The 19th Sonoma International Film Festival─a feel-great extravaganza of film, food, wine and sprits─starts Wednesday in wonderful Sonoma

The 19th Sonoma International Film Festival, March 30-April 3, 2016, includes three films shot in Cuba. Bob Yari’s “Papa Hemingway in Cuba” (2015) covers Hemingway’s chaotic life on the island and his friendship with young Miami Herald journalist Denne Bart Petitclerc, who befriended Hemingway and his wife, Mary Welsh Hemingway, in the 1950’s. The film premiered at this year’s Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana and was the first American production shot on the island since the trade embargo was imposed in 1960. The late Petitclerc was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and lived in Sonoma. Adrian Sparks is brilliant as Hemingway, capturing the vulnerability under the rage and bluster of this great genius in his last years. Image: courtesy HIFF

The 19^th Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF) kicks off tonight at the historic Sebastiani Theatre with Norwegian director Joachim Tier’s family drama, Louder Than Bombs (2015) and a live “vertical dance performance” with members of the dynamic Bandaloop dance group performing choreographed moves from ropes on the Sebastiani’s roof.   Over the next 5 nights and 4 days, the festival will present over 100 films from two dozen countries and over 200 filmmakers from around the globe will attend.  Among this year’s treasures are three exciting films shot in Cuba whose stories are bound to inspire a trip to this delightful island before the big Western chain hotels devour the beach space and those beloved’57 Chevys are replaced with Toyotas.  One of these is the late journalist Denne Bart Petitclerc’s remarkable Papa Hemingway in Cuba, the first American production shot in Cuba since the 1960 trade embargo. This is the story of Hemingway and his experiences in Cuba, where he lived with his fourth wife, Mary, as told through the eyes Petitclerc when he was a young reporter at the Miami Herald.  And food!  Complementing its diverse and truly international program of independent cinema, SIFF offers a unique blend of world-class cuisine from local artisans and exceptional wine from Sonoma vintners, making for an epicurean experience few film festivals in the world can match. This year, SIFF is offering a complementary tasting and pairing along with its two screenings of Cooking Up a Tribute which takes us on globe-trotting road trip with the fabled Catalonian eatery El Celler de Can Roca. Browse the program and then pounce─a limited number of $15 tickets are available for pre-purchase online for all films.

ARThound’s top picks for films and events─

 Viva

Cuban actor Héctor Medina plays Jesus, a young gay man who discovers the only time he is free from life’s burdens is when he is on stage and performing as “Viva,” his mesmerizing alter ego. Image: HIFF

You’d never guess that Viva, a touching portrayal of a young gay Cuban man’s struggle to find himself, was the work of Irish director Paddy Breathnach.  Directed and shot in Havana, with some very heavy-lifting from Cuban actors Héctor Medina and Jorge Perugorría, this beautiful story captures the yearning of Jesus (Medina), a young gay hairdresser working at a Havana nightclub for drag queens, to step out on stage and perform as a female. Encouraged by his mentor, Mama (Luis Alberto García), Jesus finally gets his opportunity to perform and it awakens sometime vital within.  But when his estranged father Angel (Jorge Perugorría) abruptly reenters his life, his world is quickly turned upside down.  As father and son tussle over their opposing expectations of each other, Viva morphs into a love story with the two men struggling to understand each other and to reconcile as a family.  The drama, Ireland’s Oscar submission for Best foreign Language Film this year, also paints a rich portrait of street life in Havana and the divide between those Cubans who are embracing the coming changes and those who are battling to survive.  (Screens: Thursday, March 31, 9:15 PM and Saturday, April 2, 2:15 PM, both at Sebastiani Theatre)

Papa Hemingway in Havana

Giovanni Ribisi plays Miami Herald cub journalist Denne Bart Petitclerc, who finds a father figure in Ernest Hemingway in “Papa Hemingway in Cuba.” Petitclerc becomes incensed when he reads a review asserting that the only contribution that Hemingway made to the English language was one short sentence. He writes Hemingway in Havana to tell him that he had been inspired greatly by his writing and the letter leads to a great friendship between Petitclerc and the aging writer. Image: HIFF

