Interview: Iranian filmmaker Bahram Beyzaie discusses “Downpour,” his newly-restored, pivotal classic of Iranian cinema, screening at the 56th San Francisco International Film Festival, Sunday, April 28, 2013
Iranian film director and playwright Bahram Beyzaie will appear at the 56th San Francisco International Film Festival for a screening of “Downpour,” (Ragbar, 1971), a classic of Iranian cinema, newly restored by the World Cinema Foundation. Photo: courtesy San Francisco Film Society.
Over the years, the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF 56) has showcased some remarkable Iranian films and this year is no exception. Bahram Beyzaie’s Downpour (Ragbar, 1971, 128 min), poetic and executed in a neo-realistic vein, was pivotal in shaping Iranian new wave cinema. This classic screens Sunday, April 28 and Sunday, May 5. It almost immediately went to rush sales and hasn’t been screened in the Bay Area publicly for years. Beyzaie will attend on Sunday, April 28, participating in a post-screening Q&A with the audience.
Bahram Beyzaie, one of Iran’s most esteemed filmmakers, playwrights, and scholars of the history of Iranian theater, is part of the generation of filmmakers referred to as the Iranian New Wave which emerged in the late 1960’s. Blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, and transcending the realism of Iran’s pre-revolutionary era with a highly poetic approach to editing, dialogue and context, Downpour, Beyzai’s first feature film, and his second film ever, stands as an early foundational pillar of the new wave. Despite being regarded as one of the best and most influential Iranian films ever made, it was nearly considered lost as it screened so rarely. Beyzaie, currently teaching at Stanford, had the only known surviving copy and was reticent to show it. All other copies had been seized and presumably destroyed. Thanks to Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation, the surviving print, which was badly damaged with scratches, perforation tears and mid-frame splices, was restored in 2011 at Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna/ L’immagine Ritrovata laboratory. Over 1500 hours went into its repair.
Downpour’s story revolves around Mr. Hekmati (Parviz Fannizadeh), an educated and progressive teacher who is transferred to a school in the south of Tehran, a poor conservative area. When his pupils become unruly, he expels one young boy. The boy’s older sister, `Atefeh (Parvaneh Masoomi), comes to the school and protests the expulsion, speaking to Hekmati in private. Another student sees them together and spreads rumors that Mr. Hekmati and `Atefeh are having a love affair. As Hekmati tries to set the record straight, he suddenly finds he really is in love with her. Caught between the overactive imaginations of his students and the idle gossip of neighborhood busybodies, the idealistic Mr. Hekmati quickly finds himself at the center of controversy. Soon all eyes in the community are on him. A rich story that explores love as much as it does control and morality, Downpour addresses Iranian society in a way that reveal what is intimate and poignantly familiar in our human condition. (I’ll come up with something better after seeing the film)
It was a pleasure to speak with Bahram Beyzaie in advance of Downpour’s screening at SFIFF 56. Beyzaie has been at Stanford for three years now and teaches courses in Iranian cinema, Iranian contemporary theater, and cinema and mythology. His career as a filmmaker has spanned four decades and has made ten feature and four short films and has more than thirty-five plays and fifty screenplays to his credit. He is also quite active in theatre and his latest theater work “Jana & Baladoor: A Play in Shadows” was produced by Stanford University’s Iranian Studies Dept. and performed at Palo Alto’s Cubberly Community Center in 2012.
To what does the title “Ragbar” or “Downpour” refer? It is about intellectual life in Iran at that time?
Bahram Beyzaie: It refers to intellectual life in Iran in general and not just at that time. The appearance of the main character in Downpour is very short, like a flash of a lightening.
A scene from Bahram Beyzaie’s “Downpour” (1971), hailed as one of the greatest Iranian films, restored by World Cinema Foundation in 2011, screening at SIFF 56 with Beyzaie in attendance. Photo: courtesy San Francisco Film Society
What was it like to make a film in Iran in the 1970’s? You worked with few resources but produced a beautiful film.
Bahram Beyzaie: Downpour was an independent film, and had no official or commercial sponsor. It was spontaneously made with no prior planning. I wanted to create something that went against Iranian commercial cinema and its affected/ pseudo-intellectual films. For the first time in Iranian cinema, the protagonist is an educated person who is not ridiculed or humiliated by the filmmaker. In those days, Iranian traditional thinkers were in the position of humiliating the intellectuals. This film, as well as my third film, addresses the very common educated figure without exaggerating their intellectualism.
What was it like to make a film in Iran in the 1970’s? You worked with few resources but produced a beautiful film.
Bahram Beyzaie: Downpour was an independent film, and had no official or commercial sponsor. It was spontaneously made with no prior planning. I wanted to create something that went against Iranian commercial cinema and its affected/ pseudo-intellectual films. For the first time in Iranian cinema, the protagonist is an educated person who is not ridiculed or humiliated by the filmmaker. In those days, Iranian traditional thinkers were in the position of humiliating the intellectuals. This film, as well as my third film, addresses the very common educated figure without exaggerating their intellectualism.
Who is the most interesting character in the film to you and why? And has that changed any over time?
Bahram Beyzaie: In this story, the central characters are the most interesting to me. The main male character, Mr. Hekmati, is misplaced and certainly a stranger. As for the female character, `Atefeh, this was the first time a female central character was not a prostitute, singer, dancer, or a villager who was seduced by rich figures. Instead, she is a young woman who has a job and tries to find her position to help her family. In Downpour,`Atefeh is presented in a traditional appearance, but in her hidden self, she wishes for change and independence.
A scene from Bahram Beyzaie’s “Downpour” (1971), hailed as one of the greatest Iranian films, restored by World Cinema Foundation in 2011, screening at SIFF 56 with Beyzaie in attendance. Photo: courtesy San Francisco Film Society
What more can you add about Iranian women in at that time?
Bahram Beyzaie: There was a diversity of female figures in the 70’s—from deeply religious and fanatic, to traditional, to very sophisticated women who were university professors, painters, writers, poets, theater activists, some filmmakers, administrative personalities, nurses and medical doctors, and so forth. For example, Downpour’s composer, again for the first in Iranian Cinema, was a woman. It is a great sorrow that Iranian cinema clung so to outdated clichés and portrayed women either as low class singer/dancers, prostitutes, or, if they were educated, as silly, rich, or negative figures.
How did you select the actors in Downpour and were they well known at the time? Did their participation in the film have any significant impact on their careers and did you ever work with any of them again?
Bahram Beyzaie: Some of the actors, including the two main male characters— Parviz Fannizadeh (Hekmati) and Manouchehr Farid (the butcher) were my friends and colleagues in theater, talented but not as successful in their careers as they deserved to be. Before Downpour, they had one or two film experiences with very short parts. The central female character `Atefeh (Parvaneh Masoomi) was unknown to the audience at that time. We discovered her from a TV commercial, maybe her first and last. Later, I acknowledged that she had a film experience in a supporting role. All the boys were my neighbors and had parts in my first short film. I worked with a couple of these boys in my next short film. I worked with Parvaneh Masomi and Manouchehr Farid in three other movies, and Parviz Fanizadeh won his life’s sole acting prize for his performance as Mr. Hekmati in Downpour.
How would you describe the storytelling style you employed in “Downpour,” other than allegorical?
Bahram Beyzaie: Poetic maybe. A poem about daily life. Most of Iranian artistic language is allegorical, metaphoric, or poetic. More or less, you can find metaphors in other countries’ artistic languages as well, but it may be the core of Iranian artistic expression. So is mine in my own way. You know, my father and grandfather were poets too, but their styles were different from mine.
Bahram Beyzaie in the 1970’s, a pioneer of Iranian new wave cinema. His father, uncle and grandfather were famous poets.
What are the characteristics of a great story?
Bahram Beyzaie: I don’t have a good short answer for all tastes. I wish you could watch my last theater work “Jana & Baladoor: A Play in Shadows” which was produced by Stanford University’s Iranian Studies Department —it had music, poetry, puppets, myths, and was a legend of the four mythic siblings representing the four basic elements of earth, water, air, and fire, who battled to redeem the world.
You have written a book about Hitchcock; tell me about your early cinema experiences in Iran. What did you like and was anything restricted?
Bahram Beyzaie: After watching Chaplin’s “City Lights” I began to discover serious cinema by watching three black and white films: Hitchcock’s “Spellbound”, Ophüls’ “Letter’s from an unknown woman” and Carol Reed’s “Third Man”. Later Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” was a shock to discover oriental culture and cinema and great heritage of theater forms. In addition, I loved the great films of German expressionism, work of French masters, Italian neo-Realism, Russian epic cinema, Nordic classic films, British iconic films and American classic cinema. Tehran had a Cine-club and a very important film center which showed all these films on the big screen. Furthermore, the Italian, French, German, American, and USSR cultural centers were active as well in screening their classical films and they were all open to the public. I remember watching Eisenstein’s The Battleship Potemkin in the Russian cultural center. I will never forget the joy of watching Satiyajit Ray’s “Paterpanchali” in the Indian Cultural Center. I remember the Americans had three weeks of American Classical Cinema and I watched all of them. It was usual and normal to watch international films in Tehran at that time – when I was twenty.
How did you eventually become the chairman of Dramatic arts at Tehran University?
Bahram Beyzaie: It was the subsequent of my theater background. In high school I discovered Shakespeare and Greek masters of tragedy, and then suddenly I returned to Iranian traditional theater forms to research the Oriental theater — Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and Indonesian. I started to write plays and became a stage director. Because of my works I was invited to teach theater at the Tehran University.
What was your involvement in the restoration?
Bahram Beyzaie: It happened by the kindness of others. One of my colleagues attending a film festival met someone from the World Cinema Foundation and they spoke of Iranian films and me. My colleague was asked about my films and she explained that Downpour was the only film that was here and had English subtitles but could not be screened due to being the only subtitled copy of the film that existed. Hearing this, the World Cinema Foundation agreed to restore it and they did all the work in Bologna and it took about a year. Thanks to their hard work!
A scene from Bahram Beyzaie’s “Downpour” (1971), hailed as one of the greatest Iranian films, restored by World Cinema Foundation in 2011, screening at SIFF 56 with Beyzaie in attendance. Photo: courtesy San Francisco Film Society
What are you teaching at Stanford?
I’ve been at Stanford (visiting lecturer in comparative literature) for three years now, teaching Iranian cinema, Iranian cinema diaspora, Iranian contemporary theater, and cinema and mythology, which is an analytic view on numerous great films in general from the angle of mythology.
To view a 10 minute trailer of the unrestored Downpour click here.
Downpour/ Ragbar (1971): Directed by Bahram Beyzaie, Screenwriter: Bahram Beyzaie. Cast: Parviz Fannizadeh, Parvaneh Masumi, Manuchehr Farid. DigiBeta, b/w, in Persian with English subtitles, 120 min.
Bahram Beyzaie Films: Vaqti hame khābim (When We Are All Asleep) (2009), Qāli-ye Sokhangū (2006), Sag-Koshi (Killing Mad Dogs)(2001), Mosaferan (The Passengers)(1992), Bashu (The Little Stranger)(1989), Shayad Vaghti Deegar (Maybe Some Other Time)(1988), Marg Yazdgerd (Death of Yazdgerd)(1982), Tcherike-ye Tara (Ballad of Tara)(1979), Kalagh (The Crow)(1976), Gharibe va Meh (The Stranger and the Fog)(1974), Safar (The Journey)(1972), Ragbar (Downpour)(1971); Amoo Sibilou (1969)
(Other restored films which have screened at SFIFF in recent years include Federic Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (Italy, 1960) SFIFF 54; Satyajit Ray’s The Music Room (India, 1958)
DETAILS: Downpour Screens Sunday, April 28, 12:15 PM, Kabuki AND Sunday, May 5, 3:20 PM BAM/PFA). Check ticket availability here.
