DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL - A Tribute to the Non-Fiction film-making of Martin Scorsese

DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL - A Tribute to the Non-Fiction film-making of Martin Scorsese

Dylan quote I most liked: It's not about knowing yourself. It's about creating something.


The film was comprised of restored 100's of hours of concert footage into a coherent story by Martin Scorsese. The footage was from 1975-76 and was crystal sharp with beautiful close ups of Dylan performing his concert of that time "The Rolling Thunder Review".

In Scorsese's interview he said that Dylan wanted to have a concert that was like a travelling Commedia del Arte, going in to set up a stage at small towns and have a group of different entertainers.

The film included amazing interviews of people who were involved with the tour. Afterwards Scorsese told us it was all a parody of an interview documentary and that those were all made up with fantastical stories. He explained it in a video clip I have with his Italian hand waving and humor. He says didn't you see the beginning where there was a disappearing lady trick. That should have given you a clue. He made up a whole story line where Sharon Stone was picked out of the crowd by Dylan and given free access to his concert. Then years later he asked her to join the tour. It was all contrived and his little joke. Sharon is a good friend who did the interview with him. It was really convincing and I was fooled.

He also made up a fake documentary Dutch or Swedish film maker Van Dorp who could barely tolerate Dylan and gave these shocking interviews putting him down.

Scorsese said that it was Dylan who suggested to him to make the documentary full of people who weren't even there and he thought that was a great idea. Thus the 40% fictional characters and interviews. He really fooled me on the fake film maker Van Dorp. What a name though.

It wasn't asked but he offered saying why should we explain anyway who Dylan is...read his songs and you'll learn everything there is to know about him.

What wasn't scripted was documentary footage of Dylan and his friendship with Alan Ginsberg. It was amazing to see those two geniuses (sp?) interact. There is one scene where they are at Jack Keroac's grave reading his poem Mexico City Blues. A lot of scenes also at Ginsberg's apartment which was a gathering of a lot of artists at the time.

Another two stand out scenes for me was his relationships with Joan Baez and Joni Mitchel. Joan Baez and Dylan had scenes of beautifully singing together and also heavy flirting. He asks her, "Why didn't you ever tell me you were getting married?" They're coy and shy flirts back saying "Why didn't you ever tell me you were got married?" He answered because he found the love of his life and then some comments about it was too bad it never happened for them.

Joni Mitchel was a charismatic woman and they showed the most beautiful clip of her and Dylan jamming and her singing on the tour bus. I can't remember the song but her voice was amazing.
She brought up how she was being criticized on the tour for not playing her hits but she refused to do it, she would only play her new music.

The film closed with the group playing 'Knocking on Heaven's Door' which was amazing. They ignored some of his bigger hits like 'Mr. Tambourine Man' or maybe other songs weren't written in 1975 yet.  Ron is older than I am and he knew the Dylan music very well. We texted after the film and he said he loved very scene with Dylan singing. He cried in one scene where Dylan does a special concert for Native Americans to honor the Indian Rolling Thunder who he said the tour was named after.

He didn't want the singing to stop and wondered how the original filmmakers got such close up footage of him singing. It was a few feet from his face in close ups a lot of time but I know that Scorsese heavily enhanced and edited the footage.

We also chatted about the scene where he plays in a jail which was heavily black incarcerated men and he championed the release of a boxer Hurricane and played them a song he wrote about incarceration and wanting to free Hurricane. He had an interview with Hurricane but I think it was fake.

Ron also said he was surprised by how much Dylan spoke in the film but he said he hung on every word. Although looking back now I don't know how much of the truth he was telling in the new interviews of him or how much he was going along with the fiction parts.

Someone had asked me why he wore face paint and masks on the tour. He said if someone is wearing a mask you know they are telling the truth. People who don't wear masks aren't truthful. He said there weren't enough masks on the tour. Scorsese said what do you do with an answer like that? He wanted more masks!

I just found a link to the whole interview by SF Film Society - wow!
Click here to see the Martin Scorsese interview I saw


Here's my video of him explaining the documentary is a farce. It's really funny. This is a temporary URL I think off Facebook so I don't know how long it will be up.
Click here for interview bit I recorded of Scorsese

Supposedly Dylan singing Knockin' on Heaven's Door - although it really doesn't sound like him. Good pictures of him though.
Possibly Dylan singing Knockin on Heaven's door - doubtful

Footage of Dylan at Live Aid singing with Ron Wood and Keith Richards
Click here for video of Dylan at Live Aid
This footage wasn't from the film but shows they're great voice melding and chemistry.
Click here for Joan Baez and Bob Dylan singing Blowing in the Wind

This is a clip I found of Allen Ginsberg reading a bit of Kerouac's 'Mexico City Blues'
Click here for Ginsberg reading Kerouac.

