This vibrant and introspective selection of animated shorts is an entertaining and thought-provoking program for young audiences and their parents. Highlights include Silvia Uchida’s computer generated fantasy, BLUEGAROO, featuring a bright purple kangaroo who teaches friendship and sharing with his magical powers; Tina Banda’s THE MONEY PIG brings Victorian playhouse dolls to life in a quietly campy and ambitious tale of social order, snobbism and greed; Jesse Ford’sPHANTOM follows a loveable, high-energy dog around the ‘hood as he shakes his booty to a funky beat; while the remarkable Wallace and Gromit-style claymation SEE THE TRUTH by Jerold Howard is a clever and poignant morality tale about how we inherit intolerance and bias. Program also features a special Bay Area premiere episode of the independently-produced animated series PHANTOM INVESTIGATORS. Bring the whole family!
– Marc Vincent ORDER TICKETS NOW

Co-presenter : Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco

Join us Saturday afternoon at Brava Theater for this thoughtful panel discussion moderated by Jay Harris, Publisher of Mother Jones, and Frances Reid, Academy award-nominated filmmaker and cinematographer (LONG NIGHT’S JOURNEY INTO DAY). From Your Seat to the Street asks how the presence of the camera affects events, people and our ability to change the world. Panelists will screen clips and all are invited to join in this dynamic conversation about how to translate cinema into social change.will screen clips, and the audience and panel members will be involved in a dynamic conversation about how to translate cinema into community activism and how the presence of the camera impacts social issue politics. Come share ideas and be inspired. Free admission!

Traversing the trials and tribulations of experimental film is never easy but whoever said it should be? Experimental shorts that challenge narrative convention, IN THE FLICKERFLASH satisfies the thirst for formal innovation. Each film seeks to find just the right method of expression. The program aptly begins with Brett Simon’s seductive ode to narrative film/celluloid, THE FLICKERFLASH, and ends with Tom Gibbon’s masterful animation, THE HUNGER ARTIST, based on a Kafka story. Along the way we encounter Anjali Sundaram’s clever and humorous stop motion piece, BUCKLE MY SHOE; the stark, mysterious 1,020 NAUTICAL MILES by Marcy Saude; and Lynne Sach’s mesmerizing domestic still life, WINDOW WORK. The program also includes a group of poetic, enigmatic and elegiac films by Sangee Park, Waratap Payasadaj, Anita Chang and Drew Klausner. – Jay Rosenblatt ORDER TICKETS NOW

Co-presenter : San Francisco Cinematheque

After they retired, Bill and Peggy Heiner hitched up their trailer and headed south in search of sunny skies. For the past several years, they have spent the winter in one particular trailer park near Phoenix, off I-17. A nearby sign reads, “Federal Prison, Do Not Stop For Hitchhikers.” Retirement is complicated for the Heiners. Grandpa drinks constantly, which gives him a feeble excuse for a short temper and wandering eye. He knows grandma tolerates him far more than he deserves. Amidst the tensions contained by the trailer and the alcoholism, filmmaker Alex Beckstead reveals the authentic and complicated love between his grandparents and the fabric of a marriage that has endured fifty years. Unlike the sensationalist dramas on “reality” television, TRAILER PARK BLUES’ intimate, verite-style truly captures the deep resonance of these (extra)ordinary people and reveals a captivating and uplifting story of an American couple who stay together in spite of it all. With TSIPA AND VOLF, Dan Gamburg’s illuminating cinematic portrait of his grandparent’s fifty-year arranged marriage. TRAILER PARK BLUES is a presentation of the Independent Television Service (ITVS). ORDER TICKETS NOW

Co-presenters : Independent Television Service (ITVS) and American Association of Retired People (AARP)

YANK TANKS is a first look at the phenomenon of American classic cars in Cuba. Like an exotic, endangered species, these colorful vintage automobiles roam around the island trapped in a 1950’s time warp, representing freedom and individuality. The film views the car owners as curators and the cars as a living, cultural museum. How the owners maintain the cars in spite of an American trade embargo is part of the political subtext of this stunning film. Schendel uses interviews with mechanics, parts inventors, racecar drivers and owners who toil day in and day out on problems that would condemn a car in America to scrap. Interviews are intercut with beautiful 35mm footage of the cars on the Cuban roadways, contemporary Cuban music, and never-before-seen footage from the Cuban Television Archive to create a provocative, modern anthropology of a vibrant, hidden culture. With TAXI DRIVER, by Anders Osterballe, about the poetry and karma of the taxi experience, and THIRTEEN, by Yong Liu, an experimental black comedy about a thirteenth road test.
ORDER TICKETS NOW

