SFIFF Day 3, Ticket 2

Well, I'll just put a photo and the description and then explain why I walked out after 15 minutes.

The Untamed

Program description: A sensual, erotic, and often bizarre meditation on pleasure and destruction, The Untamed is a cinematic adventure not soon forgotten. Ángel is a difficult man who exerts grim control over his wife Alejandra, while conducting an affair with her brother Fabian. All three of these characters find their lives lacking, whether it be unfulfilling jobs, abusive and adulterous spouses, or challenging economic situations. So when a willowy stranger named Verónica enters their realm and brings them to a remote farmhouse where a creature that can bring otherworldly pleasure resides, the result will transform all of their lives. Taking a grand leap into the fantastical after the brute realism of his celebrated 2013 Heli, Escalante has crafted a uniquely unsettling intersection between sci-fi horror, allegory, and messily dysfunctional domestic drama. Though very different in style, The Untamed acknowledges (literally, in its closing credits) one clear predecessor—the late Andrej Zulawski’s 1981 cult favorite Possession, another portrait of a deteriorating marriage in which love is a many-tentacled thing.

The picture above is a girl laying down on a bed in the barn and the first scene is of her nude with the large alien snake leaving her body. The next scene is a woman being taken from the back by her bisexual husband and the third scene is her masturbating in the shower. There was a lot more sex after that too. It seemed excessive and sometimes the suggestion is better than watching the acts. There was an unkindness also to the sex especially with the wife. Her husband is more gay than straight and is having an affair with her gay doctor brother. Which we also get to graphically see, too graphic for me and I left.

Here is a trailer where the woman who first had sex with the alien is talking the doctor into having sex with the alien. .Click here for trailer

The director is Spanish and this was filmed in Mexico with a Mexican cast in Spanish.

SFIFF Day 3, Ticket 1

Bummer Day...two bad films. I should have known though because they were at the Victoria which is the kiss of death. It's the low end theater and they still do not have butter for popcorn. They have butter flavoring - ugh.

Film one.The Future Present

Program Description: Eighteen-year-old Xiaobin travels from China to Buenos Aires to join her conservative family who immigrated years earlier. Her parents, who refuse even to learn Spanish, want her to fit in with the Chinese immigrant community and marry a nice Chinese boy, but the low-key teenager with a quiet smile has a few surprises up her sleeve. She rebels by secretly taking a Spanish class, hiding her savings, and spending time outside class with one of her fellow students on the sly. As the students in the class improvise simple dialogues to practice what they’ve learned, Xiaobin turns new lessons learned into a new experience in life. Improvising scenarios for what she wishes would happen, or not happen, the future perfect becomes not only a grammatical tense, but a way for her to imagine the life she wants to live. Director Nele Wohlatz recruited most of the cast, including her lead, from actual language-school students, and brilliantly uses their innocence and naïveté to create an atmosphere of spontaneity, realism, and genuine camaraderie. “The language school,” she says, “could be understood as a rehearsal stage for a new identity after immigration.” –Miguel Pendás

This was my second choice film. I missed the earlier one about the fun and the havoc of people living in Greece in their current crumbling economy. This film was interesting because it was such an unusual life we visited. This genre is called Docu-Fiction. The people are living their reality but there is some scripting. The earlier film I saw, Mr. Universo, was also Docu-Fiction.

The environment is a foreign language school in Argentina. The students are Chinese and have ended up in Argentina. Their Spanish is quite good. The story revolves around Xiaobin. She is giving a little biography of her life in class and then there are little breaks while it is re-enacted.In a review I read it said as she learned new tenses to explain herself the plot also expands as her life is also growing like her Spanish. I didn't pick up on that but it's a cool concept.

The interesting thing was getting a slice of her life as an immigrant from such a contrasting culture. Her parents had lived in Argentina for an unknown period of time and then bought her a ticket to come live with them. They wanted her to work right away to pay back the price of the ticket. The interviewer asked if they they were excited to greet her and she said no. It's nice to see her get an independent life until her mother gets her to work in the laundry with her and starts to find a husband for her.

I had the same problem with this as the Mr. Universo film. It is more of a reality show that rambles without a storyline.

These two pictures show one of my favorite parts, her suitor Vijay. An Indian programmer who innocently proclaims he wants her as a wife on their second date. It is innocent and sweet. Here is the trailer.Click here for trailer

SFIFF Day 2, Ticket 3

I stayed for more shorts and was pleasantly surprised.

