel Boyd. At his new place, Ricardo meets single mother Margo and another Hotel Boyd tenant, Harrison Montgomery, played soulfully by Martin Landau. Montgomery is an eccentric and aging shut-in, who may have won the lottery years before. I won’t go too much more into the story, but it’s a surprisingly inspirational film filled with solid performances. Of note to me was the gritty production design and the beautiful cinematography of the rarely featured Tenderloin.
by Christopher Potter, FilmClick.com
Go to: www.sfindie.com for show times, more information and tickets.
The 11th annual San Francisco Independent Film Festival opened to a packed house last night at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco’s Mission District with Shane Meadows’ film Somers Town. Meadows’ film was an atypical choice for an opening night film, but a wonderful surprise. Thomas Turgoose, the star of Meadows’s internationally acclaimed This is England, delivers an awkward, brave and vulnerable performance as run-away teenager Tomo, who leaves the north-Midlands and ends up in the rundown North London neighborhood Somers Town. It is a difficult role to portray and Turgoose is full of the bravado of youth, the determination not to return home, and the discomfort of adolescence.
Somers Town
Turgoose’s deadpan comic foil, Piotr Jagiello as the as shy, Polish immigrant Marek, brings another dimension to the film’s illustration of the current struggle of the many Polish immigrants finding their way in the United Kingdom since the expansion of the European Union. The film is shot primarily in black and white and its colorless world adds to the contrast between the characters, town, and their situations. The exception is the film’s final journey, via the London to Paris train which is a background for this film about journeys. When the film switches to color in a grainy, high-speed stock for a final journey by the two teenagers, it is almost a coda to the film, a reminder that journeys, internal and external, can be vivid parts of life.
Opening Night at SF IndieFest
True to form for any of SF Indie’s events, which include Another Hole in the Head and the San Francisco Documentary Festival, when we left the theater after Somers Town, a motley group of Star Wars characters awaited the departing audience. I didn’t C3PO, but R2-D2 was there, along with many storm troopers, Ben Kenobi and Luke Skywalker himself. One of the great things about the festivals that Jeff Ross puts on is the light whimsy that surrounds the events. I think he realizes that films and events like these are meant to be fun and it always shows. I’ve been to festivals with my films and usually the parties seem to be stiff, hotel ballroom mixers and the best times are usually had after hours at whatever bar you migrate to. Not the case with SFIndie’s events. Don’t miss the Big Lebowski costume party on Saturday, February 7. I’m sure it will be fun.
by Christopher Potter, FilmClick.com
Go to: www.sfindie.com for show times, more information and tickets.
The 11th annual San Francisco Independent Film Festival, which opens February 5 and continues throughout the Bay Area until the 22nd, presents several world premieres to viewers including Abraham Obama, Let Them Know: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records, and Morris County.
Abraham Obama
In Abrahma Obama, Pop/street artist Ron English creates an iconic image of Abraham Lincoln’s faced merged with Barack Obama’s and with his co-horts paste it up illegally all across America, plastering the image wherever they can find an open wall. Along the way they meet up with counterculture heroes like Shepard Fairey, Morgan Spurlock and David Choe and spread their subversive propaganda to America’s heartland on a grassroots campaign to get Obama elected.
Let Them Know: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records
Let Them Know: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records takes you through the last 25 years of an independent Punk Rock label. The story is told through interviews and rare footage of the explosive LA Puck Rock scene from the 80’s until current. Riots, harassment from the law, amazing bands, crazy stories and best of all, a real and earnest desire to change the world through punk rock are captured in this documentary.
Morris County
Morris County by Matthew Garrett is an equal parts drama, horror, true-crime anthology and life-cycle piece following three sets of characters on their individual journeys into oblivion.
Go to: www.sfindie.com for show times, more information and tickets.