San Francisco International Film Festival 2013 (year 56)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa: PENANCE (20120 [again]

Since this absorbing and elegant if emotionally chilly Japanese TV horror minisries by the PULSE and CURE master apparently isn't on the SFIFF Hold Review list afer all, I have replaced my "preview" with a full review of it, for those interested. It's pretty unlikely now that this will have a theatrical release anywhere, but after some festival exposure, it's to be hoped that it will have US and UK DVD releases some time soon. It was on Japanese Wowow Television in January 2012, then at Venice August 2012, and finally people in the San Francisco Bay area got three or four shots at seeing it in late April and early May 2013.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW

Full review is now up since the film has been theatrically released. More full reviews will appear in Festival Coverage when additional films come out.

Links to the reviews:

Act of Killing, The (Joshua Oppenheimer 2012) ND/NF
After Lucia/Después de Lucía (Michel Franco 2012)
Artist and the Model, The (Fernando Truba 2012)
Before Midnight (Richard Linklater 2013)
Chimeras (Mika Matilla 2012)
Cleaner, The (Adrian Saba 2012)
Cold War (Longman Leung, Sunny Luk 2013)
Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski 2013)
Ernest & Célestine Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar 2012)
Eight Deadly Shots (Mikko Niskanen 1972)
Fill the Void (Rana Burshtein 2012)
Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach 2012) NYFF
Futuro, Il (Alicia Scherson 2012)
Habi, the Foreigner (María Florencia Álvarez 2012)
Hijacking, A (Tobias Lindholm2012) ND/NF
In the Fog (Sergei Loznitsa 2012)
Juvenile Offender (Kang Yi-Kwan 2012)
Key of Life (Kenji Uchida 2012)
La Sirga (William Vega 2012)
Last Step, The (Ali Mosaffa 2012)
Leviathon (Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Peravel 2012)
Memories Look at Me (Song Fang 2012) NYFF
Museum Hours (Jem Cohen 2012)
Nights with Théodore (Sébastien Betbeder 2012)
Night Across the Street (Raul Ruiz 2012) NYFF
Patience Stone, The (Atiq Rahimi 2012)
Pearblossom Highway (Mike Ott 2012)
Penance (Kiyoshi Kurosawa 2012)
Present Tense (Belmin Söylemez 2012)
Rosie (Marcel Gisler 2013)
Sirga, La (William Vega 2012)
Sofia's Last Ambulance (Ilian Metev 2012)
Something in the Air (Olivier Assayas 2012) NYFF
Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley 2012) ND/NF
Strange Little Cat, The (Ramon Zürcher 2013)
Tall as the Baobab Tree (Jeremy Teicher 2012)
Thérèse Desqueyroux (Claude Miller 2012) R-V
What Maisie Knew (David Siegel, Scott McGehee 20113)
Youth (Justine Malle 2013)

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Final press release [excerpt]

This year the International awarded over $70,000 in prizes -- one of the largest cash totals distributed by a U.S. film festival -- to emerging and established filmmakers from ten countries around the world. Thanks to its unique programming choices and the always enthusiastic San Francisco Bay Area audiences, the International sold out 144 screenings this year. Of particular popularity were the many screenings and events featuring special guests such as Steven Soderbergh, Harrison Ford, Richard Linklater, Philip Kaufman, Julie Delpy, William Friedkin, David Gordon Green, Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig, Sarah Polley, Michael Cera and Kate Bosworth.

"This festival may be 56 years old, but it was my first, and I have been amazed and delighted with the enthusiasm and love of cinema demonstrated by our audiences," said Ted Hope, SFFS executive director. "The Film Society's programming team, led by our Director of Programming Rachel Rosen, assembled a fantastic program of films from around the globe. Combine them with Steven Soderbergh's State Of Cinema address setting the stage for our innovative A2E (artist to entrepreneur) filmmaker training, a number of amazing Live & Onstage events, and our star-studded and incredibly moving Film Society Awards Night, as well as an incredible array of guests from across the planet, and no one can deny that SFIFF56 was a truly extraordinary event. San Francisco should be as extremely proud of hosting this festival as I am of our team that produced it."

Sponsors and Partners
Among SFIFF56's 175 sponsors, leading corporate partners were Blackberry; Blue Angel Vodka; Grolsch; the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Vimeo; Bank of the West; TV5 Monde; the French American Cultural Society and the Consulate General of France, San Francisco; Dolby Laboratories; Comcast; Visa; the Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office of San Francisco and the San Francisco Film Commission. Local businesses were eager to work with the International as well. More than 45 restaurants supported the Festival and about 180 hotel rooms were donated for Festival guests.

Star-Studded Nights
Film Society Awards Night, the fundraising gala cochaired by Todd and Katie Traina, honored four world-class film talents at Bimbos 365 Club on May 7. Honorees were Philip Kaufman, recipient of the Founder's Directing Award, presented by actor Clive Owen; Harrison Ford, recipient of the Peter J. Owens Award for acting, presented by cinema legend George Lucas; Eric Roth, recipient of the Kanbar Award for excellence in screenwriting, presented by renowned journalist Lowell Bergman; and local hero Ray Dolby, recipient of the inaugural George Gund III Award, presented by San Francisco Film Society Executive Director Ted Hope.

Attending the festivities were Vimeo's creative director Jeremy Boxer, San Francisco society hostess Dede Wilsey, former mayor of San Francisco Willie Brown, Nion McEvoy of Chronicle Books, designer Ken Fulk, San Francisco Ballet's principal Maria Kochetkova and musicians Vanessa Carlton and Tracy Chapman.

Numerous guests graced the stage during SFIFF56, starting on Opening Night with What Maisie Knew codirectors Scott McGehee and David Siegel as well as actor Onata Aprile and continuing throughout the Festival. Filmmaker and media artist Jem Cohen received the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award and legendary cinephile Peter von Bagh was awarded the Mel Novikoff Award at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas.

The Festival's Big Nights continued successfully with the Centerpiece film, Inequality for All, featuring director Jacob Kornbluth and subject Robert Reich. The festivities ended on a high note with the Closing Night screening of Before Midnight, attended by director Richard Linklater and actor Julie Delpy.

Several Festival screenings featured filmmakers who introduced their films and participated in on-stage Q&A sessions with SFIFF audiences. Amongst many others, these guests included Sarah Polley, Michael Cera, Kate Bosworth, Merry Clayton, Tata Vega, Ricky Jay, Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof and Peaches.

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Following an Indiewire leak of a recording of the speech, the SFFS gave in and released a VIMEO of Soderbergh's entire State of Cinema speech. This is a feature of every SFIFF.

SODERBERG'S STATE OF CINEMA ADDRESS, MAY 2013 SFIFF

The VIMEO with a full transcript also on the SFFS blog here.

Any person, and I am talking to our active members, who is even remotely interested in cinema/movies should watch this address. Excellent! Thanks, Chris.

It's an important part of the film festival, so natural to include it here. The crowd loved the talk, you loved the talk, it was fluent and clear. I agree that we should watch it. Or read it, either way.

I personally am very ambivalent about this speech and about Soderbergh's work. As I said in my review of his latest movie I have gotten excited about his work in the past but feel that overall he has let me down. I also tend to think he has served me better with his entertainments than with his efforts at "cinema."

I think it's good to read or watch the address with the comments at the end on the VIMEO as context. I share some of the range of views expressed there. Some important points got made. For example, the citing of TRAFFIC and SOLARIS as examples of Soderbergh as "artist" -- they are remakes. And this was not said, but CHE, also cited as an example of Soderbergh's "out there" experimentation, is that, but it is also simply a vanity project, and it is basically a flop. Some misinterpreted MAGIC MIKE as a deliberate money-maker. They failed to notice he said the tests were bad and the studio didn't expect it to succeed; its big success was a fluke. (I didn't like it, and it seems to me pointless; but I wouldn't call it pandering or commercialism; tastelessness maybe.) One commenter says every filmmaker at some point makes a moneymaking commercial film, even Kurosawa. That is not even true: what has Michael Haneke done to make money? But the real problem of Soiderbeerg's filmography is that it's all over the place.

I find it somewhat odd that "State of Cinema" should be interpreted as "State of Hollywood" and "State of the Movie Business," but that is what he knows about. He spoke largely as a producer, and I was impressed that he mentioned a trio of talented and edgy new young directors, one of whom I am very impressed by, and he is NOT commercial at all. That endorsement is a good thing, and adds to Soderbergh's cred. But this is an address given at an international film festival. People go to film festivals because they want to see what Hollywood will not offer them. Why not get Harvey Weinstein to give this address if they're going to have Soderbergh? Weinstein knows more about the business. Next year though, they need to get somebody who will talk about "Cinema" purely in the "art" sense and not talk about promotion, exports, and financing. Soderbergh mentioned hardly any films, other than some of his own.

He is also, as Americans so often are, speaking with blinders about the international scene. All his figures are about American films. And yet most of the films the audience of the SFIFF comes to see were made elsewhere.

He is taking an industry and big business stand when he cites Steve Jobs as a moral standard (noted with keen irony by a commenter) and when he misquotes Orson Welles about an artist and his tools. The tools should serve the artist and not the artist serve the tools is not in itself a justification of jettisoning "old" formats like film vs. digital. Sure, don't get "weepy" about film: this is typical of the cold, macho tone Sonderbergh habitually adopts. BUt it is not a question about getting "weepy," it is a matter of passion about craft. As a longtime artist and printmaker, I know that the artist does not throw out old media and does not simply bend media to his will. The media are stern taskmasters. In its way digital is just as tough to work with as celluloid.

The most important point Soderbergh makes, however well known it may be, is that more and more the decision makers in Hollywood know nothing about movies, and do not even watch them for pleasure. And that the unwillingness to take a chance on a smaller cost film is sad, even if ultimately it makes economic sense.

Your arguments are sound and go to the heart of what you and I believe is at the core to the art of cinema (and I'm certain Johann, Oscar and Tab probably believe as well). That movie making is more than a financial choice or the manipulation of bankers (although they certainly play an important part of commercial films). If Soderbergh were more concerned with art, he should drop the pretense and make movies on any budget. (Instead, I believe you are correct to point out his choices revolve around financial gain). However, in studying the art of filmmaking in college and then making "student" films of my own, I quickly discovered that as a director, the process was less about what I shot than about the choices I made after I had complied several thousand feet of film. How to edit a movie is far more complex and more involving in the process than most people can possibly imagine.

Like written stories, most films are made in the editing room. While we might be forced to use certain shots (lacking others) the choices we make as editors has everything to do with the final composition. So it must be true with graphic art as well (as you would know more than any writer on this site as you live in the world of the graphic artist). When we chose this shot or that one, we can make a statement about who we are as artists and what we think of the world through art of storytelling via this projected medium.

I would argue that perhaps the future of cinema is more about the Youtube type offerings (small films made with digital cameras) than it is about massive films made on massive budgets with massive special effects (escalating costs being the greatest limiting factor). The true heart of story telling through film is made by those who have lived life and have something to say. The same could be said of writing as well. Instead of our world expanding, the world is shrinking thanks to internet choices. We no longer depend on any one source for news, weather, or information. We can narrow our choices to the miniscule and find our own niche. This adaptation to contentment must surly be evolutionary in terms of media and perhaps a portent of a world to come.

I agree with you and I have been influenced by you in what I say. You have more of a practical knowledge of film and film school, and you know what you're talking about when you say editing is the key element in making any film. I know that in theory but I've never edited a film, and even with digital editing, it's still a very ticklish process just to edit something a few minutes long. I'd love to be a cinematographer but I'd hate to be an editor, even though it's the key role. I know that you can take a lot of footage and make a good film or a bad film out of it, or just two different films. "Montage" (which just means editing in French) as described by Eisenstein I believe, refers to the different emotional effect sequence of shots can have.