Shorts 1

Program description: This compilation of narrative and documentary shorts showcases expertly crafted visual storytelling from around the world. Each film offers its own insight into a wide range of subjects and locales—from a young bride’s wedding in Armenia to a family excursion in the Florida Everglades to an unconventional convention in Washington—in ways that are surprising, captivating, and provocative.

And the Whole Sky Fit in the Dead Cow’s Eye
Anxiety falls upon a small village in Chile one morning with the unexplained death of cows and the return of an unwelcomed visitor. (Francisca Alegria, Chile/USA 2016, 19 min). A lovely story with magical realism as is used in latin american fiction. The cows dying overnight was first seen as a miracle and the town began pilgrimages with their village madonna on their shoulders.  They were so happy that God had chosen them. Later they find out that it was a strategic lightning bolt. The grandmother's husband comes to visit her 30 years after her death and she says you haven't eaten in so long and she feeds him and he is hungry. The husband has come from beyond to take her son, she tricks him in the end to take her.

And the Whole Sky Fit in the Dead Cow’s Eye Trailer - Click here

A Brief History of Princess X
An absurdist interpretation of Constantin Brancusi’s infamous sculpture, ‘Princess X.’ (Gabriel Abrantes, Portugal/France/UK 2016, 7 min)
Film websiteClick here

The Convention
An intimate gathering of transgender women in northern Washington reveals the affirmation of community as well as the psychological toll of dual identities. (Jessica Dimmock, USA 2016, 10 min)

Whole Convention film - Click here

Gut Hack
To treat his chronic gastro-intestinal problems, Josiah devises a bold biological experiment that involves the exchange of bodily excretions. (Mario Furloni, Kate McLean, USA 2017, 16 min) This is a Cinema by the Bay film.   There is no trailer

The Rabbit Hunt
A companion piece to last year’s award-winning The Send Off, this visceral film follows seventeen year old Chris and his family hunt rabbits during sugarcane field burning and harvesting in the Florida Everglades.(Patrick X Bresnan, USA 2016, 12 min). I had to close my eyes for most of this short. I wasn't prepared to see real killing of rabbits with sticks and then frying them up and eating them. The last scene had a close up of the 17 year old eating his rabbit drum stick and the veins and flesh were seen in close up. I heard people the day after saying that a warning should be placed on films like this and it was especially sickening for vegetarians. It was an honest life event and the bigger picture was that this family in poverty does what they need to do for extra cash and food.

Real Artists
Sophia, an ambitious and idealistic animator, interviews for a dream job at a top film studio and discovers the hidden secrets of success. (Cameo Wood, USA 2017, 12 min) This is a Cinema by the Bay film.
Trailer - Click here

Red Apples
A young Armenian bride’s hopes for a new life are dashed when an interfering mother-in-law imposes her will. (George Sikharulidze, Armenia/Georgia/USA 2016, 15 min)
Trailer - Click here


—Audrey Chang wrote the program descriptions

The directors that came were from Real Artists and Gut Hack. degrees from duke and stanford ui / fb google. gut hack ph.D.

SFIFF Day 2, Ticket 2

THE CHALLENGE

This picture tells a lot about the film. These affluent Qatarian men are setting in gold thrones in a luxury tent in the desert watching falconery. The program description is very accurate: At the edge of the Arabian Peninsula, a competition is about to begin. Where the sand dunes meet the sea, participants and observers converge: A Qatari biker gang cruises the desert highways, their leader astride a gold-plated Harley Davidson; elsewhere, a pet cheetah bounds into the passenger seat of a Lamborghini, and is soon joined by her kandura-clad owner. In the skies above, a gentleman dotes on his prized falcons, who rest sphinxlike on custom perches in the cabin of a private jet. These arresting and surreal passages form the visual grammar of The Challenge, director Yuri Ancarani’s immersive portrait of the ancient practice of Arab falconry. Filmed over a three-year period, this stylized film merges striking desert landscapes with the idiosyncratic details of a major falconry competition, revealing how a hunting tradition dating to antiquity has survived into the modern era by embracing technology rather than resisting it. While falconers still keep their avian familiars in leather blinds–gently releasing the drawstrings with their teeth–they also track the birds with modern GPS devices, follow them in roaring fleets of white SUVs, and watch their rivals on makeshift Jumbotrons planted in the desert sands. In the film’s remarkable centerpiece, one falcon is even fitted with a small camera, transmitting a raptor’s eye view of the austere desert plain and the inexorable pursuit of its prey.