Bob Yari’s vital film tells the fabled story of Hemingway in Cuba through the eyes of the late journalist Denne Bart Petitclerc (Giovanni Ribisi), a former San Francisco Chronicle reporter and Sonoma resident. Papa’s backstory was long and difficult because the film was created during the embargo.  It took Yari two years to convince the US State Department and US Treasury to make an exception and he had to agree to a $100,000 spending limit for the cast and crew –unheard of for a Hollywood production.  On the Cuban side, Yari was required to submit the script to the government in Havana.  In addition to a fiery story that profiles two gifted writers who bond over fishing, the film features a stand-out performance by Joely Richardson who plays Hemingway’s fourth wife, Mary Welsh Hemingway.  The drama was shot in Hemingway’s home Finca Vigia and locations throughout Cuba including La Floridita and Ambos Mundos Hotel. (Screens: Thursday, 3/31 6:30 PM, Sebastiani Theatre and Saturday, April 2, 2:30 PM at Veterans Hall I)

Cooking Up a Tribute / A Taste of Film:

Joan, Josep and Jordi Roca, owners of Girona’s famed El Celler de Can Roca and the subject of “Cooking Up A Tribute.” Every year, SIFF outdoes itself with food, wine and spirits. This year, filmgoers will receive a complementary glass of JCB by Jean-Charles Boisset’s French sparkling No. 69 Crémant de Bourgogne with a carefully curated food tasting, which will bring the aromas and flavors of this food documentary to life. Image: SIFF

The documentary Cooking Up a Tribute follows the famed Catalonian eatery El Celler de Can Roca (Girona, Spain) as it boldly closes up shop and embarks on a five week global road tour─from Texas to Mexico to Colombia and Peru. The idea is to improvise with local ingredients to create unique tasting menus for each locale. Opened in 1986 by the Roca brothers, Joan, Josep and Jordi, El Celler de Can Roca holds three Michelin stars.  In 2013 and 2015, it was named the best restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine.  Perhaps the best footage in this ambitious doc is shot tagging along with renowned sommelier/maitre d’ Josep Roca on a fascinating pre-exploratory journey where he nails down the places his team will visit.  Here’s your chance to watch agave being smoked to produce mescal in Oaxaca and to explore the seemingly infinite number of gorgeous Peruvian potatoes with names like “Bull’s Blood” and “Yellow Egg Yolk.” Free Food, Wine:  The festival’s Premiere Sponsor, Celebrity Cruises, will activate their onboard “A Taste of Film” multisensory experience at both film screenings and  filmgoers will receive a glass of JCB by Jean-Charles Boisset’s French sparkling No. 69 Crémant de Bourgogne with a carefully curated food tasting, which will bring the aromas and flavors of the food documentary to life. (83 min, 2015) (Screens Fri, April 1, 2:30 PM at Vintage House and Sunday, April 3, 3 PM at Vintage House with complimentary drink and tastings at the film.)

Gordon Getty: There will be Music

Gorden Getty will attend the Friday screening of Peter Rosen’s documentary “Gordon Getty: There will be Music,” at the 19th Sonoma International Film Festival. Photo: courtesy Chicago Classical Review

At 82, billionaire American composer Gordon Getty, industrialist  J. Paul Getty’s son from his fifth marriage, remains a dedicated music creator, economic theorist, vintner, venture capitalist, philanthropist and longtime supporter of our beloved San Francisco Symphony.  When your name is Getty, is it a help or hindrance being accepted as a serious composer?  Seasoned director Peter Rosen, who has produced and directed over 100 full-length films and television programs on the luminaries of the art world, captures Getty, the musician, at work and in candid conversation with fellow composer and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas about his creative process and vision.  He even captures a few of Getty’s endearing expletives─“Jeepers creepers!” and “Holy flying mackerel.”  Schooled at San Francisco’s Conservatory for Music in the early 1960’s, Getty studied music theory with Sol Joseph.  His business career and responsibilities as head of the Getty Foundation impinged on his time for composition and it wasn’t until the 1980s when Getty published his first work, The White Election, a song cycle on Emily Dickinson poems.  He’s actually spent decades of his life carefully working and honing his music and his oeuvre includes “Joan and the Bells,” “Plump Jack,” “Usher House,” “Poor Peter,” “Four Dickinson Songs,” “The White Election” and more─pieces that have been performed all over the world. (2015, 68 min) Screens Friday, April 1, 5:30 PM, Vintage House (Getty will be present) and Saturday, April 2, Andrews Hall, 2:30 PM