It would help if Hollywood got some editors who just cut things down, and many's the time any film, internationally, including festival films (especially!) would be better if they lost ten or twenty minutes from their run-time.

YouTube type offerings indeed are sure to play a larger role in future, and represent a "career open to talents," to use Napoleon's phrase, which is really neither good nor bad. Are we so lucky that we have Justin Bieber? No but I'm sure some good artists musical or filmmaking have honed their skills and maybe gotten connected that way. At the moment Hollywood is making long movies. I just saw PAIN & GAIN (which I may review-- but I put it off to see IRON MAN 3 and report on Cannes), and though it's hard to see how this mess could have been a good film, it certainly could have been a better one if it was cut down to 90 minutes instead of 129.

As for Soderbergh, we are perhaps better for having him, but he flirts with "cinema" rather than immersing himself in it, being perhaps as you suggest seduced by the high life that moving in the company of George Cloony and Matt Damon and rolling in the dough with the star-studded OCEANS series permits. I wonder who he is. Is he an auteur, or an opportunist? He comes form an academic background! His virtue may be that he's uncllassifiable. But I admire filmmakers who just make their own unique films, every time.

The big budget and special effects machine is crushing. One even feels assaulted when sitting in the cineplex. But the industry is crushing individuality and, as you say, storytelling "by those who have lived life and have something to say."

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Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski) - theatrical release

Since Bujalski's calculatedly clunky leap into nerdy 1980 A.I.-dom began its US theatrical release at Film Forum in NYC Wednesday, July 17, 2013, I've expanded my SFIFF post on the movie to a full-length review, though strictly speaking its, for me, local (Bay Area, Opera Plaza and Shattuck Berkeley) release (since I just flew back from NYC to SFO) is not till next Fri. Jul. 26. I have now slightly expanded my original "held" April review, but being about to rewatch the film, and may adjust my comments again accordingly. In memory despite my reserved initial reaction COMPUTER CHESS emerges as the most original American indie film of the year, as others are saying -- that is, along with Shane Carruth's UPSTREAM COLOR.

On Wed. COMPUTER CHESS received an excellent critical response (Metacritic: 79, based on 10 reviews so far*), though less so than the (to me) over-adored VIOLA (Metacritic: 85, based on 7 reviews). If you're interested and outside major metropolitan areas, watch for DVD or VOD releases of COMPUTER CHESS by Kino next year.

Click here or on the title above for the expanded SFIFF review. Also not in General Forum.

*The Metacritic rating has dropped to 74 with 26 reviews as of Dec. 10, 2013, but that's still good for such an experimental film.

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I don't think I'll alter my review for now, just say that this film stands as unique in its ability to creep into your consciousness, as other ultra-low-fi sci-fi films in the past have done. It is surely to me more creepy and surreal than comic, though if people persist in calling it a comedy, I can't say they're wrong. I'd prefer to call it absurdist surrealism. I definitely think Bujalski has successfully moved beyond mere mumblecore here through his effort at period authenticity and the ensemble nature of his action. Still stands as destined to be one of the truly memorable American films of the year, not just Amerindie.

TribecaFilm intereview with Bujalski July 18, 2013 with Trailer.

Fernando Trueba's THE ARTIST AND THE MODEL, with Jean Rochefort and Claudia Cardinale, opened in NYC Aug. 2, 2013. Metacritic rating 49. I kind of warned you. However, it's nice to look at, and some will enjoy it. No monsters or explosions. Nude modeling. Mediterranean summer setting. Lovely light.

Matisse and Renoir, both known for their famous nude paintings, would have made dull subjects had a reality cam watched them in their studios. It's easy to imagine how difficult putting a human form into proper perspective must be to a layman like myself. As the subject of a film, you must have sympathized somewhat being both film critic and painter.

