“Hilma,” the new biopic about Hilma af Klint, screens Thursday/Sunday at SIFF26 in sunny Sonoma
Many of us made a beeline to New York to the Guggenheim in 2018 for the amazing and long overdue exhibition “Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future” a celebration of the Swedish artist’s strikingly original abstract paintings. The focus was on her innovative works completed just after the turn of the 20th century (1906-20), when she created incredibly imaginative non-objective paintings that were largely ignored by the art world. Now considered masterpieces with great mystical depth that invite a re-evaluation of the development of modernism, we decry that she, like many women, was sidelined by the art world and hunger for more information. “Hilma,” three-time Academy Award nominee Swedish director Lasse Hallström’s (“The Cider House Rules,” “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” “My Life as a Dog”) new biopic promises answers about her lifelong interest in mysticism which had a negative impact on her career and is shot against the backdrop of some of her most famous works. This is the first biopic about af Klint. You’ll meet the Five, the group formed with four other women in the 1890s. Calling themselves the Five, they hold seances and meditations and collectively complete artworks; when Hilma paints, she believes higher spirits are directing her brush. The film is a family affair: Hilma is played at different ages by Tora Hallström (‘Hachi: A Dog’s Tale’), and Oscar nominee Lena Olin, Lasse Hallström’s daughter and wife. The films screens twice at the the 26th Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF): Thursday, 1 pm at the Sebastiani Theater and Sunday, 7:30 pm, at Prime Cinemas. (115 minutes, in English)
Details:
The 26th Sonoma International Film Festival is March 22-26, 2023, with more than 110 films slated during the five-day festival, details in the SIFF Festival Guide. Individual tickets are available and should be purchased online in advance.
Celebrity Chefs Martin Yan and Joanne Weir are front and center at the 26th Sonoma International Film Festival, March 22-26, 2023
Chef Martin Yan, 2022 James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, will be honored with the SIFF Culinary Excellence Award at the SIFF | Devour!Chefs & Shorts Dinner on Thursday, March 23, 2023. Chef Yan will give a cooking demonstration and prepare one course for the extravaganza which features pairings of short films with gourmet courses prepared by visiting chefs, along with bountiful pours of Napa Valley wines. Photo: SIFF
The 26th Sonoma International Film Festival is just six weeks away and the culinary events lineup is out, ahead of any news about special guests, big nights and the program drop. SIFF This year’s SIFF | Devour! Chefs & Shorts Dinner honors global television personality Chef Martin Yan on Thursday, March 23. Chef Joanne Weir returns for her second SIFF with Joanne Weir’s Wine Country Cooking Luncheon, Saturday, March 25, where she will premiere segments from her new PBS show, “Joanne Weir’s Wine Country Cooking.” Bringing film lovers together around a table for a sumptuous meal with free-flowing top wines and even more film is where SIFF excels—forging wonderful conversations and friendships, making the festival come alive. SIFF has just announced that its discounting of festival passes has been extended through February 28. Both culinary experiences are included with the 2023 Patron Pass and are discounted for 2023 Soiree and Cinema Passholders.
SIFF | Devour! Chefs & Shorts Dinner Honoring Chef Martin Yan, Thursday March 23, 2023
In a career spanning 40-plus years, Chef Martin Yan has connected with audiences across the world through his public television series, introducing generations of North Americans to Chinese and Asian cuisines. He has hosted over 3,500 cooking shows, authored over 30 cookbooks and founded a chain of Yan Can Restaurants and the Yan Can International Cooking School in San Francisco. I have vivid memories of watching him on PBS, slicing and dicing vegetables with impeccable precision at a rapid-fire pace and of his wonderful heart-felt enthusiasm. His message: “If Yan can cook, so can you!”
And accolades! The James Beard Foundation recognized Yan with an award for best television cooking show in 1994, best television food journalism in 1996, and a who’s who of food and beverage in America in 2001. In 1998, he won a Daytime Emmy Award for best cooking show for “Yan Can Cook” which has aired since 1978 and is syndicated around the world making it one of the longest-running American cooking programs of all times. In 2022, the James Beard Foundation honored him again with a lifetime achievement award.
The celeb, famous for cutting up a chicken in 18 seconds, in his 70’s now, still has boundless energy and is a popular YouTube host, livestreaming his approachable recipes from his home kitchen. In 2022, it was announced he would be opening M.Y. Asia in Las Vegas, at the Horseshoe Casino and Hotel (formerly Bally’s) featuring pan-Asian cuisine. The UC Davis alum also recently made a gift to the UC Davis Library Archives and Special Collections to create the Chef Martin Yan Legacy Archive.
