San Francisco Silent Film Festival is back at the Castro May 5-11: Sunday offers two rare films
The stunning Seeta Devi as Gopa, Gautama’s wife, in a scene from Franz Osten and Himanshu Rai’s 1925 Indo-European co-production,“Prem Sanyas” (“The Light of Asia”). Adapted from Edwin Arnold’s 1879 narrative poem, The Light of Asia, the film tells the story of Prince Siddhartha Gautama (Himansu Rai), who became the Buddha or Enlightened one, tracing his journey from privilege and seclusion to awareness of the inevitability of life’s suffering, finally renouncing his kingdom to seek enlightenment. Seeta Devi and Himanshu Rai made their last on screen appearance at SFSFF23 in 2018 in “A Throw of Dice” (1929) which was inspired by one of India’s masterworks, the Sanskrit poem The Mahabarata, “Prem Sanyas” was made with the cooperation of the Maharajah of Jaipur and contained a cast of thousands. Shooting took place in Lahore, now Pakistan, where the set decoration was created by Devika Rani, Himanshu Rai’s wife. Heady mythological subject matter is balanced with realistic glimpses of contemporary (1925) Indian landscape and people. The opening shots accompany a group of European tourists as they wind their way through the bazaars and other exotica of the streets of Bombay City until they encounter a bearded old man who begins to recount a tale, told in flashback, of the young Prince Gautama, and how he came to be called Lord Buddha. Osten, the company that was formed to make this film, eventually evolved into Bombay Talkies, one of the largest colonial era film studios in India. Live music by Club Foot Hindustani featuring Pandit Krishna Bhatt. 97 min, screens Sunday, May 8, 1:30 p.m.
After a two-year pandemic pause, the 25th edition of San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) has just launched, and runs May 5-11 at San Francisco’s historic Castro Theatre with 29 programs featuring silent films from 14 countries, all accompanied by live music. The largest silent film in the Americas, SFSFF has also garnered a reputation for some of the finest musical accompaniment to be found. If you’ve never experienced a silent film the way it was meant to be seen—on the big screen, with the correct speed and formatting and with riveting live music—it’s high time! Silent film might just be the experience you’ve been waiting for. In addition to screening silent films, SFSFF is part of a global network dedicated to finding, saving, and restoring silent film heritage and restoration stories themselves are front and center at the festival. This year’s festival includes 19 recent film restorations, nine of which will have their North American premiere. Seven restorations have been undertaken by the SFSFF. ARThound especially recommends the Sunday afternoon program for its content and for those planing to drive into San Francisco and park. Early Sunday afternoon traffic coming into San Francisco is light and parking is free on Sundays in the Castro district. Allow yourself ample time to get to the theater; once you’re there, settle in for a wonderful experience.
A scene from Ukrainian director Heorhii Tasin’s “Arrest Warrant” (1926) This briskly-paced gem tells the story of Nadia (Vira Vareckaja), whose husband, Sergei, Chairman of the revolutionary committee, flees the city in the midst of civil war, leaving her behind as a communications agent with a cache of secret documents. Expressionist effects, at times riveting and then distressing, highlight Nadia’s psychological torture at the hands of the White Army. Live music: Sascha Jacobsen Quintet, which will include Ukrainian melodies in the score. This program is a benefit screening. Proceeds will be donated to World Central Kitchen which is feeding wqr refugees and Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre in Kyiv, Ukraine, an archive which preserves and promotes national film heritage in Ukraine. 81 min, Screens: Sunday, May 8, 4:30 p.m.
