The 18th Sonoma International Film Festival starts Wednesday—the art line-up is wonderful

An interior view of artists’ Leda Levant and Michael Kahn’s sculptural home, “Eliphante,” in Cornville, Arizona (red rock country near Sedona). The house is featured in Don Freeman’s “Art House,” screening twice at the 18th Sonoma International Film Festival (March 25-29, 2015). The gorgeously shot documentary explores the handmade homes crafted by and lived in by eleven American artists. Artists Levant and Kahn created their home over 28 years, entirely out of re-purposed materials and it evolved from their mutual love of stone, wood, pottery and stained glass. An elephant’s trunk-like entrance to one of the structures gave rise to the name. They began building their magical home when they first arrived in Arizona, even though they did not yet own the property. The stories told in the film are as artful as the D.I.Y. houses. Commentary from cultural critic Alastair Gordon and an original score by Jamie Rudolph evoke the spiritual dimension of the sites and argue the case that the intuitive vision of artists can create great architecture.

The 18^th Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF) starts Wednesday and will screen over 90 films from more than two dozen countries over 5 nights and 4 days.  The big nights have been well-covered in the media.  Among the treasures that you might not have yet discovered are several films, each an artwork in itself, on artists and designers, some virtually unknown, whose gift for creative expression will inspire and delight.  $15 tickets are available for pre-purchase online for all of the films mentioned below.  Victor Mancilla’s documentary, ART and Revolutions, about Mexico’s famed artist-engraver, José Guasalupe Posada, will screens Saturday at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, will have an accompanying art exhibition and a lively post-screening Q& A with the director and Jim Nikas, the collector.  The opening night film, Alan Rickman’s  A Little Chaos, which has Kate Winslet playing an unorthodox thinking widow hired to design part of the gardens at Versailles, has also peaked my interest.  I love how  Winslet embodies strength on scene and I’m intrigued with garden design, which poses interesting questions, artistic and otherwise.  What is nature, how do we fit into it and how should we shape it when we can both physically and visually?  Some of these fascinating issues are practical and others philosophical but we can only hope that Winslet’s Sabine de Barra tackles them substantively as she (predictably) snuggles up with the court’s renowned landscape architect artist André Le Notre (Matthias Schoenaerts) to design one of the most exquisite gardens ever conceived.

Now, on to the art line up—

One of two known images of Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913), who is pictured with his son. Posada is the subject of Director Victor Mancilla’s documentary “Searching for Posada: ART and Revolutions,” which screens Saturday at the Sonoma International Film Festival. Photo: courtesy: Jim Nikas

Searching for Posada: ART and Revolutions  (Mexico/USA, 2014, 41 minutes)  Called a “revolutionary artist of the people” and hailed as “the Goya of Mexico” and yet virtually unknown, Mexican artist and printmaker José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913) created a vast portfolio of important work.  Mexican director Victor Mancilla (201 Squadron: The Forgotten Eagles (2009) Best Historical Documentary award, Smithsonian Institution) tells Posada’s story through Jim Nikas (of Marin), an obsessed American collector of Posada’s works.  Nikas, who has the largest collection of Posada’s in the U.S., embarks on a passionate search for the truth about the artist.  Traveling to the Posada’s hometown of Aguascalientes, to Leon and then Mexico City, Nikas meets art historians and encounters things that would have amazed even the artist Posada himself, including  Fidel Castro’s pajamas and Che Guevera’s backpack.  Three-and-a-half years in the making, ART and Revolutions© was shot on location in Mexico and features music by pianist Natasha Marin, wife of actor and avid Chicano Art collector Cheech Marin. (Screens:  Saturday, March 28, 5 PM, Sonoma Valley of Art, $15 tickets) There is a post-screening Q & A with the director and Jim Nikas and an Exhibition of Posada’s original artwork from the collection of the Posada Art Foundation.