Chef Yan brings his unique “Yan-ergy” to the SIFF | Devour! Chefs & Shorts Dinner and will prepare a course during the event that is certain to wow attendees with cleaver action. In addition to Chef Yan, notable chefs at this year’s dinner include Michael Howell | Executive Director of Devour! The Food Film Festival and Executive Chef of the Green Turtle club, Bahamas; Emily Lim | Chef-Owner of Dabao Singapore in San Francisco; Ruby Oliveros | Executive Chef at Ram’s Gate Winery in Sonoma; and Cogir Executive Chef Ensan Wong. Participating wineries are Anaba Wines, Bee Hunter, Gloria Ferrer, Ram’s Gate Winery and Viansa. The event is SIFF’s fourth collaboration with Devour! The Food Film Fest and its founder Chef Michael Howell and Co-Director Lia Rinaldo. During the course of the evening, Yan will receive SIFF’s Culinary Excellence Award and will be the second chef to be honored by SIFF. Chef Jacques Pépin was the inaugural recipient in 2022.
“We’re excited Chef Yan is joining us for our Chef and Shorts event, and he’ll actually be cooking, which doubles the excitement,” said SIFF Artistic Director Carl Spence. “It’s wonderful to honor this world-class chef along with world-class cinema, so it’s a great pairing.”
Joanne Weir’s Wine Country Cooking Luncheon, Saturday, March 25
Chef Joanne Weir is back at SIFF for a second time to showcase her new PBS show “Joanne Weir’s Wine Country Cooking” with a special lunch event on Saturday, March 25, from 11 to 1 pm. Weir began her career working at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse in Berkeley before moving to food travel tours and opening Sausalito’s Copita Tequileria Y Comida restaurant. She has spent some four decades writing over 20 cookbooks, teaching cooking and is a James Beard Award-winning cookbook author. She is known internationally for her TV shows such as “Joanne Weir’s Cooking Confidence” and “Joanne Weir’s Plates & Places.” At Saturday’s luncheon, she will premiere her new PBS cooking and travel television series, paired with a three-course meal she has curated representing various Sonoma County people, places, and purveyors. One of the special treats in store for attendees is the exclusive Della Terra Olive Oil and balsamic vinegars,
“We’re are thrilled to welcome Chef Weir back to the festival,” said SIFF Executive Director Ginny Krieger. “Her energy, enthusiasm, and engagement with our audience, along with her delicious lunch, was a highlight last year. We’re so glad she’s returning to make this year even more memorable.”
“I’m so excited to be part of the Sonoma International Film Festival,” said Weir. “This event oozes creativity, artistry and fun; the energy is contagious!”
Details: SIFF26 is March 22-26, 2023. Both culinary events are at the Hanna Center, Sonoma, and both are included with the 2023 Patron Pass and are discounted for 2023 Soiree and Cinema Passholders. Non-passholder prices: SIFF | Devour! Chefs & Shorts Dinner Chefs $350; Joanne Weir’s Wine Country Cooking Luncheon $175. Buy your tickets now as both events will sell out. (The Hanna Center is roughly 4.5 miles from the town square.)
For information on passes and to buy tickets: https://sonomafilmfest.org/
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 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.
The 23rd Sonoma International Film Festival kicks off virtually Thursday evening
Maria Peters’ bio-pic, “The Conductor,” (2018) is one of four opening night films offered at SIFF2020 which opens Thursday evening to a virtual audience. The period drama explores the difficult life of Dutch immigrant, Antonia Brico, who in the late 1920’s battled incredible sexism to become the first woman to conduct a large symphony orchestra, The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Other opening night offerings include the world premiere of “Elephant Refugees,” Louise Hogarth’s documentary about the first community-owned elephant sanctuary in eastern Botswana, where 60 percent of Africa’s elephants live; “I am Woman,” Unjoo Moon’s biopic of the iconic Australian singer, Helen Reddy and her breakout 70’s feminist anthem; and Rajita Shaw’s culinary tale, “Love Sarah.”
