San Francisco International Film Festival
4.24.08 – 5.08.08
San Francisco, CA
After celebrating its milestone 50th International Film Festival last year, the San Francisco Film Society is gearing up to show the City by the Bay just why it’s the only festival in the U.S to have celebrated its golden anniversary.
To celebrate the start of the festival, the renowned society kicked things off with an amazing meet-and-greet reception for Bay Area filmmakers in the Palm Room of the San Francisco Film Center, located in the beautiful and historic Presidio. The well executed mixer served as a meeting ground for the S.F-based filmmakers featured in this year’s festival to mingle, conspire and drink to their shared passions while I was in attendance to cover the event for the FilmClick community.
Film festivals have generally served as the middleman for those of us who enjoy great films, and as a springboard to discover maverick works that fall outside of the big studio system of the Hollywood machine. As a film student here in the Bay Area, it was an honor to be invited to such an event, and a strategic opportunity to meet a diversity of local talent working in a smattering of genres.
SFIFF 51 is set to showcase a lineup of inspired, first-time, Northern California filmmakers, as well as seasoned veterans whose work will screen in this year’s fest. Two films making a big buzz from first-time directors are Medicine For Melancholy and Touching Home, two personal works from talented young directors Barry Jenkins (Melancholy) and Identical twin brothers Logan and Noah Miller (Home). Both works are set to premier in the following weeks, and will utilize the Bay Area’s stunning urban and small-town landscapes as backdrop to their debut features.
While making the rounds (libation in hand) I also got the chance to converse with festival alum and Award-winning documentarian Johnny Symons (director of acclaimed Daddy & Papa) about his premiering and much talked about documentary Ask Not. An informative film that tackles the hypocrisy of the “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy of the American Armed Forces, Ask Not is a great lead into what is already an election year for the history books.
Now, if politically-savvy human rights docs aren’t your taste, and you’re still riding high off of Scorsese’s Shine a Light, Cachao: Uno Mas will send you running back to the record stores. Produced by the DocFilm Institute at San Francisco State University, Israel (Cachao) Lopez’s dedication and impassioned gift of Afro-Cuban music and rhythm is captured and adulated as the film offers up a performance at Bimbos 365 and interviews with the masters’ many friends, colleagues and admirers.
Opening April 24 and running through May 8, SFIFF 51 will wow the world stage with 177 films from 49 countries, eight world premieres, two international premieres, eight North American premieres, seven U.S Premieres and 32 West Coast premieres. NorCal cinephiles and FilmClickers beware if you don’t make it to at least one screening to support local talent, you will be the person with the head hung low and nothing to say at the water cooler… and ain’t nobody gonna want to hear about your trip to Bolinas, I promise.
For SFIFF51 dates and showtimes, visit: http://fest08.sffs.org/
by Kareem Worrell, FilmClick Staff, kworrell@filmclick.com
