San Francisco Fest Brings Out the Films and Big Names for 50th Anniversary

Friday, April 27, 2007

San Francisco Fest Brings Out the Films and Big Names for 50th Anniversary

SFIFF '07
by Dennis Harvey (April 26, 2007)
[San Francisco film critic Dennis Harvey gives his take on the 50th Anniversary of the San Francisco International Film Festival, which opened Thursday.

A decade might be long enough in dog years, but in film festival terms it takes a bit more time to impress. Berlin goes back to the early '50s, Cannes came about just pre- and post WWII, Venice dates to the early '30s. But in the U.S., where, since that latter era, Hollywood's output has dominated world markets? No film festival at all -- until 1957. At which point a second-generation local theater owner and dedicated cineaste decided somebody had to step up to the plate -- to affirm San Francisco's "place in the international arts world," to underline that film could be a true art form as well as entertainment, and simply to bring foreign movies to the city's ever-hungry intelligentsia. As you might have heard by now, that makes the San Francisco International Film Festival 50 years old this year. And the oldest continually running such event on this half of the globe celebrates its 50th with a whole lotta hoopla and a cherry-picked selection of current worldwide cinema April 26 through May 10.
The festival Irving M. "Bud" Levin founded those five decades ago has not, rather remarkably, changed nearly so much as the figurative landscape around it. In 1957 Levin and fellow volunteers programmed an ambitious two-week slate of films from 12 countries (including Nigeria) included works by such emerging masters as Antonioni, Satyajit Ray, Visconti, Kurosawa and Wadja.
SFIFF50 finds 54 countries represented by some 200 films (shorts included), with about the same latter number of filmmakers and industry guests expected to attend in conjunction. Naturally the event has expanded geographically as well as numerically -- not just to multiple SF venues but Berkeley and Palo Alto as well. Yet the fest's essence has remained almost shockingly pure all these years: Bringing you the very best in new international cinema, with some retrospective and celebrity-guest elements. SFIFF has always been a great place to absorb artistic (rather than commercial, generally speaking) trends in filmmaking worldwide, particularly those worthwhile but too "challenging" or esoteric to ever achieve U.S. theatrical distribution.
What has changed is the larger world of festivals -- now far more crowded, competitive, and frequently market-driven than the late Bud Levin could have imagined. (As early as 1968, SFIFF guests like John Huston and Jeanne Moreau were already applauding its non-commercialized spirit.) By refusing to cave into the trends toward avid pursuit of showy premieres, big-name stars, and luring distributor buyers, the festival has by some estimations gradually lost its "world-class" stature. But locals might disagree, and much-liked current San Francisco Film Society executive director Graham Leggat would join them in insisting that SFIFF's goal is still to program the best in world cinema for an avid SF audience -- rather than angling for wider media/industry attention by any means necessary.
Which is not to say this golden-anniversary edition lacks for glitz. Far from it. There will be career-achievement awards given and in-person tributes paid to those two most famous of all Bay Area-residing movie folk, George Lucas and Robin Williams. As well as to Spike Lee, whose breakthrough first feature "She's Gotta Have It" premiered here in 1986.
The world premiere of documentary "Fog City Mavericks" (a history of the Bay Area's febrile film scene) alone will bring onstage for post-flick Q&A Williams, Lucas, Carroll Ballard, Philip Kaufman, Brad Bird, Walter Murch, John Korty, Saul Zaentz, Bruce Conner, Chris Columbus, and others. (If you're wondering why there are no women on this list, rest assured it's simply because all aforementioned are members of Hollywood's fabled Gay Mafia. Don't be fooled by all their marriages and children!)
A "Cinema by the Bay" sidebar will specially highlight local makers -- including Les Blank ("All in This Tea"), Lynn Hershman Leeson ("Strange Culture"), Jon Else ("Wonders Are Many"), and a salute to off-commercial-grid veteran Rob Nilsson, who's pushin' 70 with more projects on his plate than your average twentysomething filmschool grad could choke on. The "KinoTek" programs highlight a diverse and fun array of new technology efforts (most semi-live film/performance events), while "The Late Show" offers international horror flicks from New Zealand to Norway to Japan to plain old U.S.