Guests Expected
Director Martin Scorsese is expected to attend.

Description
While he is beloved for his epic fiction features, Martin Scorsese’s non-fiction films are among his best work. Whether depicting tales of American life, illuminating the history of cinema, or capturing the exuberant spirit of contemporary music, his documentaries are insightful and often playful, revealing his curiosity and passion. We are thrilled to be welcoming this master filmmaker for an onstage conversation about his documentary work following a screening of his latest imaginative hybrid.

Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese
(Martin Scorsese, USA 2019, 142 min)
In the summer of 1975, Bob Dylan embarked on a tour across a divided America with a group of entertainers including Joan Baez, Sam Shepard, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and Allen Ginsberg. Using a wealth of gorgeously restored onstage and behind-the-scenes footage from the time and contemporary interviews with subjects both real and fictional, including the first on-camera interview with Bob Dylan in over a decade, Scorsese concocts a mischievous mix of fact and fantasy that explores the boundaries of both artistic self-invention and documentary film.

“Dylan obsessives will obviously be in heaven — gasping at the sparks that fly when old flame Joan Baez touches the folk legend’s shoulder, awing at what happens during an impromptu party at Gordon Lightfoot’s house, and observing a holy silence throughout the sustained long take in which Dylan and witchy violinist Scarlet Rivera crush ‘A Simple Twist of Fate’ — but the film digs so deep into its strange bag of tricks that even non-fans and neophytes are liable to be caught in its spell.” – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

Director
Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese is an Academy Award-winning director and one of the most influential filmmakers working today. Scorsese has directed numerous acclaimed documentaries including the Peabody Award winning No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005) and Elia Kazan: A Letter to Elia (2010); as well as Italianamerican (1974), The Last Waltz (1978), A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through American Movies (1995), Il Mio Viaggio in Italia (SFFILM Festival 2002), Public Speaking (2010), and George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011), for which Scorsese received Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming and Outstanding Nonfiction Special. Scorsese co-directed The 50-Year Argument in 2014 with his long time documentary editor David Tedeschi. He has directed numerous award-winning films including Mean Streets (SFFILM Festival 1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Goodfellas (1990), Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), which won an Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture, and Hugo (2011) for which he received a Golden Globe for Best Director. Scorsese is the founder and chair of the Film Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and protection of motion picture history.

Ok, now I'm just going crazy with film links. But these are two I found of Scorsese on the David Letterman show - which I used to love. One is at the beginning of his career when Raging Bull is just coming out and the other is when Wolf of Wall Street came out. The second interview especially is amazing as these two are good friends and it shows in the interview.

Old Interview - Scorsese and Letterman
click here for video

Later Interview - Scorsese and Letterman
Click here for interview

Film Details
LanguageEnglish
Year2019
Runtime142
CountryUSA
DirectorMartin Scorsese
ProducerMargaret Bodde, Jeff Rosen
EditorDamian Rodriguez, David Tedeschi
CinematographerHoward Alk, Paul Goldsmith, Ellen Kuras, David Myers
Print SourceNetflix

DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL - Shooting the Mafia

My thoughts:
I chose to watch this movie from a different angle perhaps from most people. I chose to see it as a 50 year portrait of a strong amazing woman. The film is perhaps stronger on her photography work documenting the history of the Mafia from the 70's to the 90's in Palermo, Sicily. She documented the history of the Mafia through bloody corpse photos. They were gruesome. I had to close my eyes and just listen to the background information of what was happening in that era.

SFFILM Program description:
Description

Bold and brash, Sicilian photojournalist Letizia Battaglia began her brilliant career late in life, after divorcing at 35 in the early 1970s. Working for a left-wing Palermo newspaper, she documented the local Mafia’s rise to power and its societal impact, accumulating a record of over 600,000 images. Anchored by Battaglia’s vivid and graphic work and her engrossing personal reflections, the latest film by director Kim Longinotto (SFFILM Festival POV Award 2015) weaves Battaglia’s life story with the Mafia’s bloody history, illustrating the anxiety and fear of this tumultuous time.

“Director Kim Longinotto’s unerring eye for a great subject is underlined by Shooting the Mafia. Fearless photojournalist Letizia Battaglia has been an eyewitness to history in her native Palermo, capturing indelible images of the brutal atrocities of life under the Mafia. Her personal story, and the wider picture of a society living in fear, make for a compelling and moving documentary.” —Allan Hunter, Screen Daily

DirectorKim Longinotto

Kim Longinotto studied cinematography and directing at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, England. While studying at NFTS, she made a documentary about the draconian all-girls boarding school she attended as a child that was shown at the London Film Festival. She has continued to be a prolific observational documentary filmmaker ever since. Her films have won dozens of top awards at festivals worldwide, including the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize in Documentary at Sundance 2009 (Rough Aunties), a Peabody award (Sisters in Law), and a BAFTA (Divorce Iranian Style, SFFILM Festival 1999). Longinotto has directed many documentaries for broadcasters including BBC, HBO, PBS, and Channel 4. For her contribution to non-fiction filmmaking, she received the Persistence of Vision award from at the 2015 SFFILM Festival.