The Messenger:

The Indigo Bunting, a small songbird in the Cardinal family, sings with gusto. The male is all blue and looks like a slice of sky with wings. The plight of songbirds is the subject of Su Rynard’s documentary, “The Messenger,” which screens twice at the SIFF 19. Image: Su Rynard

The Messenger:  Making a documentary is a labor of love that often takes years to realize. To understand what was happening with global populations of songbirds, Canadian director Su Rynard and her team followed songbirds on three different continents through several seasons. The message of her riveting documentary is urgent─songbirds are disappearing and many species are in serious decline.  Changes in our world have brought utter catastrophe to theirs and soon they will be gone.  Each year, twice a year, songbirds embark on a dangerous and difficult migratory journey.  Every species has its own story to tell but the resounding commonality is that songbirds are in danger.  Whose song will we hear when they are gone?   The film is full of gorgeous shots of birds and clips of bird songs. (2015, 90 min) (Screens: Friday, April 1, 2:30 PM at Andrews Hall and Sunday, April 3, 9:30 AM at Vintage House)

ARThound’s previous festival coverage:

The 19th Sonoma International Film Festival, March 30-April 3, 2016, will honor Meg Ryan who will screen her new film “Ithaca”

Details: The 19th Sonoma International Film Festival starts Wednesday, March 30 and runs through Sunday, April 2, 2016.  To enjoy guaranteed access to all films, themed nightly parties in SIFF Village’s Backlot Tent, after parties, receptions, and industry events and panels, buy all inclusive passes online at sonomafilmfest.org.   A limited number of $15 tickets are available for each film screening too and these will sell out rapidly, so purchase these in advance online at sonomafilmfest.org.

CAAMFest 2016─Asian American film, food, music─starts today; here are the must see films

Every year, CAAMFest offers fascinating documentaries. Iranian director Ayat Najafi’s “No Man’s Land” follows the ceaseless efforts of his sister, composer Sara Najafi, whose dream is to mount a concert Tehran featuring female singers performing Persian songs written and once performed by Iranian female singers of the 1920’s, 1940’s and 1960’s. The music is entrancing. Footage of Tehran’s once grand concerts halls and Najafi’s visits with authorities in Iran create a portrait like no other of this nation that continues to defy categorization. Image: CAAM

CAAMFest 2016, an 11 day celebration of Asian-American and Asian film, food, music kicks off this evening at the Castro Theatre with the Bay Area premiere of Pamela Tom’s award-winning documentary, Tyrus and a rocking after-party at the Asian Art Museum.  The festival’s program includes 10 world premieres, 23 narrative features, 16 feature documentaries and dozens of other films, along with thoughtfully-curated panels that explore the Asian America experience.  CAAMFest spends its first 8 days at various locales in San Francisco and then moves on to Oakland for a long final weekend.  Programming starts between 5 and 6:30 p.m. on most weekdays and weekends are fully packed weekends.   Learn more about Tyrus and CAAMFest 2016 at www.caamfest.com/2016.

Here are ARThound’s top picks:

Married for over 40 years, Chinese couple Feng and Lou are inseparable. She suffers dementia and he tenderly cares for her. When his own health is jeopardized, and he is not able to fulfill his duties, the fragile house of cards that he has constructed so carefully topples.  The two are forced to consider a big move in Zhao Qing’s evocative “Please Remember Me.” Photo: courtesy CAAM.

Please Remember Me:     Growing old gracefully─with dignitiy and health─ is a global challenge that has had a particularly severe impact on China.  In 2013, there were more than 200 million Chinese over the age of 60.   Many of the adult children of elderly Chinese parents have settled abroad or live in urban areas and their parents face the struggle of aging with little daily support for the practicalities. Chinese director Zhao Qing’s documentary turns the spotlight on her elderly octogenarian grandparents─Shaghai couple Feng and Lou─inseparable for the past 40 years.  He calls her his “baby girl” and she calls him her “Mr. Silly.”  Lou is 88 and has suffered Alzheimer’s for the past decade.  She has deteriorated to the point that that only person she recognizes is her loving husband, who stills takes her to her beloved Chinese opera, despite her lack of comprehension.  When he is diagnosed with a pancreatic mass, their world is rocked as they must contemplate life in a care facility.  Tenderly told and beautifully executed, with rich bows to recent events in Chinese history, this story is one that all of us with aging parents will take to heart. (78 min, in Shanghai dialect with English subtitles) (Screens:  Sat, March 12, 1 p.m., Alamo; Sun, March 20, 4:40 p.m., New Parkway)