A scene from

Susan Dynner's "Punk's Not Dead," screening at the 50th SFIFF. Image courtesy of the San Francisco Film Society.

Then there's the bulk of the program, separated into "New Directors," "World Cinema," "Documentaries," and "Shorts." This is the meat of SFIFF ('scuse my terminology, vegans), where discoveries are rife, many already laureled from recent European festivals. We've heard very good things about Amerindie "Rocket Science," French D.H. Lawrence adaptation "Lady Chatterley," Danish doc "The Monastery," and Egyptian epic "The Yacoubian Building." And we can attest to the quality of SF-focused documentary "An Audience of One," disarming Irish musical drama "Once," and Disney's 1937 "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (a newly struck 35mm print celebrates its 70th anniversary), because we've already seen those.
So much to look forward to, so much as yet unmentioned. In the latter category: Personal appearances by Steve Buscemi (playing a paparazzi in Tom DiCillo's "Delirious"), Parker Posey (starring in both Hal Hartley's "Fay Grim" and Zoe Cassavetes' "Broken English"); "The Queen" and "Last King of Scotland" scenarist Peter Morgan (accepting the Kanbar Award for excellence in screenwriting); famed film historian Kevin Brownlow; the wonderful Euro documentarian Heddy Honigmann.
Wait, there's more: Alt-rock icon Jonathan Richman playing a live score for restored 1921 Swedish silent classic "The Phantom Carriage;" Guy Maddin presiding over the music-foley-voice ensemble accompanying his new "silent" film "Brand Upon the Brain!;" globetrotting avant-gardist Peter Sellars, who delivers annual "State of Cinema" address; and hot young actors Rosario Dawson and Sam Rockwell, who receive the fest's first Midnight Awards for "a dynamic young actor and actress who have made outstanding contributions to independent and Hollywood cinema."
Plus Otar Iosseliani, Bruno Dumont, Armistead Maupin, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jessica Yu, Dominic Angergame, Danny Glover, Les Blank, Rob Nilsson, Ron Howard, Georgia Hubley, Henry Rosenthal, Joan Chen, musicians John Adams and Beth Custer, and many more.
SFIFF50 amps up the multi-media and multi-venue aspects considerably. Those looking for a hot party or event-to-be-seen-at can definitely find those here....Starting with tonight's kickoff, which will move from Castro Theatre opening-nighter "Golden Door" (a.k.a. "Nuovomondo"), a new French-Italian historical epic about Sicilian immigrants to America a century ago, to a party at City Hall itself.
Twelve days later, there's another big Euro pic (Edith Piaf bio "La vie en rose," a massive current French hit) and another big honking shindig, this one a wrap celebration at SOMA's club Mezzanine.
But what's in between, however, is the real crux of SFIFF, not just for numero 50 but for every prior edition: Exceptional movies from around the globe, largely ones unlikely to show up on a commercial screen (or even a DVD-rental homeview one) near you anytime soon.
What am I most psyched for in this year's program? Not so much the flashiest events duly appropriate for a major anniversary year -- though they'll surely be exciting if you can still scrounge tickets -- but rather individual films I've already heard are fascinating. Among them: Hong Kong boy-band spoof "The Heavenly Kings," Argentina's personal-meltdown drama "Born and Bred," and self-explanatory U.S. documentary "Punk's Not Dead."
But those are just my own anticipatory faves. No doubt you'll figure out your own.

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New Community Radio Station is Launched in Key West

A new radio station, KONK-AM on the dial, was launched on May 26,2009, in Key West. It has evolved to its current place on the dial, at 1500AM, broadcasting from studios at 1106 White Street in the island city and can be heard from Islamorada to Havana, Cuba.