Details: The 25th San Francisco Silent Film Festival is May 5 -11 at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre. GA Tickets $18; $16 for SFSFF members. Tickets, schedule, information about performing musicians: https://silentfilm.org/
Say cheese!—the CA Artisan Cheese Festival is Saturday at Grace Pavilion with cheese and accompaniments
After a two-year pandemic pause, the California Artisan Cheese Festival returns live to the Sonoma County Fairgrounds’ Grace Pavilion and Shade Park with a single event, an Artisan Cheese Tasting & Marketplace, this Saturday, May 7 from 11 to 4 p.m. Traditionally, this popular cheese tasting extravaganza and marketplace has concluded the weekend long festival, providing a chance for cheese enthusiasts to buy all the fabulous cheeses they’re tasted along with new, limited-production, and rare artisan cheeses as well as other amazing products. This year, over 60 award-winning cheeses will be offered for tasting and sold at this event, along with all sorts of accompaniments including wines, ciders, beers, chocolate, crackers, salts, spices and other artisan products. The Festival will be expanded to include the adjoining outdoor Shade Park area so guests will have more room to relax and enjoy the experience, including live entertainment by local Sonoma County-based Jazz band, King Street Giants. “We are excited to be back in-person this year and featuring so many local favorites and over a dozen new purveyors,” said Judy Groverman Walker, the Event Producer of the California Artisan Cheese Festival. Here are this year’s participants. Tickets: $30-75; purchase directly at venue.
The 65th SFFILM Festival is April 21-May 1: the program is online now and non-member tickets go on sale April 1
The 65th SFFILM festival: 130 films (58 features, 5 mid-length films and 67 shorts), 56 countries, 16 world premieres. Fifty-six percent of the films are directed by female or non-binary filmmakers and 52 percent directed by BIPOC filmmakers. Screenings will take place at venues across the Bay Area, including the Castro Theatre, Roxie Cinema, Victoria Theatre, Vogue Theatre, and UC Berkeley’s BAMPFA.
Full schedule, tickets for the 65th SFFILM Festival: https://sffilm.org/
SFFILM member tickets on sale now; non-member tickets on sale, Friday, April 1, 10 a.m.
The 19th San Francisco Greek Film Festival is April 8-16 at Delancey Street Cinema and online
Showcasing a selection of films from the Greek and Cypriot worlds, the 19th San Francisco Greek Film Festival (SFGFF) is April 8-16, offering nine days of in-person screenings at Delancey Screening Room in San Francisco and continuing its very popular virtual screenings. From a pool of 350 submissions, the festival team selected 9 features and 17 shorts for this year’s in person festival and 14 shorts, 11 documentaries, and 3 feature narrative films for the virtual program. Festival program information and tickets will be available shortly at grfilm.com. This festival is very popular with the Bay Area’s Greek community and it’s essential to purchase tickets or passes as soon as the program is announced.
San Francisco Greek Film Festival
WHAT: 2022 San Francisco Greek Film Festival – 19th annual
WHEN: April 8-16, 2022
WHERE: Delancey Screening Room, 600 The Embarcadero, San Francisco, and online
COST: $15 general in person screenings / $40 for April 8 & 16 (opening & closing nights) including reception / $170 for festival pass for all in person screenings / $40 virtual pass for all online programs
LANGUAGE: Films in Greek or other non-English languages are subtitled in English
MORE INFO: grfilm.com and facebook.com/SFGreekFilmFest
DocLands is around the corner: early bird passes on sale through April 7
Each spring, CFI (California Film Institute) brings awe-inspiring true-life stories to the Bay Area with its Doclands Documentary Film Festival held at the Smith Rafael Film Center. Last year’s festival presented 42 illuminating films, including award-winning feature-length docs and shorts. This year’s festival is May 5-11, at the Smith Rafael Film Center and the full program will be announced shortly. Early bird passes are on sale now at a substantial discount through April 7. On sale: In-theater 6-Packs (6 films–$59 CFI members; $89 General Public) and Online Festival Passes (CA residents only), which allow full access to the festival’s online program of 20+ films and additional viewer content including interviews and Q&A’s. Some films have restricted streaming capacity and may sell-out.
The 25th Sonoma International Film Festival will honor Jacqueline Bisset and screen her new film, “Loren and Rose,” Friday, March 25
SIFF (Sonoma International Film Festival), hasn’t yet released the full programming for its special 25th anniversary edition, March 23-27, but it’s started dropping announcements like well-paced hors’d ouvers. Its latest delectable—Jacqueline Bisset will be honored with the festival’s Cinematic Excellence Award on Friday, March 25, at the historic Sebastiani Theatre on Sonoma’s plaza. The award celebrates Bisset’s five plus decades of cinematic achievement and will be presented following a special screening of Bisset’s new feature film, “Loren and Rose,” and an on-stage Q&A with Bisset and director Russell Brown.