Originally scheduled in March but postponed due to Covid-19 outbreak; the 23rd Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF2020) is screening to a virtual audience this Thursday, July 30 through Sunday, August 2, 2020. Theoretically, you can stream the full program of 110 features and shorts, from the comfort of your couch. Figuring out access issues in advance is key to a pleasant experience, so plan ahead. The festival has partnered with Eventive so that films can be viewed on home computers and devices as well as televisions. You first purchase a pass or individual ticket at SIFF’s website which will “unlock” a film so that you can add it your Eventive festival account.
It is essential to test Eventive’s virtual cinema technology in advance. Eventive has several test films prepared for this purpose. I will be watching from from two homes and will have a laptop open to my Eventive festival account and will be playing the films on that laptop. At the home where I have a smart TV, I will be mirroring the laptop over my wifi. At the home with a regular TV, I will be connecting my laptop to my TV’s HDMI port. The HDMI port will allow the TV to watch the laptop over the cable.
Passes and tickets: A pass which allows access to 110 films is $75 and single films are $10. Many films are available for viewing throughout the entire festival but several films have time-specific streaming windows.
Heads Up! A few films have caps on tickets. Tom Dolby’s feature drama, “The Artist’s Wife,” starring Lena Olin and Bruce Dern as a couple facing the onset of dementia as the painter/husband (Dern) is preparing for a huge retrospective, is nearing capacity.
For those who purchased tickets to special culinary and wine events, SIFF continues to ask for patience instead of refund requests while efforts are made to reschedule these after Covid concerns are at bay.
For film descriptions, trailers, screening time slots and to purchase passes or tickets, visit: http://www.sonomafilmfest.org
SIFF2020 is postponed due to COVID-19 risk
“Born a King,” SIFF2020’s opening night feature, was slated to screen at Sonoma’s historic Sebastiani Theater on March 26. Shot in the UK and Saudi Arabia, the Spanish co-production is the coming of age story of the future King Faisal (played by Abdullah Ali), who in 1919 was sent to on a high-stakes diplomatic mission to England by his warrior father, Prince Abdul Aziz. His task was to resolve issues around the unification of Saudi Arabia. At the time, England was fostering dissent by selling weapons to numerous Saudi tribes to encourage warring among themselves instead of collaboration. The story follows the 14 year-old Arab prince from the Arabian desert to cosmopolitan England where he encounters Lord Curzon, Winston Churchill, and Princess Mary. SIFF2020 will feature over 90 films, including indie features, docs, world cinema and shorts.
Originally scheduled for March 25-29, 2020, the 23rd Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF2020) has joined the ranks of North Bay cultural organizations that have postponed programming due to COVID-19 concerns. The move makes sense for this beloved high-end festival which prides itself on film shown in intimate venues and partying in close quarters. SIFF’s renowned Backlot tent features lavish self-serve buffet tables with local delicacies as well as wine from Sonoma vintners and trendy beverages. Festival Director Kevin McNeely promises “We’ll be back.” For those who have purchased passes or tickets to special culinary and wine events, the festival is asking for patience instead of requests for refunds. Check SIFF’s website for updates on the new date: http://www.sonomafilmfest.org
The 21st Sonoma International Film Festival kicks off Wednesday…a long list of great short films
Stanford students Cameron McClellan and Jacob Langsner’s short film, Going Home, addresses the Sonoma wildfires of 2017 and screens twice at the 21st Sonoma International Film Festival, March 21-25, 2018. The film is paired with the world premiere of producer Stephen Most and director Kevin White’s full-length documentary, Wilder than Wild (2017) which explores the central Sierra’s Rim Fire of 2013 and the wine country’s wildfires of 2017. SIFF’s line-up includes 110 films from around the world, 6 SIFF-curated shorts programs, the LUNAFEST traveling festival of shorts celebrating female filmmakers, and the annual “Student Showcase” of shorts from Sonoma Valley High School’s Media Arts Program. Image: still from Going Home, courtesy Cameron McClellan.
Stanford freshman Cameron McClellan, who hails from the UK, never dreamed that his first film ever would be accepted as an official selection of the Sonoma International Film Festival and that his subject, the Sonoma fires of October 2017, would hit so close to home. Shortly before McClellan completed the interviews for Going Home, a 6:33 min short, which he co-produced with freshman Jacob Langsner, he learned that his 83 year-old grandfather’s home on Calistoga’s Franz Valley School Road had been burned to the ground by the infamous Tubbs fire which wreaked havoc from Calistoga to Santa Rosa and remained unstoppable for days.
McClellan and Langsner’s film will screen twice at the 21st Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF), March 21-25, which is dedicated to the Sonoma Firefighters, First Responders and the rebuilding of our Sonoma Community.