Official site with trailer and history of falconry which they say is 40 centuries long - Click here for trailer

SFIFF Day 2, Ticket 1

Mister Universo

Program description: Each night, underneath a threadbare big top, Tairo puts an aging pride of big cats through their paces. Audiences may be dwindling, but the young lion tamer is happy, living a life that he’s dreamed of since he was a little boy. When some trailer park neighbors steal a cherished lucky charm, Tairo, uneasy without it, sets off down the back roads of Italy to find the strongman who bequeathed it to him many years ago. For this captivating docudrama, filmmaking duo Tizzi Covi and Rainer Frimmel not only mine their own cinematic past—viewers first met young Tairo in their 2010 Festival film La Pivellina—but that of Italy as well. The spirit of early Fellini can be felt in Mister Universo, alongside that of prime De Sica, as the workaday world of the circus, gently refracted though the lens of the filmmakers, reveals a sense of wonder that may fade, but will never be extinguished. –Doug Jones

I was looking forward to this film because I have a degree in Italian and I miss hearing the language and Italian films. Perhaps it was a match of my mood and the material but i fell asleep. I should have liked this because it was a semi-reality film but there wasn't enough editing. There were so many scenes where Tairo drives from one location to another. I saw a review from Variety (AUGUST 20, 2016) which said it was a road film "a droll, detour-ridden road movie...It’s an adventure unapologetically low on incident and urgency..." The statement that follows is "The pleasures here are to be found in the social, cultural and shifting generational peculiarities." This is what I wish I had stayed awake for.

This is the Variety article .Click here for Variety Review

Mister Universo Trailer .Click here for Trailer

SFIFF Day 1, Ticket 3

Shorts 4: New Visions

Usually I don't go to the short films but it was in the same theater and right after my earlier film so I decided to go. student MFA projects sound visuals are clumsy these were experimental.

Between films I was waiting in line in the bathroom and made conversation with a lovely young British Woman. She had Jane Austen type milky, rosy skin and untreated natural hair. I asked her where she got her film festival bag. She demurely said that they gave her one because she was a film director and they thought it would be helpful to put her things into. She showed me her badge with her name and the title of her film. It's another one of film festival pleasures to have the filmmakers interact with the crowd, not hidden in a green room somewhere. I just finished talking to her and I went back into the theater and hers was the first film shown. Just that quick from her to her imagery.

Shorts Program Descriptions:
In this presentation of new experimental film and video works, a hunt in the high grass of Brazil, a trip through a Maroon village in Jamaica, and front-row tickets to a water show are just some of the places visited. From different parts of the world, these films' formal audacity are connected through observations of place and larger questions of identity, authenticity, and playfulness that arise from these locales.—Amanda Salazar, wrote the program text.

The Watershow Extravaganza. As the curtain rises, the Mighty Mortier Water Show band strikes up for a choreographed show of water fountains, neon lights, and delightful music in a performance just for us, however outdated it may seem. (Sophie Michael, UK 2016, 10 min) amusing tongue in cheek appreciation of kitsch.

If I Were Any Further Away I’d Be Closer to Home. Labor has its own rhythms, as does nature, in this silent, sharp, and observant film that blurs memories and movement into something familiar. (Rajee Samarasinghe, USA/Sri Lanka 2016, 15 min) excellent black and white no sound. harvard. making noodles black and white photography amazing. wind.

It Is What It Is. One photo starts a series of questions in this personal documentary that searches for answers among family videos and fragmented conversations that further cloud the truth. (Cyrus YoshiTabar, USA 2016, 8 min) This is a Cinema by the Bay film ok

Kindah. From deep blue coasts to the bricks of buildings, shots from the Maroon village of Accompong, Jamaica, and Hudson, New York, combine to explore history in the present—one film in a series examining the filmmaker’s relationship to the African Diaspora. (Ephraim Asili, Jamaica/USA 2016, 12 min) horrible

There Is Land! (Há Terra!). A man laughs and yells “There is land!” repeatedly as the hunter and hunted, a young woman, and the wild are discovered, encountered, claimed, and preyed upon. (Ana Vaz, Brazil 2016, 13 min) Horrible film, dizzymaking and horrible wooden reed flute shrills

