Oakland-based filmmaker Paul Ginocchio left his job at KRON-TV to make A PLACE NAMED DESTINY, a passionate documentary profiling the Destiny Youth Arts Performance Company. Destiny provides inner-city teenagers with a unique outlet to channel their energy into exuberant creative performance. A PLACE NAMED DESTINY opens with a grim statistic: eighty-five percent of California public schools in low-income areas don’t have access to arts education. Ginnochio’s camera gets personal with the students; we hear young Alice Taylor tell how her out-of-control temper landed her in juvenile hall and her rage often leads her to violent eruptions and blackouts. Yet, when she dances, she is transformed, and when she teaches young children to dance, we understand the powerful impact art can have on young people. In A PLACE NAMED DESTINY, the process of making art empowers disenfranchised youth to overcome the racism, violence, homophobia and poverty they face every day of their lives. Destiny Youth Arts Performance Company performs after the screening! ORDER TICKETS NOW

Co-presenters : Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center (LYRIC), Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, and San Francisco Art & Film for Teenagers

What drives a young African-American man to become a member of the Republican Party and to run for the United States Congress in a white district of racist South Georgia? DYLAN’S RUN chronicles the experiences of Dylan Glenn, the great-grandson of emancipated slaves, as he seeks to become the first black Republican from the Deep South elected to Congress since Reconstruction. The New York Times recently published a Frank Rich column highlighting Dylan’s race for Congress and maintaining that George W. Bush and the Republican Party will “need someone like Dylan Glenn to make good on his promise to lift up both black and white Americans in a patch of the country as ripe for change as this.” Closely following two campaigns and an historic primary race, this engaging film provides a gritty, inside look into American politics in the New South. ORDER TICKETS NOW

Co-presenters : San Francisco Black Film Festival and the League of Women Voters

“Every two years, the cancer would come back with a vengeance and you realize that the life that was once yours, the life you lived, is no longer yours. It belongs to the pain in your back, or your chest, or in your throat, or in your lung, or the medications that make you feel ill. It’s not yours anymore, and you just go, ‘NO’. But then, when you can get up in the morning and have enough energy to get in the water and catch a wave, you own your life again.” - Rell Sun

Rell Sun captured the heart of Hawaii and the world during a fourteen-year battle with breast cancer. She was a champion in international surfing, one of the first five women inducted intothe International Surfing Museum’s Walk of Fame, one of the founders of the first women’s professional surfing tour and an inspiring teacher to hundreds of young people. HEART OF THE SEA, a visionary biopic of Rell Sun, deftly illustrates the poetry and exhilaration of her sport and the tremendous, lasting impact of her life. She helped make surfing safe for women and inspired hundreds of young people to follow their own hearts and fearlessly ride the waves. Preceded by SUBWAYS: 5 VARIATIONS ON A THEME BY RILKE, a dazzling and hypnotic modern dance film set in subway cars and escalators.This special Castro screening is a benefit for Surfrider Foundation, a grassroots, non-profit environmental organization that works to protect our oceans, waves, and beaches. Founded in 1984, Surfrider's most important work is carried out by its 60 chapters located along the East, West, Gulf, Puerto Rican, and Hawaiian coasts. For more information on Surfrider Foundation, please check out www.surfrider.org. HEART OF THE SEA is a presentation of the Independent Television Service (ITVS). ORDER TICKETS NOW

Co-presenters : Surfrider Foundation USA and Independent Television Service (ITVS)

This spirited and insightful collection of short movies reveals the complex and diverse lives of women from the outside in. An African-American woman recites powerful poetry to inspire survivors of domestic abuse in Rachel Libert and Barbara Parker’s KOOL BREEZE; in Erica Peng’s ORANGE JUICE AND KNITTING NEEDLES, a young woman finds comfort in the everyday activities of her Chinese immigrant grandparents; in Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdottir and Tina Naccache’s WHO HANGS THE LAUNDRY, a woman washing clothes in postwar Beirut formulates a striking essay on feminism and servitude; BFD by Holly Mahan gives fat girls equal time in a skinny world; in David Chalker’s HYPOCRITE, a street-wise feminist turns violent on the camera; Giovanna Chesler examines her body as it catches fire in BEAUTEOUS: GIOVANNA; and a young Chinese-American girl discovers her friend attempting suicide in a school bathroom, revealing the surreal and fantastical world of family obligation in Georgia Lee’s lush 35mm film EDUCATED. Filmmakers in Person! ORDER TICKETS NOW

Co-presenters : MadCat Women's International Film Festival and the National Organization of Women (NOW)

Award-winning filmmakers Sam Green & Bill Siegel previews their groundbreaking documentary about the Weathermen — the infamous, rebel group of white, upper middle-class youth in the 1960’s and 70’s who subordinated their own lives in pursuit of racial justice and an end to the Vietnam War. Green deftly interweaves found footage, archival news clips and never before-seen interviews with former group members. THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND is an extraordinary document of one of the most passionate and violent times in American political history. THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND is a presentation of the Independent Television Service (ITVS). ORDER TICKETS NOW

Co-presenters : Independent Television Service (ITVS) and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts