The 7th Petaluma International Film Festival starts Friday, October 16, and offers a weekend of really diverse world cinema
Petaluma filmmaker A.D. Freese’s “Bastards y Diablos” (2015) has its Northern CA premiere and screens twice at the 7th Petaluma International Film Festival, October 16-18, 2015. Freese will be in attendance for audience q & A’s after each screening. The story follows two half brothers, Ed and Dion, who travel to Bogotá to fulfill the wishes in their recently deceased father’s will, only to find a mysterious set of instructions sending them on an unexpected journey all over Colombia. Accompanying them on this quest is their unconventional father’s spirit, linking his own formative journeys as a young man with his sons’ present day adventures. Amid the mystical splendor of Colombia, Ed and Dion experience the brotherhood they missed out on growing up. Screens: Friday, October 16, 6:15 PM and Sunday, October 17, 8:15 PM. image: PIFF
When did you last see a film from Burkina Faso, Cuba, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan or Macedonia? With 35 independent films from 18 countries, the 7th Annual Petaluma International Film Festival (PIFF7) offers a line-up that covers these and other remote corners of the globe, along with films from more familiar places, including Petaluma. This year’s festival is Friday through Sunday at Petaluma’s Boulevard 14 Cinemas, and offers 16 full-length films, 19 shorts and the popular Sonoma Filmmakers Showcase with several filmmakers in attendance. There’s also a new feature film from Petaluma’s director A.D. Freese, Bastards y Diablos, which has its Northern CA premiere at PIFF.
Organized by Saeed Shafa, who founded the popular annual Tiburon International Film Festival in 2002, PIFF was created to support new indie filmmakers, great storytelling and international points of view. Since most filmmakers start their careers out by creating a short film, Shafa has purposely paired all the feature-length films with at least one short film to demonstrate to the audience that short stories can be highly effective and so can new filmmakers.
Benjamin Meyer’s debut feature film “Fools” won the Audience Award at June’s Dances with Wolves Festival in Hollywood. It has its Northern CA premiere at the 7th Petaluma International Film Festival on Friday, October 16. The romantic drama was filmed in Chicago and is about two strangers who start a romantic relationship in a highly unconventional way–they brush hands on a crowded commuter train and a week later, without exchanging a word, they move in together. image: David Roberson PR
Friday’s Opening film:
Mumbai artist Sheikh Rehman is literally the last artist in Mumbai who is still painting movie banners by hand. And what colors and action they employ. Rehmen is the subject of German filmmakers Florian Heinzen-Ziob & Georg Heinzen’s documentary “Original Copy” (2015) which is a love letter to a lost art and a man lost in art.
The festival kicks off at noon on Friday with German filmmakers’ Florian Heinzen-Ziob & Georg Heinzen’s documentary Original Copy (2015, Germany), a delightful ode to Mumbai artist Sheikh Rehman who lovingly creates one-of-a-kind hand-painted film posters for an old movie palace in Mumbai. Romanian director Andra Tévy’s 17 minute short The Wall (Mur, 2014) will also open the festival. PIFF offers six screenings daily, running from noon till just before midnight.
Sunday’s Closing film:
The festival closes with a Sunday 10:15 PM screening of American director Tim French’s crime drama Intersection (2015) about a troubled man who is haunted by the circumstances of his daughter’s death in a car crash and returns to the small town where she died. Screening with this is Italian director Francesco Gabriele’s comedy, Italian Miracle (2015), a 9 minute short which screened at Cannes this year and is set in rural Italy where a young man is called upon to translate an English speaking woman’s confession to the local priest.
Saturday’s Sonoma Filmmakers Showcase:
Santa Rosa filmmaker John Harden’s 16 minute short, “New” (2014) screens in Saturday’s Sonoma Filmmaker’s Showcase. The story follows an elderly couple who are cryonically preserved at the time of their deaths in the hope that future medical technology will restore them to life. It works! They awake, totally restored, centuries later to face the joys and challenges of a second life in the distant future. Harden’s previous short, “La vie d’un chien” (“The Life of a Dog”), screened at top-tier festivals around the world and at MOMA as part of their New Directors/New Films series. It garnered numerous awards, including Best Narrative Short in the 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival. His screenplay, “The Sensitivity Program” (co-authored with Skot Christopherson) was chosen as Best Feature Screenplay (Science Fiction Category) in the Austin Film Festival competition, beating out over 700 other scripts in the category. Image: John Harden
Now in its third year, the Sonoma Filmmakers Showcase, Saturday at 6 PM, will screen four shorts from local filmmakers, recognizing our community’s rich and diverse talent. All the filmmakers will be on hand for a post-screening Q&A. On the program—Bill Chayes’ Metal Man (2014, 37 min). John Harden’s New (2014, 16 min), Janna Ji Wonders’ I Remember (2015, 30 min), and Quinn Fujii’s Nashville Yacht Club (2015, 10 min).
There are three Cuban films at PIFF7. Edith Mazzola is Estela in Joacenith Vargas’ short film “Estela” (2014). The shy middle-aged woman tries to isolate herself from the outside world. When she is called upon to break into her elderly neighbor’s house, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, she reconnects with childhood memories and experiences an awkward and brief moment of intimacy with a stranger. (Screens Sunday, October 18, 2:30 PM.) Image: Palm Springs Int’l Film Festival
“Ghosts” (Ashbah) from legendary Iranian director Dariush Mherjul is a stylized melodrama based on a story loosely adapted from Ibsen about a married woman who learns that her tyrannical husband has been having an affair with their maid. She fires the maid unaware that she is pregnant and, years later, is confronted with the consequences. Mherjul, who studied under Jean Renoir, is a founding member of Iran’s new wave movement of the 1970’s. (Screens Sunday, October 18, 6:15 PM.) image: PIFF
Full schedule here.
Film descriptions here.
PIFF Details: The 7th Petaluma International Film Festival is Friday, October 16, through Sunday, October 18, 2015 at Petaluma’s Boulevard Cinemas, 200 C Street, Petaluma. Tickets: All screenings $12; buy tickets during the festival at Petaluma’s Boulevard Cinemas or online (click here) with a handling fee. Passes: All inclusive festival pass is $180 and a day pass is $60. (click here) For more information: Phone (415) 251-8433 or email: info@petalumafilmfestival.org .
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