Thousands of Bay Area Students to Get Exclusive Film Festival Access

In its ongoing effort to expose a new generation of viewers to the best in international and independent cinema, the Schools at the Festival program of the 47^TH San Francisco International Film Festival will involve thousands of Bay Area students in Festival film screenings and coordinate student interactions with filmmakers from around the world. Now in its 13th year, this unique outreach program creates a strong connection between the Festival and the local educational community, providing students of all ages the opportunity to participate in the Festival experience. Scheduled screenings for elementary, middle and high school groups will be supplemented by special visits to classrooms by filmmakers whose work is being shown at the Festival.

A meaningful forum foreducation, understanding and awareness, Schools at the Festival introduces students to the art of filmmaking and celebrates both the differences and the shared values of the many cultural groups that make up our community. The program aims to broaden insights into other cultures, enhance foreign language aptitude, develop skills for critical analysis of film and inspire a lifelong appreciation of cinema.

From more than 110 programs in the 2004 Festival, 21 feature films, documentaries and shorts programs have been carefully selected for the Schools at the Festival program to satisfy a broad range of curricula and grade levels. Targeted subject areas include foreign languages such as Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Russian and Japanese as well as issue-based programming for subjects such as Asian studies, African studies, English, history, journalism, social studies and health, with several programs well suited for ESL and hearing-impaired students.

Schools at the Festival screenings are open to all Bay Area high school, middle school and elementary school classes and are scheduled as weekday matinees. The majority of the screenings will take place at the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres, with two additional venues added for the first time this year: The program will include one special archival screening of Buster Keaton’s classic THE GENERAL, with live musical accompaniment by the renowned Alloy Orchestra, at the Castro Theatre; and, in an effort to afford greater Festival access to East Bay schools, there will be a screening at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley of Ra’anan Alexandrowicz’s Israeli feature JAMES’ JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.

Elementary school groups will get to choose from two kid-friendly programs this year. The first, a program of Golden Gate Award–nominated short films entitled CIRCUS CINEMATICUS, includes a wonderful combination of animation, fiction and documentary works. The second, THE BOY WHO WANTED TO BE A BEAR, is a magnificent feature from Denmark’s grandmaster of animation, Jannik Hastrup. Like a majestic watercolor painting come to life, this Inuit legend pits Man against Beast in a tale of maternal love, family bonds, animal instinct and basic survival.

Representing a well-balanced mix of truth and fiction, programs for middle and high school students run the gamut from inspiring and enlightening narratives to in-depth cultural, historical and political explorations. Some highlights: CHISHOLM '72—UNBOUGHT & UNBOSSED, Shola Lynch’s inspirational story of America’s first African American congresswoman and the first African American and the first female to be seriously considered as a presidential candidate; local filmmakers Lexi Leban and Lidia Szajko’s GIRL TROUBLE, an intimate documentary which follows three teenage girls as they struggle for a way out of the San Francisco juvenile justice system; EVERYDAY PEOPLE, Jim McKay's (OUR SONG, SFIFF 2000) heartfelt, bittersweetand political urban drama about the closing of a multicultural Jewish diner in Brooklyn, a film which demonstrates the cruel role that gentrification can have on the dishwashers, counterpersons and busboys of the world; HOME OF THE BRAVE, a powerful documentary by Paola di Florio about a white woman who died for the civil rights cause in the ’60s and whose story reveals much about that era and its lingering aftermath; THE MIRACLE OF BERN, Sönke Wortmann’s German-language upbeat family melodrama and rich portrayal of postwar German life, with the 1954 World Cup upset at its center; THE OTHER AMERICA, Eugene Martin’s gracefully hard-hitting high school drama shot on location in Philadelphia about a homeless teenaged graffiti artist who struggles with his adolescent identity while hiding his circumstances from his peers; NEVERLAND: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SYMBIONESE LIBERATION ARMY, in which filmmaker Robert Stone’s juxtaposition of contemporary interviews with former SLA members and archival footage plunges deep into San Francisco in the early ’70s; L’ESQUIVE, a French-language teenage romance by Abdellatif Kechiche set in Paris’ notorious housing projects; Bay Area filmmaker Amanda Micheli's DOUBLE DARE, an invigorating, fast-paced portrait of two tough stuntwoman of the silver screen: pioneer Jeannie Epper (Wonder Woman), and athletic New Zealand newcomer Zoe Bell (Xena: Warrior Princess); Taiwanese Wayne Peng’s Mandarin-language BURNING DREAMS, a spectacularly shot documentary about a Shanghai school that teaches musical, tap and hip hop dance to young Chinese; and SUPER SIZE ME, in which fit-and-trim filmmaker Morgan Spurlock tries an all-MacDonald’s diet for 30 days to demonstrate the impact of fast food on our nation's health.

Closing out the Schools at the Festival program on April 29 is the annual presentation of youth-made media, this year entitled YOUTH BE TOLD, a collection of the best new works by film and videomakers aged 18 and under. As videomaking technology has become more accessible, greater numbers of young people are documenting their world, sharing their opinions and expressing their creativity on film. This program demonstrates how young talent continues to run rampant through the streets of San Francisco, New York and beyond as it spans every genre from digital animation to documentary in its tales of Muni buses, microwaveable pets and much more.

To further the impact of the cinematic experience for students, the Schools at the Festival program will also be offering study guides to accompany a few select films. Developed by local educators, the study guides will allow teachers the opportunity to directly integrate film content into their curriculum, prepare their students for screenings beforehand and allow for directed discussion afterward. In a steady increase since the program began offering them in 2002, study guides will be offered for eight different films this year.

In addition to the diverse selection of film screenings at the theater, the Schools at the Festival program will also send dozens of local and visiting filmmakers into Bay Area classrooms to screen all or portions of their work and interact directly with students. Filmmakers who have visited classrooms in the past include Jay Rosenblatt, Les Blank, Lourdes Portillo, Michel Ocelot and Ousmane Sembène. For the 46^th San Francisco International Film Festival, the Schools at the Festival program organized 18 filmmaker visits to schools, reaching almost 1,200 students, and welcomed more than 2,000 students from 31 Bay Area schools to 18 different film screenings.

In keeping with the San Francisco Film Society’s ongoing commitment to educational outreach, teachers and students enjoy a significant discount on Festival admission. All those participating in the program are eligible for a $2.50 ticket rate for Schools at the Festival screenings. Tickets for the program are available exclusively to Bay Area educators and students and may be purchased only through the Schools at the Festival office (contact Joanne Parsont at 415-561-5040). Schools at the Festival tickets cannot be purchased through the regular Festival box office.

One of the first and largest programs of its kind, Schools at the Festival was founded in 1991 by the late Robert S. Donn (1931-2003), a retired SFUSD teacher with a tremendous passion for film. The great success and impact of this education program is due to Bob’s great vision, dedication and unflagging enthusiasm. The program is currently run by Bay Area–based youth film programmer and consultant Joanne Parsont. High school students and retired teachers from the United Educators of San Francisco provide critical volunteer assistance to the program. Schools at the Festival is made possible this year by the generous support of Wells Fargo.

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.