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.
Richard Avedon at SFMOMA: A Powerful Retrospective of the Legendary Photographer through November 29, 2009. SFMOMA is the show’s only U.S. venue
Richard Avedon, Self-portrait, Provo, Utah, August 20, 1980; © 2009 The Richard Avedon Foundation
Throughout his celebrated six-decade career, Richard Avedon (1923-2004) has always drawn huge crowds. His fashion photography, portraiture and reportage, an innovative juggling of commercial and fine art photograph, have seared themselves into our memory. His current show at SFMOMA, “Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004” July 11 through November 29, 2009, is the first comprehensive retrospective his work since his death in 2004 and delivers over 200 of his signature photographs along with some surprises—lesser known photographs that are remarkable. SFMOMA is the only US venue this show. The exhibition was organized by Helle Crenzien in 2007 for The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art Denmark in cooperation with the Richard Avedon Foundation and it has traveled to Italy, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. It is installed here by Sandra Phillips, SFMOMA Senior Curator of Photography, with support from SFMOMA curator Corey Keller, Norma Stevens and James Martin from the Richard Avedon Foundation and the Jeffrey Frankel Gallery.
Richard Avedon, Dovima with elephants, evening dress by Dior, Cirque d'Hiver, Paris, August 1955; © 2009 The Richard Avedon Foundation
Aside from the famous models (Dovima, Suzy Parker, Veruschka, Twiggy), there are movie stars (Marilyn Monroe, Katherine Hepburn), rock stars (the Beatles, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Björk), world leaders (Eisenhower, Kissinger, Ted Kennedy), writers and poets (Ezra Pound, Renata Adler), artists (Willem de Kooning, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol) and non-famous people. It all adds up to a show that equals the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2002 blockbuster show “Richard Avedon: Portraits.” Now that Avedon is dead, what kind of artist we judge him to be is ultimately based on the work we see and its presentation, which makes posthumous retrospectives vitally important.
This exhibition is organized chronologically, highlighting the major themes and benchmark moments in Avedon’s prolific career—his early post WWII street scenes; his breakthrough into fashion work in the 1950’s; his expansive reportage of American counterculture in the 1960’s and 1970’s; his Reagan-era series of portraits of non-famous people—cowboys, drifters—on the fringe and his iconic portraits of the influential and famous. The galleries are filed with unforgettable gorgeously printed pictures–medium-sized, large, larger and really really large, like the 31 foot long 1969 mural of Andy Warhol and several of his Factory gang, buck-naked.
Avedon, Homage to Munkacsi. Carmen, coat by Cardin, Place Franḉois-Premiere, Paris, August 1957, @2009 The Richard Avedon Foundation
With Avedon, it’s all about people—capturing them at that perfect moment in time when you sense you can read them— against a backdrop that is either a highly-stylized fashion environment infused with energy and movement or, for the portraits, a stark sheet. Either way, Avedon was in full control of everything down to the finest detail.
Of his early fashion photography, certainly the most famous images are those of his beloved models– “Dovima with Elephants, evening dress by Dior, Cirque d’Hiver, Paris, August 1955” and “Homage to Munkacsi, Carmin, Coat by Cardin, Place Franḉois-Premier, Paris, August 1957” which captures Carmen gliding effortlessly in mid air as she steps off a curb into a Paris street. Avedon was inspired by the Hungarian-born Martin Munkacsi, whose work he had come across in Harper’s Bazar and Vogue. Munkacsi was a former sports photographer who revolutionized the static world of fashion photography by injecting it with movement. Avedon added to Munkacsi’s pioneering work by infusing the movement with soul and emotion.
Richard Avedon, Marilyn Monroe, actor, New York, May 6, 1957; © 2009 The Richard Avedon Foundation
As Avedon quickly found his expressive groove in the fashion work, his career took off and he successfully and seriously embraced portraiture. His stark portraits have been described as unforgettable, as being unusually good at capturing character. The truth is that we read into these whatever we want to see. We all have an internal filter–whatever we think we may know about that person, we project onto their image. Critic Michael Kimmelman writes “The tradeoff with Mr. Avedon is between style and substance. It’s the tension he has made into his art.” (Art Review, New York Times, September 27, 2002.) Avedon’s 1957 portrait of Marilyn Monroe captures a weary starlet who seems smaller than life, whereas his 1963 portrait of a young Bob Dylan seems “charged with future” (Gabriel Celaya).