It is Community Radio, broadcasting its AM signal from a tower on Stock Island, and is most easily heard, cystal clear, on the web site, http://www.konkam.com/

I host my own show, ARTWAVES, weekdays at 11am until noon.
We talk about the arts, it's value, impact, where we find it, create it, support it. My guests range the full gamut, from filmmakers, poets, writers, sculptors, painters, jugglers/buskers, dancers (from ballet to modern), musicians of all stripes, arts administrators, policy makers and shakers, and advocates, gallery owners and operators, photographers, even a longboard artisan who creates stunning pieces from woods found only in the Keys, theater actors and directors, operatic singers, divas from dive bars and lounges, treasure hunters and finders, too!

Join in weekdays. Each hour brings another show host, a new program on different topics and issues. All Talk Radio, with live music added in as well. Tune in! Catch a wave...

Blame it all on the 70's

Author Thomas Hine argues we're still suffering from that "slum of a decade" that brought us gas lines, pantsuits and shag rugs.

If the left and right agree on almost nothing else, we agree at least on this: America's in terrible shape. Such shocking shape that -- how did we come to this? -- it might not actually survive.
And there our dialogue dissolves. The things about America you diagnose as lethal are the very things your megachurch-belonging cousin with the rifle rack in his truck prays might save its life. And vice-versa. Gay rights. Abortion rights. Prayer in the schools. Environmentalism. Corporations. Porn. There the shouting, and possibly shooting, begins.
How did we come to this? It's the '70s' fault, writes Thomas Hine in The Great Funk: Falling Apart and Coming Together (on a Shag Rug) in the Seventies (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2007), a richly if incriminatingly illustrated book about a traumatic "slum of a decade" in which "the country was running out of promise."
Well, the '60s were a hard act to follow.
"Only a decade before," Hine muses, "as the nation anticipated the conquest of space, the defeat of poverty, an end to racism and a society where people moved faster and felt better than they ever had before, it seemed that there was nothing America couldn't do." Flash-forward through Watergate, gas crises, helicopters escaping Saigon -- and "to live in the seventies was to live in a fallen world, one of promises broken and trust betrayed." Hine ticks off that decade's insults to heart, mind and eye: "The politicians were awful. The economy was awful. The insipid harvest gold and avocado kitchens were awful." Ditto gas lines, AMC Pacers, and pantsuits.
Nearly everyone who lived through those years would nod, flinching.
An eternal question about any era during which one was young is: Was the whole world embarrassing, or was it just me? As regards the '70s: It wasn't just you. A longtime design critic -- thus more sensitive than most to beanbag chairs and Bicentennial-patterned carpeting -- Hine painstakingly skewers pyramid power and Virginia Slims in chapters whose pop-culture-referencing titles evoke the chronic inferiority complex of those disappointed times: "Running on Empty," for instance, and "It's Too Late," and "Not Ready for Prime Time?"
Yet his skewering has an obligatory quality, a must-mock-Midler delliberateness. It's a setup. Because this book's real point is to burrow deep into the shag rugs and chest hair and extract wisdom. Yes, your dad lost his job. And disco sucked. But from an era that is all too easy to dismiss as silly, trivial and grim sprang most of the essential issues inflaming our discourse today. Grounds for celebration or destruction or for civil war, depending on whom you ask, were cultivated in that decade, in a petrie dish that smelled of Diet Pepsi, amyl nitrate, apple-spice air freshener and, well, funk.
Ecology. Diversity. Ethnic and sexual identity. Individuality. Alternative sources of energy. Feminism. Fundamentalist spirituality. Retrace our steps (in Earth shoes and a crocheted vest and Dacron flares, of course) through Jimmy Swaggart and solar-heated geodesic domes and blaxploitation films and the Village People and you will find it there, albeit all innocent and earnest and embryonic. And not just the topics themselves but the ways in which we face them now: our wary citizen-journalist vigilance, questioning authority, scoping out conspiracies, pursuing truthiness. The '60s tend to get all the credit -- for rebellion, for consciousness-raising, for everything. And those who were young in the '70s faced a deafening chorus roaring: You missed the boat and are, indeed, too late.
The era they'd missed had been imbued with a wild easy-rider-come-together optimism. "Even the protestors of the sixties," notes Hine, who is old enough to have been one of them, "objected that America was using its immense wealth and power to do the wrong things, not that it did things wrong. Yet during the seventies it seemed that the United States couldn't do anything right." And it was precisely that shattering of optimism, the serial humiliations of Nixon and Vietnam and ugly urban sprawl and the wracking poverty spawned by inflation and massive layoffs, that spawned a strange new kind of solidarity. A desperate bottom-of-the-barrel creativity. The sneaky kind of freedom that breaks chains and opens doors when -- to paraphrase Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee" -- you've got nothing to lose. And that, of course, was the last song Janis Joplin recorded before she died in 1970. Among baby boomers, Hine writes, "the song's refrain ... was heard as a kind of epitaph." Her death was itself a loss, thus one less thing to lose. As was Jimi's, one month before, and Jim Morrison's, one year hence. As was the Beatles' slow-motion collapse: mere markings on a timeline now and, to most, funny ancient history: Yoko smiling and smug, Linda singing off-key into a switched-off mic, flashing past in the neat anodyne black-and-white of documentaries. But to a generation raised to be the center of attention, the first wave to worship rock-'n'-roll, these losses wrought a shocking loss of innocence. The long and winding road was cracked.