“I am thrilled to be seeing Loren & Rose in this environment after such difficult years of waiting for genuine cinema screens. Thank you to SIFF for this recognition,” said the legendary star of “The Deep” and “Day for Night”.
A truly international film star, the British-born Bisset has undertaken a diverse range of dramatic and comedic challenges in the more than 50 films in which she has appeared, winning raves from critics and fans alike. She has worked consistently since her debut nearly 60 years ago as an extra in “The Knack and How to Get it.” Her 2014 Golden Globe for her supporting role in the acclaimed BBC mini-series “Dancing On The Edge” reflected acting skills honed through collaborations with some of our era’s greatest directors. Bisset’s career includes roles in John Huston’s “Casino Royale,” Peter Yates’ “Bullitt,” George Seaton’s “Airport,” François Truffaut’s Day for Night,” Sidney Lumet’s “Murder on the Orient Express,” Peter Yates’ “The Deep,” J. Lee Thompson’s “The Greek Tycoon,” and George Cukor’s “Rich and Famous”. Over the expanse of her career, she has appeared in more than 100 films and television shows and has been nominated for a Golden Globe five times. In 2010, she was awarded France’s Legion of Honor. Based in Los Angeles, Bisset divides her time between America and Europe.
“We are honored to present international film star Jacqueline Bisset with the SIFF Cinematic Excellence Award during our historic 25th festival,” said SIFF Artistic Director Kevin W. McNeely. “She has lit up the screen from the moment she appeared in some of the most memorable films of our collective conscience, and continues to do so to this day.”
SIFF prides itself on its poignant dramas, many of which weave food and wine into the story. “Lauren and Rose” is set around a pivotal lunch from which a friendship develops between two women whose love of art, understanding of grief, and faith in life guide them through personal and creative
hardships. I can’t wait to see Bisset on screen again…her acting is real, so vital, inviting you inside her characters. She is often quoted for saying: “There is an eternal humanity that crosses through all people, and it’s more interesting often when it’s about struggle – not people with champagne glasses.” (Screens Friday, March 25 at 6PM at the Sebastiani Theatre and Saturday, March 26 at 11:30 AM at Vintage House. Both screenings include Q&A’s with Bisset and Brown. Bisset will receive the SIFF Cinematic Excellence Award after the Q&A on Friday, March 25.)
SIFF Culinary Events: Beloved chefs Jacques Pépin and Joanne Weir, who are best known for their PBS television shows, will also be at SIFF to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Tickets to these sumptuous events are going fast and were first offered to SIFF passholders. Don’t dally in purchasing.
Chef Pépin will attend SIFF Thursday, March 24 to receive the first SIFF Culinary Excellence Award and a $10,000 donation to the Jacques Pépin Foundation during its highly anticipated SIFF | Devour! Chefs & Shorts Culinary Event Honoring Chef Jacques Pépin. This is the third collaboration between SIFF and Devour! The Film Food Fest. The evening includes a five-course dinner from five prominent chefs who will each prepare one course that will be paired with a food short film and wine. Participating are: Ken Frank (La Toque), Michael Howell (Devour!), Roland Passot (La Folie, Left Bank), Seadon Shouse (Timber Cove Resort) and Ari Weiswasser (Glen Ellen Star). Wines: Anaba, Bee Hunter, Breathless (Sparkling Brut), Chateau St. Jean (Cinq Cépages), and Viansa.
Chef Joanne Weir will host a special Plates & Places Lunch on Friday, March 25, at the festival’s Backlot tent, during which she will share segments from her PBS show, “Plates & Places,” filmed on location, to bring the flavors of Spain, Morocco, and Greece to diners’ plates, along with wonderful wines and Thomas Adams Chocolates.
Details: The 25th Sonoma International Film Festival starts Wednesday, March 23 and runs through Sunday, March 27, 2022. Buy discounted passes and tickets to special culinary events at sonomafilmfest.org.
