San Francisco International Film Festival 2016

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Festival Coverage thread.

San Francisco International Film Festival 59: April 21 - May 5

Opening, Centerpiece, Closing Night films

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Opening Night: Love & Friendship (Ireland 2016)
Thursday April 21, 7:00 pm, Castro Theatre
Writer-director Whit Stillman brings a very funny sense and sensibility to this period comedy as sassy social climber Lady Susan (Kate Beckinsale) tries to finagle out of a scandal and gain matrimonial advantage for herself and her daughter. Witty and spry from start to finish, Stillman's adaptation of a Jane Austin novella set in the 1790s charms as it peers into the affairs of the privileged and those who aspire to be, winking at contemporary pretensions through the lens of the past. With Chloë Sevigny as Alicia Johnson. An adaptation of Jane Austen's novella Lady Susan.
Director Whit Stillman and star Kate Beckinsale expected to attend.

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Centerpiece: Indignation
Saturday April 30, 8:00 pm, Victoria Theatre
James Schamus (Kanbar Award recipient, SFIFF 2010) makes his directorial debut with an elegant adaptation of Philip Roth's novel, a fictionalized account of the author's own college experiences in the '50s. Logan Lerman gives a terrific performance as Marcus Messner, one of a handful of Jewish students on the Midwestern university campus, whose efforts to assert and define himself are tested in interactions with the college dean, a beautiful blonde and his protective mother.
Director James Schamus expected to attend.

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Closing Night: The Bandit
Thursday May 5, 7:00 pm, Castro Theatre
An exuberant, surprisingly moving romp through 1970s pop culture, The Banditcelebrates the friendship between superstar actor Burt Reynolds and stuntman-turned-director Hal Needham, as together they create the Southern-fried classic Smokey and the Bandit. Bay Area director Jesse Moss (The Overnighters,SFIFF 2014) brings great warmth and impossibly retro-cool archival footage to this exceptional dual biography.
Director Jesse Moss expected to attend.

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[Press release.] San Francisco, CA --
"We are proud to present this well-rounded group of films and filmmakers as our Big Nights in 2016," said San Francisco Film Society Executive Director Noah Cowan . . .

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Festival Coverage thread.

There is a big change this year. The festival has been moved from the Kabuki 8-theater cineplex in Japan Town to the Mission and will be spread out over the 5-theater Alamo Drafthouse-restored New Mission Theater, the big old Castro Theater (always a celebratory venue for the fest) and the little old Roxie and the Victoria and a place called the Gray Area. In addition as before the Pacific Film Archive will present some festival films in Berkeley. This is a new theater because the Berkeley Art Museum has just opened its new venue. (I've heard the new PFA theater is small though.) Whether all this will be an improvement or is merely making the best of necessity we'll see. Recently I've cut down on attendance (because I live in the East Bay) and relied largely on screeners which lately Bill Proctor, the Director of Communications & Content, has kindly sent to me. We'll see how that can go this year and if I can access interesting titles, which would be nice. I have compiled a partial wish list, though I know you can't see some of the primo items, such as the "Big Night" films, on screeners. Anyway I've seen 19 of the festival selections and have compiled an index of links to them, which I'll expand when I see more.

The new venues are:

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Alamo Drafthouse New Mission – 2550 Mission Street (at 22nd Street)
Castro Theatre – 429 Castro Street (at Market)
Gray Area – 2665 Mission Street (at 23rd Street)
Roxie Theater – 3117 16th Street (at Valencia)
Victoria Theatre – 2961 16th Street (at Capp)

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San Francisco International Film Festival, 21 April - 5 May 2016

Festival Coverage thread.

Links to reviews:

(Have already seen:)
The Apostate (Federico Veiroj 2015)
Cameraperson (Kristen Johnson 2016)
Counting (Jem Cohen 2015)
Cowboys (Thomas Bidegain 2015)
The Fits (Anne Rose Holmer 2015)
From Afar/Desde allá (Lorenzo Vigas 2015)
Happy Hour (Ryûnsuke Hamaguchi 2015)
The Innocents/Les innocentes (Anne Fontaine 2016)
Journey to the Shore (Kiyoshi Kurosawa 2015)
Maggie's Plan (Rebecca Miller 2015)
Microbe and Gasoline (Michel Gondry 2015)
Mountain (Yael Kayam 2015)
Neither Heaven Nor Earth (Clément Cogitore 2015)
Neon Bull (Gabriel Mascaro 2015)
No Home Movie (Chantal Ackerman 2015)
Peter and the Farm (Tony Stone 2015)
Right Now,Wrong Then (Hong Sang-soo 2015)
Suite Armoricaine (Pascale Breton 2015)
Thithi (Raami Redy 2015)
Under the Shadow (Babak Anvari 2015)
Weiner (Josh Kreingman, Elyse Steinberg 2015)
Winter Song (Otar Iosseliani 2015)