“Going Home is a special film not only because of the Sonoma fires, but because it covers the subject from a unique perspective and is succinct,” says Steve Shor, SIFF’s chief programmer.
Cameron McClellan co-produced and directed Going Home as a project for his first film course at Stanford, Film Production 114: Intro to Film and Video Production. The short film screens twice at SIFF. Image: Geneva Anderson
Going Home is among 15 shorts that have been paired with feature films and one of dozens of shorts that the four-day-long festival will screen in its line-up of 110 films from around the world. The prevalence of shorts demonstrates SIFF’s regard for emerging and student filmmakers and for the art of the short format itself. Limited only by their truncated run time, shorts embrace the best of traditional story-telling and have become a vital and budget-conscious way for filmmakers to connect with audiences.
McClellan’s film project got rolling when he and Langsner managed to hitch a ride from Palo Alto to Napa with some students from the Stanford Storytelling Project who were going there to interview families impacted by the fires. “We drove down and pretty much shot all the footage we could over the course of a day,” said McClellan. “Our idea had been to interview several families but we really had no idea how many families we would have access to or the visuals that we would be able to get. We ended up with access to two families, who we stayed with. We did a very long interview with Dale and Kathy Albin from Santa Rosa who had lost their home in the fire and that’s how the whole film emerged.”
McClellan said that he was nervous about how to speak with the victims of such trauma but was relieved that the conversation carried itself and their story just spilled out. In terms of creative choices, the two directors debated about how to best use the footage they had. They selected a haunting shot of a burnt out car for the film’s poster. They went with just showing a single image of the Albin house before the fire, and placed that at the end of the film, as a reminder of what had once been.
McClellan found about the status of his grandfather’s home just a few days before his visit to Napa. “The smoke had blocked the mobile signal. There was a long period when we just hadn’t heard from them. Then, after we established contact, no one knew what had happened with the property as they weren’t allowed to go the site and there was no information. Doing this project first, before I managed to get out to my grandpa’s place, prepared me for what I would see and his reaction to the loss. Since I didn’t really live in the house, I didn’t have a huge connection to everything that was lost but you do find the loss hits you in waves…you’ll think about times you spent there with family and realize…oh, that’s gone.”
McClellan has never attended a film festival before and is excited to participate at Sonoma and to continue with film-making. His short will screen before with the world premiere of producer Stephen Most and director Kevin White’s full-length documentary, Wilder than Wild (2017) which journeys from the Rim Fire of 2013, which burned 257,000 acres in the central Sierra, to the wine country’s wildfires of 2017, which destroyed 9,000 buildings and killed 44 people. The film reveals how fuel build-up and climate change have made Western wild-lands vulnerable to large, high intensity wildfires, while the greenhouse gases released from these fires have accelerated climate change. The result is a vicious cycle that jeopardizes forests and creates extreme weather and even more wildfires.
This year, in addition to its pairing of shorts with feature films, SIFF is offering six 90-minute-long curated shorts programs—Animated Shorts, Comedy Shorts, Delicious Shorts, Documentary Shorts, Dramatic Shorts, and World Cinema shorts. A new SIFF addition, inspired by the immense popularity of its longer films that embrace diverse culinary cultures, artisan chefs and vintners is the Delicious Shorts programming—five international food and wine shorts from six countries. The festival also welcomes back LUNAFEST, the popular traveling film festival showcasing women filmmakers, which is always hosted at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art and features a fabulous gourmet spread featuring LUNA bars.
Polish filmmaker Bartosz Dziamski’s The Chef at the Palace (2017, 6 min) is part of SIFF’s new “Delicious Shorts” program. The film introduces Maciej Nowicki, executive chef at the Museum of King Jan III’s Palace at Wilanów, who researches and reconstructs the world of Polish flavors in old Polish cookbooks re-published by the museum. Dziamski tracks him in the library and in the garden as he harvests sunchokes, whose baby stalks used to be known as Polish asparagus. We learn that the first rule of reconstructing long forgotten recipes that lack precise weights and measures for ingredients is keeping things in perspective, which Nowicki gains by reading historical texts. The film leaves us craving a full length feature on this extraordinary character. Image: Bartosz Dziamski
SIFF’s pride and joy—the “Student Showcase,” which is presented twice this year, will feature over three hours of shorts from student filmmakers in Sonoma Valley High School’s lauded Media Arts Program. Since 2002, SIFF and its members have donated nearly $500,000 to SVHS’s Media Arts Program which creates opportunities in the digital arts through film-making classes, animation, script-writing, film theory, and storytelling. The program has become a launchpad for students interested in pursuing film in college and film school.