Avedon is one of the very few artists who started in a so-called non-serious branch of photography and transitioned into serious branch and was able stay there, not only as a fully accepted but also as a highly esteemed practitioner of photography as an art. (Helle Crenzien essay p 22 in Richard Avedon Photographs 1946-2004, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2007) His first major retrospective was in 1962 at the Smithsonian (he was 39), just as photography itself was being recognized by arts institutions. His fashion work drew the crowds, who also reacted enthusiastically to his vital portraits. The situation now is radically different—today, it is generally accepted that a commercial photographer can be an artist.
Walking through the exhibition, I had a talk with Sandra Phillips, SFMOMA Senior Photography Curator, and with Norma Stevens, Avedon’s long-term “person” (friend, colleague, and Founding Executive Director of the Richard Avedon Foundation in New York) and with James Martin, Managing Director, The Richard Avedon Foundation, who worked closely with Avedon as a technician up until Avedon’s death in 2004.
Geneva Anderson: As Avedon became more and more famous over the years, did his work process change? Did he become more and more picky about who he worked with, selecting subjects himself, or did he work on commission?
SANDRA PHILLIPS: He worked pretty much only through commissions. He had a very strange egalitarianism mixed with celebrity. I think what he tried to do was to show that people were remarkable and that famous people were as remarkable as people who are remarkable in different ways.
His work did change over time. It changed, I think, because the market place evolved. Harper’s became a less interesting magazine. It is significant that his last position was at The New Yorker which was kind of like Harper’s Bazar had been and he was very interested in making that a vital magazine. He also did these commissions In the American West—these people who are not celebrities, they are unknown and that was an interesting challenge for him. They are not humanitarian pictures; they are very serious pictures though that show the dignity that people have acquired through living as they have and where they have.
Richard Avedon, Willem de Kooning, painter, Springs, Long Island, New York, August 18, 1969; © 2009 The Richard Avedon Foundation
I believed the 1960’s shaped him profoundly in the way it shaped us–a period of tremendous upheaval whose resonance we still experience. He photographed all the players, the heroes and villains, from Janis Joplin, to the Beatles, to Warhol, to the
Vietnam Generals, to George Wallace. And his pictures of art aristocrat’s Robert Frank, Willem de Kooning and Jasper Johns come from the same special family as those more broadly known. Avedon saw them all as an individuals and all as models.
NORMA STEVENS: He worked both ways. He worked for Harpers, Vogue, The New Yorker, so if he wanted a photograph someone, like say Ezra Pound, that request came from him through the magazine. If the magazine brought him someone, he would do that too. It happened all along the way and I am talking about the portraits–they were something that were of enormous interest to him. He had fascination with the arts—artists like Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning and writers like Tennessee Williams, Dorothy Parker. By the time he got to The New Yorker, it was wonderful because they were interested and would bring him people that he might not have even known about and it was a wonderful collaboration.
Geneva Anderson: Did he ever refuse to photograph anyone?
NORMA STEVENS: Well, Madonna. When a celebrity comes, they have their idea of how they want to look and you can go along with it but Dick would always want to add his creative mark, how he saw what they wanted to portray. There might be a little struggle but, with her, she was not interested in working with him and he was definitely not interested in working with her.
Geneva Anderson: Did she approach him?
NORMA STEVENS: With celebrities, it’s usually mediated. She sent her people to our people (and that was me). She has people she loves working with like Steven Meisel. Dick was not her time of day. It would have been interesting though–don’t you think?– to see what would have come out of that?
Geneva Anderson: Did he strictly adhere to no cropping?
NORMA STEVENS: He rarely cropped. The prints you see here with all the black edge—that’s the entire photo. He did it in the camera and that was it. He used a big 8×10. The printers would go all through the night and prepare images for him to review in the morning and he would make comments like “it needs a little more drama.” And they had to interpret that.
Geneva Anderson: How did the advent of digital photography impact him?
SANDRA PHILLIPS: I am inclined to say it didn’t.
NORMA STEVENS: He tried it and it didn’t really impress him. He might have gone around and said no further prints can be made. He was very strict about that.
Geneva Anderson: What was it like over the years? How did you make it?