Turtles Are Always Home Facades of buildings, numbers on walls, reflections of a woman in dimmed windows. All of these are precisely documented, examined, and observed in a place that is new, yet familiar. (Rawane Nassif, Qatar 2016, 12 min) good film

Bloopers If at first you can’t succeed, try again…and again…and again…and again… (Karissa Hahn, USA 2017, 3 min) Bad film

GUESTS EXPECTED Directors Cyrus Yoshi Tabar (April 8 and 17) and Sophie Michael (April 17) expected. Sophie my video and picture – memory, film haunted by memory of the amusement park…gawdy…how great is britian. during Brexit memory/family. cyrus – a dud, archives didn’t find the answers – just did 95% home films and others in open source and other. memory/family

SFIFF Day 1, Ticket 2

In loco parentis - was a favorite film of people I chatted with at the festival. It won a jury award prize the night before.

Program description: "In loco parentis" is Latin for "in the place of a parent," and Neasa Ní Chianáin and David Rane's intimate and touching documentary presents a portrait of two educators who take on that role. At the Headfort boarding school in picturesque Kells, Ireland, John and Amanda Leyden have devoted 45 years to educating children. Passionate yet tolerant Amanda teaches English and oversees a performance of Hamlet that manages to coax humor out of the tragic play. John teaches Latin and rules the band room, where his irony and teasing as he teaches his young charges to perform The Troggs’ "Wild Thing" accentuates the deep and committed bond he has with them. The level of individual attention and the profound concern the Leydens have for their students, lead to some remarkable developmental transformations as the children journey from being homesick and afraid to confident young people, tearful upon realizing that school is over and they must go home. For elderly John and Amanda, how much longer they can continue teaching is a lingering question. At a time when the American educational system is under threat and classes get larger rather than smaller, In Loco Parentis (School Life) is a charming and idealistic picture of what education can be when the needs of the students come first. –Gustavus Kundahl
Then talk about the director that spoke she worked on it two years. had an office in the school. how she found the school. Amanda and John. documentary. Their kids were in the movie singer and playing. not leads. British, Irish. pre-boarding school both went he from Nigeria 7 her 11. Dublin feeder school. Tell about the older couple and their screening after dinner and their reaction. texting during screenings.

Click Here for a Trailer of the Movie

SFIFF Day 1, Ticket 1

Strange and interesting things happen in film festivals. I bought a ticket for Half-Life in Fukushima. Before the film started they introduced a young spirited guy who said, "Wow this is a big crowd. Thanks for coming to my world premiere." The staff then announced that there would be a short documentary film (I mean 15-20 minutes) before the feature documentary started.
His film was called Valentina. It was about a documentary about little orphan goat that is adopted by a goat herder husband and wife. They are poor herders in Guanajuato, Mexico. They live in a humble cement hut but share it with the orphan goat. It also showed their way of life. Including that they loved eating rats and believed that had wonderful healing qualities the neighborhood would even have rat bbq parties. A humorous scene but also indicative of their poverty.
The filmmaker is Russian and moved around Latin American becoming fluent in Spanish. His English is almost without an accent also. He came upon the couple while in Guanajuato and worked out this sweet film in three visits. At the festival sometimes the creators are equally as interesting as their projects. I tried to find information about him and finally found 1 sentence which is below in the program description of the other film. His website of photography and film and it is a beautiful tribute to Latin America. See the little film clip on the site. Ben Guez's website .Click here for site
There is also an IMDB reference .Click here for IMDB link
Ticket 1 Film 2
Half-Life in Fukushima