Co-presenter : Mission Cultural Center

A smuggling operation and a murder is a ripe set-up for Brien Burroughs’ unwitting (and sometimes unscripted) security guards. In the exciting and dangerous world of private industry security, two graveyard shift patrolmen stand ready on the watch at a candy company. When news surfaces about a series of secret candy prototypes gone missing, the two patrolmen begin an investigation which leads them through the darkest hallways of the criminal mind and the human psyche. The case tests their professional resolve and reveals a world of corporate espionage, deceit and murder. Ultimately, their winged escapade tests the “code of the badge,” the depth of their friendship, and the steadfastness of their, uh, ambition. Filmmaker in Person. ORDER TICKETS NOW

Co-presenter : Bay Area Theatre Sports

"I'm saying 'fuck you' to the digital revolution, digital is just another way for The Man to keep the brothers and sisters down." - Jon Moritsugu

Don't miss local fave Jon Moritsugu's new, talked-about, underground, award-winning, low-tech feature film. Moritsugu exploits video for what it is: an electronic signal rather than a photographic image. This "lo-fi" satire features Miles Morgan, a pretentious, twenty-something wannabe filmmaker freaking out that he is too old. Rocker Chick Roxxy, despondent that her real name is Amy, lives at home with her mom and can't drive a car, busily rehearses her band The PuertoRicans for a comeback show. Miles is nervous about his film s hoot, his producer, Jelly Davis, an unhappy student at SF State, can't find the pussywillows he desperately needs and Miles housemate Drew falls in love with a girl with no intestines. Lots of drama in unexpected places; Miles has a major nervous breakdown while his grandmother is also losing her mind, the film project crumbles, Roxxy's rock and roll dreams are shattered. Back in town after a break, Miles bumps into Jelly all over again and it's another San Francisco cold, gray, coffeehouse morning. Check out the cameos from Bay Area legends Danny Plotnick, Valerie Soe and Craig Baldwin. With BRING ME THE HEAD OF SOCKETS THE CLOWN, an equally irreverent, animated film featuring an alcoholic clown and aliens who want his skull.
ORDER TICKETS NOW

Co-presenter : Bay Area Guardian

Join us in Brava’s upstairs theater for a wild and woolly marathon of films by Bay Area filmmakers. Over two hundred and fifty new projects were submitted for festival consideration this year. This is your chance to see some of the work we were not able to squeeze into the Festival. Participating directors will be on hand, so stop in between 1pm and 10pm to see this surprising collection of new films by Bay Area makers. You can drop by anytime; a listing of Director’s Choice films will be available at the door.

In a feverish search for Livermore, California’s lost time capsule, this seemingly quiet, suburban town digs up its past: a totem pole with a Chippewa curse, a scandalous book of Bill Owen’s startling photographs, a supernatural light bulb, and the ominous Lawrence Livermore nuclear lab. This mesmerizing documentary re-defines offbeat. The locals are eccentric and they carry with them a totally surprising, otherworldly wisdom. Filmmakers Rachel Raney and David Murray let their subjects speak their own truth with only a subtle Errol Morris-like intervention, creating a moving document that is ultimately about the powerful collective memories of suburban life, and a comic, yet reverent notion of “hometown.” With EDMUND’S ISLAND, a portrait of a homeless freeway island newspaper hawker in Encinitas and the community that ebbs and flows around him.
ORDER TICKETS NOW

Co-presenters : The City of Livermore and Mayor Marshall Kamena

This award-winning documentary by Dee Mosbacher chronicles the history and fervor of the Women’s Music movement, feminism and lesbian rights activism in 20th century America. Profiling the birth and development of Olivia Records, the film reviews the enmeshed musical and political careers of music greats Holly Near, Meg Christian, Cris Williamson, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Linda Tillery, Ronnie Gilbert and many others. RADICAL HARMONIES deftly traces the history of women’s music festivals and the crucial relationship between the world of women’s music and the fight for lesbian rights amidst persistent discrimination and homophobia. Surprise musical guests!! ORDER TICKETS NOW

Co-presenters : The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) Agitators + Instigators