Shorts at SIFF 21:
Animated Shorts (11 films, 96 min) Thursday/March 22, 6:30 p.m., Sonoma Valley Museum of Art and Saturday/March 24, 2:15 p.m., Vintage House.
Comedy Shorts (7 films, 77 min) Thursday/March 22, 3:45 p.m. and Friday/March 23, 1:30 p.m, both at SF Chronicle House of Docs and Shorts at Vets II.
Delicious Shorts (5 films, 91 min) Thursday/March 22, 2 p.m., Celebrity Cruises Theatre at Burlingame Hall and Friday/March 23, 6:30 p.m., SF Chronicle House of Docs and Shorts at Vets II.
Dramatic Shorts (7 films, 94 min) Thursday/March 22, 11 a.m., SF Chronicle House of Docs and Shorts at Vets II and Saturday/March 24, 9 a.m., Celebrity Cruises Theatre at Burlingame Hall.
Documentary Shorts (4 films, 96 min) Friday/March 23, 9 a.m., Andrews Hall and Saturday, 7:15 p.m., SF Chronicle House of Docs and Shorts at Vets II.
World Cinema Shorts (5 films, 85 min) Sunday, 9 a.m., Andrews Hall.
Lunafest (9 films, 90 min) Saturday, March 24, 4 p.m., Sonoma Valley Museum of Art
Sonoma Valley High School Media Arts Program, Thursday/March 22, 8:45 a.m.- 1 p.m., Sebastiani Theatre and Sunday/March 25, 11:15 a.m. – 2:30 p.m., Andrews Hall.
Details:
The Sonoma International Film Festival is Wednesday, March 21 through Sunday, March 25. All films are shown at seven intimate venues within walking distance of Sonoma’s historic plaza so there’s no driving, just meandering charming streets where roses, lilacs and irises are in glorious spring bloom. The best way to experience the Festival and ensure stress-free access to all films and the Backlot Tent’s wonderful food and wine is by getting a SIFF pass. Cinema Passes are $280 (Good for all films, panels and Backlot Tent during daytime hours); Soiree Passes are $850. (Priority access to all films, Backlot Tent VIP area, Opening Night Reception, regular events & parties & priority offerings for special receptions during Festival). Punch Cards: $35 good for any 4 films with access only after all passholders and reserved ticket holders have been admitted.
For information, tickets, festival passes, prices, and benefits visit www.sonomafilmfest.org.
Pounce!— tickets on sale now for Devour! Sonoma Chefs & Shorts Gala Dinner at the 21st Sonoma International Film Festival
SIFF21’s five-course dinner and film shorts event, “Devour! Sonoma Chefs & Shorts Gala Dinner” is Thursday, March 22, 2018, 6pm, at the Sonoma Veterans Hall. A unique collaboration between SIFF and Devour! The Food Film Fest, the evening will celebrate cinema, food and wine. Image: courtesy Phototype
The Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF), March 21-25, 2018, celebrates its 21st anniversary this year and has just announced its first special film/food/wine event, Devour! Sonoma Chefs & Shorts Gala Dinner, Thursday, March 22, 2018, at 6pm the Sonoma Veterans Hall. SIFF is partnering with Canada’s renowned Devour! The Food Film Fest to bring this unique experience to SIFF film and food aficionados.
The evening will feature an extraordinary five-course dinner, with each course taking its inspiration from short food films from around the world. Lia Rinaldo, managing director of Devour! will serve as curator. Culinary collaborators include luminaries such as Dominique Crenn (first woman to earn two Michelin Stars and named Best Female Chef in 2016, Atelier Crenn, San Francisco), Evan Funke (Felix Trattoria, Los Angeles), Michael Howell (Founder of Devour!, Wolfville, Nova Scotia) and Sonoma Chefs John McReynolds (Edge) and John Toulze (The Girl and The Fig). Each course will be paired with Sonoma’s finest wine, including Gloria Ferrer and WindVane, as well as Benjamin Bridge from Michael Howell’s backyard in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. The films are screened simultaneously with the dinner. This unique offering has sold out in many locations around the world, and with this combination of award-winning chefs, great local foods and wines, it’s sure to please SIFF’s savvy foodies. “SIFF is thrilled to work with Devour! The Food Film Fest to bring this first Chefs & Shorts culinary experience to our festival attendees!” said SIFF Executive Director Kevin McNeely.
