Opening
Reception
Wednesday, November 3
Castro Theatre 6 PM TICKETS
The Film Arts Festival of Independent Cinema celebrates
its 15th year as San Francisco's premier showcase for the
work of Northern California's brightest filmmaking talents.
The Festival kicks off with a reception for the filmmakers
at cocktail hour on the mezzanine of the Castro Theatre.
Space is severely limited. If you wish to attend, purchase
your tickets well in advance.
Opening Night
Wednesday, November 3rd
Castro Theatre 8 pm TICKETS
Sponsored by Wild Brain www.wildbrain.com
Spectres of the
Spectrum
Craig Baldwin www.othercinema.com
(Northern California Premiere. 1999. Color. 16mm. 88
min.)
The year is 2007. Yogi and BooBoo, a telepathic
father-daughter team, lead a group of media outlaws in
resistance against a corporate-governmental New
Electromagnetic Order that threatens to use the earth's
magnetosphere to "bulk erase" the brains of every human on
the planet. The only way to save humanity is to travel out
into space, tracing the history of television broadcasts
back in time to retrieve a secret lodged in an old episode
of the 1950s series Science in Action. Along the way,
the development of electronic telecommunications is
recounted through the lives and discoveries of science
giants (Edison, Bell, and Tesla) and those crushed or
forgotten by corporate history, like Philo T. Farnsworth,
the man who invented television (on Green Street, right here
in San Francisco). A wildly energetic blend of science
fiction and science fact, Craig Baldwin's epic collage film
Spectres of the Spectrum rifles through the trash
bins of our image-obsessed culture and pieces together a
dossier on our love affair with technology, projecting it
into a dystopian future. The film skims across genres as
blithely as it appropriates images from the detritus of
high-school instructional films, low-budget sci-fi, and old
television broadcasts. A combination mad scientist and media
archaeologist, Baldwin rarely takes his finger off the
fast-forward button, creating an obsessive, densely layered,
and intellectually challenging vision of technology gone
awry. With Beth Lisick, Sean Kilcoyne, and Caroline
Koebel.
Stupor Mundi
Rock Ross
(1999. B&W. 16mm. 9 min.)
A love triangle between Death, Justice and Liberty shot in
glorious
black-and-white, the film sways playfully to a live score
composed
by Nik Phelps specifically for the Castro Theatre's
Mighty Wurlitzer organ .
Psycho Porpoise
Rock Ross
(1999. Color. 16mm. 3 min.)
Itchy. Scratchy. Short and pretty.
HOW TO GET THERE | CONTACT | BELLS & WHISTLES | Film Arts
They Drew
Fire
Thursday, November 4
Roxie Cinema 6 pm TICKETS
They Drew Fire
Brian Lanker, Bonnie Cohen & Nicole Newnham
(1999. Color. Video. 56 min.)
In 1943, the U.S. War Department enlisted a number of
outstanding American artists to fight and paint alongside
their fellow servicemen in World War II. They were selected
to "record the war in all its phases," capturing the many
facets of battle in the air, at sea and on land. Arguing
that cameras cannot feel the nobility, courage, cowardice,
cruelty, humanity and boredom of the battlefield, the War
Department historians commissioned the production of more
than 12,000 paintings, drawings and sketches. Seven of these
soldier-artists are featured in this fascinating profile of
their military service, which resurrects their work from
archives in Washington D.C.
Permit File No.
394541/V-1000
William Z. Richard
(1998. Color. 16mm. 10 min.) This dark, thickly layered
experimental film is constructed of letters written to the
filmmaker's grandfather while he was a prisoner of war in
Germany during World War II.
Person, Place or Thing
Thursday, November 4
Roxie Cinema 8 pm TICKETS
Sponsored by Foreign Cinema www.foreigncinema.com
A clump of short films gathered around fountains, buses,
roads and the people on them looking for their place in a
world that is moving faster and getting smaller by the
minute.
Flip Film
Ellen Ugelstad & Alfonso Alvarez
(Film Arts Funded. 1999. B&W. 16mm. 65 sec.)
An animated bus trip through San Francisco, told in
flip-book fashion.
Calle Chula
Veronica Majano
(Film Arts Funded. 1998. Color. 16mm. 13 min.)
Her name is Calle Chula. She is a 15-year-old
Salvadoran-Ohlone girl who lives in San Francisco's Mission
District and wonders where her neighborhood has gone. She is
also a street behind Mission Dolores that was first
inhabited by Ohlone Indians and is now at the center of
ongoing dislocation and gentrification.
Can't Speak
Sugimasa Yamashita
(World Premiere. 1999. Color. Video. 9 min.)
Yumiko is a Japanese girl who has come to the United States
to learn English. Her only problem is that she can't
speak.
Office Furniture
Rebecca Salzer & Chris Brown
(1999. B&W. Video. 9 min.)