SFIFF56: April 25-May 9, 2013. 5 Screening Venues: Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, 1881 Post Street, San Francisco; New People Cinema, 1746 Post Street, San Francisco; Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street, San Francisco; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive Theatre, 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. Tickets: $15 for most films with a variety of multiple screening passes. Special events generally start at $20 More info: (415) 561-5000, www.festival.sffs.org
“In My Mother’s Arms”—a powerful Iraqi documentary tells of one man’s courageous attempts to shelter Iraq’s abandoned war orphans
In My Mother’s Arms (2011) 82 min, Directed by Atea Al Daradji, Mohamed Al Daradji
This compelling documentary, up for the Golden Gate Award for a documentary feature at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF 55) , follows Husham Al Thabe, a caring and courageous Iraqi man who runs his own orphanage in Baghdad’s most dangerous district, Sadr City. He works tirelessly to build the hopes, dreams and prospects of the 32 traumatized children of war under his care in the modest two bedroom house he rents. Many of these children used to reside in state-run orphanages where they were abused or neglected. Under Husham’s care, they have slowly started to come out of their shells, but most have peristent trust issues and behavioral problems and are starved for affection and individual attention. They dream of being held in the loving arms of a nurturing female. Husham is consistently denied financial support from the Iraqi government which insists that the children would fare better in a state run orphanage and in orphan schools. Husham just manages to survive through the donations of concerned individuals. The situation is crowded but functional–the boys are well fed, well clothed, do well in school and pursue extracurrcular activities, like diving. It takes time to build trust but slowly the boys learn to trust and confide some in each other and in Husham. When the landlord gives Husham and the boys just two weeks to vacate, a desperate search for a new home ensues. This film reflects the bitter reality of life for an entire generation of young Iraqis growing up in a war-torn society and the tremendous difference that a single caring dedicated and tenacious individual like Husham Al Thabe can make. (Screens at Pacific Film Archive, Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at 9 PM)
55th S.F. International Film Festival
When: Thursday, April 19, 2012 through Thursday, May 3, 2012
5 Venues: Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, 1881 Post Street, San Francisco, S.F. Film Society Cinema, 1746 Post Street, San Francisco, Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street, San Francisco, SFMOMA, 151 Third Street, San Francisco, Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley
Tickets: $11 to $13 for most films with a variety of multiple screening passes. Special events generally start at $20
More info: (415) 561-5000, www.sffs.org
Absent Iranian filmmakers deliver memorable films at the 55th San Francisco International Film Festival, through May 3, 2012
Pasandide (award winning Iranian actress Negar Javaherian) is about to be married in Reza Mirkarimi's “A Cube of Sugar,” playing at the 55th San Francisco International Film Festival, April 19 - May 3, 2012.
Over the years the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF 55) has showcased some remarkable Iranian films and this year is no exception. Mohammad Rasoulof’s Goodbye, Reza Mirkarimi’s A Cube of Sugar and Marjanne Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s Chicken With Plums are this year’s offerings— each film screens several times throughout the festival which ends on May 3, 2012. Sadly, we’ve come to accept that it’s rare for Iranian filmmakers to make personal appearances at film festivals these days but we revel in their creativity and courage and unparalleled storytelling. What makes the situation so fascinating is that, in present day Iran, filmmakers have no freedom of expression and yet they have managed to become central in its complex social and political discourse, to the point that they are considered serious threats by the Iranian regime. Working under the constant threat of censorship and imprisonment has forced Iranian filmmakers to express themselves indirectly through metaphor and allegory and they have astounded us with rich stories that are about politics yet transcend politics to reveal what is intimate and poignantly familiar in our human condition.
Goodbye (bé omid é didar)(2011, 100 min) In 2009, Mohammad Rasoulof (along with fellow filmmaker Jafar Panahi) faced arrest, a six-year prison sentence and a 20 year filmmaking ban at the hands of the Iranian Revolutionary Court, which also prohibited interviews with local and foreign media. Goodbye, his fifth feature film, and most realistic to date, was smuggled out of Iran and made its debut at Cannes in 2011, where it won the award for best direction in the Certain Regard section. The film is a gripping indictment of Iran, told through the bleak story of a Tehran activist lawyer, Noura (Leya Zareh), whose legal license has been suspended and who is desperate to leave Iran. Her husband, some type of political journalist, has escaped authorities and is living low in Southern Iran. Noura has consulted a fixer whose job it is to help people leave Iran and her pregnancy figures in her exit scheme. As she quietly prepares to leave her homeland and aging mother, she encounters all sorts of hitches which ratchet up the suspense. At the same time, just navigating the course of her daily life—always covered, always monitored, always explaining, always navigating tight passages and not having her husband present to authorize things as simple as checking into a hotel, we get a very good feel for the chilling lack of personal freedom afforded Iran’s educated and professional women. Rasoulof’s previous films include Head Wind (2008), Iron Island (SFIFF 2006) and The White Meadows(SFIFF 2010). Read ARThound’s review of The White Meadows and about film censorship in Iran here. (Fri, Apr 20, 2012, 1:30 p.m., Sat, Apr 21, 2012, 1 p.m., Mon Apr 23, 2012, 6:30 p.m., all at Kabuki)
Chicken With Plums (Poulet aux prunes) (2011, 91 min) Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s drama based on Satrapi’s best-selling graphic novel of the same name which, in 2005, won the Prize for Best Comic Book of the year at the prestigious Angoulême International Comics Festival. Satrapi, who lives in Paris, was born in Iran in 1969 but was sent by her family to Vienna in 1983 to escape the post-Shah fallout, a story she told in her acclaimed book and animated film Persepolis (2000, 2007). Chicken with Plums is as riveting a portrait of an artist and all his brilliant and disturbing excesses that you’ll find. Set in 1958 in post-Mossadegh Tehran (deftly filmed in German and France), the winding story captures the last eight days of Nasser Ali’s life. The virtuoso tar player (a Persian string instrument) has resigned himself to die after he runs into his old love, Irâne, who does not recognize him, and then returns home to find that his wife has smashed his prized musical instrument beyond repair. As he miserably, egocentrically and brilliantly winds down, only his daughter, Farzaneh, his memories, and his favorite dish, chicken with plums, rouse his desire. Imaginative sets, lighting and animation all enhance the drama. (Mon, April 30, 2012, 6:15 p.m. and Wed, May 2, 2012, 12:30 p.m., both at Kabuki.)
A Cube of Sugar (Ye habe ghand) (2011, 116 min) Reza Mirkarimi’s sublimely beautiful dramatic comedy about three generations of an Iranian middle class family coming together in the old family home as the youngest girl, Pasandide (Negar Javaherian), is about to be married. Not everything goes as planned and it has something to do with the sweetener. Traditional family dynamics play out as four sisters gather together to cook, sew, gossip and prepare for the wedding. The family compound of aged Uncle Ezzatolah (Saeed Poursamimi) proves an ideal site for this reunion with its lush courtyard gardens, labyrinthine parlors and passageways, and erratic electrical system (subject to untimely city blackouts). Mirikami captures all the proceedings with breathtaking images bathed in glowing light, accompanied by a sensual musical score by Mohammad Reza Alighouli. In 2005, Mirkarimi’s film Too Far, Too Close (Kheili dour, kheili nazdik), which he also co-authored and produced, was Iran’s selection for the Foreign Language Oscar. Javaherian won the best actress prize in the 2010 Fajr International Film Festival for her role in Gold and Copper (Tala va Mes) (2010) and is likely to deliver a memorable performance here as well. (Sun, Apr 22, 2012, 4 p.m., Tue, Apr 24, 2012, 9 p.m., Wed Apr 25, 2012, 12:30 p.m.—all at San Francisco Film Society Cinema.)
55th S.F. International Film Festival
When: Thursday, April 19, 2012 through Thursday, May 3, 2012
5 Venues: Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, 1881 Post Street, San Francisco, S.F. Film Society Cinema, 1746 Post Street, San Francisco, Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street, San Francisco, SFMOMA, 151 Third Street, San Francisco, Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley
Tickets: $11 to $13 for most films with a variety of multiple screening passes. Special events generally start at $20
More info: (415) 561-5000, www.sffs.org
The 31st San Francisco Jewish Film Festival brings its best films to San Rafael’s Rafael Film Center August 6-8, 2011
- Feliks Falk’s “Joanna” opens the Marin programming for the 31st San Francisco Jewish Festival. Urszula Grabowska (left) is Joanna, a Polish woman who finds seven-year-old Rose (Sara Knothe ) sleeping in the pews of a church and is faced with a split-second decision—to take the child with her or leave her for the Nazis. Image courtesy SFJF.
For those of us who live in the North Bay, the travel time and various costs associated with going to San Francisco for even a special film can put a damper on the most enthusiastic of fans. Next Saturday, August 6, 2011, through Monday, August 8, 2011, the 31st San Francisco Jewish Film Festival will cross the bridge and splash onto the screen of Marin’s Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center offering 16 of its best films and shorts. This year’s festival opened in San Francisco on July 21 and this is its 15th year of presentations in Marin. The first and still the largest of its kind, the festival showcases some of the best and brightest cinematic gems—offering a full complement of films, celebrations, panel discussions and international guests—that highlight various aspects of Jewish culture.
Opening Night, August 6, kicks off with Joanna, a riveting drama
On Saturday August 6—the opening evening—Marin audiences will be treated to film and theater director Feliks Falk’s Joanna [Poland, 2011, 105 min], which proposes the altruistic dilemma—what would you risk to save another during World War II in Nazi-occupied Poland? Joanna (Urszula Grabowska) is a gentile woman who finds 8-year-old Rose, a Jewish girl abandoned in a church, and faces this dilemma knowing that any choice she makes will be life-changing. They embark on a relationship that helps to heal their respective losses, but Joanna faces difficult decisions if Rose is to survive. Following Joanna that evening is Ben Berkowitz’s Polish Bar [US, 2010, 96 min], which centers on ambitious Reuben Horowitz (Boardwalk Empire’s Vincent Piazza) who works in his Uncle Sol’s (Judd Hirsch) Chicago jewelry store but dreams of DJing at a top local club. Reaching for his dream, Reuben rolls the dice with his uncle Sol’s merchandise on a big drug score in this gritty, raucous drama suffused with an urban Jewish hip-hop vibe. Berkowitz will appear in person at the San Rafael screening.
Monday night, the Festival comes to a close with Avi Nesher’s The Matchmaker [Israel, 2010, 112 min], an affectionate, bittersweet feature set in 1960s Haifa, in which protagonist Arik’s eye-opening summer vacation includes the sexy Iraqi-Jewish-American niece of his best friend, a seedy downtown movie theater run by a group of Jewish dwarfs who met at Auschwitz, and Yankele Bride—matchmaker, shady businessman and Holocaust survivor.
Diverse stories with international flavors
This year’s program is especially strong on documentaries. It begins with Marin’s first screening next Saturday: Incessant Visions—Letters from an Architect [Israel, 2011, 70 min]. This is Duki Dror’s (My Fantastia, The Journey of Vaan Nguyen, Mr. Cortisone, Happy Days) compelling meditation on the life and career of the architect Eric Mendelsohn. Of local interest, Mendelsohn’s granddaughter, Daria Joseph, is a Marin resident.