 

The Killing Fields of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge continue to haunt after 40 years. How does society heal? As the Khmer Rouge tribunal collects testimonies from aging war criminals and survivors alike, Michael Siv travels to Cambodia with survivors to film “Daze of Justice,” which has its world premiere at CAAMFest 2016. Photo: CAAM

Centerpiece Presentation: Daze of Justice, World Premiere:     Bay Area filmmaker Michael Siv, who himself was a participant in Spencer Nakasako’s vital 2003 documentary Refugee, returns to Cambodia once again. There, Pol Pot’s heinous regime murdered roughly 1.7.million people between 1975 and 1979 and was responsible for running work camps that enslaved Cambodians into collectivized labor to build dams and infrastructure and to oversea the mass murder of their fellow countrymen.  It’s no wonder that this lush cradle of civilization, home to the fabled Angkhor, is still reeling. This time, Siv accompanies Khmer Rouge survivors from the U.S. to their homeland where they seek justice, catharsis and healing in a court for genocide.  (Screens: Sat, March 12, 3 p.m., Alamo)

 

A scene from Ayat Najafi’s “No Land’s Song.” The documentary follows Iranian composer Sara Najafi in her attempt to organize a concert in Tehran with other female solo singers, something that is strictly forbidden under Islamic law. Photo: CAAM

 

No Land’s Song:    For Iranian composer, Sara Najafi, the act of communication is a nuanced, multifaceted and exhausting endeavor when it comes to getting permission to sing in public in Tehran. Iran’s 1979 Revolution of banned female singers from appearing in public in Iran and they are not allowed to perform solo except for an exclusively female audience.  In the documentary, “No Land’s Song,” Persian filmmaker Ayat Najafi follows his sister, Sara Najafi whose dream is to mount a concert in her hometown, Tehran, featuring female singers performing Persian songs written and once performed by Iranian female singers of the 1920’s, 1940’s and 1960’s.  Sara realizes that, unless she acts, the female vocal voice in Iran may well be lost.  Were it not captured on film, no would could imagine the convoluted logic, objections and snafu’s that the Iranian Ministry of Culture uses to dissuade her as well as the long-winded metaphor that she receives from an Islamic scholar on why a group  of women singing together is not a dangerous as a solo female singer is.  As Sara moves forward with her plans, inviting artists from France and Tunisia, who incite all sorts of visa concerns, we are brought into the complex and depressing world of an artist just trying to survive in contemporary Iran.  The entrancing music, much of it addressing suffering and transcendence, includes nods to such pre-revolutionary greats as Ghamar Ol Molouk Vaziri, who, in 1924, became the first woman in Iran to perform without a hijab in front of men, and Tunisian singer Emel Mathlouthi whose song “Kelmti Horra” inspired protestors during the Arab Spring. With footage of street-life in Tehran and visits to several dilapidated but once grand concert venues, this is also a must-see portrait of Tehran.  And there are plenty of shots of women tying, arranging and primping in their headscarfs. (Screens: Wed, March 16, 8:40 PM, Alamo)

In South Korean director Lee Won-suk’s sumptuous period drama, “The Royal Tailor,” a commoner with an innate gift for clothing design catches the eye of the queen and then goes on to design clothing that upsets etiquette and ignites the passions of rivals. The film, while not always true to history, does track the evolution of Korean style and features exquisite hanboks, Korean national costumes, which are seen rarely seen today, except at formal occasions.  Photo: CAAM

 