One of the most successful combinations of dance and film
that this festival has ever seen, 0Office Furniture
follows one woman on a disturbingly familiar job search
through downtown San Francisco, a business district suddenly
populated by dancing office workers.
The Ugliest Fountain in the
World (Without a Doubt)
Jensen
Rufe
(SF Premiere. 1999. B&W. 16mm. 13 min.)
It really is! And it has survived for a quarter of a century
despite the overwhelming repulsion felt by everyone who has
ever seen it. Oddly enough, its place in history has been
secured by this little documentary.
The Penfield Road
Diane
Kitchen
(West Coast Premiere. 1998. Color. 16mm. 5 min.)
A short portrait of Penfield Road and the sights along the
way, including Starved Rock, Little America and the Silver
Black Fox.
Imagining Place
Anita
Chang
(1999. Color. 16mm. 35 min.)
The world is getting smaller. People are moving from place
to place, culture to culture more than ever before. One does
not have to leave home to be exposed, via new technologies,
to other cultures, other worldviews. For one year the
filmmaker asked a cross section of characters, including
herself, the question, "What does belonging feel like in
America?" This film offers a number of responses.
Death Leap
Thursday, November 4
Roxie Cinema 10 pm TICKETS
A collection of films about the Bridge, the Bay and
beyond.
Golden Gate: Bridge of
Tomorrow
Eric Landmark
(World Premiere. 1998. B&W. 16mm. 5 min.)
The thrilling story of the construction and heroic promise
of the Golden Gate Bridge, falsely retold in the style of a
1930s newsreel.
Drop
Dina Ciraulo & Jay Rosenblatt www.jayrosenblattfilms.com
(Film Arts Funded. 1999. Color. 35mm. 1 min.)
The trials and tribulations of a truly independent filmmaker
and the quest for the perfect shot.
Dead Sorry
Dan
Schmeltzer
(West Coast Premiere. 1998. Color. Video. 15 min.)
Boredom and neglect turn Lucy lawless after a tragic
accident presents her with an inescapable decision.
Offshore
Kristen Nutile
(World Premiere. 1998. B&W. 16mm. 3 min.)
A short and sweet glimpse into the atypical 1950s childhood
of Jolene Babyak, who, along with 75 other children, grew up
on Alcatraz Island while the notorious prison was still in
operation.
Death Leap
Edward
Porembny
(U.S. Premiere. 1999. Color. Video. 52 min.)
San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge is one of the great
landmarks of the world, known not only for its beauty and
stunning location but also as the world's most popular place
to commit suicide. Over 2,000 people have jumped to their
deaths from the bridge during its 60-year history. (The real
number is unknown because a suicide is only recorded if two
people witness it or if a body is recovered.) Jumpers hit
the water at 80 mph, the equivalent of hitting a cement wall
at the same speed. Yet 26 people have miraculously survived.
The film combines the postcard beauty of the bridge, an
exploration of the sophisticated monitoring system installed
to detect new suicide attempts, and the tragic stories of a
handful of jumpers and of those they left behind.
HOW TO GET THERE | CONTACT | BELLS & WHISTLES | Film Arts
Just Mom and
Me
Friday, November 5
Koret Auditorium 12 noon
San Francisco Main Library
FREE!
Co-presented with Parents Place www.jfcs.org
Just Mom and Me
Yvette Torell www.justmomandme.com
(SF Premiere. 1998. Color. 16mm. 59 min.)
What do a Jewish widow, a Hispanic teenager, a San Francisco
attorney, an African-American divorcee, and a
donor-inseminated white professional woman have in common?
They are all raising children without a father. Today, there
are approximately 25 million single-mother households in the
United States. This documentary follows five very different
women as they learn to juggle their jobs, romantic lives and
motherly responsibilities.
Maribel
Mylene Moreno
(West Coast Premiere. 1999. Color. Video. 8 min.)
An intimate glimpse into the everyday life of a 16-year-old
mother of two.
Paranoia (Will Destroy
Ya)
Friday, November 5
Roxie Cinema 6 pm TICKETS
Five films of fear and loathing. Crazy, you call them?
Behold the Metalman, behold the Asian, behold the
paranoid.
Metalman
Kurt
Keppeler
(World Premiere. 1999. Color. 16mm. 48 min.)
Who cut Sean Mitalski? Known in his porn-star days as
Metalman, Sean is back in town for a big comeback. One
morning he wakes up with a bandaged back and a wound that
won't heal. Why can't he remember how he got cut? Why are
his "friends" acting so strange? Why does that building look
so familiar? Through the paranoid view of Metalman, the
suburban setting becomes a bleak landscape of white halls
and vacant lots where everything looks familiar yet
strangely alien.
Restricted
Jay Rosenblatt www.jayrosenblattfilms.com
(West Coast Premiere. 1999. Color. Video. 1 min.)
Take a chance. Don't do it.
Behold the Asian: How One
Becomes What One Is
James
T. Hong
(1999. B&W. 16mm. 15 min.)