Next Year in Bombay [France, India, 2010, 55 min], a co-production by Jonas Parientè and Mathias Mangin, profiles the surprising diversity of India’s Jewish communities. The film focuses on a young couple’s struggle with their desire to see Judaism thrive in India and their commitment to providing their children with a Jewish education which is only possible if they move to Israel.
From France, Rose Bosch’s The Roundup [France, 2009, 120 min] is the harrowing investigative account of the Vel d’Hiv roundup of Paris’ Jews in 1942 with a stand-out performance by French actor Jean Reno (The Professional). Standing Silent [US, 2010, 82 min] is Scott Rosenfelt’s profile of journalist Phil Jacobs, whose crusade to unmask sexual predators within the Jewish community exposes him to ostracism for exposing the community to external scrutiny. Liz Garbus (Shouting Fire) brings a portrait of the complicated life of the tormented chess genius in Bobby Fischer Against the World [US, 2010, 92 min].
Also screening at the Rafael Film Center and part of the San Francisco portion of SFJFF festival programming is Crime After Crime [US, 2011, 95 min], Yoav Potash’s unforgettable chronicle of a woman’s fight against horrible injustice. Winner of both Audience Choice and Golden Gate awards at the San Francisco International Film Festival, this compelling documentary tells the story of the legal battle to free Debbie Peagler, an incarcerated survivor of domestic violence. Over 26 years in prison could not crush the spirit of this determined African-American woman, despite the wrongs she suffered, first at the hands of a duplicitous boyfriend who beat her and forced her into prostitution, and later by prosecutors who used the threat of the death penalty to corner her into a life behind bars for her connection to the murder of her abuser. Her story takes an unexpected turn when her cause is taken up by two volunteer attorneys: Joshua Safran, who witnessed spousal abuse as a child and whose identity as an Orthodox Jew fuels his work on the case, and Nadia Costa, a former social worker for Children’s Protective Services in Los Angeles. Tickets for this exceptional film, which opens Friday, August 5, 2011 at the Rafael Film Center with multiple screenings, can be purchased directly from the Rafael Film Center, as it is not officially part of the Marin festival offerings.
On the narrative side, thought-provoking stories abound from Israel, Poland and Germany, as well as America. Aside from the opening and closing night offerings of Joanna, Polish Bar and The Matchmaker, from Israel comes Mabul (The Flood) [Israel, Canada, France, Germany, 2011, 97 min], directed by Guy Nattiv, which paints the unstable members of the Rosko family, each hiding dark secrets from the others. Affairs, adolescence, drugs and unemployment plague the Roskos, and when autistic son Tomer suddenly rejoins the family, the building pressure explodes. The sharp performances of the cast earned the film 6 Ofir nominations, the Israeli equivalent of the Oscars.
Nir Bergman’s Intimate Grammar [Israel, 2010, 110 min] is a beautiful narrative based on a 1991 David Grossman novel and is movingly told from the point of view of the teenage son of a dysfunctional family in 1960’s Jerusalem. From Poland, Jan Kidawa-Blonski’s Little Rose [Poland, 2010, 118 min] is a Cold War espionage thriller that opens as news of the Six Day War arrives. In this paranoid atmosphere, a blond bombshell (Magdalena Boczarska) is hired by the secret police to spy on a renowned intellectual (Andrzej Seweryn) suspected of subversive views. This twisted love story becomes entangled with the intrigues of the State security apparatus.
In an Austrian/German/Hungarian co-production, Elizabeth Scharang’s debut feature In Another Lifetime [Austria, Germany, Hungary, 2010, 94 min] (see ARThound’s full review) is a haunting and bittersweet tale of Hungarian Jews on a forced march towards death who stage a Strauss operetta in an Austrian village in a vain hope to survive their fate.
About the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), turned 31 this year and is the world’s oldest and largest Jewish film festival. There are 58 films in all─38 full-length films in all—38 full-length films (23 documentaries and 15 narratives) and 19 shorts (10 documentaries, 1 narrative and 8 animations) from 16 countries. There are many free events too. Attracting more than 33,000 filmgoers annually, SFJFF is world-renowned for the diversity and breadth of its audiences and films. SFJFF’s mission is to promote awareness and appreciation of the diversity of the Jewish people, provide a dynamic and inclusive forum for exploration of and dialogue about the Jewish experience, and encourage independent filmmakers working with Jewish themes.
The SFJFF Jewish Film Forum
Members of SFJFF’s Jewish Film Forum receive exclusive discounts on all festival tickets, passes and 10-Flix vouchers. The Jewish Film Forum is SFJFF’s year-round affiliation program bringing film lovers together to enjoy and support the mission and programs of SFJFF. Memberships, which begin at $50, may be purchased online or by phone when ordering tickets.
Details: The Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center is located at 1118 Fourth Street in San Rafael. Metered parking is available on the street or chose from several lots close by. The San Rafael portion of the festival starts next Saturday, August 6, 2011 and runs through Monday, August 8, 2011.
Tickets are $12.00 for the general public and can be purchased online or by phone (M-F 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) at 415.621.0523. Tickets are also available for same day purchase at individual screening venues but screenings may sell out in advance www.sfjff.org. “Discount 10-Flix Voucher Packs” are $100 for the general public. Group rates and special prices for students and seniors are available.
2nd Annual German Gems Film Festival set to sparkle at the Castro this weekend and in Point Arena on January 22, 2011
Johannes Silberschneider (left) as Mahler and Karl Markovics as Freud in MAHLER ON THE COUCH by Percy and Felix Adlon. The film opens the second German Gems Film Festival this Friday at the Castro Theatre. Photo courtesy of German Gems
The 2nd German Gems film festival opens this Friday evening at the historic Castro Theatre in San Francisco, presenting a line-up of ten fascinating new German-language films. A portion of the program will be shown in Point Arena at their historic Arena Theatre on Saturday, January 22, 2011. The emphasis of this little festival is on new filmmakers and first features whose narratives and styles define new trends in German-language cinema. The festival opens with Mahler on the Couch by the father and son team, Percy Adlon (Baghdad Café, Sugar Babies, Salmonberries) and Felix Adlon. This magical and timely narrative feature of doomed love and musical genius comes at the centennial of the famous Austrian composer, Gustav Mahler’s death. It focuses on his wife, Alma Mahler’s affair with the young architect Walter Gropius that drives her famous husband to Sigmund Freud’s couch.
And that’s just the first gem…there are nine others addressing the little known but awesome sport of river surfing, a celebrated architect whose personal life is in complete ruins, a 17 year-old girl who viciously and unexpectedly murders a classmate, a 78 year-old pilot whose has flown notables like Haille Selassie and the king of Yemen who is building his dream plane in the Caribbean for an air show in Florida, and an epic mountain film set in South Tyrol in 1809 that is a grand love story between a Bavarian woman and a Tyrolean rebel who are both enmeshed in Napoleon’s quest for empire.
Ingrid Eggers, founder of German Gems, now in its second year at the Castro Theatre, San Francisco.
Earlier this week, I spoke with Ingrid Eggers who founded German Gems last year. Eggers, a long-time Bay Area resident, ran the very successful Berlin and Beyond film festival from 1996 through 2009. Under her guidance, Berlin and Beyond became one of the most successful German language film festivals outside of Europe, presenting over 500 films to 100,000 people in the Bay Area. When the Goethe-Institut San Francisco, which had sponsored Berlin and Beyond, merged it with Los Angeles’ German Currents festival to create a single West Coast event in October, 2009, Eggers had mandatory retirement forced upon her. She re-emerged a few months later with German Gems, a one day, three film mini-fest at the Castro Theatre that was tremendously popular. Now, she is back with her second German Gems and a lot to say about German film.
What does German Gems allow you to offer the Bay Area audience that you couldn’t offer before?
Ingrid Eggers: I looked very carefully at Berlin and Beyond and the other German festivals in California and examined their current programming and didn’t see any focus on first feature films from young filmmakers. I decided to bring first features here–documentaries as well narrative features–to give young filmmakers from film schools a chance to show their films in San Francisco. In Germany, there’s a lot of money for filmmaking, a lot of competition, and there’s a lot of very interesting film resulting from that. It’s very hard for this group to find a festival that will take them. Our selection of 10 films, one of which is a 20 minute short, includes 6 first features and several of the filmmakers will be here to present their films.
What impacted your decision to expand to a full weekend this year?
Ingrid Eggers: The first German Gems did very well and I thought this January slot, which was when Berlin and Beyond used to be held, was very good because there’s not much happening. I am also offering films that wouldn’t otherwise be shown here. Of the 10 films in my program, none of them has an American distributor at this point. The big Bay Area festivals, SFIFF (San Francisco International Film Festival) and Frameline (Gay and Lesbian festival), aren’t showing many German films. SFIFF has emphasized French films, and it does the little French and Italian series in the fall. I am not sure where the new director of Berlin and Beyond is headed; he’s Cambodian and seems to be moving in an international direction. I want to continue represent German films and think there is definitely an audience.
Do you select all the films yourself? What are your criteria?
Ingrid Eggers: I don’t do it all alone. I have a group of people here who watch the films and another group of UCLA film school students (which includes my daughter) in Los Angeles because I want to have some young eyes look at this too. And I go to the festivals– Munich in the summer, Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival) in February and German Currents in Los Angeles in October—and I see what’s going on. I get lots of films sent to me too.
In terms of selection, the number one criterion is quality and that’s a very subjective thing. For me, quality is based on the screenplay, cinematography, the way the film is made, and the filmmaker’s point of contact with the story. It all has to work. This year, we’ve got Celebration of Flight a documentary resulted from the filmmaker (director Lara Juliette Sanders) traveling to the Caribbean, to Dominica, and meeting a 78 year-old pilot, a quite amazing guy, who was working on building a plane. It all came together beautifully. The filmmaker has a curious story too—she was in advertising and quit and went to the airport and said I’m going to fly to No. 10 on this big list of departures. That’s how she ended up in the Caribbean and found Daniel Rundstrom. She wrote a book about this and has become very popular in Germany, on all the talk shows. The outcome is that she became a filmmaker and has relocated to LA. Daniel impressed me too: he is so methodical in the pursuit of his dream but then there were big problems with this plane at the air show in Miami. Both the director and Daniel will be at the festival.
KEEP SURFING's director Bjorn Richie Lob, an avid river surfer, rides a wave on the Eisbach in a still from KEEP SURFING, photo courtesy of German Gems
There’s another one, David Wants to Fly which is really the story of two David’s–director David Sieveking whose subject is Director David Lynch– and TM (Transcendental Meditation). Sieveking got more and more sucked into TM and then found out about the very harsh side of it and that impacted his talks with David Lynch. So we get insight into TM and David Lynch and this quest and it all works.
And when I saw Keep Surfing in Munich two years ago at its world premiere, I knew this had to be shown in the Bay Area. It really gets into this sport which is little known and into the stories of the people who are doing it. It represents years of work too. I knew nothing about this before I saw the film and I know Munich. They took me from the theatre just 10 minutes down the street to the Eisbach and it was quite amazing. I really wanted the film and finally I got it
Of course, you don’t always get you want because distributors are asking a lot of money, even for small films. Our festival is very small and if you want to get new productions, the world sales people will tell you that they want to wait and see if the film is picked up by a larger festival in the area first. The bigger festivals want to premiere films that have not been shown in the area before. You get lots of no’s, but we always find great films that fit our program.