Sympathize? Not really. He took on the subect. It was up to him to make something interesting of it. And there is a precident for this subject being handled interestingly that I acknowledged in my review when I wrote, "Compare this little film with Jacques Rivette's almost four-hour La belle noiseuse (1991) starring Michel Piccoli, and you will see how much more complex a treatment of the artist-model relationship can be." Mike D'Angelo, whose reviews I tend to follow, grabs this bull by the horns and brings the issue up right away in the first paragraph of his ARTIST AND THE MODEL review, for AV Cllub, which publishes his excellent day-by-day Cannes Festival reviews:

Quote:

---

I Saw This
By Mike D'Angelo August 1, 2013
Director: Fernando Trueba
Cast: Jean Rochefort, Aida Folch, Claudia Cardinale (In French, Catalan, and Spanish w/subtitles)
Rated: R
Running time: 105 minutes
Sometimes a film tackles a particular subject so exhaustively that there scarcely seems to be any point in subsequent movies about it. Jacques Rivette’s 1991 drama La Belle Noiseuse devotes four hours to the thorny relationship between a male artist and his nude female model, dissecting the power structure with minute attention to every emotional detail. Its existence towers over any effort to explore similar material, yet there have been two such attempts already this year alone. Renoir, though mediocre, at least had a biopic angle to exploit, and also split focus between painter Pierre-Auguste and his son Jean, the soon-to-be-famous filmmaker. Fernando Trueba’s The Artist And The Model, however, is a wholly fictional tale, and while it has a few lovely, tender moments, there’s a definite feeling of “been there, drawn that.”

---

D'Angelo knows Trueba better than I do and mentions his work has been "placid and unchallenging" for two decades. All I know is this one is placid and unchallenging. The Renoir one, as he mentions, at least has a historical biopic angle. Matisse would be more interesting than either Trueba's purely fictional sculptor or the French film's Renoir, because he's a more interesting artist and his relationship with his models is more intense and transformative if you look at, say, his big Reclining Nude at the Baltimore Museum of Art, whose many stages were recorded in photographs.

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MATISSE'S 'RECLINING NUDE' IN THE CONE COLLECTION, BALTIMORE
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Atiq Rahimi: The Patience Stone (2012)--SFIFF April '13

This came out in NYC [Film Forum] and LA Wed, Aug. 14, 2013, but by the rules of releasing protocol I am not allowed to post my full review till it comes out in the San Francisco Bay Area August 30. Despite its good reviews in France and Oscar entry, it has not done well critically here (Metacritic 58). Mike D'Angelo dares to say what I worked my way around: it's just one long monologue and it's boring. He gives in a C- on AV Club.

I just found this on Mike D'Angelo's twiter feed. Were those not better days?

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"Advise and Consent" was on TCM - the Essentials over the weekend (with its all-star cast); the crime at the heart of the drama is that a senator had a gay liaison with his Army buddy during the Korean War - portrayed as the ultimate social faux pas. The senator is blackmailed for his vote or capitulation. I love the film and watched it with my wife on Sunday right after golf ended.

Preminger loved to shock audiences with his frank talk about sexual taboos (such as rape in "Anatomy of a Murder"). "Advise and Consent" tried to shine a light on the political process that few people knew at the time had existed in Washington for decades. The novel by Allen Drury was a big best seller and won the Pulitzer in 1960. Unfortunately for Preminger, his abrasive personality cost him many accolades that should have come his way had he been more of a Hollywood insider. While he had many friends in Hollywood (Billy Wilder among them), he was considered too opinionated by many and never won the coveted recognition that so many directors with his level of involvement crave. Nominated for his work - Laura and Anatomy of a Murder - "Advise and Consent" while a box office success didn't garner one nomination that year for anything - perhaps a commentary of how taboo the subject of homosexuality was at the time.

That Sallitt should list it as the number one film of the year is rather telling. Don't you think?

Adding my 2 cents:

I totally understand the ambivalence towards Steven Soderbergh and his films. To me he's a craftsman who has made movies that excited me and he also made a bunch that I will never watch (Oceans 11 series as one example).

Kubrick can be heard on the audio CD that came with the original Taschen Stanley Kubrick Archives book that studios (and their bosses) need to respect the directors who KNOW how to make a film.
George Lucas also lamented once upon a time that a directors job is to make the film, and the studios job is to MARKET the film. And all too often the studio has no clue how to market a movie. (which is why 20th Century Fox gave him all rights to the toys from Star Wars).