An interpretive look at the last few days of a delusional
Asian-American man who escaped a mental institution in San
Francisco, walked to Death Valley, and killed himself.
Swine
Richard Walsh
(World Premiere. 1999. Color. 16mm. 19 min.)
No good can come from the black pig mask. When Tahnna finds
it in the river, she decides to give it to whoever brings
her five pigs by nightfall. Her tribe, the Tahbahnni, or
"pig people," begin a bloody hunt that takes them out of the
forest and into the path of a documentary film crew.
Violence ensues in this hysterical blend of low-budget 1970s
adventure film and National Geographic special, a mix
reminiscent of Raquel Welch's unforgettable One Million
Years B.C. Who will be the mightiest pig in the
forest?
Y2K
Daniel Hubp
(West Coast Premiere. 1998. Color. 35mm. 7 min.)
It's New Year's Eve and Meredith and Jack are not in Times
Square. They're in a bunker with their daughter, waiting for
the new millennium, and expecting the worst.
Crackpots
Friday, November 5
Roxie Cinema 8 pm TICKETS
Sponsored by Western Cine
The warped worldviews of seven crackpots complete with
killer klowns, talking cockroaches, sexy spiders and
dreaming anarchists.
Jennifer!
Claire
Bain
(1998. Color. Video. 12 min.)
She is Jennifer and she is art. She will explain the meaning
of everything as only a new-edge, ultra-hip, post-postmodern
artist can.
Motel
Sharif
Nakhleh
(World Premiere. 1998. B&W. 16mm. 15 min.)
A young man and a cockroach find themselves stuck in a motel
room for two. As a sad yet sweet relationship develops
between them, the cockroach muses on the meaning of
life.
St. Louise
the Scratch Film Junkies www.sirius.com/~sstark/mkr/tp/tp-bio.html
(1998. Color. 16mm. 5 min.)
Scratches, paint and appliques make up this little ditty to
a tune by Soul Coughing. "Saint Louise is listening."
Das Clown
Tom E. Brown www.bugsby.com
(1999. Color. 35mm. 9 min.)
Little Sparkles, a two-foot-tall clown doll, is the prized
possession of Mr. Higgins, a shopkeeper. One stormy night
the clown mysteriously comes to life. Unfortunately, he is
not the sweet son for whom the elderly shopkeeper had hoped.
The story of Sparkles's new life unfolds in this queer,
darkly entertaining film made in the style of old
grammar-school educational slide presentations.
Life History of a
Star
Jennifer
M. Gentile
(1999. Color. 16mm. 13 min.)
Angie and Dave are on their way to Hollywood, where the
supremely talented Angie hopes to make it big one day.
Claire is a rich girl who has just bought a new gun and is
on her way to Las Vegas. Two road trips and a science lesson
on the stages that stars go through before they burn out and
die come together in this h-h-h-hilarious road movie.
Spiders in Love: An
Arachnogasmic Musical
Martha Colburn
(1999. Color. 16mm. 3 min.)
She-spiders dance and "deep throat" in an arachnophile's
erotic nightmare made of paper cuts and blood curdling
sounds by Jad Fair, Red Balune and Jason Willett.
Death of an Anarchist
Bruce Miller
(1998. Color. 16mm. 12 min.)
The power of wish fulfillment is granted to a malcontent who
changes reality by gaining control over the symbols in his
dreams. As the fish he fries grow ever larger, this
self-proclaimed anarchist succumbs to nihilism.
Suckerfish
Friday, November 5
Roxie Cinema 10 pm TICKETS
Sponsored by Outpost www.outpostfilm.com
Suckerfish
Brien Burroughs
(SF Premiere. 1999. Color. 16mm. 88 min.)
A tart cocktail that recalls Cassavetes and Altman,
Suckerfish is a black comedy about the cutthroat
world of pet supplies and a vicious turf war that erupts
when a super salesman retires and is replaced by Ken
Preston, an ambitious young rep from the Midwest. In the
same territory, two competing salesmen, Dick Goodman and
Alan Walker, initiate a full-blown smear campaign against
Preston. Throw in an elicit affair between Walker and
Goodman's controlling wife and you have an unpredictable
masterpiece that lustily grafts the head of Clerks
onto the body of Double Indemnity.
Illustrations from the Subconscious
Friday, November 5
Victoria Theater 10 pm TICKETS
The Sprocket Ensemble laughingsuid.com/sprocket
Sponsored by the San Francisco Bay Guardian www.sfbg.com
Nine animators, seven musicians, a vocalist and a
performance troupe put their heads and hands together to
create an image and music extravaganza specifically created
for this year's Film Arts Festival. The Sprocket Ensemble
performs new original compositions by leader Nick
Phelps and features Carla Kihlstedt on violin,
Zachariah Spellman on tuba, Marika Hughs on
cello, Andrew Higgins on Bass, Wes Anderson on
drums, and Fred Morgan on percussion. The Sprockets
will be joined by vocalist Lauren Carley, who will
perform a selection from her stage show, Venus Envy; and the
performance troupe The Blockhead, a group that
combines dance, danger and the circus arts in their act. The
evening includes the world premieres of several short
animated and experimental films produced specially for the
show by local talents Devon Damonte, Marian Wallace,
Michael Rudnick, Sara Petty and Rock Ross. The
program also includes: Cancer by Nina Paley;
Eli's Moon by Michael Rosas-Walsh; Meat Clown
by Brooke Keesling; and Totem by Stacy
Steers.