The films I have seen—Mahler on the Couch, Mountain Blood, The Architect, She Deserved It, Disenchantments– all rely on exceptionally well-developed stories and actors rather than special effects to carry the day. Is this your curating preference or a theme in German film?
Ingrid Eggers: I think that young filmmakers are not going for special effects because these things cost money. It’s hard enough to get good actors, but actors can sometimes be persuaded to donate their services.
Josef Bierbichler as Georg Winter in THE ARCHITECT, Ina Weisse's feature debut about a man whose long-held secrets drag his family down. Photo courtesy of German Gems
What themes are young German filmmakers exploring these days?
Ingrid Eggers: I’ve been asking myself that question. I can tell you what is not in the film that I am watching now. One of the things is war epics…Iraq, Afghanistan… wars have been done. I’m not seeing that in German or in new American films either. The other thing is that I am not seeing is social clashes outside of the family. Germany is full of Turks, the major minority in Germany. Die Fremde (director Feo Aladağ, winner of 2010 European Lux Prize) is about honor killings through the narrative of a Turkish family living in Germany. It’s being shown all around and that’s why we aren’t showing it. I think filmmakers are retreating with these problems into the family and not dealing head-on with these big subjects out there. They are telling a story about family relationships, and at the same time, in parallel, a story with wider social, cultural and moral aspects. The Architect, She Deserved It, and Mountain Blood are examples of this. I didn’t see much engagement with gay topics either.
Who are the filmmakers who are most influencing this new generation of German filmmakers? Are they German, European, American, international?
Ingrid Eggers: Usually, young German filmmakers graduating from film school will first try to write a good script and then see if they get funding for their film. There’s so much money in Germany now for film, it comes from taxes, and as a result German film has gotten really good. If you ask them–and we had these discussions at Berlin and Beyond here a couple of years ago with Wim Wenders and young filmmakers–you see that young German filmmakers watch a lot of films. They are influenced by the all the big names out there– Antonioni, David Lynch—and they are investigating and comparing but I think their main thing is to try to do their own thing with their own story.
There is also a trend in Germany towards Hollywood with films being made in this pure entertainment style, trying to be blockbusters. Some succeed but most don’t. There are also young German filmmakers who migrate to Hollywood and give it a try. Usually, they are not so successful. Those who are most successful in German film are the ones who deal with more German topics. The big example right now though is Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, who got an Oscar in 2007 for his fantastic debut feature film The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) and now he’s done The Tourist which I wouldn’t go and see. I think he has much more interesting stories to tell than that one. After success in Germany, opportunities may open up in the States but that doesn’t necessarily translate into success here.
The Architect and She Deserved It make for a very heavy Saturday night. What facet of German culture do they shed light on?
I got totally fascinated by The Architect (Der Architekt) which is mystery, secrets and snow and the story of this successful guy who is a total mess. In that isolated village, he cannot walk away from all of this and everything disintegrates in him and in his family. It is quite intense. People told me, and I agree, that if he hadn’t died, he would have gone back to that woman which no one wanted. From a screenplay point of view, once the family went back to north Germany, he could not survive. The amazing thing is that the young director, Ina Weisse, got these huge German stars, all the big names, to play in her film and did a fantastic job of directing it.
Sina Tkosch as Kati, Liv Lisa Fries as Linda, Francois Goeske as Josch, and Saskia Schindler as Susanne in the SHE DESERVED IT, Thomas Stiller's topical exploration of a 17 year-old who murders her classmate. Photo courtesy of German Gems
She Deserved It (Sie hat es verdient) is a very heavy film that’s hard to watch but we had to show it because teen-based violence is such a big topic now in Germany, actually all over the place, and we don’t really know why. Families will probably say this can’t happen in my family but it happens every day, this past weekend in fact. This is based on a true story of a 14 year old girl who killed her classmate. This is shot basically from the perspective of the perpetrator, the young girl. You really get under her skin and the dialogue with her mother–the only one who tries to find out what happened—is remarkable. The filmmaker can’t be here but I’m going to have a therapist come up on stage and talk about the family dynamics in both families and what it is that has driven so many young people into despair, violence and suicide. This film will be shown on German television and embedded in something called “theme evening” where people and experts talk and other things related to this topic of teenage violence are shown. It’s a very important film.
You’ve picked a set of films that portray a very interesting and strong group of women. The female characters in Alma Mahler, The Architect, Mountain Blood, She Deserved It— use their strengths in different ways, to different ends but they are all strong. Is this you coming through?
Barbara Romaner portrays the passionate Alma Mahler, in Mahler on the Couch screening at German Gems 2011. Photo courtesy of Percy Aldon.
In Germany today, who are the strongest female filmmakers?
Ingrid Eggers: Doris Dörrie, Cherry Blossoms (Kirschblüte – Hanami) (2008), who was in San Francisco several times with Berlin and Beyond and Margarethe von Trotta, who made Vision (2008), about Hildegard von Bingen, at German Gems last year. Both women are in their 50’s or 60’s. There are many young German women who are maturing but not out there yet. It’s a very long process to make it to the top because the industry is so dominated by men. There are lots of women working in producing and at that range both here and in Germany; but directing and cinematography have been hard fields for women to really break into.
What are your impressions of Philipp Pamer’s Mountain Blood? I was mesmerized by its depth. I looked up this chapter in Tyrolean independence and he nailed it.
Wolfgang Menardi and Ina Birkenfeld in MOUNTAIN BLOOD, directed by Philipp Pamer, photo courtesy of German Gems
Ingrid Eggers: This is one of the most amazing and touching first feature graduation films. It’s a huge production, an epic drama set in 1809 in a small village in the Alps. There’s a lot of autobiographical stuff in this film too because Philipp Pamer, grew up in that village and it’s very authentic with all the details, right down to the dialects. There’s also the story and how it’s done. There’s the couple and how they deal with the political unrest during the time that Napoleon took over Europe and remapped everything. Oxburg, the home of young woman, Katharina, was a card in the Napoleonic Empire, as was South Tyrol, the home of her husband.
The Tyrolean leader Andreas Hofer is also in the film but the focus is on the young couple. The girl is an outsider and is not accepted. This is very typical for this genre of mountain film. If you live in the mountains, you are cut off from the rest of the world. Within your little community, you become very suspicious of everything that comes from the outside. She comes in and she doesn’t know what’s going on. She doesn’t want to fight with anybody. She starts to be accepted and then she does a major faux paus to keep her husband from fighting in the war from which there is no recovery.
What are your plans for German Gems? Are you hoping to expand it through collaboration with other festivals so that you can share the expenses of flying in more guests or of lengthening the festival?
Ingrid Eggers: There is always the possibility to do co-presentations, which we are doing with Mahler on the Couch, but to merge with a festival and get money from them would mean you become a satellite. It would be a totally different story, like becoming “New Italian Cinema,” or “French Film Now.” It’s a totally different way of organizing and a different relationship. You can collaborate but you don’t get real money unless you become part of them. My goal is not to turn this into a week-long festival but to leave it as weekend– two days plus a night– and see who will support this festival and how we can improve it in this format. We’re very thankful to our sponsors–Maurice Kanbar, Barbro Osher and Kuehne + Nagel, the Bay Guardian and various local people and organizations. Last year we got money from a German foundation, Filmstiftung NRW, and that lasted for two years.
Films in San Francisco, Castro Theatre Philipp Pamer’s Mountain Blood?
Friday, January 14, 2011
7 pm Mahler on the Couch (Mahler auf der Couch) followed by Opening Night Party
Saturday, January 15, 2011
2 pm Keep Surfing 4:30 pm Intern for Life (Ein Praktikant fürs Leben)
7 pm The Architect (Der Architekt)
9 pm She Deserved It (Sie hat es verdient)
Sunday, January 16, 2011
2 pm Celebration of Flight
4 pm David Wants to Fly
6:30 pm Mountain Blood (Bergblut)
9 pm Disenchantments (Entzauberungen), preceded by GÖMBÖC
Films in Point Arena, Arena Theatre
Saturday, January 22, 2011
2 pm Intern for Life (Ein Praktikant fürs Leben)
4 pm Keep Surfing
7:30 pm Mahler on the Couch (Mahler auf der Couch)
Details: San Francisco: German Gems is at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street at Market, San Francisco from Friday through Sunday. Tickets: $9-11 per screening, $20 opening night. Purchase online at www.germangems.com Parking Alert: There is virtually no parking around the Castro Theatre. Allow ample time to find a place to park and walk to the theatre.
SFIFF 53 — 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival, April 22- May 6, starts Thursday with an Impressive Line-up of Global Cinema
It’s film festival season again and nothing beats the San Francisco International Film Festival for exceptional global cinema. The festival, now in its 53rd year, runs April 22-May 6, 2010 and offers 177 films from 46 countries in 31 languages with 9 North American premieres, 5 world premieres and one international premiere. I am especially attached to SFIFF because the programming is wonderfully diverse offering narrative features, feature documentaries, works from new directors, and shorts from all over the world that can loosely be divided into over 20 niche causes– animals, the arts, civil liberties, environment, family issues, human rights, science and technology, world culture, war, youth, and Cinema by the Bay (locals). All screenings include engaging audience Q&A with the directors, actors, and film crews.
The festival always includes a number of “big nights” with special gala screenings and events. This year, the opening night film at the Castro theatre is Amelie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s MicMacs, a David and Goliath story about extracting revenge from weapons manufacturers who have reeked havoc in the life of man with a bullet lodged in his head.
The centerpiece screening on May 1 is Happythankyouplease, the feature debut film by Josh Radnor, star of the CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother.” The story involves a struggling Lower East Side writer who strikes up a touching friendship with a lost child he meets on the subway and whose orbit includes an engaging group of twenty-somethings whose lives exemplify a generational shift for post-9/11 Manhattanites. The festival closes on May 6 with an appearance by the amazing Joan Rivers and a screening of Joan Rivers–A Piece of Work. At 76, this unflappable, courageous, quick-witted dynamo has been entertaining us for 55 years and is not about to abdicate her role as America’s reigning queen of comedy.
Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek starring in Aaron Schneider's GET LOW, playing at the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival, April 22 - May 6, 2010. Image courtesy of San Francisco Film Society
The Film Society Awards Night on Thursday April 29, 2010 honors achievement in acting, directing and screenwriting. Robert Duvall will receive the Peter J. Owens Award for brilliance in acting. His latest film Get Low (Dir. Aaron Schneider, USA, 2009, 102 min) screens on Friday, April 30 and is sure to garner Oscar attention.
This year’s Founder’s Directing Award goes to Brazilian director Walter Salles whose trademark semi-documentary style was honed in memorable films like Central Station (1994) and The Motorcycle Diaries (2004). The festival will screen his most recent film Linha de Passé (2008) and In Search of the Road, a work in progress based on Kerouac’s On The Road on Wednesday April 28, 2010. James Schamas will receive the coveted Kanbar Award for screenwriting and his 2009 Director’s Cut of Ang Lee’s Ride with the Devil will screen on May 1, 2010.
Tilda Swinton starring in Erick Zonca's JULIA, will screen at An Evening with Roger Ebert and Friends at the Castro Theatre on May 1 as part of the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival, April 22 - May 6, 2010. Image courtesy of San Francisco Film Society.