Film Details

LanguageEnglish, Italian

Year2019

Runtime94

CountryIreland/USA

DirectorKim Longinotto

ProducerNiamh Fagan

EditorOllie Huddleston

MusicRay Harman

Print SourceCohen Media

DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL - Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)

MY IMPRESSION:
While I was watching this film I was shocked that they got such an intimate portrait of these young girls in Afghanistan. No less, filming women and girls in Afghanistan. The director, Carol Dysinger has been making films in Afghanistan for a long time. Usually they are related to the war. This was her first outing on a lighter topic. I believe she was asked to direct it, it wasn't her concept.

Knowing the culture as well as she does, she knew that the young girls would not open up to speak to her because in their culture there is a respect towards elders where you do not have a frank conversation. Carol found a younger woman who had been born in Afghanistan and moved to the United States when she was three. Carol asked her to do the one on one interviews with the girls telling them that she had left Afghanistan when she was three and always wondered what her life would be like if she had stayed. The girls gave very open interviews about their lives as Afghani girls.

They said that before this program, they were not allowed to leave the house. They would always stay inside and help their mother. Their brothers were allowed to go out to play. The boys all enjoyed skate boarding outside - girls could not do this.

The international non-profit that provides the skateboard lessons along with reading and writing courses recruits girls that are from poor areas. Their mothers cannot read and write and the future for most of these girls was marriage at 14. Some mothers were also interviewed and they were brave strong women. They said they couldn't read and write because they grew up during the war and all the schools were closed. They hoped that their daughters could become literate and maybe continue their education. One mother hopes they will continue to college.

The interviews were amazing in that the girls opened up and were smiling and happy. They were joyful when they learned how to write new words. They were taught to have courage. To always raise their hands and come up to the front board if they didn't know the answer, they would be helped at the front.

The skate boarding was also for the girls to be brave. That there was nothing they couldn't do. They were shown quite advanced things of even rolling off ramps and going through cones. The girls were so happy. They cut to the streets where there are many boys skate boarding on the streets.



SFFILM Program description:
Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)
(Carol Dysinger, UK/USA 2019, 40 min)
In war-torn Afghanistan, where girls are not encouraged to pursue an education, Skatestan is a special school that works with girls from impoverished neighborhoods. Along with reading and writing, instruction in skateboarding gives them a chance to face their fears and discover their strength.

I like their description.

DirectorCarol Dysinger

Carol Dysinger is a filmmaker, writer, artist, and educator, whose contemporary work offers a counter-narrative to traditional stories of conflict. She is in the midst of a trilogy of films on Afghanistan and America post 9/11.

Carol Dysinger attended for q and a

DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL - Lost and Found

Impressions:
A beautiful story of Kamal, a man who decided what the refugee camp needed was a lost and found for children. He's lovely probably 30 year old man with a great smile and warm heart. He tells his own story of having to flee Mynamar as a child of 12 because soldiers on the street had stopped him and beat him close to death. He left because he didn't want it to happen again and came to the refugee camp himself. I think eventually his parents came.

He works at this Lost and Found he created in the camp that somehow got U.N. backing and they gave him a microphone and a speaker system. I believe they said in the post interviews that he had reunited over 500 children with their parents. Children can be easily kidnapped if they are left alone on the streets.

There is an aerial shot of the camp of the 700,000 people camp. It is a little less than the population of San Francisco. It is a huge camp country of it's own. It is amazing to see the views of what it is like to live in this camp and how these people survive. It shows a view of refugee life that is never seen. That I didn't even know existed. The camp I believe they said was financed by the United Nations. The people were clothed but dirty. There food shipments coming into the camp that I saw but it doesn't really explain how so many people can live in these camps. What they do during the day and if they get any education. I don't think there is any electricity in the camp. It made me curious for more about life there. However, just getting to meet this incredible altruistic, happy man who helps life for everyone in the camp was satisfying.

The editor of the film was there to speak. There were over a hundred hours of film. At first she was going to make the story edit about the experience of one child being lost and then found. However there were so many cases that occurred when they did the filming that they decided to make the story arc around Kamal. I think this made a better story. I'll try to find a picture of his sweet face. The program works because of him. He is very kind and someone that a child could easily trust.

Here are some closer up pictures I found of the Refugee camp in Bangladesh

SFFILM Program Description:
Lost and Found
(Orlando von Einsiedel, UK 2019, 22 min)
The world’s largest refugee camp is temporary home to nearly 700,000 Rohingya forced to flee persecution by the Myanmar military. There, Kamal Hossain dedicates himself to helping children who have become separated from their families.

