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.
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.
Recognizing both national and international filmmakers alike, SF DocFest celebrates some of its bay area pride, both in content and creators. Always a haven for interesting documentary filmmakers, the bay area locals at Docfest this year present a wide variety of views and subjects for local audiences, many of them shot right at home.
HEAD TRIP (85 min), set at the beginning of the Iraq war, follows a bus-load of San Francisco characters as they crisscross across the USA on a quixotic/good-will journey to NYC. They drop in on noteworthy American monuments and oddball artists along the way with their own “roadside attraction”: three giant Doggie Diner Heads that they tow with them on their adventure.
Produced by Laughing Squid. John Law is an original Suicide Club member, charter member of the Cacophony Society and co-founder of Burning Man festival. Flecher Fleudujon is a film professional and co-founder of the Yard Dogs Roadshow & Revue.
Sunday, October 26 at 7:15 PM at Roxie Cinema
Monday, October 27 at 9:30 PM ROxie Cinema
GOING On 13 takes us on a four year ride of puberty, from Tweety Bird to Bow Wow, double dutch to chat rooms, Daddy’s girls to first deceptions, as we watch o Ariana, Isha, Rosie, and Esme let go of childhood and fumble - or sprint - toward an uncertain future. For each of these California girls of color, puberty is a whirlwind of change and new choices.
Meet Esmeralda, Mexican American, first to complete her daily schoolwork and first in her class to have a secret boyfriend; Ariana, African American, who goes from tomboy to popular girl as her family struggles to leave the poverty of West Oakland; Rosie, mixed race Latina, precocious and sunny at 9, but dangerously alienated as a pre-teen; and Isha, an immigrant from India, who despite her devotion to her traditional family, explores Internet teen chat-rooms with user names like ‘ghetto girl’ and ‘cutie pie.’
Going on 13 shows us a reality far more complex than what we are used to seeing in the media about pre-teen girls and urban girls of color. Through intimate interviews and cinema verite footage of the everyday drama of their changing lives, Isha, Rosie, Esme and Ariana remind us that it is the small moments of insight that usher us down the rough road from childhood to adulthood.
Saturday, October 18 at 5:00 PM at Roxie Cinema
Wednesday, October 22 at 7:15 PM at Roxie Cinema
Sunday, November 2 at 7:15 PM at Shattuck Cinema
B. Douglas Robbins’s DEBATE TEAM puts a whole new spin on the idea of competition as it explores the bizarre subculture of competitive college debate. Competitors battle at 360 words per minute, hauling around mountains of evidence called “cards” and nearly every debate ends in global nuclear annihilation.
In 2005, nearly 200 teams converged atSan Francisco State to compete in the National Championship. The documentary follows four teams, from Michigan State, Harvard, West Georgia, and Berkeley in their quest for the national title.
Exploring the potentially dangerous history of college debate teams, what emerges is not simply a chronicle of the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, but a more disturbing examination into the nature of competition itself and the American fetish with championships and champions.
Sunday October 19 at 7:15 PM at Roxie Cinema
Tuesday October 21 at 7:15 PM at Roxie Cinema
Sunday November 2 at 9:30 PM at Shattuck Cinema
I THINK WE’RE ALONE NOW focuses on two individuals, Jeff and Kelly, who claim in love with the 80’s pop singer Tiffany. Fifty-year-old Jeff Turner, a man from Santa Cruz, CA has been going to Tiffany concerts since 1988. Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, he has never had a girlfriend. Jeff spends his days on the streets of Santa Cruz, striking up conversations with anyone who has a moment to spare. Kelly McCormick is a 35-year-old intersex person from Denver, CO, who claims to have been friends with Tiffany as a teenager and credits Tiffany as the shining star who been the motivation for everything in Kelly’s life.
Both Jeff and Kelly have been labeled stalkers by the media and other Tiffany fans. This film takes you inside the lonely lives these two characters, revealing the source of their clinging obsessions. This age-old story of unrequited love is a comedic and emotional trip through themes of desperation, isolation, and hope, illustrating that having something, or someone, to believe in can be more powerful than anything realit has to offer.
Friday, October 24 at 9:30 PM at Roxie Cinema
Wednesday, October 29 at 9:30 PM at Roxie Cinema
Saturday, November 1 at 7:15 PM at Shattuck Cinema
THE LONG HAUL shares the journey of a lesbian couple who journey cross-country on their move from New Jersey to California. As they attach their 1956 Airstream Caravan to a Ford F250 pickup, Martha and Lavonne, who have been together for almost two decades, test their patience athey navigate through the Deep South. Driving by day, drinking and camping by night, they show us that they’re like any other couple. Whether it’s sharing a plate of biscuits in South Carolina, bickering over map directions, or being devastated about church ladies shutting down their favorite bar in Louisiana—Martha and Lavonne try to ride it out for the long haul.