But hey. "When the center cannot hold, well, that's good for those out on the edge," Hine reasons. "When the forces of order are revealed to be a malign conspiracy, it's a good time for a party."
And in that spreading uncertainty, "when the system weakened, the oddballs and malcontents found an opening. It became possible to try out identities and find solidarity with other rare birds like yourself." Failures, deaths and disasters had proven space-age optimism and patriotism illusory. Yet as darkness fell without, light swelled within: "Awareness of a world with limits allowed people to impose fewer limits on themselves and to explore frontiers within themselves." Struggling up out of the ruins of shared midcentury assumptions, Americans dusted themselves off and decided that their ripped jeans required patches -- but which to choose? Smiley faces, pot leaves, praying hands? In that scramble, Americans discovered a new icon:
Me.
Not me, who sits here writing this, but "me" as an idea. An ideology. A literature, a style. An endless source of fascination. "Finding your identity was extremely important," Hine writes of an era when "each family member dressed to express" -- with enormous clashing checks and plaids, with star-studded lace-up boots and "fun fur" skirts and factory-embroidered faux batiks, sudsing with a shampoo only the '70s could spawn: It was called Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific. It was an era when, tellingly, Life magazine folded and People began.
Yes, this arguably turned us into narcissists. But Hine strives to show how all that mirror-gazing also brought self-awareness, direction and long-overdue self-acceptance to countless Americans, even if some of the gazing occurred over the tops of cocaine straws. And sometimes me morphed into an empowering we.
"The history of the seventies is dominated by the rise of like-minded but hitherto marginal individuals asserting the validity of their ways of seeing and doing things. Not all these ways of thinking were ultimately liberating. Nevertheless, finding that there were others who thought and felt as you did was liberating itself." The resounding popularity of the 1977 miniseries Roots, for example, "reached far beyond the African-American community" and, "as its title suggested ... spoke to a wider desire by all sorts of people to know about the circumstances and experiences of their forebears and to connect with their traditions. Roots, by telling such a rich story about slaves, for which the historical and genealogical record was presumed to be sparse, encouraged others whose ancestors didn't arrive on the Mayflower to look for evidence of these humbler lives."
Other corporate products, however cynically motivated, served as touchstones for what are today's identity politics. The 1973 film Jesus Christ Superstar, along with Jimmy Carter's born-againism and Hal Lindsey's 1970 megabestseller The Late Great Planet Earth -- which prophesied the end of the world and the Second Coming and sold 28 million copies -- alternately seduced and scared legions of Americans into "a Christian consciousness," Hine writes, "that was very different from the liberal Christianity that had become the consensus during the post-World War II era."
Disco sowed the seeds of technomusic. Funk sowed the seeds of hip-hop. Compact cars -- despite the Pinto's tendency to explode when rear-ended -- sowed the seeds for Priuses. Shattered ideals sowed the seeds of dissent.
The scrutiny was nonstop. "One of the fundamental approaches" of the groundbreaking 1973 women's-health manual Our Bodies, Our Selves "was self-examination," Hine reminds us, "and some passages were written to be read while holding a mirror, so that readers could discover previously unexplored parts of their own bodies. It was easier, however, to learn by looking at someone else's body. Many women recall consciousness-raising sessions at which, speculum in hand, they examined the vaginas of their fellow participants in order to understand what was inside themselves." During those same years, he points out, Hustler magazine revolutionized over-the-counter porn by printing "pink shots" -- interior photos, as it were. Ironically, if for different reasons, "feminists were engaged in much the same exploration."
Apocalyptic and disco fantasies mixed giddily in those years with a yen for authenticity -- by which yogurt and animal-rights activism and vibrators became mainstream, and by which manufacturers got rich churning out decor in feculent "earth tones." And this is what marks the '70s: this urgency, this dazed, tender, ever-so-public awakening on the cusp between Strawberry Fields and multinationals. It was the decade when a hundred pride movements bloomed. So much pride, so little embarrassment.
And that's what makes the '70s, arguably more than any other decade, so embarrassing.
But hey. They wore that Dacron so you wouldn't have to.