The Royal Tailor:   South Korean director Lee Won-suk weaves a fine tapestry of court intrigue and high fashion in this period drama, set in the broad Joseon dynasty (1392-1897), which pits two very different tailors against each other in a design competition for the new king’s favor.  At first, it seems that Dol-Sak (Han Suk-kyu), the previous king’s tailor, is a shoe-in with his penchant for exquisite embroidery and fine detail.  When a young commoner,  Lee Kong-jin (Koo Soo), gets a shot at recreating one the king’s robes that was damaged accidentally and does a wonderful job tailoring it so that it fits even better than before, the new king gives him a job creating new hunting attire.  When this young tailor then turns out a stunning 15 layer gown for the queen, with real artisanship and creativity, his access and place in royal society seem secure.  His masterpiece however upstages the dress worn by the royal concubine, a dress designed by rival Dol-Sak and she swears revenge.  Park Shin-hye, known for her roles in the dramas You’re Beautiful and The Heirs is the young queen.   The costumes are stunning.  In Korean with English subtitles.  (Screens: Tues, March 15, 9 p.m., Alamo and Sat, March 19, 2:20 p.m., New Parkway)

 

Rithy Panh’s “France is Our Mother Country” is made up entirely of archival footage from Cambodia’s colonial period, 1863 to 1953, when Cambodia was a part of French Indochina, a territory including Laos and Vietnam.  Many images familiar to Westerners evoke grandeur, a construct Panh dispenses with, replacing it with discomfort. The Colonial era was characterized by economic servitude, violent suppression of uprisings and imposition of Western education, culture and values.  Image: CAAM

 

 

France is Our Mother Country (La France est notre patrie) Rithy Panh came to our attention with his spellbinding documentary, The Missing Picture (2013), winner of Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2013 and an Oscar nominee, which used hand-sculpted clay figures and elaborately crafted dioramas to recreate the brutal suffering of his family and friends at the hands of the Pol Pot regime in the late 1970’s in Cambodia.  His latest exploration of the Cambodian Diaspora, France is our Mother Country (2014), lacks the power of his earlier masterpiece but uses meticulously edited black and white archival footage and antiqued cards to recapture the romance and promise of French Indochine in its heyday, playing with our perceptions of what it was, might it have been and what it evolved into.  What unfolds is a glorious reflection on the clashing of two cultures, one dominating the other and repressing its very imagination and essence, evoking reflection on Western civilization’s Colonial quest, which has always ended tragically.  75 min, in French with English subtitles.  (Screens: Thu, March 17, 9 p.m., Alamo)

CAAMFest Details:

When/Where: CAAMfest 2016 runs March 10-20, 2014 at 8 screening venues in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland and as well as The Asian Art Museum, the Oakland Museum of California, Slate Bar and SOMAR Bar.

Tickets: This popular festival sells outs, so advance ticket purchase is highly recommended for most films and events.  Regular screenings and panel discussions are $14 with $1 to $2 discounts for students, seniors, disabled and current CAAM members.  Special screenings, programs and social events are more.  Festival 6-pack passes are also available for $75 (6 screenings for price of 5). All access passes are $450 for CAAM members and $500 for general.  Click on individual films at CAAMfest website for ticket purchases online.  Tickets may also be purchased in person and at various venue box offices open one hour before the first festival screening of the day.  Rush Tickets:  If a screening or event has sold all of its available tickets, there is still a chance to get in by waiting in the Rush line. The Rush line will form outside of the venue roughly one hour before the screening is set to begin. Approximately ten minutes prior to screening, empty seats are counted and will be sold on a first-come, first-serve basis to those in line.  Cash only and one rush ticket per person and there are no guarantees.

Unpacking the festival: Click here to see full schedule in day by day calendar format with hyperlinks for film and event descriptions and for ticket purchase.  The official website— CAAMFest 2016

The 19th Sonoma International Film Festival, March 30-April 3, 2016, will honor Meg Ryan who will screen her new film “Ithaca”

Meg Ryan, Golden Globe nominated actor and director, will receive the Sonoma Salute Award at the 19th Sonoma International Film Festival (March 30-April 30, 2016). The tribute will be presented on March 31 with a program that includes an on-stage conversation with Ryan and the screening of her new family drama, “Ithaca,” her directorial debut. Image: SIFF

The Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF 19), March 30-April 3, 2016, a Wine Country favorite among film and wine lovers, hasn’t released its full schedule yet but it has just announced that Meg Ryan, the beloved Golden Globe nominated actor and director will be honored with the festival’s Sonoma Salute Award on Thursday, March 31 at the historic Sebastiani Theatre on the plaza.  The presentation will follow a special screening of Ryan’s new film Ithaca and an on stage conversation moderated by filmmaker Elliot Koteck who also publishes the Association of Film Commissioners’ twice annual Beyond Cinema magazine.