Description from another website:

Lost and Found

Directed by: Orlando von Einsiedel

Runtime: 21 minutes

Rohingya refugees fleeing ethnic cleansing from the brutal regime in Myanmar, has resulted in an exodus of more than 700,000 Rohingya from their homes into the largest resettlement camps in the world. Lost and Found, directed by Academy Award winner Orlando von Einsiedel (“The White Helmets”, “Virunga"), tells the uplifting story of Kamal Hussein, a Rohingya who has dedicated his life to taking children who get separated and lost from their parents in this sprawling camp and reuniting them.

https://www.originalthinkers.com/2019-films

DirectorOrlando von Einsiedel

Orlando von Einsiedel is the Oscar-winning director of the short documentary The White Helmets. His first feature documentary, the Bafta and Academy Award nominated documentary Virunga, won over 50 international film awards including an Emmy, a Peabody, a Grierson, and a DuPont-Columbia Award for outstanding journalism.

The editor came to speak
Katie Bryer, editor of Lost and Found.

Click here to see trailer of Lost and Found - after a long ad

DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL - A Childhood on Fire

My thoughts... too tired to write at this time

The title of the documentary has a double meaning. The literal meaning is from a childhood experience of child abuse. He said that as children they had a racist, cruel and abusive white step-father. Nick and his two brothers had been playing in the kitchen with the stove. The step-father said that he'd show them what it was like to play with fire. He lined up the three small boys and lit their pajamas on fire one at a time burning up their stomachs.

When Nick went to school his teacher noticed the burns and called child protective services on the parents. The children went to foster care and the parents were temporarily put in jail. They were acquitted and the children had to go back to live with their parents again. The abuse continued through his childhood until he went away to the Marines when he was 18. The step-father also using racial nick names as he addressed the boys.

When Nick came back from the Marines he got married and had two children. Although he got divorced he is a devoted dad. He writes notes of encouragement and support to his children constantly. He wants them to feel the love of a parent that he never had.

The director said that he got to know Nick slowly over years before they could have the conversations that were brought up in the film. So it was raw and deep portrait.

SFFILM Program Description:
(Jason Hanasik, USA 2019, 14 min)

A father writes notes of encouragement to his sons, trying use the lessons he has learned from his own difficult childhood and painful experiences with toxic masculinity to forge a better path for his own children.

Better Description from the filmmakers website:

Synopsis:

When Nick was six years old, he and his two older brothers were set on fire by their white stepfather.

Now in his early forties, Nick is a retired Marine, small business owner and raising two sons that are the same age he and his brothers were when they were set ablaze.

“A Childhood on Fire” is a film about the father figures who violated Nick, the effects that abuse had on Nick’s sense of self and security, and the ways he is interrupting a cycle of violence so that his two boys thrive. 

At its core, the film wonders, what do you do when you're constantly told you're disposable? Can you reparent yourself? If so, what could that look like?

“A Childhood on Fire” was commissioned by The Guardian’s Documentaries Division.

http://www.jasonhanasik.com/a-childhood-on-fire

DirectorJason Hanasik

Jason Hanasik is a filmmaker, artist, curator, and journalist. His work has appeared in The Guardian, at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, in the Los Angeles Times, in the academic journal Critical Military Studies, at various international film festivals, on stage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Ace Theatre in LA, and in solo and group visual art exhibitions worldwide. He is currently a resident at SFFILM’s FilmHouse where he is developing a screenplay and editing new films for The Guardian’s Documentaries Division and the BBC. (SFFILM)

Jason Hanasik and the subject Nick were present for q an a

Xquipi 'Guie'dani = 'Guie'dani's Navel = El Umbligo de 'Guie'dani

Xquipi 'Guie'dani = 'Guie'dani's Navel = El Umbligo de 'Guie'dani

Guie'dani director and star

I saw this today at a Mexican Film Festival at the Roxie. It moved me so much that I have been reading/watching every interview and review since I got home. 

I knew this would be a film that interested me as it is about the class racism and despicable lifestyle that indigenous people are subject to daily in Upper middle class homes in Mexico. 

It was like watching "Get Out" but the Spanish version where all the micro-aggressions are taken part by one class to another. Also light to dark skin colored. 

The story is quoted as saying it is "The opposite of Roma". At first I went in doubtful having loved the movie Roma that recreated a neighborhood I know well in Mexico City and showed the relationship of maid and workers in it's good and bad. 

The director said that Roma is a fairytale in  that the servants are happy, loved and are treated as part of the family. I agree with this.

The basic plot is that of a 12 year old girl and her mother are forced to take a live-in house keeping job away from the Indian pueblo in Oaxaca. It is more of a slavitude as they work from early morning until late at night 6 days a week for the family and live in a small one room with one bed. The mother says they don't have enough food there. 