Details: Devour! Sonoma Chefs & Shorts Gala Dinner is Thursday, March 22, 2018, at 6pm the Sonoma Veterans Hall. Tickets are $120 for Soiree pass holders, $150 for all other pass holders and $200 for general public. Click here to purchase tickets for this event or visit www.sonomafilmfest.org to first purchase your festival pass.
SIFF Pass Information:
SIFF21 is Wednesday, March 21 through Sunday, March 25. The best way to experience this very popular festival and to have access to all films is by getting a SIFF pass. Currently, Cinema Passes are $225 and Soiree Passes are $725. All Cinema pass holders will have day access to the Backlot Tent in SIFF Village. Soiree pass holders will have day VIP area and evening party access. For information about tickets, festival passes, prices, and benefits visit www.sonomafilmfest.org.
More about Devour! Combining cinematic talent with extraordinary gastronomic activities, Devour! The Food Film Fest is the world’s largest film festival focused on food and drink. This annual five-day festival hosts 100+ events, high profile chefs & celebrated filmmakers from around the world and, just this past season, attracted almost 11,000 food and film lovers to Nova Scotia, Canada. The eighth edition of Devour! is slated for October 24-28, 2018.
The Sonoma International Film Festival turns 20 this year: the line-up celebrates wine, food and art and so do the parties—Wednesday, March 29 through Sunday, April 2, 2017
Christian Bale and Charlotte Le Bon in a scene from the historical drama, “The Promise,” which opens the 20th Sonoma International Film Festival Wednesday at Sonoma’s Sebastiani Theater. Actress Angela Sarafyan will be in attendance opening night. The sweeping romance, co-written and directed by Terry George (“Hotel Rwanda”), is set in the final days of the Ottoman Empire and follows a love triangle between Michael (Oscar Isaac), a medical student; Chris (Academy Award winner Christian Bales), a renowned American photojournalist; and Ana (Charlotte Le Bon), a sophisticated Armenian artist who both men fall for. Sarafyan plays the medical student’s wife from an arranged marriage. One of the most expensive independently financed films ever made ($100 million before tax concessions), the sumptuous drama deals directly with the Armenian genocide and is said to recall “Doctor Zhivago” and “Reds.” This year’s five-day festival features over 130 films, including independent features, docs, world cinema, shorts, student films AND parties. Image: courtesy IMDB
If you love great cinema, sampling world class food, wine and spirits from local artisan chefs, makers and vintners, it doesn’t get any better than the Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF) which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. This beloved five-day festival has always the best parties of any film festival around, but, this year, a bottle runs through SIFF’s programming as well as its famed Backlot tent. Eleven of the festival’s 130 films are tales of wine and gastronomy and the celebrities, criminals and unsung heroes from these universes. The festival is dedicated to supporting independent filmmakers from around the world, and inspiring film lovers while plying them with food and wine. There’s also Student Showcases, the wonderful program of shorts from local high school film students which the festival supports enthusiastically. All films are shown at seven intimate venues within walking distance of Sonoma’s historic plaza so there’s no driving, just meandering charming streets where roses, lilacs and irises are in glorious spring bloom.
ARThound’s top film and event picks:
The Turkish Way
Chef Joan Roca of the acclaimed restaurant, El Celler de Can Roca (center), in a scene from Luis González’s engrossing new food travelogue “The Turkish Way,” screening twice at SIFF 20. Image: BBVA Contenidos
On the heels of the immensely popular Cooking Up a Tribute (2015), which had last year’s SIFF attendees queuing excitedly in enormous lines, director Luis González again teams with the Roca brothers—Joan, Josep and Jordi, owners of Catalonia’s Celler de Can Roca, Restaurant Magazine‘s Best Restaurant in the World honoree—to take a five-week tour across Turkey. Their mission: to plunge into the diverse culinary cultures merging at this cradle of civilization. Hot on the trail of new ideas for their own restaurant as well, the brothers engage with sommeliers, chefs and farmers from bustling Istanbul to the bucolic vineyards of Cappadocia and share a meal and chat with the innovators of New Anatolian cuisine. They discover an ancient nation on the cusp of a food revolution. (2016, 86 min) (Screens: Thurs, March 30, 11:45 am, Celebrity Cruises Mobile Cinema, and Fri, March 31, 9:15 am, Sonoma Veterans Hall Two)
Celebrity Cruises Mobile Cinema—the venue designation “CCMC” indicates Celebrity Cruises brand new mobile pop-up movie theater featuring a high definition projection and sound system, where guests can enjoy beverages, wine, truffle popcorn and enter to win great prizes, such as a luxurious cruise to the Caribbean for two.