NORMA STEVENS: I am still here. It wasn’t always fun. It was an awful lot of work. Look at the energy in those portraits around us…he was just like that…he was so full of energy. We had an understanding. I am taller than I look.
James Martin, Executive Director of the Richard Avedon Foundation worked as a dark room technician for Richard Avedon during his final years.
Geneva Anderson: Take me through a typical printing experience with Avedon.
JAMES MARTIN: I did a lot of his printing. If you look at the way he has printed, it hasn’t changed that much. Earl Steinbicker, who worked with him from the 1950’s onward, is writing a book about the experience and his blog describers the printing technique. The process for a single print involves making ten different prints with slightly different contrast ratios—darker or lighter and picking the four that they—the team–think Dick would want. Those were printed 16 x 20 and put on his kitchen table in morning and, of course, they would all be wrong. He would say things like “the ear is perfect–you should focus on the ear.” And so you would go back down to the dark room and spend 4 or 5 hours and make another range of say 6 images based on his comment. You would bring these up to him and you would get closer but he would say these are garbage. And so it went.
Geneva Anderson: He had the capacity to use very technical terms to describe precisely what he wanted but it sounded like he chose to communicate in a non-technical way.
Richard Avedon, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano, New York, October 1, 2003; © 2009 The Richard Avedon Foundation
JAMES MARTIN: Yes. He would communicate with us using phrases like “this “needs to have more passion” which, in a sense, is not technical but you know exactly what you need to do as a darkroom technician. “More passion” is a nuanced way to work with the printing process. Everything was done downstairs in the basement and you would work all day long on a single print, sometimes at 3 in the morning and he would talk in a very non-technical way–“More drama here, less drama there.” It was a very intuitive way of going about it—it’s also talking with the other technicians you are working with and trying to determine what that means, what does that translate to. It was a lot of teamwork and a lot of team building.
Geneva Anderson: Is there a photograph here that you were responsible for printing?
JAMES MARTIN: There is only one in this show—the portrait of the singer Lorraine Hunt Leiberman. It’s really fairly close towards the end of his life. He was 82 when he did this project and was aware that it was his last major effort and he knows it and he knows he needs to come up a last important series of photographs. And this was for The New Yorker but it was also for himself. He working on this book Woman in the Mirror , photographs of hope, woman that bring that sense of coda to his story, to the work of Avedon.
These are different portraits. This is a very tender tender image. You do not see that forgiving quality in his earlier work. That meant lowering the contrast in her face with one filter, yet pumping the contrast up in the hair. But once you did that, you ran into the problem of what does that hair convey? She had red hair and as I took the photo back to him, he would say that it doesn’t look like a photograph of a redhead. I had to translate that into technical printing—how do you make that hair look red and preserve the contrast with the softness in the face? It was certainly a challenge and you make choice and it probably took me 20 hours just working on the contrast ratios in the hair alone to really pull it up. Now that I am looking at it here, I am seeing that in certain light, it looks a little more brown than red. It’s very hard to look at this without seeing the other photos, the history.
Richard Avedon, Marian Anderson, contralto, New York, June 30, 1955; © 2009 The Richard Avedon Foundation
Contrast that with the 1955 portrait of Marian Anderson the contralto singer who is captured in a moment of intense inner concentration on song. By waiting for the moment when her eyes were closed, all the attention is drawn to her mouth, to her total embodiment of voice. There is strength in this portrait rather than the tenderness and vulnerability in his last portraits of women.
When Avedon died unexpectedly in San Antonio, Texas, in October 2004 on assignment for The New Yorker magazine, he left iron-clad instructions about how his $60 million fortune was to be used and how his artistic legacy should be preserved.
Geneva Anderson: Norma, you have worked for the past five years to establish and make The Richard Avedon Foundation financially secure. We are living in very tumultuous times–how secure are you?
NORMA STEVENS: “We are financially secure for the foreseeable future, at least the next five years. Dick knew what he wanted done to protect his legacy. The copyrights of his work alone, which he bequeathed to the Avedon Foundation totaled nearly $300,000. The estate’s biggest asset is his printed pictures. His biggest worry was what would happen to the prints after his death and he left directives indicating that no prints or reproductions were to be made posthumously, except for contact sheets, which could be used for educational purposes.
ARThound 