March 29, 2005

48th San Francisco International Festival Announces Documentaries from Around the World; Nonfiction Features Delve into the Real World

The 48th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 21—May 5) is proud to present the work of a diverse group of documentary filmmakers from around the world. "Increasingly each year, worldwide attention to documentary filmmaking is catching up with what the Bay Area has always known—this is an incredibly fascinating and evolving cinematic form," said Linda Blackaby, director of programming. "This year, the Festival is delighted again to present a compelling selection of international documentaries that tell many different stories and employ many different strategies in the telling."

Master documentarians returning to the Festival include Agnès Varda (THE WORLD OF JACQUES DEMY, SFIFF 1996) with her new film, CINÉVARDAPHOTO (France), which compiles three films from different decades into one thought-provoking, utterly charming cinematic essay on photography, memory and the artistic process; Werner Herzog (LESSONS OF DARKNESS, SFIFF 1993) with THE WHITE DIAMOND (Germany), the director's latest quixotic expedition into the South American jungle which follows the British inventor of a two-person blimp designed for wildlife photography; Thomas Riedelsheimer (RIVERS AND TIDES, SFIFF 2003) with TOUCH THE SOUND a globehopping, trance-inducing portrait of Scottish percussionist and master improviser Evelyn Glennie, featuring a hypnotic collaboration with Bay Area guitar virtuoso Fred Frith; and the recipient of this year's Persistence of Vision Award, Adam Curtis (THE CENTURY OF THE SELF, SFIFF 2003), who returns to the Festival with THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES: THE RISE OF THE POLITICS OF FEAR which asks, Is the War on Terror a scam? This three-part series produced for the BBC is a controversial, myth-shattering investigation into the politics of fear as it is practiced by United States and world leaders.

The art of cinema is explored in two films—FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART: AMOS VOGEL AND CINEMA 16 (Paul Cronin, England) an intimate look at the life and work of famed avant-garde film programmer Amos Vogel, founder of Cinema 16, the most influential film society in America and EDGAR G. ULMER—THE MAN OFF SCREEN (Michael Palm, Austria), a portrait of the director of such popular B-pictures as DETOUR and MAN FROM PLANET X, filmed as resourcefully as one of Ulmer's Poverty Row productions and featuring a cavalcade of Ulmer admirers, including Peter Bogdanovich, John Landis, Wim Wenders, Ann Savage and many more.

Documentaries of national and local interest include Alex Gibney's ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM which reveals the appalling, heartbreaking and at times comical story behind the fall of one of America's largest corporations; THE SEARCH FOR THE CAPTAIN (Erin McEnery) in which controversy erupts when a statue is commissioned commemorating the raising of the American flag in San Jose, California, in 1846; and Geoff Callan and Mike Shaw's THE PURSUIT OF EQUALITY records the events of February 12, 2004, the remarkable day when San Francisco made history by issuing same-sex marriage licenses.

Other titles include INTO THE PICTURE SCROLL: THE TALE OF YAMANAKA (Tokiwa Haneda Sumiko, Japan), an extraordinary film about a famous Japanese scroll painting of the Edo period cinematically brought to life in way that masterfully redefines the art documentary; MAD HOT BALLROOM (Marilyn Agrelo, USA) in which fox-trots collide with rambunctious New York City school kids in an exuberant documentary about a ballroom dancing competition for ten-year-olds; two films by Malaysia's cutting-edge indie filmmaker Amir Muhammad, THE YEAR OF LIVING VICARIOUSLY, a documentary shot during the making of an Indonesian political epic and TOKYO MAGIC HOUR, an intimate gay love letter in the form of an experimental film; Leonard Helmrich's SHAPE OF THE MOON (Netherlands), winner of Sundance's World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize, follows one Indonesian family navigating their country's myriad partitions between urban and rural, Muslim and Christian, old world and new; THE FALL OF FUJIMORI (Ellen Perry, USA) explores how political oppression and death squads reigned in the name of democracy and counterterrorism in Fujimori's Peru; MURDERBALL (Dana Adam Shapiro, Henry-Alex Rubin, USA) is the richly rewarding account of quadriplegic, elite athletes who play hypercompetitive rugby. In addition to the AMC Kabuki 8 screening, there will be a wheelchair-accessible screening of MURDERBALL followed by a Q&A with filmmakers and athletes from the film on April 28 at 7:30 pm at Kanbar Hall at the Jewish Community Center.

The 48th San Francisco International Film Festival runs April 21—May 5, 2005 at the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres, the Home of the Festival, the Castro Theatre, the Palace of Fine Arts, Kanbar Hall at the Jewish Community Center and the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco; the Pacific Film Archive Theater in Berkeley; and Landmark's Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto. Tickets for San Francisco Film Society members will be available on March 29 and for the general public on April 5. To purchase tickets and for ticket information log on to www.sffs.org, call 925.866.9559 or visit the Main Ticket Outlet, located in the atrium of the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres, 1881 Post Street or the Satellite Ticket Outlet at the Virgin Megastore, 2 Stockton Street. For up-to-date Festival information log on to www.sffs.org or call 415.561.5000.

The 48th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 21—May 5, 2005) is presented by the San Francisco Film Society, a nonprofit arts and educational organization dedicated to celebrating international film and the moving image.