*** Nik Phelps will also be featured Opening Night
with his live score for Rock Ross' Stupor Mundi
HOW TO GET THERE | CONTACT | BELLS & WHISTLES | Film Arts
Open Screen
Saturday, November 6
Roxie Cinema 11 am TICKETS
Co-presented with San Francisco Cinematheque www.sfcinematheque.org
Start your Saturday morning with a smorgasbord of films and
videos. Free coffee donated by Capricorn Coffee will be
served for this collection of new work. The Open Screen is
available to everyone on a first-come, first-screened basis.
Works 10 minutes and under (35mm, 16mm, 3/4" video only,
wild sync on cassette acceptable) must be submitted to the
Film Arts office, 145 9th Street, #101, starting at 10 AM,
Friday, October 22. One work per maker. First 70 minutes of
work fills the program. For more information call
415-552-FILM.
El Espíritu de mi
Mamá
Saturday, November 6
Roxie Cinema 1 pm TICKETS
Co-presented with California Newsreel www.newsreel.org
& Celebrating Culture and Community
El Espíritu de mi Mamá
(Spirit of My Mother)
Alí Allié www.flamefilms.com
(1999. Color. 16mm. 78 min.) Sonia, a young Garífuna
woman, leads a mundane life as a house worker in Los
Angeles. Her sleep is haunted by dreams of her dead mother,
who demands to be put to rest. In order to comply with her
mother's wishes, Sonia must return to Honduras and perform a
ritual that will feed her mother's spirit and allow her to
move on into the afterlife. Reminiscent of Julie Dash's
Daughters of the Dust, Alí Allié's
debut feature is a beautifully acted blend of narrative and
ethnographic documentary techniques. The film draws a
complex portrait of Sonia's life between cultures and
provides an insider's look at the tribal rituals of the Garífuna,
a group of West African, Arawak and Carib Indian descendants
who were exiled from their homeland island of St. Vincent in
1797 and settled along the Atlantic coast of Belize,
Honduras and Nicaragua.
a la medida (custom
made)
Lisset Barcellos
(Film Arts Funded. 1998. Color. 16mm. 17 min.)
In this simple tale about the close bond between father and
daughter, a young Peruvian seamstress sews a new suit for
her father's upcoming wedding and at the same time relives
the stages of her own unhappy marriage.
Broughton Sandwich
Saturday, November 6
Roxie Cinema 3 pm TICKETS
Co-presented with Canyon
Cinema
This past May, filmmaking legend James Broughton died.
Considered by many to be the spiritual father of
experimental film, he produced several seminal films that
combined his work as a poet with images that celebrated the
liberation of body and spirit. This program, inspired by
former Film Arts Festival Director Bob Hawk, honors his life
in film by using two slices from his oeuvre to sandwich a
meaty collection of new works that have little or nothing to
do with his legacy.
High Kukus
James Broughton
(1973. Color. 16mm. 3 min.)
"A visualization of the Zen dictum of 'sitting quietly,
doing nothing,' High Kukus uses a single beautiful
visual image while it delights with a poetic soundtrack
composed of 14 gems of Broughton's wit and wonder." --
Freude Bartlett - Canyon Cinema Catalog
When the Spirit
Moves
David Michalak
(Film Arts funded. World Premiere. 1999. Color. 16mm. 20 min.)
A lush reflection of High Kukus, When the Spirit
Moves is a deeply saturated vision of the wonder of
nature. Where Broughton animated the elements of the forest
with words, this film uses a simple silent story to evoke
the spirit of nature and the wonder of evolution.
Boggy Depot
Curt McDowell and Mark Ellinger
(1974. B&W. 16mm. 17 min.)
What is this film doing in here? It is a hammy, antic,
merciless ribbing of the romantic musical that longs for and
makes fun of the nostalgic. A rural operetta that stars
George Kuchar as the love-struck hero who falls under his
brother's evil hypnotic spell. Fun is fun and that is
that.
cormac's trash
Rafe Greenlee
(1999. Color. 16mm. 18 min.)
During a yearlong stay in El Paso, Texas, the filmmaker
enlisted the aid of his wife, newborn son and an assortment
of others in a quest to understand reclusive novelist Cormac
McCarthy. Along the way, he had a chance to explore the
meaning of privacy. Broughton was a writer, too.