(Expect to see:)
As I Open My Eyes (Leyla Bouzid 2015)
The Demons (Nicolas Canniccioni 2015)
The Event (Sergei Loznitsa 2015)
Leaf Blower (Alejandro Iglesias Mendizábal 2015)
Thirst (Svetla Tsotsorkova 2015)
Under the Sun (Vitaly Mansky 2015)
Very Big Shot ( Mir-Jean Bou Chaaya 2015)
The White Knights (Joachim Lafosse 2015)

(Would like to see:)
Blood of My Blood (Marco Bellocchio 2015)
High Rise (Ben Wheatley 2015)
Hong Kong Trilogy: Preschooled Preoccupied Preposterous (Christopher Doyle 2015)
Little Men (Ira Sachs 2015)
Love and Friendship (Whit Stillman 2016) Opening Night


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First viewings.

I will shortly preview these new films:

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Counting (Jem Cohen 2015)
The Demons (Philippe Lesage 2015)
The Event (Sergei Loznitsa 2015)
From Afar (Lorenzo Vigas 2015)
The Innocents (Anne Fountaine)

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From Afar (Lorenzo Vigas 2015), Venezuela/Mexico, 93 min.

See this promising preview of From Afar that mentions the writing by Guillermo Arriega, the "estranged" writing collaborator of Alejandro González Iñárritu who penned Amores perros and Babel plus an intriguing plot (which contains elements of the French film Eastern Boys); an impressive opening few minutes; and support from Latin American luminaries such as Gabriel Ripstein, Michel Franco, and Édgar Ramírez. It premiered at Venice September 2015, where it won the Golden Lion. It costars Alfredo Castro, who is so wonderfully creepy in Pablo Larraín's Tony Manero and Post Mortem.

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LUIS SILVA IN FROM AFAR/DESDA ALLÀ, VENICE GOLDEN LION WINNER

Definitely will see:
Counting
The Demons
The Event (Sergei Loznitsa)
From Afar/Desde allà (Lorenzo Vigas)
The Innocents
Very Big Shot
The White Knights
As I Open My Eyes ( Leyla Bouzid)
Leaf Blower (Alejandro Iglesias Mendizábal)
Thirst (Svetla Tsotsorkova)

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COUNTING (Jem Cohen 2015)

This is not a plotted semi-documentary like Museum Hours but a return to and summation perhaps of his original meditative, observational technique as he wanders with a keen digital video eye through New York, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Istanbul, and the Kingdom of Sharjah and back with occasional personal moments and references to urban protest and urban life and decay. A very personal work.

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FROM AFAR/DESDE ALLÁ (Alfonso Vigas 2015)

We're asked to hold review on this because it's got a distributor, Strand. I'll publish a full review when it comes out 8 June. So this is just a preview. This was written by Iñárritu's estranged coscripter, Guillermo Arriaga, and it's got the explosive violence of Amores Perros around the edges. We enter this world inhabited by Pablo Larraín's scary, ominously withholding master actor Alfredo Castro and his worthy, explosive young collaborator Luis Silva, with the sense of personal danger Graham Greene attributed to Patricia Highsmith's world. A middle aged man, a well-off Caracas professional, picks up a hostile street boy for vicarilus sex for pay, and a strange compulsive relationship develops that brings out the deeply troubling issues of both men. The narrative situation resembles Robin Campillo's excellent French film Eastern Boys but the outcome is quite different.

This won the Golden Lion for best film at Venice last year and it's clear why. An intense, compulsively watchable, daring and original film.

