San Francisco International Film Festival to Present Third Annual Extreme Cinema Program

The 47^TH San Francisco International Film Festival (April 15 – April 29) is thrilled to announce EXTREME CINEMA, a program for cinephiles who enjoy their films dark and visceral. This is the third year the Festival has presented the program, and it once again promises to excite the audience. Roger Garcia, program consultant, says, “This year’s selection contains all the elements that have made previous editions of our EXTREME CINEMA program so popular - chills and thrills, the outré and somewhat campy, and the neglected. This year we have also added the 1960s film, TEMPTRESS OF A THOUSAND FACES by the master of Korean and Hong Kong action film, Chung Chang-wha. And so EXTREME CINEMA takes another step forward - the discovery of the cult classic.”

MARRONNIER (Hideyuki Kobayashi, Japan, 2003)
This film, which has not been seen outside of Japan, mixes some cuteness with genuinely deranged chop-mocky ambitions inspired by tooling around with early Polanski, Corman, chainsaws and puppets. Marino is a normal, happy young woman whose encounters with men are less than successful. She is also interested in dolls which eventually lead her to Numai, the assistant to the artist who designs the exclusive and expensive Marronnier line of dolls. Dispatching his master, he takes a DIY approach to making human puppets and actively seeks out suitable candidates, especially the woman who rejected his amorous approach.

THE PARK (Andrew Lau, Hong Kong, 2003)

Directed by the man behind the blockbuster hit, INFERNAL AFFAIRS (SFIFF 2003), Andrew Lau’s film, THE PARK tells the story of a little girl who was killed on a ferris wheel in an amusement park. The park was then ordered to close down and has been deserted ever since. Or is it?  To add to the fun, certain sequences of this film require 3-D glasses.

SAVE THE GREEN PLANET (Jang Jun-Hwan, South Korea, 2003)

Byung-gu is a somewhat ordinary young man living in Korea. He believes that all of the earth’s social ill are the evil doings of aliens. Unless he can meet the prince from the planet Andromeda before the total lunar eclipse, planet Earth will be in grave danger. This dark comedy from acclaimed director, Jan Jun-Hwan takes pain and madness seriously, and asks you to identify with a murderer who’s kept going by uppers and seems gripped by paranoid fantasies.

TEMPTRESS OF A THOUSAND FACES (Chung Chan-wha, Hong Kong/ South Korea, 1969)
This is the U.S. premiere of the classic film from director, Chung Chan-wha. The film, which was a big hit in Europe, brings the story of a disguised and mysterious female thief who has been committing crimes across Hong Kong and a police woman who is determined to track her down. But her impersonation skills fool even the officer’s boyfriend. The surprise ending will blow you away.

Guinness is the exclusive sponsor of EXTREME CINEMA.

The 47th San Francisco International Film Festival runs April 15-29, 2004 at the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres "The Home of the Festival," the Castro Theatre, the Pacific Film Archive Theater in Berkeley and the Century Cinema 16 Mountain View. Tickets for San Francisco Film Society members will be available on March 23 and for the general public on March 30. To purchase tickets and for ticket information log on to www.sffs.org, call 925.275.9490, or visit the Main Box Office, located in the atrium of the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres at 1881 Post Street or the Satellite Box Office at Crocker Galleria, 50 Post Street, second floor, opening on March 30. For up-to-date Festival information log on to www.sffs.org or call 415.931.FILM.

The 47th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 15-29, 2004) is presented by the San Francisco Film Society, a nonprofit arts and educational organization dedicated to celebrating international film and the moving image.