Thursday, October 30 at 9:30 PM at Roxie Cinema
Sunday, October 26 at9:30 PM at Roxie Cinema
Monday, November 3 at 7:15 PM at Shattuck Cinema
THE PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE: The Life & Times of Charles R. Garry
One of the most influential criminal defense attorneys of the 20th century, Charles R. Garry (1909-1991) became a household name during the 1960s with his defense of a host of revolutionary political icons, including Huey Newton and Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party. This documentary seeks to fill the gap Seale wrote about nearly thirty years ago in his autobiography Seize the Time: “We don’t know every detail of Charles’ life, but we can see that he is a man who is dedicated to the survival and the existence of the right to self-determination of human beings. We need a lot more history on Charles R. Garry so we can understand what motivates a man to be such a defender of the people’s human rights.” An outspoken advocate for the underdog, Garry’s career came to an unexpected and tragic halt in 1978, when his client, the Reverend Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple, led over 900 of his followers in mass suicide at Jonestown. This documentary recounts Garry’s life through the voices of those who knew him best—family, fellow attorneys and former clients. Interviewees include: Black Panther Party leaders Bobby Seale, Kathleen Cleaver, Ericka Huggins and David Hilliard; famed historian and civil rights activist Howard Zinn; and Jim Jones’s son Stephan Jones.
Friday, Oct 17 at 9:30 PM at Roxie Cinema
Wednesday, October 29 at 9:30 PM at Roxie Cinema
Monday November 3 at9:30 PM at Shattuck Cinema
SF IndieFest celebrates DocFest this year with over 60 documentary films from around the world. The festival begins Oct.17- 31 at San Franciscoʼs Roxie Theatre and continues Oct.31- Nov. 6 at Berkeleyʼs Shattuck Cinema. Here’s a preview of this year’s opening night films.
Chelsea on the Rocks
Directed by Abel Ferrera, Chelsea on the Rocks focuses on the history and legend surrounding New York Cityʼs famed Chelsea Hotel. Built in 1883, the Chelsea Hotel has been a refuge for well-known artists, musicians, and writers such as Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, and Tennessee Williams. In 2007, it was acquired by a boutique hotel management company and soon after the boho residence experienced a wave of evictions in favor of a more upscale crowd. Ferrera attempts to document the rich and fabled history of this American icon with interviews of famous past and present tenants, archival footage and re-enactments of events.
Kassim The Dream
Co-opening night film, Kassim The Dream, is the story of Uganda-born World Champion Boxer, Kassim ‘The Dream’ Ouma, who was kidnapped by the rebel army and trained to be a child soldier at the age of 6. He discovered boxing while in the army and after serving for twelve years, left for America. Upon arriving, Ouma began boxing and soared through the amateur boxing ranks to become a World Champion Boxer. Film director Kief Davidson, follows Ouma through his experiences inside and outside the ring and the drama of facing a horrifying childhood.
Bird’s Nest
Bird’s Nest chronicles the design efforts of Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron while working on the National Stadium in Bejing (know as the bird’s nest for its curved steel-net walls), home of many of the events for the 2008 Summer Olympics. It also looks at Herzog and de Meuron’s design for a new city district in Jinhua, involving hotels, office and residential buildings. The film reveals how Chinese cultural tradition affects both projects, with the architects carefully researching esthetic and philosophical concepts of Chinese society and culture, attempting to define universal qualities of “beauty” and being careful to avoid imposing Western ideas, and above all to create buildings that will blend in culturally by being sensitive to Chinese cultural traditions and ways of living.
Toots
An authentic portrait called Toots chronicles Toots Shor’s dramatic rise from the mean streets of South Philly to the heart of both the glamour and underworld of mid-20th century New York City, where this Jewish, uneducated self-styled “bum” became the unlikely hero to America’s heroes during New York’s golden age. On any given night, the dining room of TOOTS SHOR’s could contain Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, mob boss Frank Costello. Joe DiMaggio, Frank Sinatra, Frank Gifford, or Jackie Gleason. These giants of American culture and sports found in Toots a unique sense of comfort, somewhere between his trademark bear hug and relentless insults. In the end, Toots had lost it all, and Toots reveals as much about the city and era Shor embodied as it does about the man and his enduring legacy.
Hi, My Name is Ryan
Ryan Chadwick Avery is a milk and cookies connoisseur, a photobooth artist, a fake mustache aficionado and a punk rock performance artist that was dubbed the Clown Prince of the downtown Phoenix art scene. Some herald him a creative genius; others consider him a nuisance that poses a danger to himself and others. “Hi My Name is Ryan” gives a glimpse into this lad’s life and antics.
The People’s Advocate: The Life & Times of Charles R. Garry
One of the most influential criminal defense attorneys of the 20th century, Charles R. Garry (1909-1991) became a household name during the 1960s with his defense of a host of revolutionary political icons, including Huey Newton and Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party. The People’s Advocate: The Life & Times of Charles R. Garry profiles this outspoken advocate for the underdog, The documentary recounts Garry’s life through the voices of those who knew him best—family, fellow attorneys and former clients.
Standard Deviation
Standard Deviation is the story of the brilliant young physicist Billy Cottrell and the events leading to his incarceration as an Eco-terrorist. A tall, athletic, and good-looking young man Billy was in the prime of his life in 2003. While doing research at the California Institute of Technology he was one of the most promising PhD candidates of theoretical physics in the world before the FBI arrested him for involvement in the fire bombings and vandalism of over 130 SUVs.
Chanbara Beauty - Midnight Circus
In true Midnight Circus fashion, Chanbara Beauty presents hot chicks with swords and zombies. It’s all some people need in a movie.
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