The Distinguished Citizen (El ciudadano ilustre)
Oscar Martínez as author Daniel Mantovani in “The Distinguished Citizen,” Argentina’s foreign-language Oscar submission, screens twice at SIFF 20.
A favorite at last December’s International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana, Cuba, Argentinian directing partners Gaston Duprat and Mariano Cohn’s latest comedy, El ciudadano ilustre, stars Oscar Martinez (Paulina) as a Noble Prize-winning Argentinean author who returns to the village of his birth for the first time in 40 years. Divided into five chapters, the film follows Daniel Mantovani (Martinez) from his spacious Barcelona villa to the modest hotel room booked for him in backwater Salas, Argentina, where he is to be honored with a medal and a full slate of cultural activities. The scenes are played to maximum comedic effect with outstanding performances all around. What makes the story work so well is that we can all relate to the long suppressed memories and emotions a visit back home can evoke. It turns out that while Mantovani has been living a cosmopolitan life in Europe, he’s taken all of his literary inspiration from Salas and the citizens of Salas have strong feelings about his depictions. Mantovani shines as he explores his complex relationship with his roots and his past. (2016, 117 min) (Screens: Thursday March 30, 1 pm, Sebastiani, and Sat, April 1, 12:30 pm, Sonoma Veterans Hall One.
Franca: Chaos and Creation
Photographer and filmmaker, Francesco Carrozzini, and his mother, Franca Sozzani, editor in chief of “Vogue Italia,” in a still from the documentary film, “Franca: Chaos and Creation” which was four years in the making. Image: Mission Media
Fashion films have become a documentary genre unto themselves. When the subject at hand is Franca Sozzani, the fearless editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia and the director is her son, Francesco Carrozzini, expect nothing short of art and an iconic framing of fashion history. The groundbreaking shoots and themed issues that she engineered over the last quarter century in collaboration with photographer Steven Meisel transcended fashion. Domestic violence, plastic surgery, substance abuse, racism and environmental catastrophes are just some of the issues that Sozzani tackled in her work, often leading to criticism that social commentary had no place in the pages of a publication such as Vogue. Sozzani believed in the power of the image – some Vogue Italias featured 50-page-long fashion shoots where the clothes were barely visible and subordinate to the overall composition of the photographs. And Franca Sozani, well, there are moments when she reveals herself to her son in this intimate portrait, that only a son could have captured. Sozzani passed in December 2016 at the age of 66. (2016, 80 min) (Screens: Thursday, March 30, 3 pm, Sonoma Veterans Hall One and Friday, March 31, 2:30 pm, Sonoma Veterans Hall Two)
Afterimage
Boguslaw Linda as Polish artist Wladyslaw Strzeminski in Andrzej Wajda’s biopic “After Image.” Image: courtesy TIFF
Sadly, the Polish master, Andrzej Wajda (A Generation, Kanal, Ashes and Diamonds) died at age 90, in 2016, just after completing Afterimage. This biopic of the Polish avant-garde painter, Wladyslaw Strzeminski, Poland’s foreign language Oscar submission for 2016, is a story from Wajda’s own past, battling passionately for artistic expression in the vice-grip of state ideology and censorship. Set in the dark years of Soviet rule, 1948 to 1952, the film tracks the highly-principled painter and handicapped (double amputee) professor Strzeminski, played by the masterful Boguslaw Linda (Blind Chance, Pan Tadeusz), as he battles the Socialist Realism movement in an attempt to advance his progressive art and inspire his students. His activity as a solo artist and his participation in groups that he organized in the 1920s and 1930s (together with his wife, Katarzyna Kobro, and painter Henryk Stazewski) played a fundamental role in the history of 20th-century Polish art. A man of great integrity and energy, Strzeminski was persecuted but refused to compromise. The film’s title is borrowed directly from the painter’s famous series of paintings from 1948–1949. It refers to persistent images, those optical illusions that continue to appear under one’s eyelids after staring at a reflective object. (2016, 98 min) (Screens: Thurs, March 30, 9:15 am, Celebrity Cruises Mobile Cinema and Sat, April 1, 9:30 am, Sonoma Veterans Hall One)