The inside of the Martinez printshop in the colonial town of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico looks as if it might have been used by José Guadalupe Posada and Manuel Manilla, 20 years his senior, with whom he worked in Mexico City. In fact, the print shop not only looks that way but the printers bore such a striking resemblance to Posada and Manilla that “Searching for Posada” Director Victor Mancilla and Producer Jim Nikas asked if they would allow a re-creation of Posada’s printshop using their shop. They agreed. The prints they are holding are original from the Brady Nikas Collection. Photo: Jim Nikas

 

Art House—(USA, 90 min) Photographer Don Freeman’s masterful documentary Art House explores the handmade homes crafted by and lived in by eleven American—Frederic Church, Russel Wright, George Nakashima, Raoul Hague, Costantino Nivola, Paolo Soleri, Henry Chapman Mercer, Wharton Esherick, Henry Varnum Poor, Byrdcliffe Arts Colony, and Eliphante.  Embracing the synergy of curves, natural materials and muted light, each glorious home reflects its creator’s distinctive voice and practice as it merges with architecture.  An anthem to creative souls who follow their hearts, this inspirational and gorgeously shot doc makes the sleek pages of Architectural Digest and Dwell seem passé. (Screens: Thursday, March 26, 5:30 PM, Women’s Club; Sunday, March 29, 7:30 PM Sonoma Valley Museum of Art.  $15 tickets)

Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery (Beltracchi: Die Kunst der Falschung)—(Germany, 2014, 93 min)  It’s ironic that 58-year-old German Wolfgang Beltracchi looks like Alfred Durer.  Beltracchi masterminded one of the most lucrative art scams in postwar European history.  For decades, this self-taught painter, and self-proclaimed hippie, passed off his own paintings as newly-discovered masterpieces by Max Ernst, André Derain, Max Pechstein, Georges Braque, and other Expressionists and Surrealists from the early 20th century.  His wife, Helene Beltracchi, along with two accomplices, created convincing backstories and sold the paintings for six and seven figures through auction houses in Germany and France, including Sotheby’s and Christie’s. One fake Max Ernst hung for months in a retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2004, Steve Martin purchased a fake Heinrich Campendonk for $860,000 through a Parisian gallery.  Arne Birkenstock’s Lola award winning documentary Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery (“Beltracchi: Die Kunst der Falschung,” 2014), features the larger than life Beltracchi sharing his secrets; those he duped sharing their dismay; and those who caught him talking about the painting that blew it all up. (Screens: Thursday, March 26, 8 PM, Woman’s Club and Sunday, March 29, 5 PM, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, $15 tickets)

Larger-than-life German art forger, Wolfgang Beltracchi, is the subject of Arne Birkenstock’s engrossing documentary, “Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery.” For over 40 years, Beltracci duped the cognoscenti of the art world by painting his own masterpieces and selling them for millions.

Generosity of Eye—(USA, 63 min) Octogenarian William Louis-Dreyfus, the father of Julia Louis-Dreyfus  (Elaine Benes on “Seinfeld) and now “Veep” ) started collecting art in the early 1960s, things that caught his eye, not investment pieces. While there are no Warhols, Freuds, or Picassos in his 3,500 piece collection, he conservatively estimates it to be worth at least $10 million and possible as much as $50 to $60 million. (from 5.26.14 Wall Street Journal article)  There are pieces by Paul Gaugin, Vassily Kandinsky, Leonardo Cremonini, George Boorujy, Helen Frankenthaler, and self-taught African-American artist and former slave Bill Traylor.  Louis-Dreyfus served as chairman of Louis Dreyfus Group, a global conglomerate started by his great-grandfather in 1851. Forbes estimated his net worth at $3.4 billion in 2006.  Director Brad Hill, who is Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ husband, has captured the very personal story of her discovering how her father’s passion for art and justice led him to donate most of this collection over the next several decades to the New York-based non-profit, the Harlem Children’s Zone, HCZ.  This touching story of a major art collection transforming into educational opportunity that will help kids in Harlem escape the vicious cycle of poverty has the intimacy of a home movie.  (Click here to view the Louis-Dreyfus Family Collection web site which includes the entire collection) (Screens: Thursday, March 26, 9:30 AM Sebastiani Theatre and Sunday, March 29, 5:30 PM Burlingame Hall. $15 tickets)