Chicago film Critic Roger Ebert, who has been commenting on and championing movies professionally for over 4 decades will receive the Mel Novikoff Award recognizing his enhancement of filmgoer’s appreciation of world cinema. An Evening with Roger Ebert and Friends at the Castro Theatre on May 1, will include a screening of Ebert’s 2009 fav—Erik Zonka’s thriller Julia, starring Tilda Swinton as a boozed-up abrasive kidnapper who attempts a double-cross but finds herself overwhelmed.
SFIFF takes place in San Francisco (Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, Castro Theatre, and Landmark’s Clay Theatre) and Berkeley (Pacific Film Archive). Most of these films sell out, so buy your tickets in advance.
Here are my must-see flicks, biased by my interest in global politics, human rights, environmental concerns and penetrating storytelling. I will be posting full reviews of several of these films in coming days.
A scene from Ciro Guerra's THE WIND JOURNEYS, playing at the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival, April 22 - May 6, 2010. Image courtesy of San Francisco Film Society.
The Wind Journeys (Dir. Ciro Guerra, Columbia/Netherlands/Argentina/Germany, 2009, 117 min) Every year SFIFF offers a must-see “journey film”—an inspiring and unforgettable road trip through cloud-capped mountains in a remote and mystic locale. The Wind Journeys takes us on a final trek with elderly Columbian juglar (migrant musician) Ignacio who, after his wife’s death, sets out to return his accordion to his mentor before he dies. He travels through Columbia’s mountain villages and spectacular forests with Fermin, a pesky and unwelcome young follower who hopes to become his apprentice and successor but lacks musical talent. When tragedy strikes, the two men discover they actually need each other. Aside from its beautiful music and rich ethnographic context, this slow moving but perfectly-paced film is infused with references to sorcery–Ignacio’s accordion is said to be cursed. Screens: Sunday, May 2, 8:45 PM, Kabuki Theatre, Tuesday May 4, 8 PM, Pacific Film Archive, Thursday, May 6, 5:15 PM, Kabuki Theatre.
Marwencol (Dir. Jeff Maimberg, USA, 2010, 82 min) As a result of a brutal beating in April 2000, Mark Hogancamp awoke brain-damaged with no memory of his life before the attack, unable to walk, speak or rely on his motor skills. As something to pass the time while nursing himself back to health, Hogancamp began to build
A scene from Jeff Malmberg's MARWENCOL, playing at the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival, April 22 - May 6, 2010. Image courtesy of san Francisco Film Society.
Marwencol, a 1/6 scale fictional Belgium WWII era town in his backyard. Populated with life-like Barbi dolls who he has painstakingly and tenderly given identities, Hogancamp plays out scenes from life and WWII and then photographs them. The result is an amazing collection of gripping photographs that would hold their own next to any war photojournalism. This engrossing documentary takes us into the brilliant creative mind of a remarkable man whose play therapy has captured the attention of the fickle art world. I had the pleasure of watching this with my 85 year-old step-father, a veteran, who was so moved by the enactments and Hogancamp that he began to share his own remarkable war stories. Screens: Saturday May 1, 4:10 PM, Pacific Film Archive, Sunday May 2, 6:45 PM, Kabuki Theatre, Tuesday May 4, 4:15 PM Kabuki Theatre.
A scene from Andrei Dascalescu's documentary CONSTANTIN AND ELENA, playing at the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival, April 22 - May 6, 2010.
Constantin and Elena (Dir. Andrei Dascalescu, Romania, Spain, 2008, 102 min) Only if we could all be so lucky to reach our twilight years with the love, energy and genuine affection of Constantin and Elena, a Romanian couple who have been married happily for 55years. This delightful documentary feature film, made by their grandson Andrei Dascalescu, follows them over the course of a year as they live simply but richly side by side–making sausage, weaving carpets, milking cows, going to church, nurturing each other and bursting into song and laughter. Not that they don’t bicker but they do so lovingly. They talk constantly about everything, even death– which they accept is coming but oh to keep living because they’ve got things to do. Screens: Friday April 23, 4:15 PM, Kabuki Theatre, Sunday April 25, 12 noon, Kabuki Theatre, Tuesday, April 27, 6:45 PM, Kabuki Theatre, Saturday, May 1, Pacific Film Archive.
Ordinary People (Dir. Vladimir Perisic, France/Switzerland/Serbia, 2009, 80 min) An unforgettable and utterly numbing debut film that about a group of young soldiers, including Dzoni (Rejila Popovic)
A scene from Vladimir Perisic's ORDINARY PEOPLE, playing at the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival, April 22 - May 6, 2010. Image courtesy of San Francisco Film Society.
a twenty something recruit played by, taken on a bus ride to a remote locale–unstated but presumably somewhere in the Balkans—where their horrific task is to execute a large group of civilians. As the act gets underway, the characters various responses to it will stay with you for days. Dzoni refuses at first and fails at his first kill–a shot to the back of a bound man—but before our eyes, he slowly evolves into a brutal killing machine with hardened features to match. The film explores the familiar ethical defense that in war soldiers cannot always be held responsible for their actions when they are obeying orders. In this case, the secretive slaughter of civilians violates international law and all moral codes. We realize that these young men have been so brain-washed by their military training and their need to be accepted by their comrades that they will blindly follow any order. In the end, they come to treat the act of killing as drudgery. While this excellent film depicts an abstract massacre, it should spark an interest in the genocide trials now going in The Hague where actual heinous acts are being prosecuted. Screens: Friday April 30, 9 PM, Kabuki Theatre, Monday, May 3, 8:55 PM, Pacific Film Archive, Wednesday, May 5, 7:15 PM, Kabuki Theatre.
A scene from Satyajit Ray's 1958 film THE MUSIC ROOM, playing at the San Francisco International Film Festival, April 22 - May 6, 2010. Image courtesy of Aurora Film and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.
The Music Room (Dir. Satyajit Ray, India, 1958, 100 min) Every year, SFIFF offers a restored classic. One of the greats of Indian cinema, this lovely slow film is based on Bengali writer Tarashankar Banerjee’s novel of the same name. It tells the story of a turn-of-the-century zamindar, an Indian semi-feudal landlord in Bengal, whose wealth is dwindling but who continues to spend lavishly on concerts in his opulent jalsaghar (music room). There is excellent footage of Hindustani classical vocal and instrumental music by Vilayat Khan, Asis Kumar, Robin Majumder, and Dakhin Mohan Takhur, as well as classical dance. The iconic lead actor Chhabi Biswas delivers a stunning performance—of a man hell-bent on preserving his image of grandeur as he recklessly spends it all on one last musical orgy. Satyajit Ray’s work occupies a special place in the history of SFIF. Ray’s first film, Pather Panchali, had its U.S. premiere at the very first SFIFF in 1957. Since then, the festival has screened more of his films than those of any other director. Screens: Saturday May 1, 2:30 PM, Castro Theatre, Sunday, May 2, 6:15 PM, Pacific Film Archive.
Get Low (Dir. Aaron Schneider, USA, 2009, 102 min) Robert Duval plays Felix Bush, a elderly recluse who has exiled himself in the back woods for 40 years, crippled by a tragic event that has kept him in a prison of his own making. Stirred by the death of a one-time friend, Bush makes a rare trip to town and discusses plans to “get low” or make funeral plans. He wants a funeral party where everyone who has a story to tell about him will have a chance to speak and he wants to watch it all go down. Co-starring Bill Murray as the greasy funeral home director and Sissy Spacek, as a jilted love interest, this story will leave you thinking twice about self-imposed baggage we all carry with us through this life. Screens: Friday April 30, 7:30 PM, Castro Theatre.
Ticket Information:
Tickets are $12.50 Online: sffs.org By phone: 925-866-9559 (Monday–Friday, 9:00 am–5:00 pm)
In Person: Main Ticket Outlet: Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, 1881 Post Street (at Fillmore)
Pre-Festival: April 1–22, 3:30–7:30 pm
During the Festival: April 23–May 6, open one hour prior to the first screening of the day.
“My Suicide” premieres at Mystic Theatre, Friday, September 25, features Penngrove screenwriter/producer Eric J. Adams and Petaluma actor, filmmaker Gabriel Sunday in lead role
There’s still time to get tickets for tonight’s North Bay premiere and benefit screening of ”My Suicide” at Petaluma’s Mystic Theatre. “My Suicide” tells the riveting story of Archie Williams, a brilliant and troubled 17 year old ADHD, media-savvy teen who announces to his high school film class that he is going to kill himself on camera for his final film project. Archie’s project brings unintended but devastating consequences. “My Suicide” not only delivers one hell of a story, with eye-popping effects, it’s also a portal into the complex life of today’s teens who are facing pressures they feel they can’t cope with and that adults don’t understand. The indie film was four years in the making and has numerous local connections—it was co-written and produced by Penngrove screenwriter Eric J. Adams, stars Petaluma actor and filmmaker Gabriel Sunday, and parts of the film were shot in Petaluma’s Phoenix Theatre. The film has picked up numerous audience and jury awards at film-festivals world wide, had its West Coast premiere in May at the SFIFF52 (San Francisco International Film Festival) and as it comes off the film festival circuit, it is about to be more widely distributed though a company that Adams and his partners have set-up. Tonight’s screening, hosted by the newly created Petaluma Film Alliance, will benefit Regenerate and Five Alive, two teen-oriented non-profit organizations working to prevent teen suicide. Following the film, Mike Traina, film instructor at Santa Rosa Junior College Petaluma campus and PFA coordinator will lead a discussion with the Adams, Sunday and others who had role in the film.
Eric J. Adams, of Penngrove, co-wrote and produced the award-winning indie feature film "My Suicide"
I recently had the pleasure of talking with both Eric Adams and Gabe Sunday about “My Suicide” and will be posting the interview with Gabe shortly. Eric and I met on Thursday in Penngrove to chat about his experience with the film. Heads up–this interview contains discussion about plot twists that you may wish to leave as a surprise. These portions appear below in bold face so that you may skip them.
Geneva Anderson: How has the film been received?
Eric J. Adams: We’ve gotten very good reaction and lots of awards everywhere we go—audience and grand jury awards. The goal was to create conversation around the teen experience. It’s not even about suicide but about that teen experience and point of view. We wanted it to be a very in-your-face movie. Parents tend to love it because it is unquestionably from a kid’s point of view, which most parents want to understand.
The response that we get from kids is that it’s good. We have kids coming up to us saying this movie captures how I feel more than any other one out there. The reports we get is that it opens up conversations all over the place about who I am, what I really feel, what hurts me and that’s the conversation that needs to happen between parents and kids. Another message is “I am not alone and this is not something that I am going through by myself. I have a generational link with others who are going through this.” Knowing that takes them out of isolation and isolation is the number one factor in suicide.
We actually got an email from a kid who said he went to our movie because he thought it was going to help him kill himself but, when he came out of the movie, things were different. It was such a perfect email, we thought it was a hoax, so we contacted him and got in touch with his parents and we all sat down together and they all ended up coming to another screening at that film festival. It was quite amazing.
Geneva Anderson: What is important for us to know about the way you as a screen writer approached this project?
Eric J. Adams: Well, I worked directly with David Phillips. We’ve been friends since the 1970’s, back in our hippie days and we’ve have always sort of helped each other on projects, co-writing, etc. David created the idea of “My Suicide” and his son Jordan Miller helped him. When we got to the script, we knew that we wanted to do something that was revolutionary and was always from the kid’s point of view.