Coatcheck
Thomas
Bacon
(1998. Color. 35mm. 22 min.)
An aging coat-check girl recalls the good old days in an
out-of-fashion nightclub. This little narrative is a heart
stealer, unfolding slowly and sumptuously as the main
character tries on the coats of her patrons and vividly
paints a nostalgic portrait of a glamorous time gone by.
What does it have to do with Broughton? See next
description.
The Adventures of
Jimmy
James Broughton
(1948. B&W. 16mm. 20 min.)
"A satiric version of the Hero Quest about a na¥ve
country boy's search for his ideal love in the big city (San
Francisco) with crazy frustrations at every turn. Broughton
plays the bewildered Jimmy. Photography by Frank
Stauffacher; jazz score by Weldon Kees." - Canyon Cinema
Catalog
They Came From L.A.
Saturday, November 6
Roxie Cinema 5 pm TICKETS
Sponsored by Cellular One Digital PCS www.cellularone.com
Each year we cast a wide Northern California net into the
world of Film Arts members scattered around the globe. This year
we caught five extremely well-made beauties in three
perfectly wrapped parcels. All hail from Los Angeles,
proving thoughtful and intelligent filmmakers can thrive
even in a barren desert.
Water and
Power
Mary Siceloff
(West Coast Premiere. 1999. Color. 35mm. 19 min.)
A stunning and extremely well-made film about a man who
moves water across the desert, through the Los Angeles
Aqueduct, but who cannot negotiate the undercurrents that
separate him from his wife.
Moments of Doubt
Louis
Pepe
(West Coast Premiere. 1999. Color. 16mm. 44 min.)
A collection of turning points, strung together with heart
and skill. Moments of Doubt is three short films in
one handsome package. French Fries is the story of an
awkward waitress who struggles to fit into her new job.
Cow Song tells the plaintive tale of a successful but
lonely author who longs to make reality live up to the most
unlikely romantic ideals. Finally, The Dictionary
Artist is a surreal saga of a professional illustrator
who wonders if she'll ever break out of her boring day
job.
Herd
Mike Mitchell
(1998. Color. 16mm. 15 min.)
A boy, an alien, a burger-shack-cum-spaceship, the fate of
cattle and an extraterrestrial vision collide in this wild
and wacky tour de force.
Love Sick
Saturday, November 6
Roxie Cinema 7 pm TICKETS
Sponsored by Davies, Thomas, Contiotti
Whether rhyming, smoking, or swinging, the films in this
program explore the downside to that thing called love.
Without You
Ryan
McCulloch
(1999. Color. Video. 3 min.)
It's a dog's life in this stop-motion film of canine
heartache. Carly Simon sings the title song as a clay dog
looks back on happier days.
Pump
Abigail Severance
(1999. Color. 16mm. 17 min.)
Pump mixes accordions and candy hearts as it follows
Ruby through the end of an ill-fated love affair. Louise
isn't the "very real girl" she claims to be. Her red hair
comes out of a bottle, she wasn't really on the high-school
track team, and she is two-timing Ruby to boot. Crushed,
Ruby goes after her own kind of closure. Hearts? Who needs
'em.
All Smiles and
Sadness
Anne McGuire
(Film Arts Funded. 1999. B&W. Video. 7 min.)
Anne McGuire's sweetly surreal take on the daytime soap
opera mines fragments of the television mystery, medical
drama and love story genres for an alternately funny and sad
vision of the early days of live television remastered for
the Dr. Seuss generation.
She Smokes
Christa
Collins
(SF Premiere. 1999. Color. 16mm. 23 min.)
She smokes. He doesn't. This film takes a wry look at the
turbulent relationship of Toni and Miles, a young
African-American couple. When Miles stops kissing Toni ("I
can still taste it"), she throws him out. Enter Jeremy,
enter Lela, each determined to stop being single. With
talented performances and a smart, witty script, She
Smokes explores breaking up with humor and sympathy.
Sunday
Afternoon
Marc Vogl www.killingmylobster.com/product/film/
(SF Premiere. 1999. Color. Video. 4 min.)
Intro. Filler, filler. Reductive summary of plot. Bad pun,
esoteric reference, bad pun. Filler, filler. Unwarranted
stinging criticism. Meaningless but catchy closing
comment.
Swingers'
Serenade
Danny Plotnick www.sirius.com/~sstark/mkr/dp/dp-bio.html
(1999. B&W. 16mm. 24 min.)
In the 1960s, when home-movie making was at its peak,
newsstands were filled with amateur movie magazines. Some
even provided their subscribers with scripts to shoot. One
such script, Swingers' Serenade, replete with lurid sexual
dynamics, swinging suburbanites and lecherous door-to-door
salesmen, was ahead of its time. This film combines that
tawdry tale of suburban sexual malaise with a lesson in
arcane film history.
We ARE Traffic!