The Louis-Dreyfus Family Collection is the subject of “Generosity of Eye,” Brad Hall’s documentary about collector William Louis-Dreyfus who decided recently to donate his collection to the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ). The 3,500 piece collection is currently housed in Mount Kisco, N.Y., very close to Louis-Dreyfus’ home and is set up like a private art gallery. It includes several works by self-taught African-American artist Bill Tylor, who was born into slavery in 1856 and was sharecropper all of his adult life. He began painting after his eightieth birthday and his subjects were the rhythms and rituals of the rural South. Photo: Kevin Hagen, WSJ

 

Dior and I —(France, 90 min) There are just a handful of fashion greats who have had French designer Christian Dior’s enduring impact on 20^th century style.  Filmmaker Frédéric Tcheng (co-director Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, 2012 and Valentino: The Last Emperor, 2008) delivers another insightful exploration of this style pioneer’s enduring influence through the storied world of the House of Christian Dior.  Dior passed in 1957 but his name has lived on through this contemporary fashion house, now owned by Groupe Arnault.  This thoughtful doc delivers a dramatic behind-the-scenes look at the new Artistic Director, Raf Simons’ very first Haute Couture collection.  From conception through its ultimate exhibition, the process is shown to be a nerve-racking labor of love.  Stoic Simons must coax the very best from his dedicated collaborators who literally make it all happen.  Tcheng’s revealing homage to pressure cooker couture is fascinating.  (Screens: Thursday, March 26, 2 PM Sonoma Community Center and Saturday, March 28, 8:30 PM Sonoma Valley Art Museum $15 tickets)

Art & Design Shorts Program—Fine cinematography comes in various packages.  SIFF has a soft place for shorts, recognizing that, outside of the festival circuit, there is little chance to experience the synergy of a well-executed short.  The festival offers three curated shorts programs and will screen dozens of individual shorts in advance of its feature-length programming.  British artist David Hockney, Italian architect and interior designer Paola Navone, , 5^th generation farmer and vintner  Jim Bundschu, multifaceted designer Michael Vanderbyl and various Native American architects, builders and tribal members are the subjects of five Art & Design shorts that are guaranteed to stimulate your senses and fire up your imagination.  Total run time is approximately one hour (Screens: Friday, March 27 12:30 PM and Sunday, March 29, 9:30 AM both at Woman’s Club.  $15 tickets)

Cindy Allen’s short biopic, “Fish Out of Water: The Design of Paola Novone” (2014), premiered in New York at the 2014 Interior Design Hall of Fame. The 10 minute short showcases the Italian design icon’s endless creativity through interviews with Allen, who is the editor-in-chief of Interior Design magazine.

 

ARThound’s previous festival coverage:

The Sonoma International Film Festival starts Wednesday—$15 tickets online now for many of the films

Passes for the 18th Sonoma International Film Festival are on sale now and prices will increase on March 1, 2015

SIFF 18 details:

Full festival schedule by film type is available online here.

Full schedule in calendar form is available online here.

Official Full SIFF Film Guide is available online here.

Information about passes and tickets is here.

Screening Locations:

Sebastiani Theatre – 476 First St. East (seats 325)

Sonoma Community Center-Andrews Hall – 276 East Napa Street (seats 150)

Mia’s Kitchen at Vintage House – 126 First Street West (seats 150)

Sonoma Woman’s Club – 574 First Street. East (seats 100)

Sonoma Valley Museum of Art – 551 Broadway (seats 70)

Vintage House– 264 First Street East

La Luz Center – 17560 Gregor Street, Boyes Hot Springs (3.5 miles from town square)