NUTCRACKER KEY WEST 2007

The Nutcracker Key West production, just ended at the Tennessee Williams Theatre, has been dazzling, spectacular and simply phenomenal. Joyce Stahl's amazing reimagined staging of the classical ballet with Key West imagery set records as well as setting audiences ablaze with a rapture usually reserved for high cathedrals or the New York stage.
Eleven performances, over 4500 attended, with the last 6 shows sold out. The Paradise Ballet Theatre brought in the many talents of 18 professional dancers from esteemed ballet companies in the US, with Alun Jones reprising his role as choreographer. You can see the amazing photos at http://www.nutcrackerkeywest.com/ and more will be posted here. Plans are already underway to produce a 2008 version, as Joyce is a whirlwind of motion, not stopping or slowing down for a second. The success of this year has obviously encouraged the consideration of mounting the next show, and will advance establishing the Nutcraker Key West as a real tradition in the community.

MidSummer's Night Update

Celebrate the Most Magical Night of the Summer this Monday, August 13

We’re assembling a wonder-full Midsummer’s Night Dream and Perseid Meteor Showers “Salon Spectacle” - a night of feasting, dancing, and theatrical antics celebrating the art and artists of Key West.

Presenting on Monday, August 13, by Michael Shields and Java Studios as a joint production with Marky Pierson, Christa Hunt, and Quincy Perkins, the Salon Spectacle is being hosted by Joyce Stahl at her 727 Eaton Street home, from 7 to 11 PM. The free event has attracted over 50 artist participants including musicians, singers, dancers, painters, fire jugglers, actors, poets, storytellers, and more, with filmmakers capturing and projecting the evening’s action. George Murphy is M.C. for the festivities, with actors from The Studios of Key West “One Night Stand” presenting their 10 minute plays, on the two outdoor stages, with a band and a DJ keeping the beats, urging people to roam the property and delight in the night. Many surprises are in store!

Midsummer’s Night has been observed worldwide by many cultures and seen as a time when the veil between this world and the next was thin, and when powerful forces were abroad. On Midsummer’s, legend held that you could gain the powers of a bard – or on the downside, end up utterly mad, dead, or whisked away by spirit faeries. Romances flourish, affairs are begun, mystery and mischief abound.

While traditionally celebrated on the Summer Solstice, in Key West, Midsummer’s Night is indeed the midpoint of the summer, between the Solstice and the Equinox. It is also the occasion of the annual Perseid Meteor showers, a true celestial event, displaying the most spectacular shooting stars of the year.