The huge house and Mexico City is a cultural shock to Guie'dani who has only ever been in her small town. Her mom has apparently done this type of work before so she knows what to expect and the submissiveness that is expected of her but Guie'dani's won't break. She is like a wild stallion that won't be broken. 

She hears family conversations with the privileged children saying they are stupid Indians and sees her mom lose all of her person accepting being a less-than person in the house that only is supposed to answer yes maam. 

Guie'dani refuses to smile, seeing the wrong in the life they are subjected to as Indians. The white son is her age but refuses to look at her or acknowledge her, The daughter is older and is worse. 

During a family vacation, Guie'dani's mom has to run home to see her dying mom and she leaves Guie'dani at the house because someone needs to feed the fish. This is why they were denied going home for the Christmas holidays. 

Guie'dani alone does everything she has ever wanted to do in the house and not been allowed to do - jump on the trampoline, bathe and sleep in masters room and watch their TV with a friend (neighborhood servant girl her age).  However, in doing this she trashes the entire house - everything even their clothes. This is where I walked out. I just didn't want to see the inevitable conclusion after this girl had experienced happiness for once. 

I've looked on line and the ending turned out that the family did come home early because she would not answer the phone anymore or door. However she runs away instead of be confronted. I'm pretty sure that this is the ending from different sources. Below I have a picture of her in one of her walking on the freeway home in her indigenous dress that she was not allowed to wear in the house.  

In my mind I would love to see a cinema full of maids watching this and cheering when she does the ultimate F.U. and torches a stuffed effigy of the man in his clothes. 

This is actually the ending picture

Guie'dani not accepting this life and walking home?

Guie'dani and her mom taking the bus to Mexico City

 Guie'dani looking in the mirror and staying proud and not accepting of terrible treatment

SF FILM FESTIVAL LAST DAY/LAST FILM: APRIL 23 HAIL SATAN?

Hail Satan?

The final film of the festival. It seemed appropriate in a city that says F.U. to the conservative right would have this real yet humorous documentary on a salacious topic. What other film festival would dare to highlight it and tell the audience it seems like a pretty cool group to join. The film was sold out and people were turned away it was so well received. There were plenty of Satanists in the crowd and a good cheer of Hail Satan when the movie began and afterwards outside. A group of them walked past me to sit in the front middle of the theater in their all black outfits, long coats and kind of punk styling with tattoos. It was incredible that Penny Lane, the director, got the interviews that she did. In an interview I heard they have rejected tons of requests for a documentary or reality show. This was done with dignity. They aren't believers in a little red devil more so a radical voice of the opposition of the mix of religion and government. They also like the theater of it and heavy metal music. I heard the director joined the group midway through filming the documentary.

Program Description

Hail Satan?

Penny Lane, USA 2019, 95 min

If Aleister Crowley and Rosemary's Baby (1968) are what come to mind when you hear about a group called The Satanic Temple, this playful and unexpectedly inspirational new documentary from Penny Lane (NUTS!, Festival 2016) will set you straight. The group's relationship to Satanism, the beliefs and tenets that drive them, and the incendiary actions of co-founder Lucien Greaves and other members are serious business, and Lane engages with the issues that occupy the group while simultaneously capturing the humor of their approach, whether shopping for costumes or designing a monument to Baphomet. 

Meghan Kelly interviewing Lucien Greaves the co-founder of The Satanic Temple. It was a funny clip as she couldn't wrap her head around any of his concepts and he was very well spoken.

Click here for official trailer

Click here for Filmschoolradio.com story and interview with Director Penny Lane and subject Lucien Greaves

p.s. After thinking about the documentary for some time, I changed my mind a little about it and don't think it was a well-rounded documentary. She only showed the positive things that Satanists are doing. I'm sure there have been things that have been done in the name of Satan that aren't good. Also, in one scene when their rally was cancelled by the city of Boston. A guy is interviewed saying that of course they cancelled it because the city defends the priests there that are child molesters. We're the good guys. Kind of a leap and I'm sure there were other concerns. In general, if the director converts to the group she is covering in a documentary this is going to happen and there won't be a fair and balanced approach to the subject. 

SF FILM FESTIVAL THURSDAY: APRIL 18 THE FAREWELL

The Farewell

This entry is a few days past the day I saw it because I had to drive home that night to be with my family. They cleared the SF Film Festival website which I usually copy for this blog so I won't have a lot of information to copy for the last two films. 