The 44th Mill Valley Film Festival is October 7-17, 2021—in theater and online—non-member tickets on sale now
Lucky day for film lovers. The 44th Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF44), which opens in three weeks, and runs October 7- 17, 2021, has general admission tickets available on September 16 for almost all its films. Generally, the esteemed festival’s films and events are in such demand that many are sold out to California Film Institute (CFI) members before tickets are made available to the general public. Most in-theater screenings, save a few big nights, are available now. This won’t last for long, so browse the program and don’t dally in pre-purchasing tickets. Several of these films will figure in the looming Oscar race and it’s very gratifying to say “I already saw that,” especially when talent appears on stage in conversation.
After last year’s almost entirely virtual edition, this year, the festival will return to a few more live events while offering substantial online content. MVFF44 is smaller than usual too, reflecting the challenges of programming with Covid: 118 films representing 39 countries with 37 premieres and 55 percent of all films are directed or co-directed by women. Thirty-seven features will screen in theaters only—Smith Rafael Film Center (San Rafael), CineArts Sequoia (Mill Valley) and PFA (Berkeley)—and 28 features and 65 shorts will screen online with a few of these in theaters too. A MVFF Online pass covers all online programming, offering potentially substantial discounts the more films watched.
With the Delta and the new Mu variants of the coronavirus pressing concerns in the Bay Area, safety will be the festival’s top priority. To attend any of its in-theater events or live musical performances, the festival will require proof of vaccination, or a recent negative coronavirus test, as well as a valid ID, which will be checked at every event. Screenings and events be held at 75 percent theater capacity. Masks will be required; no concessions.
Arthound will be posting more on MVFF, so stay tuned.
Shortlist of MVFF44’s live offerings:
In-theater Opening night/October. 7: “Cyrano,” from director Joe Wright, starring Peter Dinklage. A musical adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play “Cyrano de Bergerac,” inspired by the 2018 musical stage play adapted and directed by Erica Schmidt. Director Joe Wright will appear in conversation.
In-theater Tributes: October 8: Director Jane Campion and “The Power of the Dog” (it’s been 10+ years since her last film); October 25: Director/actor Kenneth Branaugh and screening of “Belfast.”
In-theater Spotlights: October 9: Actor Simon Rex and “Red Rocket”; October 13: director Denis Villeneuve and “Dune“; October 16: Director Paolo Sorrentino and “The Hand of God“; October 16: Director Maggie Gyllenhaal and “The Lost Daughter.”
In-theater Centerpiece Program/October. 12: Director Mike Mills in conversation and“C’mon C’mon,” a family drama starring Joaquin Phoenix.
In-theater Mind the Gap special screening/October 14: Producer Nina Yang Bongiovi (“Fruitvale Station,” “Sorry to Bother You”) will receive the 2021 Mind the Gap Award, Independent Producer of the Year and will be joined in conversation by Director Rebecca Hall, along with “Passing,” a film about passing as white in the Jim Crow era starring Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga.
In-theater Closing night, Oct. 17: Director Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” a tribute to the New Yorker’s fabled literary world with idiosyncratic performances from Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Saoirse Ronan, Tilda Swinton, and Jeffrey Wright.
MVFF music: Four live music shows at Mill Valley’s historic Sweetwater Music Hall paired with four musical docs playing at CineArts Sequoia: October 9: MONOPHONICS and “Lady Buds“; October 10: house band and Ben Fong-Torres and “Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres“. October 11: THE BARRY GOLDBERG – JIMMY VIVINO BLUES REUNION (Featuring ROB STONE) and “Born in Chicago“; October 15: ABEL SANCHEZ & TEATRO CAMPESINO and guest musicians in a benefit honoring Cesar Chavez and “Song for Cesar.”
Details:
MVFF44 is October 7-17, 2021. Tickets to most films are $16.50 general admission, $14 CFI members. Special events start at $25. MVFF Online pass, $130 for CA residents, allows access to all online films, programs, conversations.
Complete schedule: https://www.mvff.com/program-mvff44.
SFFILM 2021 starts Friday: female-directed & BIPOC films bring distant worlds and global issues to our homes
The 64th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM 2021) kicks off this Friday and runs through April 18, 2021—103 films from 41 countries in 28 languages with strong contributions from local filmmakers. The longest running and biggest film festival in the Bay Area, SFFILM always has a fascinating line-up. It’s paired down and mainly online this year, a concession to the Covid-era, but there several drive-in screenings and events at Flix, at Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture.