Midsummer’s Night “Salon Spectacle” is being created to celebrate why we live here, and to give artists a voice and a platform to share the power of their dreams. The launch of the Salon on this cosmic night of community is intended to stimulate the arts, foster greater awareness and spawn further Salon style projects. All are invited to join the creation of the Midsummer’s Night. Costumes are caliente! Dancing is delightful! Food and beverage provided.

It all begins with a dream. What is yours? Show your star!

Questions?
Call Michael Shields at 305-394-3804, or email michael@javastudios.org

Mid Summer’s Night Dream & the Perseid Meteor Showers SALON SPECTACLE

Come Celebrate the Most Magical Key West Night of Summer and Share Your Dream ! AUGUST 13th.
The evening historically is a fire festival called Midsummer's Day or St. Johns Eve, representing the middle of summer. Traced back many thousands of years, observed throughout Europe by many cultures, and later called St. John's Eve, which was seen as a time when the veil between this world and the next was thin, and when powerful forces were abroad.
Vigils were often held during the night. It was said that if you spent a night at a sacred site during Midsummer Eve, you would gain the powers of a bard, on the down side you could also end up utterly mad, dead, or be spirited away by the spirit faeries. Indeed, St. Johns Eve was a time when faeries were thought to be abroad and at their most powerful (hence Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream). Herbs gathered and foods eaten then are thought to be imbued with the power of the sun. Add to this the influence of the later sister summer festival of Lughnasa and the circle of fire is further made brilliant, promising abundance and peace in the coming harvest (and, an invigorated arts scene in Key West!)

The community gathers on this special night for the Midsummer's SALON. It is a night of feasting, dancing, theatrical antics and celebrating Mother Nature's summer bounty. While traditionally celebrated on the Summer Solstice, in Key West, Midsummer’s Night is indeed the middle of the summer, midway between the Solstice and the Equinox, or also seen as mid-point of the April-November axis when Summer weather prevails.

It is also the occasion of the annual Perseid Meteor showers, a true celestial event, displaying the most spectacular shooting stars of the year, August 12-13, 2007.

The most gifted musicians play their instruments, filling the night with their magical music. Performers from all avenues join to make the evening memorable and marvelous. Dancers swirl, painters create stories, wordsmiths paint pictures, and above all, dreams are woven in the night air and the shooting stars are witness.
PLUS, we’ll have prepared and festive summer food and beverage - the Keys’ most delectable and tasty – And FUN!
You are Invited ! Read ahead…

Key West is a haven for artists and now’s the time to step forward to further deepen our appreciation for the arts on this truly celestial evening.
Mid Summer’s Night is ideal to celebrate that we live here, to give voice and a platform to experience what gives meaning and pleasure to everyone. You can be heavy or you can be light, sweet or savory, it’s all tasty.
On this Night, we launch The SALON - the channel to make it all happen and set the stage for future SALON development.
Hosted at the home of Joyce Stahl, 727 Eaton Street and 328 William Street, presented by Java Studios and Michael Shields.

And YOU are the Creator of Mid-Summer’s Night!

What is YOUR Dream? Tell Everyone !
Say it in words, song, dance, film, and…?
The Night invites you to show your Star
From pre-sunset to midnight, every fifteen minutes, your turn to shine will be scheduled as you spotlight your talent, your idea, your song, your poem, whatever makes you shine!
We are seeking YOU - Artists, Actors, Singers & Songwriters, Dancers, Poets, Writers, to make the Mid-Summer’s Night a Carnivale, a Celebration of Celestial Light.
RSVP... by August 3…to be part of the SALON & Stage
RSVP… by August 10…to come to the NIGHT and see and hear the dreams being displayed and woven…
Stars In The Making!
394-3804…RSVP…

…Be creative!
and Circle The Date!

JAVA STUDIOS - Media That Matters and Community Development

Friday, April 27, 2007