The Festival chose this as The Centerpiece film of the festival because they believe Lulu Wang the director is an up and coming director to take note of. I wish I had written right after the screening because I was so excited about this film. The whole concept was great. A Chinese-American girl from New York doing a film about her family and extended family where they go on a trip to Shanghai to meet for a wedding/last chance to see Grandma. Also, she filmed it in Chinese! I thought that was brilliant. Lulu Wong had a New Yorker wit that she could step back and see the absurdity of situations and film them so you could get her angle. It was funny and heart-warming. The main character has a special connection with her grandmother and after talking to the audience we see Lulu has made this movie a special homage to her. It made me nostalgic for the the close relationship I had with my grandmother.  I was also fascinated to see an upper middle class family's lifestyle in modern Shanghai, China. 

Program Description

(Which I painfully have to transcribe from the program) 

The Farewell

Lulu Wang, USA/China 2019, 98 min.

An ebullient tale that both celebrates and gently satirizes Chinese cultural traditions, The Farewell is impossible to resist for many reasons. Chief among them is the irrepressible Awkwafina (a breakthrough in Crazy Rich Asians, 2018), a broke Asian-American artist off to China to join her family to say goodbye to her dying grandmother. Except no one is willing to tell grandma she is sick - and to complete the ruse they force her male cousin to get married to a bewildered Japanese woman to explain why this zany family is getting back together at all. 

Lulu Wang's twitter. A picture at an SF after-party for her film.

I was sitting too far away from the stage to take a decent picture. She did a good interview after the film and said that it has been 6 years since her nai-nai's diagnosis and she is still alive. They have also not told her that she has cancer as per the cultural tradition.

Trailer: The movie comes out in July 2019 and there is still no trailer but these are some good interviews. I hope I remember to add the trailer later. 

Click here for Awkwafina/Lulu Wang Interview on movie

Click here for another Awkwafina/Lulu Wang interview

Sundance interview with Awkwafina and Lulu Wang

SF FILM FESTIVAL WEDNESDAY : Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg

I'm so glad I took a chance on this movie. I just put my faith in the film board of selectors when they said this would be a film highlight. This director/screenwriter has won best director/screenwriter for the last two Hong Kong Film Festivals. This also won best picture. I told myself when the plot got obvious or boring I was going to go get a soda. It had great editing and moved very quickly it was smooth like butter in terms of the story-line and editing. It was a great thriller and love story with some nice twists at the end. I enjoyed the aspiring artists story-line.

Description

Kinetic action and a mind-bending plot highlight this star-studded film about a counterfeiting network directed by Infernal Affairs (2002) writer Felix Chong. The film begins in the mid-’90s as detectives extradite Lee Man (Aaron Kwok) from a Thai prison. They believe he can assist in their search for his rumored associate, a mysterious mastermind named Painter (Chow Yun-fat). Unfolding in vivid flashbacks, Project Gutenberg unveils Lee’s history with the expert counterfeiter and their quest to make a perfect replica of the $100 bill, up to the breathtaking reveal of Painter’s final and most masterful forgery.

“Chow Yun-fat channels some of his most iconic screen work as a suave, sophisticated, sharp-dressed gentleman criminal, and Aaron Kwok continues his mid-career creativity with another vaguely unsavory character in Felix Chong’s throwback crime thriller Project Gutenberg.” – Elizabeth Kerr, The Hollywood Reporter

Click here for trailer of Project Gutenberg

Director

Felix Chong

Felix Chong made his mark as a screenwriter before turning to directing, sharing a Hong Kong Film Award with Alan Mak for their screenplay for Infernal Affairs (2002) and writing other acclaimed scripts, including two sequels to Infernal Affairs, Confession of Pain (2006), and Overheard (2009). Chang made his directing debut in another collaboration with Mak in 2005 with Moonlight in Tokyo. Once a Gangster (2010) was his first solo feature, for which he won a second Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Director

P.S. I had to scour the internet for a picture of the female lead.

Every poster had macho action shots although the love story of the

struggling artists is just as big of a part.

SF FILM FESTIVAL TUESDAY APRIL 16: TEHRAN: CITY OF LOVE

I walked into this film oblivious of what life would be like in present-day Iran, especially in the big city of Tehran. It was a film that interwove three different lives of people looking for love and succeeding, then losing it.

The tribute to the city was beautiful with modern cafes and restaurants. The locations he picked were lovely - as if you were in any other major large city in the world. Except for the fact that men and women are separated in most public areas like the mosque or different gyms.  The protagonists were all about my age and had good jobs in the city and nice apartments. They went out for dinner or cafes with friends. It was interesting to get a vignette of life on the other side of the world. The director said he was influenced by Jim Jarmusch - which makes a lot of sense. The cinematography was excellent in getting nice close-up and symmetrically framed shots.

The director was a little insulted when someone asked how he was able to get a visa to come here from Iran. He bristled and said that he wouldn't have been able to come except he had a passport from a different country. That was also a theme in the movie. A lot of people were applying for visas to leave Iran and move to Australia for example. He said that is common.