The festival was cancelled last year and there have been big changes since at SFFILM. There’s a new executive director, Ann Lai, who came from the Sundance Institute, as well as a new programming director, Jessie Fairbanks, who replaced Rachel Rosen who’d held the position for the past 20 years. Fairbanks has led the festival’s curation of film and off-screen programming resulting in a lineup of 42 feature films, 56 shorts, and five mid-length films, a new offering. Fifty-seven percent of these films are directed by women and 57 percent by BIPOC filmmakers. A common thread in this year’s film selection is identity, a focus on individuals navigating through isolation, hardships, relationships. ARThound is a world cinema buff, so my recommendations are biased towards remote settings and cultures.
Settle in; here are six films to stream:
After Antarctica
Bay Area director Tasha Van Zandt’s enthralling documentary, “After Antarctica,” transports viewers to Antarctica with intrepid explorer Will Steger, who embarked on the first ever coast to coast dogsled expedition across Antarctica in 1989. Leading a team of six scientists and explorers and their sled dogs, braving storms, sub-zero temperatures, Steger crossed this treacherous 3,741 mile route for 7 months to draw attention to Antarctica’s changing climate. Van Zandt catches up with Steger 30 years later to relive the trip. Featuring never-before-seen-archival footage and the ever prescient Steger discussing his eyewitness experience with the irreversible changes occurring in the Earth’s polar regions, this doc records a journey that will never happen again because climate change has progressed so.
Nudo Mixteco
A scene from Ángeles Cruz’ “Nudo Mixteco,” playing at the 2021 San Francisco International Film Festival
Ángeles Cruz’s debut feature, “Nudo Mixteco,” emerges as an essential portrait of indigenous life in San Mateo, the Mixtec Oaxaca village where Cruz grew up. It seems that wherever one is in the world, there’s nothing like a holiday to raise festering wounds. This story unfurls against the village’s annual patron saint festivities and revolves around three people who left the village and return home only to find themselves embroiled in traumatic conflicts. María comes back for her mother’s funeral and is rejected by her father who disapproves of her being a lesbian; Esteban returns from working abroad only to learn his wife has a lover and he seeks revenge; Toña must re-visit the trauma of her own childhood sexual abuse by an uncle in order to save her daughter from the same experience. Esteban and Toña let the village community decide what action will be taken, a custom that is common in indigenous Mexican communities but has never been played out on screen. Villagers from San Mateo enact this, rather than actors. María’s story highlights the fact that in several regions of Mexico, male homosexuality is accepted but lesbianism is not, making her struggle for identity and acceptance hard to resolve. Cruz authentically shows how difficult it is to navigate the trappings and protections of native culture having had the experience of assimilating into global culture.
Writing with Fire
Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s inspirational debut documentary, “Writing with Fire,” is a story of perseverance and female empowerment. It follows several Dalit women who founded and have kept a grassroots all-female newspaper, Khabar Lahariya, floating for 14 years. and have decided to take their publication digital, with an online edition and YouTube channel. It’s also the story of contemporary India in turbulent transition. Despite plentiful obstacles on the home front, these women fearlessly tackle abuses of patriarchy and government malfeasance in their impoverished state of Uttar Pradesh. Their reporting yields measurable results and hits to to their site climb steadily.
Seyran Ateş: Sex, Revolution and Islam
Seyran Ateş in a scene from “Seyran Ateş: Sex, Revolution and Islam” playing at the 2021 San Francisco International Film Festival, April 9 -18, 2021. Courtesy of SFFILM.
“Seyran Ateş: Sex, Revolution and Islam,” a new documentary about Turkish-German lawyer, radical Muslim feminist, and female imam, Seyran Ateş, unveils a relentless, yet elusive, warrior making headway. Both subject and filmmaker, Oslo-based Turkish/Norwegian Nefise Özkal Lorentzen, are iron-willed activists fighting for human rights, LGBTQ people and gender equality within Islam, confronting traditionalists who have been steadfastly resistant to change. Lorentzen has recently been named one of the top 10 immigrant role models in Norway. Ateş is the founder of Germany’s first liberal, LGBTQ-friendly Muslim house of worship, the Ibn Ruschd-Goethe mosque in Berlin, where women can be recognized as imams. To the point of taking a bullet in the neck, and living under police protection and death threats, Ateş has been fighting for years for sexual revolution within Islam and for an interpretation of Islam that reflects the values of the Western society in which many Muslims live.