Ithaca is Ryan’s directorial film debut and the drama is an adaptation of William Saroyan’s 1943 novel, The Human Comedy. After taking a break from acting for the past six years, the film reunites Ryan with Tom Hanks for the fourth time, after cherished performances in You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, and Joe Versus the Volcano co-star.  In this drama, Ryan plays a widowed mother, while Hanks plays a very small role.  First filmed in 1943 under the name of The Human Comedy, Ryan’s Ithaca is a “World War II coming-of-age drama about Homer, a young telegram messenger in a small town and looks after his widowed mother while his brother is away at war .  The film was shot along historical back road sites in Virginia and, along with Ryan and Hanks, it features Alex Neustaedter, Sam Shepard, Hamish Linklater, and Ryan’s son, Jack Quaid, who plays Marcus the older brother serving in the war.  The music is by John Mellencamp.

Joachim Tier’s drama, “Louder Than Bombs” (2015), opens the 19th Sonoma International Film Festival on Wednesday, March 30, at the Sebastiani Theatre.

Norwegian director Joachim Tier’s family drama, Louder Than Bombs (2015), opens the festival on Wednesday, March 30 at the Sebastiani.  A smash at last year’s Cannes Film Festival will, the drama stars Isabelle Hupert, Jesse Eisenberg, Gabriel Byrne and David Strathairn and explores how a widower and his two adult sons cope with the recent death of the wife and mother (Hupert), a war photographer.  The opening night festivities will also feature a live “vertical dance performance” with members of the dynamic Bandaloop dance group gracefully performing choreographed moves from ropes on the Sebastiani’s roof.

Details: The 19th Sonoma International Film Festival starts March 30 and runs through April 2, 2016.  Buy passes online now at sonomafilmfest.org.

What! You’ve never heard of artist Tyrus Wong? The Asian Art Museum and CAAMFest will honor this living legend starting Wednesday, March 9, 2016

105 year-young Chinese American artist Tyrus Wong will be honored twice this week─on Wednesday at the Asian Art Museum,, with a public proclamation of “Tyrus Wong Day” and on Thursday, at CAAMFest 2016, where his life and art are the subject of Pamela Tom’s Opening Night documentary, “Tyrus,” which has its Bay Area premiere at the festival.
Image: courtesy Museum of California Design

Unless you caught his wonderful retrospective at the Walt Disney Family Museum two years back, Tyrus Wong is a name that most people can’t place readily. At 105 years young, this pioneering Chinese American artist has touched all of us through his innovative art for films like Rebel Without A Cause and Walt Disney Studio’s classic 1942 animation film Bambi.  Wong’s impressionistic conceptual art grabbed the attention of Walt Disney himself and Wong became essentially responsible for the evocative style that we associate with the beloved Bambi and he created much of the film’s background landscapes.  But that was just the beginning of this exceptional artist’s diverse artistic career as a painter, illustrator, calligrapher, muralist, designer, Hollywood sketch artist, ceramicist, and kite maker.  At 105, he is Americaʼs oldest living Chinese American artist and one of the last remaining artists from the golden age of Disney animation.  On Wednesday, March 9th, at 4:00PM in the Asian Art Museum’s Peterson Room, CAAM (the Center for Asian American Media), the Asian Art Museum and the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation will ensure that Wong is long remembered in the Bay Area.  San Francisco District 1 Supervisor Eric Mar will present a Tyrus Wong Day proclamation in honor of the artist.  The next day, CAAMFest 2016 celebrates Wong on the big screen with the Bay Area premiere of Pamela Tom’s award-winning documentary, Tyrus, selected as the opening night film.