Description
Three Tehran residents, unlucky in love, make attempts to change their solo status in this wistful and poignant film. A bodybuilder, a funeral singer, and a woman who works in a beauty clinic – each character finds that the pursuit of their respective dreams puts them in sight of a real emotional connection, yet something intervenes. By examining the circumstances that derail his protagonists within the larger context that Tehran’s title implies, writer/director Jaberansari provides a pointed take on contemporary Iranian society.

“A revolution, an ensuing eight-year war, a theocratic government, the harsh divide between the private and the public and religious rules and customs have all made social realism the cornerstone of popular contemporary Iranian films in recent years, especially those that have been internationally successful.

“While socio-political issues remain at the heart of the Iranian way of life, I am fortunate enough to hold a slightly different perspective. Having lived outside of Iran for a number of years while still maintaining strong ties to my country, has afforded me the liberty to retain a certain amount of distance from the harsh realities of life in Iran. This in turn has enabled me to have a darkly humorous point of view that runs at the core of this film and dictates my style as a filmmaker.

“Lonely and disenchanted, the characters in my film are estranged from themselves and the society at large. Failing in their attempts to find meaningful relationships and truly connect to those around them, they face rejections they are not equipped to handle and are forced to find ways to persevere in a city that does not embrace them. While their predicaments may serve as the perfect context for a gritty social drama, I wanted to convey the hilarity and absurdity of their respective situations while still allowing the audience to identify with them.

“My goal in making this film was to tell an emotionally engaging story, however minimal and absurdist, with a different slant on the modern Iranian society.” – Ali Jaberansari, Director’s Statement

Click here for official trailer of the movie

Click for another trailer a little bit longer.
Guests Expected
Director Ali Jaberansari is expected to attend all screenings.

Director
Ali Jaberansari
Ali Jaberansari began his career making short films, including Aman (2011), which won awards at the Angers European First Film Festival and the Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival. His debut feature, Falling Leaves (2013), won the Federico Fellini Award at the Tiburon International Film Festival. He also served as an assistant director on Babak Jalali’s Bay Area-set Radio Dreams (Festival 2016).

SF FILM FESTIVAL SATURDAY APRIL 13, 2019

RED JOAN AND KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE

Saturday afternoon at the Castro. I don't usually see movies that will be widely distributed but I was invited to be my friend Jim Shaw's guest for Red Joan and the Academy Award Nomination for one of his film was there afterwards for discussion. 

Red Joan and the Real Star "Leo"

Description

Legendary theater director Trevor Nunn and the incomparable Judi Dench combine their efforts to tell a riveting espionage thriller with the ethics of science at its core. Dench plays Joan, arrested late in life for her activities as a spy during Britain’s quest to become an atomic power. Once a promising scientist brought into the nation’s war efforts, young Joan (played by Kingsman’s Sophie Cookson) is horrified by the information she inadvertently absorbs and is ultimately swayed by a German Communist rake and his magnetic sister into passing along secrets to the Soviet Union.

“A good old-fashioned British spy thriller in the scientific mold of Enigma (2001), with a bewitching female heroine (or anti-heroine, if you will) played by the excellent actresses Judi Dench and (as her younger self) Sophie Cookson, Red Joan revisits the incredible real-life spy case of Melita Norwood … Zac Nicholson’s cinematography is warm and involving like production designer Cristina Casali’s quaint woody laboratories, as behooves the sub-genre of British spy yarns. George Fenton’s romantic score and Charlotte Walter’s charming costumes well describe the mood of the time.” – Deborah Young, The Hollywood Reporter

Produced in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the conversation following the April 13 screening of Red Joan will allow members of the filmmaking team and special guests, including David Holloway, Professor of International History at Stanford University and expert on the international history of nuclear weapons to discuss the historical context of the film and the ethics of pursuing scientific discoveries that will have incredible consequence to our collective health and survival.

Director Trevor Nunn of Red Joan

Click here for trailer of Red Joan

KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE

5 minute standing ovation. Pictured two other candidates from the film and the director

 Rachel Lears on the right. 

This film won the two highest awards at the Sundance Film Festival Best Documentary and Festival Favorite. It'll debut on May 1st on Netflix and I think it will win the Academy Award for Best Documentary. The director/cinematographer/producer and her husband/editor/producer were able to follow Alexandria Ocasio Cortez from the beginning of her congressional run. Even when she turned in the 10,000 signatures to put herself on the ballot. It follows up to the end of the journey at her campaign headquarters when she finds out she won and the first images of the look on her face and her supporters. Brilliant, fabulous film. 

Description
“We met a machine with a movement,” says Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY 14th District), and thank goodness director Rachel Lears was there to capture it. Profiling four women (including AOC) of disparate backgrounds running grassroots political campaigns against established male incumbents, Lears depicts a fundamental moment when these (and other) remarkable women reminded the country that people really do have the power. Unforgettably depicting the candidates’ unflagging energy and commitment, Knock Down the House is an important and ebullient documentary about reclaiming democracy one seat at a time.