The Cuban Dancer
Alexis Valdes, a dance apprentice at San Francisco Ballet, in a scene from Roberto Salinas’ “The Cuban Dancer,” playing at the 2021 San Francisco International Film Festival. Courtesy: SFFILM
Luminous, emotional, with dazzling dance sequences guaranteed to raise your heartbeat. Roberto Salinas’ “The Cuban Dancer” follows Cuban born dancer Alexis Valdes as he prepares to leave Cuba to move with his family to Florida and pursue his dream of professional ballet dancing. Shot over a period of four years — first in Cuba and then in Florida, Salinas captures the pride, frustration and incredible risk it takes to pursue this dream. Radiant, smoldering Alexis Valdes is a star in the making. Co-presented by the San Francisco Dance Film Festival.
The Overclockers
Talent comes in all forms as does struggle. In Michal Wnuk’s engaging feature, “Overclockers,” Karol, a 25-year-old Polish aviator with a brilliant mind, works part-time for the family business and runs his own start-up. When his father dies in an accident, Karol has to shoulder the responsibility of taking care of his home and his mother. Forming a partnership with friends he grew up with, he puts everything on the line to finance the building of his dream, a next-generation zeppelin. But his exacting standards and a fundamental misunderstanding of his associates endanger the entire project and his stubbornness threatens his relationship with his girlfriend. Maciej Musiałowski shines as Karol, embodying the collision of impassioned youth with the realities and limitations of life in a risky start-up.
Sloan Science on Screen: “Overclockers”: Join SFFILM online for a deep dive into the aeronautic science behind the film as San Francisco critic Michael Fox moderates a streamed conversation between director/co-writer Michal Wnuk and Debbie G. Senesky, Stanford University Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Principal Investigator of the EXtreme Environment Microsystems Laboratory (XLab). Free, requires advance RSVP. RSVP here.
Details:
SFFILM 2021 is Friday, April 9 through Sunday, April 19, 2021. Almost all streaming films are available for the duration of festival. Individual tickets are $12; all-inclusive Cinevisa pass, $75, grants access to all films that are streaming; drive-in films at at Fort Mason Flix drive-in, San Francisco, $70 per car. Info: sffilm.org
The 24th Sonoma International Film Festival is March 24-28th—virtual, for the way we live now
The 24th edition of the beloved Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF) takes place virtually again this year from March 24-28, with over 100 films from 40 countries and three drive-in screenings. Having scrambled to offer the Eventive platform last year to a global audience that streamed some 4,000 hours of media in four days, SIFF is more than ready to roll this year. It’s the art films that keep ARThound enamored with the SIFF and Program Director, Steve Shor, along with Artistic Director, always provide engaging, informative films that often take us into bygone eras. Here are the films that caught my eyes this year:
Maverick Modigliani
Maverick Modigliani (Maledetto Modigliani) delves into Italian-born artist, Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920). Famous for his serenely seductive women with elongated features, Modigliani created artworks that were a synthesis of ancient and modern techniques and were fashionably hip in their day. Valeria Parisi’s documentary feature covers Modigliani’s life from when he left his home in Livorno in 1906 and arrived in Paris as a vivacious 21 year old dandy, determined to establish himself as an artist. He began as primarily a sculptor and created tall stone heads—with the long, narrow noses that became his hallmark. He studied with Constantin Brancusi for a year and his radically simplified forms, evocative of African art, which was all the rage, had a powerful influence on him. Crushingly handsome, Modigliani was ensnared by Parisian life and, fueled by alcohol and drugs, he painted and seduced numerous women—notably poets Anna Akhmatova and Beatrice Hastings. Many became the subjects of his languid portraits, rendered in bold flat colors, eyes without pupils. He married Jeanne Hébuterne, who he immortalized in over 20 paintings but never in the nude. In a span of 15 years, he painted over 400 pictures, created magical stoneworks, and left a small archive of drawings before his untimely death at age 35 from tubercular meningitis. (2020, Italy, 97 min, in English and Italian) (Available to stream Saturday, March 26, 10 a.m.)