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THE INNOCENTS/LES INNOCENTES (Anne Fontaine 2016)

(For now, this too is only a preview because I guess a distributer is soon expected.) This unusually touching and solid work from the often mediocre and overly eclectic Fontaine, penned by Pascale Bonitzer (who wrote for Jacques Rivette) is based on true events in 1945 Poland. A French Red Cross doctor is called on to deliver a batch of babies born to Benedictine nuns raped by post-war "liberation" Russian soldiers. Lou de Luaâge, an evil bitch in Mélanie Laurent's Breathe, is touching and luminous here as the brave and determined Red Cross doctor. Variety's Justin Chang, reviewing at Sundance, said this could have been called "Of Gods and Women," because it depicts a combination of physical danger and spiritual crisis similar to Xavier Beauvois' film about monks in North Africa threatened by terrorists. Opening in February of this year in Paris this got fine reviews - AlloCiné's press rating was 3.9/5.

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THE EVENT/SOBYTIE (Sergei Loznitsa 2015)

"Three days that shook the world" -- the press kit echoes that title for this, an assemblage of found footage from Leningrad in 1991 during the time of the attempted coup d'état in Russia that led to the fall of the USSR. It's haunting, but you need to know the history to make much sense of it, because Loznitsa (an important Russian documentarian best known for his fiction features My Joy and In the Fog) doesn't provide any explanations. Such a documentary style works only on home ground - or at festivals.

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THE DEMONS/LES DÉMONS (Philippe Lesage 2015)

Mainly focused on Félix, much-loved ten-year-old in a family of five in a comfortably off suburban household in Montreal. He's a sensitive kid, and school and the world hold terrors for him. The trade reviews are mentioning Michael Haneke, and they're not wrong. Documentary-trained feature director Lesage, who has one other feature we havne' tseen (no info on IMDb but one review says it premiered the year before) is a formidable new talent. A major shift of tone and point of view midway to something deeply repugnant and disturbing works, finally, because or a circular structure that takes us back to the pastel comforts here we began at the end. Impressive story, acting, direction, use of music and cinematography. Brilliant new talent.

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Coming: Introductions to THE WHITE KNIGHTS/LES CHEVALIERS BLANCS, UNDER THE SUN, VERY BIG SHOT, LEAF BLOWER, AND THIRST.


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THE WHITE KNIGHTS/LES CHEVALIERS BLANCS (Joachim Lafosse 2015)

A feature based on the 2007 Zoe's Ark case in which French people were jailed for trying to remove hundreds of African orphans illegally from Darfur for adoption by French couples. Realistic about details of the operation but too slow and diffuse in its action, the film is still thought-provoking and stars the always excellent Vincent Lindon, winner of recent Cannes and César best actor awards, along with Valérie Donzelli and Louise Bourgoin. The 40-year-old director, a Belgian, has focused on dangerous and dysfunctional relations between adults and children in his films (Private Property, Private Lessons, Our Children).

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VERY BIG SHOT/FILM KTEER KBEER (Mir-Jean Bou Chaaya 2015)

A scrappy little Lebanese comedy where the protagonist, eldest of three brothers who're petty gangsters in a working-class Beirut neighborhood, goes from drug dealer politician with film producer as the transitional step. Satire on filmmaking and politics.

LEAFBLOWER/SOPLANDORA DE HOJAS (Alejandro Iglesias Mendizabal 2015)

An engaging little film about nothing in particular, a day in the life of young Mexican slackers that celebrates everyday lives and spicy lingo and invites comparison with Einbecke, Sandoval, Ruizpalacios, even Cuarón.


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UNDER THE SUN/V LUTSAH SOLNTSA (Vitaly Mansky 2015)

Like Mads Brügger in Red Chapel, veteran Russian documentary filmmaker Vitaly Mansky had the temerity to go into North Korea and make a film revealing what it's like there. But instead of Brügger's kooky scheme to shoot footage while pretending to do a comedy tour, Mansky simply arraanged to make essentially a propaganda film for the North Koreans, allowing them to choreograph every move and every scene. But he kept the camera rolling during that stage-managing and had two memory cards, one that went to the censors at day's end and one he kept to himself. We get to watch the complete file showing the whole thing. The film focuses on a little girl and her family, but they are merely actors, not living their own actual lives. A very sad story.

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THIRST/JAJDA (Sotsa Tsotsorkova 2015)

Bulgarian female director's talented, atmospheric first film that's been a festival prizewinner. About A little family whose balance is altered when a girl and her father come to dig a well in a parched, remote spot.

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