What we see today is largely cookie-cutter marketing, with the trailer usually doing the selling. Sometimes a poster can do more work than the trailer (at least for me, anyway).
I wish studio executives knew how to make a movie. Then maybe you'd see more "hits" and "sleepers".

I'm always looking for excuses to post my lists...

1962-Oscar Jubis

LA JETEE (Marker)
THE HOUSE IS BLACK (Farrokhzad)
MAMA ROMA (Pasolini)
THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (Ford)
L'ECLISSE (Antonioni)
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (Schlesinger)
THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (Bunuel)
MY LIFE TO LIVE (Godard)
CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 (Varda)
IVAN’S CHILDHOOD (Tarkovsky)

RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY (Peckinpah)
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (Lean)
THE ELUSIVE CORPORAL (Renoir)
LOLITA (Kubrick)
HATARI! (Hawks)
THE TRIAL (Welles)
AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON (Ozu)
PITFALL (Teshigahara)
SANJURO (Kurosawa)
SALVATORE GIULIANO (Rosi)

DEVI (Ray)
KNIFE IN THE WATER (Polanski)
LE DOULOS (Melville)
CAPE FEAR (Thompson)
BOCCACCIO ’70 (Monicelli/Fellini/Visconti/de Sica)
ADVISE AND CONSENT (Preminger)
LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (Lumet)
SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN (Lope-Nilsson)
HARAKIRI (Kobayashi)
DIVORCE ITALIAN STYLE (Germi)

Another proof that those were better -- way better -- times for movies.

I love LA JETÉE, L'ECLISSE, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, LOLITA, SANAJURO, LE DOULOS, DIVORCE ITALIAN STYLE. It goes on and one. And 1961 was great too.

I could sit and watch Renoir read from the Paris phone book and it would beat these modern punks any day!

Of course, the splash that "La Jetee" made on its debut was so significant. It was as if the entire science fiction film community had been asleep.

And I felt so gratified to find John Ford on both lists. Yes, it's schmaltzy, but beyond the sentiment there is great dramatic tension, incredible close ups of Wayne post-Searchers, looking like he didn't give a crap, and Lee Marvin with such a great sadistic villain (way better than most guys - in fact, anyone playing a sadist villain should watch Marvin and take a few good lessons). Ford is another filmmaker I could just sit and watch and be happy to pass if I was on my deathbed (knock, knock).

Yes indeed, Preminger fought many times with the PCA for inclusion of words that were verboten.
Great to be among Ford lovers. I have not seen the TV movie directed by Ford on the list CK posted. Have you?
The only shot in La Jetee that is not a freeze-frame or a photo is among the most memorable in cinema history.
The Elusive Corporal is bottom-barrel Renoir and nearly makes my Top 10 in a remarkable year.
1961 was better though...I was born that year ;)

Even though I haven't watched Ford much because I've never liked Westerns, surely he's one of the American greats. Not so sure about Preminger. He is known more for content than his art as a filmmaker. And some of that is sensationalist or otherwise dubious. Indeed "Flashing Spikes" is an odd inclusion and I've never heard of it. But it has James Stewart and Jack Warden. LA JETEE is reveting and remarkable. Also very French.

I wrote in detail about 3 scenes from Anatomy of a Murder to illustrate his use of the camera and other formal elements and how they serve the narrative in Preminger's films:
http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.p...my-of-a-Murder

This thread has reminded me of his magnificent Fallen Angel, someday I'll write about it, which I haven't seen as often as Laura, Anatomy, and Angel Face.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASAE · DECEMBER 9, 2013

FILMS SUPPORTED BY SAN FRANCISCO FILM SOCIETY'S
FILMMAKER360 PROGRAM TO PREMIERE AT
2014 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL2014

[Read to the bottom and you'll see the SFFS has a good track record for the past year.--CK.]