Whenever we were at a script moment, the question that we would ask each other was what would Archie do? The story had to be from a young person’s point of view and a young person of today who is an aggregation of many different media. For us, growing up, there was film and there was tv. For them, there’s film, tv, internet, YouTube, iphone, public domain stuff, content that they’re shooting themselves, and all sorts of variants—documentary, animation, so forth. We want to make it as if Archie took a palette of all the media that was available to him and he ran with it.
“Natural Born Killers” was one of the movies that inspired us and, as violent as it was, it was an absolutely brilliant movie and probably 15 years ahead of its time. It used such innovative modern storytelling techniques—taking a plotpoint and creating a vignette around it rather than dramatizing it. We did this in the opening scene where you learn all about Archie through a visual vignette and re-employed that technique to add color throughout the film incorporating wild effects, animation, etc.
Archie and Sierra's world is upside down in My Suicide
But this is really a very traditional three act story, right from the screen play, it’s the hero’s journey–the concept of the young man going on a journey to find the trurth and having to take risks and then coming back to save someone. From the plot point of view, this is a classic story that could have been written in Rome 2,000 years ago.
Geneva Anderson: Is “My Suicide” anyone in particular’s story?
Eric J. Adams: No, it’s not based on anyone. Both David and I are children of the 1960’s and 1970’s and a lot of the emotion was there from that—we brought a lot of our own teen years into it. When Gabe came on, he became the major editor and this was after we had a good credentialed Hollywood name editor work on it and give us something that didn’t fit. We went right back to the drawing board and started with Gabe and he delivered what we wanted. He turned the tone correct.
Geneva Anderson: How old was he at that point?
Eric J. Adams: About twenty, I’d say. I worked with him up here when he was 18 and I saw his brilliance and this was around the time that Dave and I were putting together our LLC for this film. He’s a young adult now, who has some distance on adolescence but can still jump back in. He looks young…you actually see him from 18 to age 22. We kept on filming the entire time it was being edited and added the little scenes here and there. For example, the ending was shot 3 or 4 years after the principle photography was done. He has that puffy face teen look in many of the scenes. We rented him that back house, which is the guest house in the movie, gave him a camera and a green-screen and said “go at it, investigate your character, create Archie from a character point of view.”
Geneva Anderson: Do you remember your teenage years as being so traumatic? What accounts for the tremendous dissatisfaction we’re seeing in today’s teens like Archie?
Eric J. Adams: I question that statement…I have 18 and 20 year old sons and I don’t see them or their friends as being dissatisfied. I think I see the same ratio of craziness to goodness that I saw when I was a kid. The craziness is just getting more hype. And I don’t think kids are that much different today but they have additional pressures. For example, with the Internet they have access to instant pornography, hard core stuff, which they can access at a very young age.
Geneva Anderson: Yes, so they are “experts” on sex or violence with no practical experience. In fact, that is what media offers–familiarity without any practical experience. Combine that with raging hormones and you’ve got serious volatility.
Green-screened Archie rants at a surreal and epic rally in My Suicide.
Eric J. Adams: Yes, and that actually puts some pressure or fear in them. Now, when they see sex, especially the hard core porn which is scary stuff even if you’re a seasoned sexual person, they must feel pressure. That could almost delay their entry into sexuality, that along with the pressure of knowing how you’re expected to perform and everything that’s supposed to happen. On the other hand, teens are very sophisticated today, savvy as consumers and as humans. They understand that people are trying to sell to them.
Geneva Anderson: sophistication wrapped in cynicism.
Eric J. Adams: Exactly and the roots of that started with our generation, the war. We are the first cynical generation of adults but they have learned a new trick–that they can manipulate as much as they are being manipulated. They are so much more comfortable with the tools of manipulation. They know how to take a camera out and make a YouTube video. They know how to do things.
Geneva Anderson: Let’s talk about Archie, Gabe’s character. The situation at home, his connection with his parents is stressed, which is typical for kids that age. This has lapsed into a serious disconnect though and when teens are dissatisfied with a connection, they really feel the severity of it. His awareness is curious. He seems to think he has seen it all and is ready to pull the plug but, actually, he’s done very little. He’s a loner who lives a mediated existence through his camera. He’s really very innocent and bright. He’s not hardened or into drugs. He’s a virgin, which is made a huge deal in the film, which further underscores his innocence. He’s just starting out.
My Suicide's Archie (Gabriel Sunday) is obsessed with the perfect girl, Sierra, played by Brooke Nevin.
Eric J. Adams:
Right. We wanted a kid who was on an epic journey and you can’t start a journey necessarily if you are jaded. The kid, of course had to have potential and everyone does but they don’t see it. We also did a lot of research on suicide and teen narcissism and one thing we learned was that people who are suicidal are often very ambivalent about their suicide. We wanted to take an idea that has been romanticized and really put it into play. That’s why it was so important to us to show that suicide so graphically because if we romanticize it, it remains an ethereal concept. When you see that kid hanging from the rope, you are sobered and it’s immediate.
Geneva Anderson: The cliché we hear “suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem” which is delivered first through Sierra Silver really become the film’s mantra. After Archie reaches out to Sierra, his life has taken on meaning.
Eric J. Adams: You can’t deliver a message like that on the nose, you see how that works in the film…it is just a cliché. We chose to work through storytelling channels that would have a better chance of reaching kids. Teenage years are affected by an incredible amount of narcissism. It’s all about me. My parents are the worse parents in the world. I’m the only one who feels this way. The whole flow of the film is to take this self-absorbed narcissistic kid on a journey that shows him he can grow out of narcissism and grow into maturity and responsibility. He learns that lesson at the end of the movie–that you can kill the part of yourself that you don’t like, that you don’t have to kill your whole self, that you’re really much better off when you start taking that camera and looking elsewhere, looking at the grace of the world and helping others. That’s when you can let go of the pain and that’s the lesson he learns through saving Sierra Silver and that’s the lesson for both of those young adults by the end of the film.
Sierra Silver (Brooke Nevin) visits Archie's (Gabriel Sunday) lair for the first time.
Geneva Anderson: What is Sierra Silver’s role in the film? Hers is actually is the more authentic trauma—she’s lost her brother, she’s living with a deep family lie and she’s a perfectionist who’s a compulsive cutter. Next to her, Archie is a poser who flirts with this from behind his camera but she is the real deal.
Eric J. Adams: Our research revealed two types of kids who kill themselves. The first is the “I’m mad” kid and the second is the perfect child who hates herself and—this does apply more to girls– has to be the best (has a 3.9 G.P.A. instead of a 4.0), the most popular and perfect in every way. So Sierra Silver is that other type of suicidal person. She personifies the shame around suicide and the drive and need to be perfect at all times which is, of course, unobtainable.
Geneva Anderson: Is there any evidence of more suicides occurring in large urban settings?
Eric J. Adams: No. The states with the highest rates–Montana, Wyoming, Kansas–are places with the greatest isolation; at the lower end are NY, CA, Mass. The reason for that is isolation is a huge factor, as is access to guns. Girls attempt suicide four times as much as boys do but boys are four times more successful. This is because girls tend to pick pills, cutting–slower methods–so there’s time for intervention and it’s more a call for help. Boys pick up a gun and it’s over. If you have a gun in the house with a teenage boy, your risk of suicide skyrockets. In terms of ago, the largest growing rate of suicides is among kids in the 11 to 14 age range which is horrific.
Geneva Anderson: In terms of adult characters in the film—from the film teacher, to the therapist, to the psychiatrist, to his parents, to her parents. You’ve basically laid out several possibilities which he treats as obstacles to get around. He doesn’t have any authentic connections with adults except the temporary one with the therapist.
Eric J. Adams: Well, we unabashedly told the story from a teen point of view. We did not try to be fair or just but shot through the eyes of an extremely upset young man.
Animated Archie goes nuts at the psychiatrist (Joe Mantegna) in My Suicide.
There’s two times he does connect with adults…we wanted to show that a good mental health professional can be extremely helpful. You’ll notice right after that scene where he speaks with Joe Mantagna who says “be a kid, it’s not so bad,” Archie thinks it over and invites Sierra Silver to his place and he opens himself up to chance on being a kid.
The second time you see the connection is near the end with his parents when they confront him in the guest house and tell him “We love you but this is the truth about us and we can’t handle it any more.” And there’s the scene at the funeral when they finally come together as a family and you know that even though the resolution is thin there, you know they are going to have a new relationship from that moment on.
Geneva Anderson: How much of the film was shot locally?
Eric J. Adams: The documentary stuff where it’s real kids talking back…that’s all done in Petaluma and a lot of it at the Phoenix Theatre. In the beginning when you hear the kids saying they want to learn—shot at the Phoenix. The kid who says “we know more than they will ever know,” we saw that he had a friend with him who seemed to have a lot to say but never said anything. So when we shot the film, those two kids became the inspiration for the two kids Earl and Corey—the one who kills himself and the sidekick who says “Do it man, do it….I’ll do it tomorrow.” The spirit of Petaluma and the Phoenix is throughout the film.
Geneva Anderson: How do all these other media add or subtract from your job as screenwriter…what’s the synthesis with Internet, iPhone, so forth?
Eric J. Adams: It’s the new screenwriter’s toolbox and I love it. Now, when I go and see straight narrative films, it’s hard for me to sit still because it’s just the narrative story…where is the visual creativity? I believe “My Suicide” is the beginning of the next generation of film because the next generation will be done by kids where media is media and there are no lines drawn. To them, it’s all the same…they can appropriate anything they want at any time. Film is visual and you can readily pull things together.
Geneva Anderson: Actually one of the reviews I read dished your film saying it could just as easily be on the internet, implying that it could have been done on YouTube. So what?
Eric J. Adams: Exactly. It’s just like what “Blair Witch Project” did with the consumer camera, where it became part of the plot. For us, the internet is part of the plot as is media everywhere, which is the way we saw it and the way we tell it and the way we live.
Geneva Anderson: What’s the new distribution deal?
Eric J. Adams: We’re hoping to engage a three tier structure. We’ll start with a limited release in the NY, SF, and LA areas and, based on success in those areas, we will move to a wider area, college towns–Boulder, Madison, etc., and the third tier is to go really wide, to Miami and Dallas.
Geneva Anderson: Do you have a distributor right now?
Eric J. Adams: We’re creating a hybrid distribution plan right now. Now, all our work is toward distribution. In today’s economic climate where distributors are not picking up film, you create your own distribution company by pulling in P&A (prints and advertising) funds—that was what distributors were always all about. We’re working on that right now. We’ve hired our marketing team. This is good. You own your own copyright and create your own marketing plan as you see fit. You retain the ability to make money throughout the process.
Geneva Anderson: You also bear all the risk. Has this made you more realistic and less idealistic? Are you tainted by the market?
Eric J. Adams: Yes and no. I am tainted and I am bitten too. After that first dance, you will keep dancing whether you want or not. This is the greatest and biggest thing I have done and learned as an adult. To start to build something from scratch…we started with investments at $5K/pop. I made mistakes but I have learned.
Geneva Anderson: With that backdrop, what is your next project?
Eric J. Adams: I have just signed a deal with Halle Berry’s company “Good Shepherd Productions” and her manager Vincent Cirrincione. The script I wrote is based on a true story in Sonoma County. The story begins at Pelican Bay State Prison on the Oregon border, the home of the Arian brotherhood and Robert Scully, who was released from prison after 14 years. He started driving down 101, got stopped by a cop, panicked, shot the cop and killed him and ditched his car, entered a house and took the family hostage. Low and behold, it’s the only black family in the neighborhood. A true story. I got the rights, wrote the script and her company has optioned it.