Saturday, November 6
Roxie Cinema 9 pm TICKETS
Co-presented with San Francisco Bicycle Coalition www.sfbike.org
Civil
Patrick Nelson
Barnes www.pnbarnes.com
(World Premiere. 1999. Color. Video. 15 min.)
Following Bay Area graffiti artist Emuse on several
clandestine tagging operations, Civil gets so far inside the
action that it almost makes the viewer complicit. Using San
Francisco at night as a dark, blank canvas, the film
captures the textural, sensorial, and ritualistic feeling of
this nocturnal artist.
We Aren't Blocking Traffic, We
ARE Traffic: A Movie About Critical Mass
Ted
White
(Film Arts Funded. 1999. Color. Video. 50 min.)
An energetic tribute to the rise of Critical Mass, this
documentary chronicles the vital history of the 7-year-old
bike movement. Several of the free-spirited characters that
helped coax this loose coalition to life -- and maintain its
positive spin -- are interviewed, providing much-needed
balance to the corporate mass media's recent coverage. Made
by Ted White, whose Return of the Scorcher is
credited with helping to coin the movement's name, the film
is almost as fun to watch as bikes are to ride. Almost.
Sabotage!
Saturday, November 6
Roxie Cinema 11 pm TICKETS
an act of
Sabotage
Christopher Anderson
(U.S. Premiere. 1999. Color. 16mm. 80 min.)
"This is a call to arms to fight the destruction of the
planet before it is too late. Join us."
Computer programming and the occasional ecstasy party make
up Safron's routine until she meets Mayu, a militant
environmentalist, and her friends, Freddy and Ross, veterans
suffering from Gulf War syndrome who have nothing to lose.
Ross wants to "take something out" before he dies. Mayu
wants direct action. Safron wants Mayu. Together they build
a rocket and aim it at the Universal Energy building in
downtown San Francisco. But all work and no play make for
dull eco-terrorism. These four find time between protests to
smash cars, dance around in skimpy underwear and ride with
Critical Mass. Beautifully photographed, the film follows
these modern-day Bonnies and Clydes through deserts and
urban blight to the only possible conclusion of their Green
rampage.
HOW TO GET THERE | CONTACT | BELLS & WHISTLES | Film Arts
Tiger's
Apprentice
Sunday, November 7
Roxie Cinema 12 noon TICKETS
Co-presented with National Asian American Telecommunications
Association www.naatanet.org
Tiger's
Apprentice
M. Trinh Nguyen www.tarorootfilms.com
(1998. Color. Video. 56 min.)
Villagers of Vietnam's Mekong Delta refer to the tigers that
inhabit the region as "masters." Folk medicine practitioners
are also revered as "masters," and both are on the verge of
extinction. Tiger's Apprentice is the story of
Nguyen's inquiry into her great-uncle's traditional Chinese
medicine practice, which her American relatives have
dismissed as "voodoo." During a visit to Vietnam, she
observes her great-uncle treating patients out of the family
kitchen and is surprised to see the number of people, many
of whom have traveled great distances, who have sought his
treatment. The filmmaker seeks out people cured by her
great-uncle, battles Vietnamese government censors fearful
her footage might make them seem backward to the Western
world, and ultimately realizes that through her
investigation she has unwittingly become her great-uncle's
apprentice.
Jump
Cade Bursell
(1998. Color. 16mm. 15 min.)
A candid account of the filmmaker's decision to forgo
radiation therapy for a metastasized cancer, Jump
quietly captures the emotional complexity of confronting
illness.
Around the World in 80
Minutes
Sunday, November 7
Roxie Cinema 2 pm TICKETS
A trip to Cuba, Canada, Mongolia, and China in four short
films.
Urga Song
Jessica
Hope Woodworth
(SF Premiere. 1999. Color. Video. 17 min.)
In post-Soviet Mongolia, two young artists strive to live
and create in a time of social and economic upheaval.
Urga Song's remarkable images capture the cold beauty
of the landscape and the harsh struggle to carve out a new
way of life.
Grassy Narrows
Cleo Leung
(West Coast Premiere. 1998. Color. Video. 13 min.)
The traditional lifestyle of a tribe of Canadian Indians is
disrupted when it is discovered that a paper company
upstream has polluted the river. The pollution of water and
fish destroys business at a local tourist lodge and wipes
out the primary food supply of the tribe. Grassy
Narrows is the story of how one ecologically careless
act reverberates for decades through a community.
Sonata for the Left
Hand
Sarah Harbin www.brazenhussies.org
(1999. Color. 16mm. 20 min.)
Armed only with tuning forks and replacement parts, a small
band of North American piano tuners invade Cuba on a mission
of musical mercy. With their "Send a Piana to Havana"
program, Bay Area activists defy the U.S. embargo and help
bring crumbling equipment in music schools and churches back
to life.
King of Kowloon
Joanne
Shen and Martin Egan
(1998. Color. Video. 29 min.)