Tyrus Wong’s “Chinese Jesus,” 85 x 75 inches, will be on display to the public for one day only─Thursday, March 10─ at the Asian Art Museum. Tyrus Wong painted the long unidentified artwork for the Chinese Congregational Church in Los Angeles decades ago. The unsigned painting was found in the attic of the Chinese Methodist Church in San Francisco by CAAM board member David Lei. The artwork is in need of restoration and David Lee is mounting a fund-raising campaign to clean and restore it to its original state. The artwork will then be placed in a Bay Area museum. Image: CAAM

On Wednesday, Tyrus, will also be signing one of his unidentified large paintings, which had been unattributed for decades, “Chinese Jesus.”  The 85 x 75 inches painting was rediscovered recently by CAAM board member David Lei in the attic of the Chinese Methodist Church in San Francisco’s Chinatown.  Wong will be joined by his daughter, Kim, and Tyrus director, Pamela Tom.   The painting will be on display at the Asian Art Museum on Thursday, March 10th, for one day only.  The public is invited to view the signed piece during regular museum hours and during CAAMFest’s Opening Night Gala, which takes place at the Asian that evening at 9:30 p.m., following the screening.

“That it was first in Los Angeles in late 1920’s and made its way here is an amazing discovery,” explained CAAM, Executive Director, Stephen Gong, who spoke with ARThound at the CAAMFest press conference in February.  “This came to our attention some 5 years ago.  Tyrus was in the process of being made and our board member, David Lei, was poking around the Great Star Theatre in Chinatown, looking at old opera scenery backdrops, and his memory was triggered about a painting he had seen as child in a local church of a Jesus that he felt might have been done by the same artist.  He did some research and spoke with scholar Mark Johnson at San Francisco State, who told him that Tyrus Wong was around at the time and might be able to identify the artist.   When Tyrus’ daughter, who was about 80, spoke with him about it, he said it ‘might be’ one of his.   I was flabbergasted.  It took David several months to investigate this.  The next time Tyrus came to town, he brought him to the Jesus painting, which he had found, and it was confirmed.”

Right now, Stephen Gong explained, the painting is “in between lives.”  The Chinese Methodist Church in Chinatown stills owns the painting but they have loaned it to the Asian Art Museum, where CAAM board member, David Lei, is also on the board.  Lei is trying to drum up interest to get it restored and to place it in a Bay Area museum, like the de Young or the Asian.

“Tyrus could well have been a major figure early on, but no Chinese artist in the 1930’s was going to be recognized by the art establishment especially when it wasn’t recognizing West Coast artists of any background, ” added Stephen Gong.

Tyrus Wong’s pastel illustrations inspired the style of Walt Disney’s classic, “Bambi,” including its lush impressionistic forest. Wong served as the lead artist for the cherished film.

Pamela Tom’s Tyrus opens CAAMFest 2016:  Tom’s emotionally inspiring documentary paints a beautifully intimate portrait of Tyrus Wong, eloquently exploring his childhood arrival at the Angel Island Immigration Station, the evolution of his voice and legacy and the formation of what he views as his greatest achievement, his family.

CAAMFest 2016─an 11 day celebration of Asian-American and Asian film, food, music opens this Thursday, celebrating its 34^th year with a program that celebrates and explores the breadth of the Asian and human experience.  This year’s program all things Asian includes no less than 10 world premieres, 23 narrative features, 16 feature documentaries and dozens of other films and thoughtfully-curated events that run for 8 days in various locales in San Francisco and then move on to Oakland for a long final weekend. Learn more about Tyrus and CAAMFest 2016 at www.caamfest.com/2016

Documentary filmmaker Pamela Tom and Tyrus Wong in 2012. Set against a backdrop of immigration, poverty, and racial prejudice, Pamela Tom’s “Tyrus” tells the compelling life story of Tyrus Wong. Reaching back to 1919, nine-year-old Tyrus and his father leave their village and family in China. Tyrusʼs journey takes him from the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco, where he is detained and interrogated, to earning a scholarship to Otis Art Institute. During his 85-year career as a fine and commercial artist, Tyrus crosses paths with Picasso and Matisse, Walt Disney and Warner Bros. Although his design work was crucial to the animated classic “Bambi” and over 100 live-action movies including “The Music Man,” “Rebel Without a Cause” and “The Wild Bunch,” the name Tyrus Wong remains largely unknown. “Tyrus” screens once at CAAMFest 2016 but has secured distributorship and will open later at the theatres in the Bay Area. Image: courtesy CAAM

 