Mucha: The Story of an Artist Who Created a Style
A scene from Roman Vávra’s documentary, Mucha: The Story of an Artist who Created a Style, image: maxim film.
Czech director Roman Vávra’s stylized documentary, Mucha: The Story of an Artist who Created a Style (Svět podle Muchy) (2020), is about the life and reach of Czech-born art nouveau pioneer, Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939). Shot in 2019, the film tells Mucha’s story from the perspective of his son, the writer and bon-vivant Jiří Mucha, with lots of re-enactments, animations, archival footage as well as paintings and photos. Mucha has slipped in and out of the limelight. His advertising posters immortalizing French actress Sarah Bernhardt became synonymous with Belle Epoque Paris. In the 1960s, his Art Nouveau posters attained cult status as the hippie movement rediscovered his vivid pictorial world. Mucha’s art has since become the inspiration for street art, psychedelic rock posters, and Japanese manga. What he considered his most important work is largely unknown outside of the Czech Republic. In 1920, at the peak of his fame, Mucha left Paris for a castle in Bohemia where for he holed up for 18 years, pouring his soul into his monumental Slav Epic— 20 huge canvasses, some more than 25 feet tall illustrating key events in the history and mythology of the Czech and Slavic people. Mucha conceived it as a monument for all Slavonic peoples. Instead, he was met with fierce criticism upon its completion. In 2016, the cycle was at the heart of a major law suit that pitted Mucha’s grandson, John, against the city of Prague. He argued that because Prague failed to build a permanent gallery for the artworks, which was a pre-condition of his grandfather’s gift, it never became the full owner of the Slav Epic, and that the works should be returned to Mucha’s heirs. In December 2020, the court ruled in favor of the family. Shortly after that ruling, it was announced that the City of Prague had commissioned an appropriate gallery for the Slav Epic to be completed by 2026. (2020, Czech Republic, Germany, France, 100 min, Czech with English subtitles)
M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity
M.C. Escher, image courtesy Adrian Curry (Kino Lorber Team)
M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity is the story of Dutch graphic artist M.C Escher (1898-1972). Equal parts history, psychology, and psychedelia, Robin Lutz’s entertaining, eye-opening portrait presents the man through his own words and images and delves into the deep waves of math and art he conjured. Escher’s diary musings, excerpts from lectures, and correspondence are all voiced by British actor Stephen Fry as Escher’s woodcuts, lithographs, and other print works appear in both original and playfully altered form. We hear Escher align himself with scientists and mathematicians, often trashing his own skills as a draftsman. Two of Escher’s sons, George (92) and Jan (80), reminisce about their parents while musician Graham Nash (Crosby, Stills & Nash) talks about Escher’s rediscovery in the 1970s. This doc has been praised highly for its innovation, for finding clever ways to show the audience, visually, just how Escher’s style evolved and the principles behind that evolution. (2020, Netherlands, 81 min, multiple languages with English subtitles)
Built Beautiful
The question of beauty is something that science has shied away. Built Beautiful introduces the new field of neuro-aesthetics which may give us the ability to peer into realms of the human experience that were once thought to be totally abstract and intangible. Image: SIFF
Mariel Rodriguez-McGill’s Built Beautiful explores the interface of design and science in the emerging field of neuro-aesthetics which seeks to understand the neural mechanisms behind the appreciation of design. The documentary features leading experts on neuro-aesthetics from around the world elaborating on ideas presented at the Ux+Design/2019 conference (co-sponsored by Genetics of Design) held at Tufts University. A core area of research is determining how and why beauty plays an important role in our well-being and how subliminal responses to one’s built environment will influence the future of design. It’s an exciting evolutionary approach to art appreciation, a realm of human experience that was once thought to be totally inaccessible to science. While filming, Rodriguez-Gill discovered that several elements of cities remained the same no matter where they were in the world. At one point in the film, students in schools in Oxford, UK, and Denver, Colorado, were asked to draw a home. Each student drew buildings containing what neuroscientists call the primal form—human facial features unconsciously drawn into renderings of nonhuman objects. (2020, US, 77 min, English)
Drive-in Screenings:
Celebrate cinema at Sonoma Parkway on their 40 foot screen, with FM transmission to car radios, special video introductions by SIFF sponsors, gourmet food, non-alcoholic beverages, and one gift bag per car. Every car present will be eligible to win a door prize of two tickets in the main cabin of Alaska Airlines. Tickets are $75/car with a $25 discount given to pass holders.
