49th San Francisco International Film Festival Presents 11 Features From Latin America

Films Range from Sensual to Solemn to Playful and More

March 28, 2006

San Francisco, CA—The 49th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 20–May 4) features 11 Latin American films representing Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba and Mexico. From the family-friendly Viva Cuba to the adult themes of In Bed, the sheer variety of Latin American films at SFIFF 49 is sure to entice and inspire filmgoers.

Urban landscapes are explored in Alicia Scherson’s lively Play (Chile) and in Roberto Gervitz’s Underground Game (Brazil). In Play, a SKYY Prize contender punctuated by a powerful soundtrack, a woman from the country and an upscale urbanite cross paths as each looks for love in Santiago. In Underground Game, Roberto Gervitz turns the subways of Sao Paulo into a playground for finding love as a piano player spends his days constructing a specific route on the subway, hoping to find a woman who follows the same route.

Two South American expatriate directors residing in France (Raoul Ruiz, born in Chile and Juan Solanas, born in Argentina) weave tales that involve crossing the Atlantic. The Lost Domain (Ruiz, France) tells the story of various meetings between a French aviator and a young Chilean, whose lives intersect despite their opposing natures through a shared love of flying. In the SKYY Prize contender Northeast (Solanas, Argentina), a French woman’s attempts to adopt a child in Buenos Aires go awry, so she travels to the northeastern region of Argentina and meets a pregnant woman who may be able to solve her problem.

Three sultry Latin American films explore passion and relationships. In Delicate Crime (Beto Brant, Brazil) a theater critic falls for a one-legged beauty who is also involved with the painter for whom she models. The critic’s jealousy and intense feelings lead to an encounter which the woman claims is rape and the man says is an act of passion. In Bed (Matías Bize, Chile) shows two young Chileans who spend the night together in a hotel room, as they contemplate life, love and sex. And Sérgio Machado tells a story of two best friends who fall for the same beautiful young hooker in Lower City (Brazil).

Characters struggle and hope for better lives in three Latin American films. In the beautifully shot The House of Sand (Andrucha Waddington, Brazil), three generations of women struggle amid the inhospitable sand dunes of northern Brazil. Ricardo Benet’s News from Afar (Mexico), a moving and surreal SKYY Prize contender, is about a teenager living in the Mexican highlands who decides to seek a better life (and his biological father) in Mexico City. And in the passionate documentary The Dignity of the Nobodies (Argentina), director Fernando E. Solanas investigates Argentina’s economic collapse and follows the efforts of various citizens to fight back and create a habitable living situation for themselves and their country people.

Rounding out SFIFF’s selection of Latin American films is Viva Cuba (Juan Carlos Cremata, Cuba), a delightful film featured in the Spotlight: Family Films section of the program. In the film, two best friends (a young boy and girl) are faced with separation when it is revealed that the girl’s mother is seeking to leave Cuba. When they find out, they run away in search of her father so they can persuade him not to sign the documents that would permit emigration.

Founded in 1957, the vanguard San Francisco International Film Festival is the longest-running film festival in the Americas. Held each spring for two weeks, the International is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in the country’s most beautiful city, featuring some 200 films and live events with more than 100 filmmakers in attendance, presenting some 22 awards and attracting a diverse audience of nearly 80,000 people.

The 49th International runs April 20–May 4, 2006 at the Kabuki 8 Theatres, the Castro Theatre 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, as well as several smaller venues. To purchase tickets and for ticket information log on to www.sffs.org, call 925.866.9559 or visit the Main Ticket Outlet at the Kabuki 8 Theatres (1881 Post Street) or the Satellite Ticket Outlet at Virgin Megastore (2 Stockton Street). For additional information log on to www.sffs.org or call 415.561.5000.

San Francisco Film Society, presenter of the flagship SFIFF, is a nonprofit arts and educational organization dedicated to celebrating the world of film and media in all its glorious forms. In early 2006 the Film Society unveiled SF360, a broad-spectrum series of initiatives designed to showcase the extraordinary vitality, variety and innovation of the San Francisco Bay Area film and media scene, including www.sf360.org, SF360 San Francisco Movie Night, SF360 InSchool Cinemas and the SF360 Festival of Festivals.

The Film Society will present the first annual San Francisco International Animation Festival from October 11–15, 2006 and a new SF International Youth Media Festival in 2007.

First to 50: SFIFF will hold its landmark 50th anniversary in April 2007.