San Francisco International Film Festival 2011 (year 54)

[Chris Knipp]

IFC's non-release of Bancs publics would be worth looking into if I can find someone who'd know. IFC has a bit of a rep for buying things and just sitting on them sometimes.

Let's hope this pattern you describe spreads to other urban centers of the country. In the Bay Area Landmark has a semi-monopoly on art houses, along with Rialto and the Roxie. Perhaps because of the IFC Center, Film Forum, Anthology Film Archives, Quad Cinema, Cinema Village, Angelika, and the activities (now growing) at Lincoln Center and MoMA and more, that may explain why there is only a single Landmark cineplex in Manhattan while the Bay Area has multiiple Landmarks. Some of their programming is not very adventurous. The biggest one in Berkeley is showing HANGOVER II and BRIDESMAIDS.

The Roxie Cinema in San Francisco is the only place around here I really know of that is like the independent cinemas you describe working directly with foreign distributers for their own local unique releases. http://www.roxie.com/. Right now they are running the Frameline (gay) Festival. You can see these events coming at the Roxie:

THE BIG UNEASY
Starting July 10

Harry Shearer IN PERSON

and more importantly

ROAD TO NOWHERE / Monte Hellman in Person / Hellman Retrospective
Starting July 22

Monte Hellman IN PERSON after the 7pm & before the 9:30 shows, Friday, July 22In a career spanning over five decades, Monte Hellman’s relatively compact body of work has proven him to be one of the Great American Directors.

[oscar jubis]

The Roxie looks great. And I'm happy about the Hellman retrospective. Great opportunity if you haven't seen stuff like Cockfighter. It's Warren Oates in the lead. Enough said.

Without a doubt NYC is the best city for cinephilia. Can't beat that.

What seems unique about Miami is that, with one exception, our art cinemas are either run by academic institutions (Cosford, Tower) or by a non-profit board (both Gables and SoBeach cinematheques). This is significant because they don't have the pressure to turn a profit, so they don't have to condescend to what's popular. I was disappointed to find out that the excellent Cinema Studies department at San Francisco State U., better than my own program at UM, doesn't have a screening room or theater open to the public.

[Chris Knipp]

Definitely non-profit or academic sponsorship of art houses would be a strong feature. I didn't know the SF State Cinema Studies Dept. was better than yours in Miami, or that it has no showings for the public. I'll try to get to some of the Roxie showings for Hellman. It is near a BART station. NYC is very lively, but you do know that people miss the many big old art and rep houses of the past that have shut down over the past three decades. Film Forum often lists some of them when they ask for contributions or subscriptions. Another site I forgot to mention is the Museum of the Moving Image, which is great, though in Astoria, Queens. I've only been there once, should go more often.

I watched Barbara Loden's WANDA, which you recommended. Strange little piece of Americana. Some of the sequences could be motion picture outgrowths of Robert Frank's seminal photography treatise, The Americans. A film that feels authentic and haunting, and at yet at the same time is in some ways ludicrous and amateurish. It also seems an outgrowth of Loden's own life. I didn't know she was a protege of Elia Kazan and his wife, and died "still angry" at the age of 48.

[Chris Knipp]

Have you seen Hellman's BACK DOOR TO HELL? That is not in the Roxie series but is one of only two, with TWO LANE BLACKTOP, available on DVD from Netflix. COCKFIGHTER and ROAD TO NOWHERE they list as coming eventually, maybe.

[oscar jubis]

No, I haven't seen Back Door to Hell and I want to. I've seen: Ride in the Whirlwind, The Shooting, Two-lane Blacktop, Cockfighter and Iguana. Cockfighter has been released on DVD in the US by 3 different companies. The one with the best picture quality and Hellman commentary was released by Anchor Bay in 2001. It is now a collector's item. I have the inferior but acceptable Catcom release.
Good point about Wanda and Robert Frank's photography.

[Chris Knipp]

Good to know.

I forgot the Film Society of Lincoln Center had a Monte Hellman event in connection with the Open Roads festival a couple weeks ago.



TO HELLMAN AND BACK: AN EVENING WITH MONTE HELLMAN - June 8

The Film Society of Lincoln Center presented an evening of cinema, literature and music celebrating the return of iconoclastic director Monte Hellman and the release of a new edition of Charles Willeford's long out-of-print novel Cockfighter. FSLC, Picture Box Books and Monterey Media presented a movie double bill of Hellman's new film ROAD TO NOWHERE and his 70s cult-favorite COCKFIGHTER followed by a book party in the Furman Gallery fueled by a live musical performance by Matt Sweeney.


You shouldn't be intimidated in the least to ask this guy a question. (Photo by Justina Walford)

[Chris Knipp]

Graham Leggat has announced that he is leaving his job as director of the San Francisco Film Society (and the SFIFF) after six years, for health reasons.

Graham Leggat has stepped down as executive director of the San Francisco Film Society, effectively immediately.

In a letter circled to colleagues Monday, Leggat cited health issues for his departure, saying, “As you know, I have relished my leadership role in this dynamic, beloved organization. Unfortunately, health issues make it impossible for me to continue to serve effectively.”

Leggat said that leadership will transfer to the SFFS staff lead by Deputy Director Steven Jenkins and the organization’s Board of Directors.

Graham Leggat was appointed executive director of the organization, which hosts year-round programming including the annual San Francisco International Film Festival, the oldest in North America [IN 2005]. Prior to his appointment, he served as director of communications at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York.

While serving as the venerable institution’s executive director., he has spearheaded a number of new initiatives, including the most recent announcement that it would operate a theater in San Francisco’s Japantown neighborhood, giving the 54-year-old organization a beachhead in which it could offer its exhibition, education and filmmaker services programs year-round.

Leggat was Director of Communications at the FSLC the first year I covered the NYFF in Filmleaf. He was a dynamic and powerful press and industry liaison and far more than that, not surprising that he would go on to become a film society and film festival director. The Scottish-born Leggett had spent time in Northern California before and liked it. He has been a magnanimous,outgoing and tireless leader and revitalized the SFFS, always championing great films and great directors bringing the Society to new heights as an organization. It will be hard to find a true replacement. To give a sense of what a difference Leggat has made suffice it to say that his predecessor's regime was described by a blogger as "inept tyranny." Leggat has been an enormous asset to San Francisco and one can only keep one's fingers crossed that someone of similar merit can be found. As that blog points out, Leggat defended his predecessor on the basis of the SFIFF's fine festival programs. But Leggat greatly expanded the SF Film Society's other functions, its funding, and its physical capability, notably in the recent announcement of a new state-of-the-art venue for film presentations near the Sundance Kabuki, headquarters of the festival.


GRAHAM LEGGAT AT CANNES 2005