Cheesemaking in Poland 7,500 years ago: Princeton Archaeologist, Dr. Peter Bogucki tells the story with archaeology, analytical chemistry and genetics at SRJC this Sunday, March 6, 2016

Early in his career, Princeton Archaeologist, Dr. Peter Bogucki based a ground-breaking theory about the development of Western Civilization on cheesemaking and ancient chards of pottery he unearthed in Northern Poland. It took thirty years for developments in modern biochemistry to prove him right. Photo: Frank Wojciechowski

We all know that archaeology entails a great deal of puzzle solving. In 1981, Princeton Archaeologist Peter Bogucki was a key player on an international team of archaeologists investigating ancient Polish agricultural sites when he revisited a site in the Kuyavia region of Northern Poland.  The site yielded some roughly 7,000 year-old hole-pierced “potsherds”—prehistoric pottery fragments.  Later, when Bogucki (pronounced bow-good’-ski) was back in the States visiting a friend in Vermont, he examined some 19^th century sieve-like ceramics used in cheesemaking that were somehow similar.  The spark was lit!  On the drive home, it hit him.  Could it be that those shreds of perforated pottery, that had been unearthed for years at Neolithic farming sites in northern Poland, were evidence of ancient cheesemaking?   In 1984, he revealed his theory in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology.  The hitch was that it was impossible to prove that that the bits of pottery were the remains of a cheesemaker rather some other type of strainer.

It would take some of the most cutting edge developments in biochemistry—and 30 years—until researchers at the University of Bristol used a new type of test to measure ancient molecular remnants embedded within the pottery.  When evidence of bovine dairy lipids were found, Bogucki’s hypothesis was finally confirmed and the scientific floodgates were opened.

The presence of these bovine milk byproducts in the potsherds not only provided evidence that perforated pots were used to separate cheese curds from whey, it also explains how Neolithic Europeans, who were generally unable to digest lactose, were able to use milk for food—the whey retains the bulk of the lactose in milk, allowing the farmers to eat the low-lactose cheese.  This discovery, which highlights the interplay between human cultural development and biological evolution, was published in the scientific journal Nature in December 2012 and has attracted worldwide attention.

Science is the art of refinement and enlightenment.  The transformation of milk to a more tolerable product, cheese, for the lactose-intolerant may have helped promote dairying among the first farmers in Europe, Bogucki postulated.  Richard Evershed and his team at the University of Bristol, who were in close contact with Bogucki, further postulated that the presence of dairying over several generations may have set in motion a biological change in Europeans—lactase persistence—retaining the lactase enzyme, which breaks down lactose, well into adulthood, which changed Western digestive capabilities.  The discovery that the modern European digestive system is partly a legacy of Neolithic dairy farming practices is in turn fueling new research.

A clay fragment, or potsherd, found to be early cheese-making equipment. (Mélanie Salque et al, Nature)

This Sunday, at 4 p.m., Bogucki will give the Robert Braidwood lecture, The Archaeology of Cheese: Cattle, Strainers, Chemistry, and Genes, at the Petaluma campus of SRJC in Ellis Auditorium (Room PC310).  His talk is free and open to the public.

With the 10^th California Artisan Cheese Festival following next weekend (March 18-20), in and around Petaluma’s Sheraton Sonoma County and various cheese country locations, March promises a bounty of cheese-related events. The cheese festival, which focuses on cheese sampling and education, also offers a full day of cheese-related seminars but none of this year’s seminars focus on the history of cheese or offer the depth of science and archaeology that will be covered in Bogucki’s talk.  Click here for ARThound’s coverage.

More on Dr. Peter Bogucki: Currently, Dr. Bogucki is Associate Dean for Undergraduate Affairs at the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University.  He received his degrees from Harvard University (Ph.D.) and the University of Pennsylvania.  Since 1976 he has studied early farming societies in Europe (ca. 6000 – 3000 BCE), specifically in Poland with excavations at the sites of Brześć Kujawski and Osłonki.  Dr. Bogucki has published extensively, and received numerous honors for his work.

Details: The Archaeology of Cheese: Cattle, Strainers, Chemistry, and Genes is Sunday, March 6 at 4 p.m., Ellis Auditorium, Petaluma campus of SRJC, 680 Sonoma Mountain Parkway Petaluma. The lecture is free but a parking fee is required for all-on campus parking.