Unleashed
A scene from Finn Taylor’s “Unleashed,” with Kate Micucci, screening twice at SIFF 20. (Image: courtesy Braveheart Films
I wouldn’t be ARThound if I didn’t point out the festival’s dog-related flicks. What if your pets turned into full-grown men? I couldn’t resist the wacky premise behind Finn Taylor’s Unleashed, which has a thirty-something software app designer Emma (Kate Micucci) settling into her life in San Francisco when her cat, Ajax, and her dog, Summit, disappear only to reappear in her life as full-grown men (Steve Howet and Justin Chatwin). All their four-legged memories are fully intact and they vie for her affection in their very specific cat and dog styles. This delightful film picked the 39th Mill Valley Film Festival’s Audience Favorite Award /US Cinema Indie. (2016, 93 min) (Screens: Thurs, March 30 at 12 noon, Sonoma Veterans Hall One and Sat, April 1, 12 noon, Sebastiani)
Young Filmmakers
Don’t forget the student films!: One of the festival highlights is the annual Student Showcases, films from Peter Hansen’s Media Arts Program students at Sonoma Valley High School (SVHS), screening twice this year. Since 2002, SIFF and its members have donated nearly $500,000 to SVHS’s Media Arts Program which opens doorways to creativity in the digital arts through filmmaking classes, animation, scriptwriting, film theory, and, most of all, storytelling. The festival also supports media programs in the Valley’s two middle schools. (Student Showcase Screenings: Thursday, March 30, 10am to 12:30 pm, Sebastiani and Sunday, April 2, 3 to 5:30 pm, Sonoma Vets Hall One
Peter Hansen has selected SVHS senior Owen Summers’ stop action 6 min claymation film Magic Beans to be accepted into the Sonoma International Film Festival. In 15 years, only three student films from SVHS have been chosen as official SIFF selections. Owen is a senior at Sonoma Valley High School. (Screens: Thurs, March 30 in Shorts Films Program, Vintage House, and Sunday, April 2, 9 am at the Taiwan Tourism Bureau Theatre (Andrews Hall).
SIFF Emerging Artist Award: This year, 18 year-old student filmmaker Kiara Ramirez will be honored with the festival’s first SIFF Emerging Artist Award. Her six minute short, the first she has produced and directed, is the mini-doc, Detrás del Muro (Behind the Wall), a thoughtful and sharply edited human portrait of immigration issues was inspired by the rhetoric of last year’s primaries
Parties:
New this year: you can attend parties without a pass for $50.
Emerald Party: A big bash on Thursday, March 30 celebrates several 20th anniversaries—SIFF’s, Sondra Bernstein’s the girl & the fig, and Tito’s Vodka. Sondra’s celebrating by creating superb food for the party. Cake by Crisp Bake Shop and other birthday surprises will be in store. An after-party continues at The Starling for signature craft cocktails and music with Ten Foot Tone. Purchase $50 ticket here.
Taiwanese Night: On Friday, March 31, the Back Lot Tent is transformed into a lively Taiwanese Night Market, courtesy of the Taiwan Tourism Bureau. Purchase $50 ticket here.
Festival Awards & Celebration Party: Saturday, April 1, Walk the carpet and celebrate SIFF’s finest films at the Award Ceremony. Following the awards, toast the winners with wine, cocktails, Lagunitas, food from the girl & the fig and live music with Loosely Covered. Purchase $50 ticket here.
SIFF 20 Details:
The 20th Sonoma International Film Festival starts Wednesday, March 29 and runs through Sunday, April 2, 2016. PASSES: SIFF can be enjoyed at different levels and passes provide access to films, parties in SIFF Village’s Backlot Tent, after parties, receptions, and industry events and panels. Currently, Cinema Passes are $275 for and Soiree Passes are $725. All Cinema pass holders will have day access to the Backlot Tent in SIFF Village and all films. Soiree pass holders will have day VIP area and evening party access and all films. New this year: exciting options for attending several screenings and individual parties without buying all-inclusive passes. For information about festival passes, prices, and benefits visit sonomafilmfest.org. SINGLE TICKETS: A limited number of $15 tickets are available for each film screening. These sell out rapidly, so purchase these in advance online at sonomafilmfest.org.
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 19th 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:
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.
ARThound 