San Francisco, CA -- Seven films that have received support from the San Francisco Film Society's Filmmaker360 program will have their world premieres at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. As the festival made its final round of feature film announcements for its January event, it was revealed that Kat Candler's Hellion will screen in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, Sara Colangelo's Little Accidents and Ira Sachs' Love is Strange will appear in the Premieres category and both Gillian Robespierre's Obvious Child and Michael Tully's Ping Pong Summer will be included in the festival's popular program. In addition to these narrative projects, two films enrolled in the SFFS Project Development program will have their world premieres in the U.S. Documentary Competition: Marmato, directed by Mark Grieco, and The Overnighters, directed by Bay Area-based filmmaker Jesse Moss. Funded by San Francisco Film Society grants and incubated with the support of various Filmmaker360 programs, these exciting and varied films are poised to make a splash on the country's biggest stage for independent film.

Filmmaker360, the San Francisco Film Society's filmmaker support program, offers assistance and opportunities to foster creativity and further the careers of independent filmmakers nationwide and oversees one of the largest film grant programs in the country, which disperses nearly $1 million annually to incubate and support innovative and exceptional films. Other services offered by Filmmaker360 include project development and fiscal sponsorship, FilmHouse residencies offering free office space to filmmakers in any stage of production, Off the Page script workshops, and more. For more information visit sffs.org/filmmaker360.

SAN FRANCISCO FILM SOCIETY-SUPPORTED FILMS
AT SUNDANCE 2014

Hellion, directed by Kat Candler, U.S. Dramatic Competition
When his delinquent behavior forces his little brother to be taken away, a motocross-obsessed teenager and his emotionally absent father must take responsibility for their destructive behavior to bring him home.
* Fall 2013 SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grant winner: $70,000 for postproduction

Little Accidents, directed by Sara Colangelo, Premieres
In a small American coal town, the disappearance of a boy draws a young miner, the lonely wife of a mine executive and a local 14-year-old together in a web of secrets.
* Fall 2013 SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grant winner: $50,000 for postproduction

Love is Strange, directed by Ira Sachs, Premieres
A multi-generational story of love and marriage, Love is Strange depicts the delicate nature of any two people trying to build a long life together, and the possibility of love to grow deeper, and richer, with time.
* Fall 2013 SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grant winner: $70,000 for postproduction

Marmato, directed by Mark Grieco, U.S. Documentary Competition
Colombia is the center of a new global gold rush, and Marmato, a historic mining town, is the new frontier. Filmed over the course of nearly six years, Marmato chronicles how townspeople confront a Canadian mining company that wants the $20 billion in gold beneath their homes.
* Currently enrolled in the SFFS Project Development program

Obvious Child, directed by Gillian Robespierre
An honest comedy about what happens when Brooklyn comedian Donna Stern gets dumped, fired, and pregnant, just in time for the worst/best Valentine's Day of her life.
* Participated in the SFFS "Off the Page" screenwriting workshop in January 2013

The Overnighters, directed by Jesse Moss, U.S. Documentary Competition
Desperate, broken men chase their dreams and run from their demons in the North Dakota oil fields. A local Pastor's decision to help them has extraordinary and unexpected consequences.
* Currently enrolled in the SFFS Project Development program

Ping Pong Summer, directed by Michael Tully
1985. Ocean City, Maryland. Summer vacation. Rap music. Parachute pants. Ping pong. First crushes. Best friends. Mean bullies. Weird mentors. That awkward, momentous time in your life when you're treated like an alien by everyone around you, even though you know deep down you're as funky fresh as it gets.
* Fall 2012 SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grant winner: $50,000 for postproduction

San Francisco Film Society-supported projects in the 2013 Sundance lineup presented earlier this year included Ryan Coogler's Fruitvale Station, which premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition and went on to win both the festival's Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the narrative category; Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson's American Promise; Zachary Heinzerling's Cutie and the Boxer; Jacob Kornbluth's Inequality for All; and Shaul Schwarz's Narco Cultura.

For additional information visit sffs.org/filmmaker360.