Tseng Tso Choi, aka The King of Kowloon, is no ordinary
graffiti artist. The 78-year-old resident of Hong Kong has
been tagging the walls of his city with a calligraphy brush
for over 40 years, to mixed reactions. This nimble
documentary follows the cranky character down city streets,
under bridges and ultimately into the art gallery.
The Power of Pussy
Sunday, November 7
Roxie Cinema 4 pm TICKETS
This collection of naughty little treasures takes a raunchy
frolic to the nether regions.
Cake
Cristie Dagley
(1999. Color. Video. 3 min.)
A giddy little pretty that celebrates self-indulgence and
the ecstasy of release, Cake is about having it and
eating it, too.
Blood
Amy Squires and JoAnne J. Kim
(Film Arts Funded. 1999. Color. Video. 12 min.)
A short horror film about "the curse," Blood follows three
characters to the bathroom, where they have frightening,
erotic and enlightening encounters with body fluids.
Definitely not for the faint of heart.
Yummi, Yummi
The Illinore Show
(1999. Color. Video. 3 min.)
One phone call in the life of a telephone sex worker.
I 
My Cat
Nina Paley
(1998.Color. 16mm. 3 min.)
A clay-animated pussycat up to no good.
The Tasty Little Dead
Mouse
Mark
Larkin
(World Premiere. 1999. B&W. 35mm. 7 min.)
The smell of something foul interrupts a passionate morning
between Jim and Laura. Innocent bystander Bill jockeys for a
neutral position between the two lovers as the odor uncovers
deeper problems within their relationship. Will the rotting
corpse of a dead rodent drive an immutable spike into the
heart of their romance, or will it bring them closer
together?
Movete
Maja Tillmann Salas
(World Premiere. 1999. Color. 16mm. 5 min.)
Flower power meets Indian musical in this groove-licious
exercise in color, texture and movement.
Monkfish Dream
Naoko
Nozawa
(SF Premiere. 1999. Color. Video. 31 min.)
A spurned virgin finds an attractive corpse and attempts an
act of necrophilia. Pussy comes to life, separates from the
body and starts a live-in love affair with the geeky leading
man. The weirdness is relentless but pleasantly hysterical
in this love story between man and vagina. They laugh. They
love and eventually she is able to free him from his shyness
in bed! Hurray.
Our House in Havana
sunday, November 7
California Palace of the Legion of Honor 4 pm TICKETS
Sponsored by Avid
Co-presented with the ACLU and the Older Women's League
Our House in
Havana
Stephen Olsson
(W-I-P. 1999. Color. Video. 58 min.)
Our House in Havana is the intimate story of Silvia
Morini, a vivacious and aristocratic 68 year-old Cuban-born
woman, who returns to her birthplace after an absence of 38
years. Her emotionally charged trip back to the house where
she was born and married begins a very personal exploration
of Cuban history that delivers a rare glimpse into the
ideologies that drive both Castro's Cuba and the
decades-long US embargo.
Rejoice #27
Jennifer Maytorena Taylor
(SF Premiere. 1999. Color. 16mm. 3 min.)
The grace of older women, the splendor of the ordinary, and
the joy of the underwear department set to a Latin beat.
Night Waltz
Sunday, November 7
California Palace of the Legion of Honor 6 pm TICKETS
Sponsored by KQED www.kqed.org
Co-presented with San Francisco Conservatory of Music
www.sfcm.edu
Night Waltz: The Music of Paul
Bowles
Owsley Brown
(West Coast Premiere. 1999. Color. Video. 77 min.)
At the age of 17, Paul Bowles was introduced to composer
Aaron Copland, who took him on as a student. As part of the
vibrant New York art and music world of the 1930s and 1940s,
Bowles matured into a recognized voice in American musical
composition. Long before he became a celebrated author, best
known for his novel The Sheltering Sky, Bowles composed
music for Lincoln Kirstein's ballet Yankee Clipper, Orson
Welles' Mercury Theater and for three of Tennessee Williams'
plays. Bowles, now 89 and living in Tangier, recounts his
life in music, revealing a less-celebrated side of this
renowned artist. Night Waltz captures a vital
component of the artistic spirit, exploring the inspiration
behind the music and the inner world of the composer.
Awful Bliss
Sunday, November 7
Roxie Cinema 6 pm TICKETS
sponsored by IFILM
A cluster of ravishing and evocative works that challenge as
they seduce. The stories spill over the edges of sanity and
society, communicating their humanity through radiant
portraits of sadness, fear, love and loss.
Every Day Here
Frazer Bradshaw
(World Premiere. 1999. Color. 16mm. 11 min.)
A fictional character study of a couple lost in anger and
fear. This elegant video lingers on its subjects, capturing
the textures of raw emotions as they radiate from person to
person.
I'd Like Them Better if They
Were Rainbow
Travis Leland
(1998. Color. 16mm. 12 min.)