“My Suicide” (2008)(105 minutes) not rated, would likely be rated R for harsh dialogue, some nudity and sexual scenes: screens 7:30 p.m. McNear’s Mystic Theatre, Friday, September 25, 2009.
SFIFF52: “My Neighbor, My Killer” award-winning filmmaker Anne Aghion’s unflinching look at Rwanda 15 years after, signs of hope and healing
It has now been 15 years since the tragic genocide in Rwanda which in 100 days claimed an estimated 800,000 Tutsi lives at the hands of Hutu power, demonstrating again how swiftly humanity can betray itself. I lost two dear friends in that war, one is dead and the other was so haunted by the experience of reporting the genocide that he had a breakdown. Why should we here in the Bay Area look back at that horrific event now? We should look because war is a great teacher. We should look because it continues to be a controversial event because of the apparent indifference of the international community to the plight of the Tutsi. The San Francisco International Film Festival, April 23- May 7 gives us an opportunity to explore genocide and war crimes through the eyes of two seasoned filmmakers Anne Aghion and Pamela Yates whose documentary feature films “My Neighbor My Killer” and “The Reckoning” are both Golden Gate Award Documentary contenders. Both filmmakers will be attending the festival and participating in post-screening discussions.
“My Neighbor, My Killer” is a hold review film, which means I am limited in what I can say about it here because it is pending U.S. distribution, but I strongly encourage you to go see the film. Last year, the Rwandan government decided to clear its genocide caseload and according to some reports more than a million cases were adjudicated as some 12,000 “gacaca” or open-air community courts for genocide were convened across the country. The idea behind these gacaca (ga-CHA-cha) which literally means “justice on the grass,” which were announced in 2001 and ended this year, was to allow for the truth to come out so that the nation could heal itself. As part of this experiment in reconciliation, confessed genocide killers are sent home from prison, while traumatized survivors are asked to forgive them so that they can resume living side-by-side. Through the emotional catharsis of letting flow what has remained hidden deep inside, individuals and society can move forward, collectively healing the psychosis which has gripped Rwanda.
Aghion’s film, her fourth since 2002 on Rwandan genocide, focuses on the proceedings in a village and through live footage and interviews shows the impact on the women there who are involved in confronting the men who slaughtered their husbands and children. The emotions run the gamut but what is remarkable is the capacity for forgiveness that emerges from the hurt and bitterness and the modicum of release and dignity this offers.
Rwanda lost about 10 per cent of its population through the 1994 genocide, but its population growth rapidly recovered due to a birth rate that is currently resting at about 5.25 children per woman. That means that about 42 per cent of Rwandans were born after the genocide and have no direct memory of the slaughter but everyone has relatives who were murdered. Since 1994, the Rwandan government has imposed a moratorium on teaching about the event, reasoning that the manipulation of history fuelled the genocide and there would be no education until there was consensus on how to teach it. In this context then, the “gacaca” or community courts for genocide offer an important means of education and offer some form of closure for victims and perpetrators. The gacaca courts are not presided by professional magistrates, but by people of high esteem in the community. Recent news reports stemming from the flood of trials this year, indicate that the process has been problematic. In March 2009, for example, one of the judges of a Kigali gacaca was himself accused of complicity to commit genocide and crimes against humanity in 1994, but was later acquitted on appeal. Other reports indicate that known perpetrators changed their names, relocated and have been operating successful businesses under the protection of complicit officials.
Resources abound on Rwanda but Philip Gourevitch’s “The Life After” in this week’s New Yorker is excellent, as is the magazine’s podcast “Rwanda in Recovery.” JUSTWATCH, The International Justice Watch Discussion List is an excellent online searchable forum which captures daily international news coverage of international war crimes tribunals for Rwanda (and ex-Yugoslavia) as well lively discussion of related issues including the conflicts which gave rise to the tribunals, the International Criminal Court, international humanitarian law (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes), and other armed conflicts and humanitarian emergencies.
“My Neighbor, My Killer” screens: Wed April 29, 9:00 pm, Thurs April 30, 4:15 pm, Fri May 1, 3:45 pm, all at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas.
“The Reckoning” screens: Sun May 3, 5:30 pm at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, Tues May 5, 6:00 pm at PFA, Wed May 6, 6:15 pm at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas.
SFIFF52 review: “A Sea Change” a riveting new documentary on ocean acidification by Barbara Ettinger and Sven Huseby
Sven Huseby and grandson Elias at the Monterey Aquarium
We could all be so lucky to have Norwegian Sven Huseby as our grandfather. After he read Elizabeth Kolbert’s riveting article “The Darkening Sea” in the New Yorker, ( PDF) Huseby, a retired schoolteacher, and his wife, director Barbara Ettinger, were so impacted that they spent two years traveling the world and documenting the scientific impact of ocean acidification on sea life. Sven becomes enamored with pteropods, or sea butterflies, which evolved during the Cenozoic Era as the dinosaurs were becoming extinct. These beautiful creatures have fragile shells made from calcium carbonate, as are many sea species’ shells and skeleton. As the ocean water becomes more and more acidic, it is this calcium carbonate which is dissolving and inhibiting the calcification process which forms new shells and skeletons. This is driving species, from tiny pteropods and phytoplankton to massive corals, to extinction and undermining the food chain and ecosystem of the ocean. Ultimately as sea life dies, its impact will cascade beyond the oceans to land animals and eventually man. The film makes us uncomfortably aware that all of life is at risk along with Huseby’s beloved tiny pteropods.
Ocean acidification is one of the many little known and dire side effects of our anthropogenic emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases and is due primarily to our burning fossil fuels for energy. While the most popularized consequence is global warming (the gradual increase in the average worldwide temperature), the ever increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are also being rapidly dissolved into our oceans, driving its pH down and increasing acidity. Ocean acidification is the dark cousin of Global Warming. While the oceans have always been part of the overall balance in absorbing CO2 as part of the natural Carbon cycle, the massive emissions of man have overwhelmed the ocean’s natural balanced capacity to absorb CO2.
The message of “A Sea Change” is that we have reached one of many tipping points due to our CO2 emissions. A tipping point is a point of no return. The damage done becomes irreversible or actually begins positively feeding itself and accelerating. With near universal agreement, scientists say that we are burning fossil fuels at a rate that is fundamentally altering the ocean chemistry. CO2 emissions have dramatically increased our atmospheric CO2 which is driving excessive carbonic acid H2CO3 formation. This is the acid in the acidification. After absorbing the equivalent of 118 billion metric tons of CO2 in the past 200 years and 42% of that in the past 20 years, the ocean’s capacity for absorbing CO2 without any change in pH has been stressed too far. Acidification has increased and is currently increasing at an unprecedented rate. Steady increases in CO2 emissions and the steady rise in ocean acidification will result in a complete bottom-up collapse of the world’s fish and this could last millions of years. This is a mere blip in geologic time but it is longer than man as a species has existed on Earth. We risk not just damaging the ocean’s eco-system; we are threatening life on Earth’s very foundation. The Earth does not care: it will recover as it did after the dinosaur’s age. We should care because our survival is at stake.
The film strongly makes the point that ocean acidification is a FACT and while it may be too late to reverse the situation, we need to buy as much time as possible to prepare alternative forms of energy and to learn to live on this planet without depleting it. This is just one of many CO2 emission-based crises we face due to our generation’s hunger for energy. We need to both inform and change direction NOW. If you have children, grandchildren or any investment in life on this planet, “A Sea Change” is a must see film that tells this story through the voice of a grandfather who is concerned that his American grandson, Elias, will never know the seas as he did. Huseby invites us along on his own learning journey and we gather information with him and share in his letters, postcards and phone calls to his grandson, Elias.
Huseby begins his journey by meeting Elizabeth Kolbert, the author of “The Darkening Sea,” the article that so grabbed his attention. Kolbert admits she was saddened by her own teenager’s remark that the world is a now degraded place and this is the problem of having been born so late. We accompany Huseby to Alaskan fishing villages to witness the devastation of the Exxon Valdez spill, to the barren glacial beaches of arctic Ny Alesund, Norway, to conferences and laboratories, capturing breathtaking oceanic cinematography. Sven’s travels are interwoven with warm conversations with his grandson, teenagers and leading experts on ocean acidification who themselves have children and grandchildren. In asking his grandson what gift he would like brought back from Seattle, Elias asks for a dinosaur. Might this be another veiled reference to the last great age of dominance by the dinosaurs on our planet Earth and their fate of extinction?
At a University of Washington Conference on Climate change in Seattle, Huseby meets Dr. Edward Miles, University of Washington, who admits “We the scientific community had underestimated both the magnitude and rate of global climate change.” Dr. Miles is seemingly referring to the heavily politically motivated conservatative predictions made by the scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Huseby meets with conference participant oceanographer Dr. Richard Feely, of NOAA, (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and learns that we now have equipment to precisely measure CO2 output, ocean acidification, and the changes in temperature, chemistry, ecosystems and biology that are happening simultaneously. Scientists have learned that our oceans are absorbing 22 million pounds of CO2 daily and they initially thought the solution was to enhance that absorption. When they went out to sea and collected data, they learned instead that the ocean’s absorptive capacity has been taxed and the consequences are dire.
There are now 387 parts per million of CO2 in the air, the highest figure in 650,000 years. Experts agree that we are facing a potential mass extinction event for coral in a world that reaches 500 parts per million and there’s no telling how mankind will fare as the chain reaction kicks in.
In Alaska, Husbey meets Jeff Short, NOAA, Ocean Chemist who tells him “This is a tremendously high stakes crap shoot, and the more acid we put in the ocean, the more likely it is that fundamentally bad things will happen…no more coral reefs, shell fish… forever.. for our human race. You can’t talk nature out of this. We’ve been in this very stable environment, climatologically, for 20,000 years and now we are committed to leaving that stable environment and we don’t really know where we going to go but we do know it’s get a lot more variable and a lot of things are going to die. There will be a lot of extinctions.”
Running about an hour and half, the film covers the topic in a thoroughly understandable way. The science is clear and the delivery visually dynamic. Want to drive home the point to kids or kids at heart? Learn to speak their language— scientist Deborah Williams, President, Alaska Conservation Solutions, collected spare baby teeth from children and soaked these teeth in acidified water (water with added CO2 with pH = 4), (normal water is pH =7). Within three weeks, the acid had cracked the teeth. Imagine what is happening to our coral reefs or to delicate pteropod shells. It gets very scary when later in the film Huseby gets in a row boat with a long time friend in Norway and they row themselves out to the melting glaciers where they (and we) can see and hear the impact of the melt. Might Huseby be eluding to yet other catastrophic consequence of our energy addiction and CO2 emissions of dramatic sea level rise and the potential thermohaline circulation shutdown by melting ice’s fresh water? These are two other ocean-related consequences threatening our survival along with ocean acidification that emerge in this one shot in the film.
We have only enough fossil fuel to last two centuries, which seems significant to individuals now living, but to use this fuel, we are changing the ocean for millions of years. Ken Caldeira, Carnegie Institute, Stanford University puts it bluntly “We are running an irreversible experiment in the one ocean we have. We are saying we’re going to acidify the ocean and see what happens. We have no idea what it will do to higher life forms but we will know in a few decades, so just hang on.”