“It’s entirely possible that director Rachel Lears’ decision to follow around bartender-turned-candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as one of four subjects for a film she was making about outsiders challenging Democratic incumbents in the 2018 midterms will go down in film history as one of the most fortuitous, right-time, right-subject, and right-filmmaker combos ever. Because the result, documentary Knock Down the House, is a pretty extraordinary cinematic artifact. It’s not just that it takes a snapshot of the left’s fastest-rising star at the moment she went interstellar. It also limns, both through AOC’s story and those of the other three progressive challengers tracked here — Cori Bush, Amy Vilela, and Paula Jean Swearengin — an extraordinary juncture in American politics when the landscape terraformed in a way that we still haven’t finished mapping.” – Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter

Click here for interview with director Rachel Lears

Click here - interview with Rachel Lears and A Ocasio-Cortez

Director
Rachel Lears
Rachel Lears has a PhD in Cultural Anthropology and a graduate certificate in Culture and Media from NYU. She made her feature documentary directing debut with Aves de paso (2009) and co-directed The Hand That Feeds (2014), winner of Audience Awards at DOC NYC and the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and a nominee for a News & Documentary Emmy. Says she of Knock Down the House, “After the 2016 election, I wanted to tell a big story about people changing American politics in big ways and about power — how it works and how to achieve it. I wanted to tell a story about people working to build solidarity across social divides, and about the intersections of economics and injustice based on race, gender, and other aspects of identity.”

CLAIRE DENIS : TRIBUTE + "HIGH LIFE"

My First Night & Wow!

She was just beautiful, emotional and eloquent. 

The interviewer looked like Adam Driver

I've been a longstanding fan of Claire Denis. This had a Claire Denis Film Festival 1 or 2 years ago at the SFMOMA that I attended. I thought she was larger than life and too high a level of filmmaker to come to the SF Film Festival. I couldn't believe I was seeing her. 

She was interviewed for 1 hour by a writer I believe they said from New York. She was gentle as she delved into her emotions and feelings a lot about working with people and her films. 

She was asked by Rob Pattinson to be in her film. She was asked why she agreed. She said, sometimes people smile to you as you walk on the street and you smile back; It felt like that. She wanted Patricia Arquette for this role instead of Juliet Binoche. I loved it with Juliet Binoche but I kept trying to picture Patricia in that role and yes! it would have been nice. 

This was her first English language film and also Sci-Fi genre film. It didn't feel Sci-Fi it had more of an art house film as her usual films - sensual, sensitive and beautiful artistically. She said she felt like it was more of a prison picture not Sci-Fi. She did talk a lot about how wonderful it is that there are pictures of the black hole just a few days ago. I'll have to review my recording to see what she said about it. This film is centered around a black hole in the universe coincidentally.  I recorded the full hour - I just don't know how to load that size of a file from my phone to a website. 

Click here for the full Interview with Claire Denis!!!! Amazing

(Juliette Binoche - a mad scientist raping Robert Pattinson in a space ship)

Program Description: 

“For me,” says master filmmaker Claire Denis, “Cinema is not made to give a psychological explanation; for me cinema is montage.” Those who have experienced works like Beau Travail (Festival 2000), Friday Night (2003), The Intruder (Festival 2005), or her debut feature Chocolat (1988), know the singularity of Denis’ work. None of her films resembles one another, and yet there’s no one else on earth who could have made them. This very special tribute to a filmmaker long beloved by SFFILM audiences will feature a highlights reel from her career, an onstage discussion, and a presentation of her astonishing new film High Life. When asked about her new film’s look and design, Denis commented, “My aesthetic was simple: it’s a jail. I wanted the interior of the spaceship to look like a prison. That was my only radical beginning in terms of aesthetics.”

This tribute to Claire Denis includes a conversation with the director and a screening of High Life.

High Life

Claire Denis, France/USA/UK/Poland, 2018

Anyone familiar with her work knows that a Claire Denis sci-fi film will not be like any other sci-fi film, but High Life is even stranger, bolder, and more sexual than expected. Set aboard a ship populated with death row inmates employed in dangerous space exploration, this masterwork is more concerned with internal galaxies and the black holes of man than interstellar wonders. Starring Robert Pattinson, André Benjamin, and a magnificently tressed Juliette Binoche, High Life also features a mesmerizing score by Denis’ frequent collaborator Stuart A. Staples of Tindersticks.

Click for High Life Trailer

Click for New York Times Review

Click for NPR review

Click for Sy Fy Wire review - funny

  A Special gift from Claire Denis

As a special attendance gift we received this art piece. A Zine with themes about seeds and space as an accompaniment to the film. I will always treasure this.  

April 11, 2019