An irrational fear of pigeons permeates this fetishistic
condemnation of bird parts, disease, white noise, run-over
bagels and the horrifying and omnipresent fine-feathered
residents of every street corner in San Francisco.
Native (Books
I-VI)
William Z. Richard
(World Premiere. 1999. Color. 16mm. 11 min.)
A dazzling examination of the patterns, colors and textures
found on the bodies of animals and insects, Native
captures the variety and elegance of nature's design,
compulsively cataloging the surfaces of creation.
This is for Betsy
Hall
Hope Hall
(World Premiere. 1999. Color. 16mm. 6 min.)
Betsy Hall is 59 years old. For most of her life she has
struggled with anorexia and bulimia. The film, a discreet
illustration of the legacies that parents leave behind,
delicately reveals the emotional impact this mother's
illness has had on her filmmaker daughter.
Lesson 9
Mark
Taylor
(1999. Color. 16mm. 16 min.)
A brightly colored gift that must be opened. Inside are the
journal entries of a lover gone mad. A disaster movie after
the disaster, Lesson 9 is a lush, little horror memoir about
the filmmaker's disturbing brush with the inexplicable.
Equations
Christine Murray
(World Premiere. 1999. B&W. 16mm. 5 min.)
As sure as the sound of the ocean, Equations beats
with the rhythm of life's choices, mathematics and the gray
area between regret and conviction. It is a rare peek into a
private memory box full of treasures, secrets, losses and
confidences shared among the filmmaker, her mother, her
grandmother and an unborn child.
Safety in Numbers
Amy
Harrison
(World Premiere. 1998. Color. 16mm. 6 min.)
A striking study of an obsessive-compulsive personality,
Safety in Numbers penetrates the mind of a woman as
she spins a web of paralysis and claustrophobia. The clock
is ticking. The numbers aren't adding up.
Industrial Bodies
Khmasea
Hoa Bristol
(Film Arts Funded. World Premiere. 1999. Color. 16mm. 15 min.)
From within a thick, dark shroud arise color-drenched images
that explore the spiritual nature of death. Using
microscopic images of life at the cellular level, close-up
views of decomposition and the effects of radiation, the
filmmaker explores the tyranny of time and the feelings
surrounding her grandfather's death.
Surfing for Life
Sunday, November 7
Roxie Cinema 8 pm TICKETS
Co-presented with Senior Power, the American Society on
Aging www.asaging.org,
and the Surfrider Foundation www.sfsurfrider.org
Surfing for Life
David L. Brown
(World Premiere. 1999. Color. Video. 72 min.)
This stirring new surf documentary travels back to the roots
of the "sport of kings," led by an extraordinary crew of
surf pioneers who have spent the last half century chasing
the perfect wave around the world. Among the ten elders
profiled are surf greats Doc Ball (age: 93), Woody Brown
(88), Rabbit Kekai (79), Eve Fletcher (73), Fred Van Dyke
(70), Peter Cole (69) and others who illuminate the
remarkable lives of people still catching waves in their
70s, 80s and 90s. Filmed on location in California and
Hawaii, the film includes rare archival material from the
dawn of surfing culture.
HOW TO GET THERE | CONTACT | BELLS & WHISTLES | Film Arts
silt
Wednesday, November 10
The Exploratorium 8 pm TICKETS
Co-presented with the Exploratorium
LBRTR: Interference and Periodic
Objects
The collaborative cinema group, silt, rolls its mobile
laboratory of projection and sound devices into the
Exploratorium for the world premiere of a brand new
performance. While exploring the laboratory as a site of
interference and co-creation with nature, the group uses
mirrors, liquids, lenses, their bodies, and other objects to
interact with a multitude of projections. A lush mosaic of
images overlap and dissolve on screen, consumed by molds and
bacteria, rusted and decayed through exposure to the
elements, and imprinted with insect wings, sea-weeds and
crystallized salts.
The performance is based on perceptual experiments that
explore the confluence between science, mysticism and
poetry, and features a number of paranaturalist inquiries.
These include: the geometry of plant morphology;
electromagnetic light anomolies; visual sonic patterns of
birdcalls; pinhole celestiographs; and an exploration of the
Exploratorium's visual and aural landscape.
The show takes a conspiratorial turn with the inclusion
of a recently discovered strip of film lost since the
Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1915. This mysterious film-strip
is the only known example of anthographic film, an
non-metal, color motion-picture film made entirely from
plant extracts. The process was developed by a group of
scientists who, in the face of a legal challenge by
Eastman-Kodak, never publicly presented their prototype.
silt has been experimenting with their own version of this
process and will present their results alongside the
long-delayed screening of the original.
The
Exploratorium, a museum of science, art and human
perception, encourages both artists and scientists to
experiment, explore and test intuitions within its
interactive playground; and to engage in research and
technologies that allow us to experience the world in new
ways.
HOW TO GET THERE | CONTACT | BELLS & WHISTLES | Film Arts