Huseby takes us to the cutting edge Solstrand Hotel in Bergen, Norway, which is heated entirely with wind turbines and no CO2 generation. He takes us to Sostra Island, West of Bergen, to see these giant wind turbines and talks with two men who dream of developing a large wind park that will completely power all of Norway. This is a glimpse of hope at what so far has been a dire journey through just this one acidification consequence of our anthropogenic emissions of CO2.
Back in the US, Huseby meets with Miyoko Sakashita, an environmental lawyer at the Center for Biological Diversity, who believes it is not too late to solve the problem. In the absence of much-needed national CO2 emissions regulations, the center is focused on legal and policy strategies that various states can enact. It has initiated a lawsuit that has convinced the EPA to look into the possible application of the Clean Water Act to tighten its water criteria for ocean acidity. The center is asking several coastal states to use the Clean Water Act to regulate CO2 emissions and to place segments of the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans under the states’ jurisdictions as “impaired” for pH on their Clean Water Act 303(d) lists. Once these water bodies are listed, states are required to take action to limit the pollutants causing the problem. The Endangered Species Act is another very strong law that the center is working with to protect endangered ocean species.
The Center for Biological Diversity’s approach via the CWA and EPA is to be applauded but Huseby fails to mention the important need for strong international policy in this area and that only an all out effort will turn this crisis around. The efforts of coastal states are minuscule…coastal bodies are but a drop in the bucket…the larger seas they connect to and the lack of US support for the Kyoto Protocol which attempts to limit greenhouse gases.
Huseby takes us to Google’s innovative and energy-efficient headquarters in Mountain View, CA, where Suntech Energy Solutions of San Rafael designed and installed 7 acres of solar panels which supply 1.6 megawatts or 30% of all power used by Google. Accolades to Google, but it is one of the most profitable companies of all times; what can smaller companies who currently cannot afford to implement solar solutions do to move towards energy independence? What additional incentives should be offered them?
Thomas W. Van Dyck, a Sr. VP and financial consultant at CIMA (Greenwich, CT), tells Huseby that clean technology will eclipse information technology as the new industry of the 21st Century. Products focused around reducing carbon output as means of adding value that can be exported should be the focus of entrepreneurs and our nation. The point, not expressed strongly enough, is that we as a nation need to make this our urgent priority. And it goes without saying–if we don’t move forward and capture the market in this area, the Chinese will.
Currently, Germany, Japan and Spain have larger markets for solar energy than the US but we have a huge solar opportunity. While the movie did not mention this, a January 8, 2008 article in Scientific American “A Solar Grand Plan” stated that $420 billion in government subsidies from 2011 to 2050 would fund the infrastructure to switch our country from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power plants to solar power plants. By 2050, these plants could supply 69 percent of the U.S. electricity and 35 percent of its total energy. That investment is substantial, but the payoff is even greater.
Solar plants consume little or no fuel, saving billions of dollars year after year. The infrastructure would displace 300 large coal-fired power plants and 300 more large natural gas plants and all the fuels they consume. For roughly one half our current military budget, this plan would effectively eliminate all imported oil, dramatically reducing U.S. trade deficits and easing political tensions in the Middle East and elsewhere. By the way, this cost is slighlty more than the already spent $350B of the $700B total authorized for the recent bank bailout. Are banks more important than our oceans and potentially life on Earth? A plan similar to the “Solar Grand Plan” would not only help protect our ocean’s from acidification but free us from our oil addiction and lead us to true energy independence with far reaching ecological, economic and social benefits. It’s too bad that the film was completed after this poorly-executed fiasco.
“Because Solar technologies are almost pollution free, the plan would also reduce greenhouse gas emission from power plants by 1.7 billion tons per year, and another 1.9 billion tons from gasoline vehicles would be displaced by plug-in hybrids refueled by the solar power grid. In 2050 U.S. carbon dioxide emissions would be 62 percent below 2005, putting a major brake on global warming.” The Solar Photovoltaic technology that is the basis of that plan dramatically benefits in cost and size from technological advances over time as in Moore’s Law that drove the semiconductor and PC revolution. That same miracle that took us from 1970s transitor radios to today’s cell phones, PDAs and PC’s could be applied NOW to the oil addiction, energy, CO2, Global Warming and ocean acidification problem in a manner similar to the “Solar Grand Plan”. If we don’t, the Chinese will as the Japanese did with electronics and automobiles. If we can spend trillions of dollars on wars in part to protect our oil supplies, bail out banks and save our automobile industry, why wouldn’t we apply some of that money to the Moore’s Law leveraged photovoltaic solution that is so obvious? Over 50,000 times the total energy usage of the entire world is simply wasted every day as sunlight falls warmly on the Earth while our oceans slowly die.
”A Sea Change” presents compelling facts and it should be shown and discussed in every school and home in America. The screening of this film could go hand in hand with a discussion of some of the things the film did not have time to develop such as the geo-engineering that might safely absorb some of the CO2 that could buy us time–massive reforestation, ocean iron fertilization and neutralization and CO2 scrubbing, capture and storage techiques. For those of us from the generation who rocked to Creedence Clearwater Revival’s 1969 “Bad Moon Rising” we need to take heed…there is a bad moon rising and we need to sound the alarm for the generation that will inherit this mess.
A special forum “Ocean Acidification: Imagining a World Without Fish” will take place Saturday April 25, 5:45 pm, following the screening with several of the experts featured in the film present to discuss the latest findings.
Screens: San Francisco International Film Festival: Sat April 25, 3:45 pm, Mon April 27, 6:15 pm, Thurs April 30, 1:30 pm, all at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas. Tickets: www.sffs.org , or by phone (925) 866-9559 or in person at the main ticket outlet, Sundance Kabuki Cinemas. Price $12.50 general public.
52nd San Francisco International Film Festival, April 23- May 7, 2009
It’s film festival season again and nothing beats the San Francisco International Film Festival, which offers an exceptional program of global cinema—151 films from 55 countries in 34 languages with 54 West Coast, 9 North American, and 1 global premiere. Fortunately, a number of angels stepped up with generous financial sponsorship so the economic crisis would not impact this year’s 15 day festival which draws over 75,000 people. I am especially attached to SFIFF because the programming is wonderfully diverse offering narrative features, feature documentaries, works from new directors, and shorts from all over the world that can loosely be divided into over 20 causes- the arts, environment, health, family issues, world culture, war, youth, and Cinema by the Bay (locals). All screenings include engaging Q&A with the directors, actors, and film crews. The festival takes place in San Francisco (Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, Castro Theatre, and Landmark’s Clay Theatre) and Berkeley (Pacific Film Archive). Most of these films sell out, so buy your tickets in advance.
Here are my must-see flics, biased by my heavy interest in global politics, environmental concerns and penetrating storytelling. I will be posting full reviews of several of these films in coming days.
”A Sea Change”: Dir. Barbara Ettinger (USA 2009, 84 min) Did you happen to read Elizabeth Kolbert’s penetrating article “The Darkening Sea” in the New Yorker? (PDF) Norwegian grandfather Sven Huseby and his wife, director Barbara Ettinger were so impacted by Kolbert’s findings that they spent two years traveling all over the world and documenting the scientific impact of ocean acidification on sea life. The urgent and accessible message delivered by Huseby is that we have reached a turning point: CO2 is acidifying our oceans and this is going to dramatically alter life on our plant for coming generations. Ocean acidification is the flip side of global warming and if you have children, grandchildren or any investment in life as we know it continuing on this planet, this is a must-see film. This is our generation’s legacy and we need to both inform and change things now. Screens: Sat April 25, 3:45 pm, Mon April 27, 6:15 pm, Thurs April 30, 1:30 pm, all at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas.
A special forum “Ocean Acidification: Imagining a World Without Fish” will take place Saturday April 25, 5:45 pm, following the screening with several of the experts featured in the film present to discuss the latest findings.
“The Reckoning”: Dir. Pamela Yates (USA, 2008, 95 min) The ICC (International Criminal Court) was set-up by 108 countries in response to repeated crimes against humanity. This riveting documentary sheds light on this important permanent international tribunal that has been established to try individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide regardless of their power or influence and to punish them. The film is the story of the ICC’s first six tumultuous years: it follows the dynamic ICC prosecutor Luis Ocampo for three years, across 4 continents as his team doggedly pursues Lord’s resistance Army leaders in Uganda, tries Congolese war lords, presses the U.N. Security Council to indict Sudan’s president for the Darfur massacres, and tackles Columbian criminals…the film is spoken in 6 languages. The film will inspire and inform…no matter how painful, coming to terms with painful history is the best way for our civilization to heal and move forward. Screens: Sun May 3, 5:30 pm at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, Tues May 5, 6:00 pm, at PFA and Wed May 6, 6:15 pm at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas.
“Speaking in Tongues”: Dir. Marcia Jamel, Ken Schneider (USA 2009, 60 min) Is America’s commitment to remaining an “English-only” nation a wise course in an increasingly interconnected world? So far, thirty-one states have voted to make English their official language and even in liberal Palo Alto, a Mandarin language immersion program was viewed as extremely controversial and nearly stopped. “Speaking in Tongues” explores bilingual language immersion through the compelling stories of four San Francisco public schoolchildren enrolled in Chinese and Spanish language-immersion programs. The children enter immersion programs for different reasons and while they grow impressively at ease with the portal language offers, becoming impressive global citizens and much better students, their parents argue. Screens: Sun April 26, 3:15 pm, Sat May 2, 11;45 am and 3:30 pm, Thurs, May 7, 2:30 pm, all at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas.
“Oblivion”: Dir. Heddy Honigmann (Netherlands, 2008, 93 min) Set in the forgotten city of Lima, Peru, we meet some of the city’s residents, real characters, who use poetry, escapism, humor and creativity to battle “el olvido” oblivion, that results from being the disempowered citizens of an impoverished country that has been largely forgotten by the modern world. Filmmaker Heddy Honigmann who received the SFIFF 2007 Persistence of Vision Award was born in Peru and returns to this forsaken country to explore its dispossessed citizens, capturing them in their victory as well as despair but never ever defeat. The wisdom and sage humor in this film directed against its politicians and life itself makes it well worth seeing. Screens: Sat April 25, 4:15 pm at PFA, Sun April 26, 6:30 pm, Tuesday April 28, 12:30 pm and 3:15 pm, all at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas.
“The Other One”: Dir. Patrick Mario Bernard, Pierre Trividic (France 2008, 97 min) Forty-seven year-old social worker Anne-Marie is newly single after an amicable break with her (much) younger lover, Alex, whom she encouraged to find someone more appropriate for the long-term. He takes her advice but her replacement turns out to be another older professional woman rather than the gorgeous creative model-type that Anne-Marie imagined he should be with. What starts off as mild curiosity about the other woman morphs into out of control jealousy and a meltdown. Screens: Friday May 1, 4:15 pm, Sun May 3, 9:30 pm, Wed May 6, 6:00 pm, all at the Clay Theatre.
Each year the festival asks a culturally prominent public figure to address pressing issues in contemporary cinema. Mary Ellen Mark, voted by the readers of American Photo as the most influential woman photographer of all time, will deliver the 2009 State of Cinema address on Sunday May 3, 3 pm, at the Sundance Kabuki Theatres, giving a tour of her film-set images and discussing the legendary figures in her famous frames as well. She will also show us her photo essay “Twins.”
SFIFF52 tickets: available at www.sffs.org , or by phone (925) 866-9559 or in person at the main ticket outlet, Sundance Kabuki Cinemas. Price $12.50 general public.