Opening Night: Six Minutes to Midnight, (Wed, March 24, 6:15 pm) (Andy Goddard, 99 min, English) A spy thriller set days before WWII at an Anglo-German finishing school on the south coast of England, involving a teacher, a headmistress and 20 teen girls, daughters of the Nazi high command. Stars Judi Dench (Casino Royale), James D’Arcy (Broadchurch), Jim Broadbent (War and Peace), and Eddie Izzard (Victoria & Abdul).
Friday Night at The Drive-In: Spacewalker, (Fri, March 26, 6:16 pm) (Dmitriy Kiselev, 140 min, Russian, dubbed in English) A look at the Soviet side of the space race, set in the Cold War 1960’s as two Russian astronauts, Pavel Belyayev, a seasoned war veteran and Alexey Leonov, a hot-headed test pilot, part of the Voskhod 2 mission in March, 1965, prepare to step into the unknown on the first space walk.
Closing Night at The Drive-In: The Comeback Trail (Sat, March 27, 6:15 pm) (George Gallo, 104 min, English) An American crime comedy. Two movie producers (Robert De Niro, Emile Hirsh) who owe money to the mob (Morgan Freeman) set up their aging movie star (Tommy Lee Jones) for an insurance scam to try and save themselves. They wind up getting more than they ever imagined.
Details:
SIFF is Thursday, March 24th to Sunday, March 28, 2021. Tickets: $12/film. Passes: SIFF’s Virtually Everything Pass is $175 and includes SIFF Saturdays, a monthly virtual screening on the last Saturday of every month throughout the year. SIFF Drive-Ins: tickets are $75/per vehicle; passholders receive a $10 discount/one vehicle maximum.; SIFF’s First Responder Passis $25. Show appreciation for the staff at Sonoma Valley Hospital and the Community Health Center by underwriting their access to SIFF.
Rancho Gordo’s Steve Sando has a new bean portrait by Jason Mercier
Pop trash artist Jason Mercier fascinates me with his meticulous mosaic portraits. He’s outdone himself with his new portrait of Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo beans—he’s captured Steve’s essence in heirloom beans. As materials go, the humble heirloom bean is just about perfect, varying in color, size, and texture and it has great karma.
A pic of the artwork arrived in my email this morning in Steve’s e-letter celebrating his 20th anniversary selling beans. As Steve points out, glamorous celebs of a certain era used to appear in print, draped in Blackgama furs as part of Blackgama’s “What becomes a legend most?” ad campaign (1968-94). Today’s legends are captured in Jason Mercier’s mosaics—Snoop Dogg sculpted out of weed, Steve Jobs’ 2006 portrait revisioned from 20 pounds of e-waste, Amy Sedaris out of her own trash, Justin Timberlake and Miley Cyrus out of candy. Amazing how blobs of material in deeply saturated colors, arranged just so, can cohere into vivid likenesses.
Steve Sando is an artist in his own right: his heirloom beans look like gems, taste fabulous and have the most interesting names—Cicerchia, Vaquero, Alubia blanca, Mayocoba, Yellow Eye. It’s hard to buy just one bag when confronted with these enticing beauties. Sando has traveled the world in search of rare and delicious artisan beans, written passionately about his finds, respectfully crediting the farmers he collaborates with and created a gourmet brand that has become a staple in the culinary world. He started selling at the farmers’ market in Yountville two decades ago and built Rancho Gordo slowly. He now sells direct to consumers all over the US, Canada, to restaurants and retail stores. He grows in California, all along the West Coast, Mexico, Italy and Poland. He’s planning a 20th anniversary celebration at the his storefront in Napa, after Covid. If you’d like to know more, he’s been profiled wonderfully in the New Yorker by Burkhard Bilger (The Hunt for Mexico’s Heirloom Beans). Even better: subscribe to his newsletter and check out them beans for yourself: https://www.ranchogordo.com.
ARThound 