Program description: "Half-life" is a term used to describe the radioactive decay of isotopes. It also characterizes the quality of existence of elderly Japanese farmer Naoto Matsumura. Five years after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster rendered the land of his ancestors a toxic stew, he refuses to leave it. Matsumura battles despondency and depression as he tends the region’s abandoned animals and negotiates survival in the radioactive red zone, a surreal ghost shell of what was once a thriving seaside city. Wandering through Fukushima’s abandoned downtown, he finds human contact in contamination suit-clad cleanup crews and explores the concrete ruins of the tsunami-shattered seawall. Directors Mark Olexa and Francesca Scalisi’s honed, introspective camerawork captures Matsumura’s journey in the comforting and ordinary rhythms of nature. The soothing sound of the sea and the soft winds blowing in the pastures create a false sense of optimism, but everything in this environment is poisoned, including the delicious mushrooms that carpet the surrounding forest. With minimal commentary and a graceful and sympathetic eye, Half-Life in Fukushima underlines the danger inherent in nuclear power in its depiction of Fukushima’s sinister remnants and Matsumura’s lonely last stand. Accompanying the documentary is Valentina, a strangely soothing, compassionate, and softly magical cinéma vérité short, in which an old couple in Mexico's remote Sierra Madres tend to their tribe of goats. —Gustavus Kundahl
The picture above is of Matsumura walking through the deserted town. The picture reminds me of a sheriff in an old fashioned western walking through a deserted town. The film has an apocalyptic feeling in that it is a full city abandoned with a few surviving animals and people. The government controls the entry and exit to this town and broadcasts loud messages to people there. Matsumura said after the radioactive accident everyone had to leave their homes as they were. The government said it would be about 10 years for people to return to their homes but Matsumura started coming back about 3 years afterwards. He loves the land and walks the streets and countryside. He goes to an overgrown abandoned golf course and clubs some balls. He walks to the train station and there are the platforms and stairs but weeds where the trains used to run.
The film did get a bit long in parts. I enjoyed seeing the Japanese homes and stores. He also met up with a few people who live there and are not supposed to including his dad. It was interesting seeing the traditional homes with the tatami mats and other small furniture. The film ended with Matsumura singing Karaoke. It was a song about someone that didn't have a great life but had moments he'd treasure. It was a bit funny watching this stern man throughout the film not speak and then break into a romantic song. I like that contrast in Japan.

Click Here for Documentary Trailer

San Francisco International Film Festival

San Francisco International Film Festival
This is the 60th Anniversary of the Film Festival. I've been going for about 20 years. The last few years i've been joyfully volunteering and blogging about it. This year due to family illness I could only see the last three days. This is day one of the last three days of the festival. I'm the person in the fourth row middle with the big smile on her face.

Click Here - Preview Link to 2017 Film Festival

More on Trainspotting...

Rewatching Trainspotting 1 again it is the introduction that really grabs one into the movie and won't let you go from there. It opens with a funny and accurate diatribe against everything that is wrong with suburban life. Meanwhile there is racing music as Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud and Tommy run from the police.

FABULOUS TRAINSPOTTING INTRO- CHOOSE LIFE

.Click here for Video

Text of the intro: "Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television Choose washing machines, cars, compact-disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments, Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose D.I.Y. and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats that you've spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose Life. But why would i want to do that? I chose not to chose life. I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?"

TRAINSPOTTING 2 - CHOOSE LIFE FROM TRAILER

.Click here for Video

Text of Choose Life 2: "Choose life. Choose Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and hope that someone, somewhere cares. Choose looking up old flames wishing you had done it all differently. Choose watching history repeat itself. Choose your future. Choose reality TV, slut shaming, revenge porn. Choose a zero hour contract, a two hour journey to work and choose the same for your kids only worse and smother the pain with an unknown dose of an unknown drug made in somebody else's kitchen. And then take a deep breath. You're an addict so be addicted. Just be addicted to something else. Choose the ones you love. Choose your future. Choose life!"

A bit of Lancashire crossed my path.

This March I've had a bit of Lancashire England cross my path. My friend Julie of 24 years of Colne in Lancashire came to the U.S. to visit me after we hadn't seen each other in 14 1/2 years. We worked together in SF in 1993 then she moved to Berkeley, Kuwait,Beirut and then back to England. Colne is 6 miles northeast of Burnley or 25 miles from Manchester. This is a wonderful snow globe she got me for my collection.
Lancashire 2
Had the fortunate experience to see an invitation only preview of Trainspotting 2 and met Danny Boyle the famous director from Manchester.

Trainspotting 1 was shot 20 years ago and was about a gritty young group of friends from Scotland and their story of growing up on and off of Heroin. Trainspotting 2 is 20 years later, same actors and it shows what has happened with their lives. It had the same charming group of actors/characters always struggling and scheming to get ahead. The camera shots were stylish and there was magical realism in the shots portraying what they were experiencing on Heroin visually.

My two wonderful Lancashire experiences a few days apart and over 20 years in the making.