S.F. International Film Festival features mega-stars, premieres
Alameda Times Star
Thursday March 25, 2004
By Barry Caine, Staff Writer
METALLICA, Milos Forman, Melvin and Mario Van Peebles, Danny
DeVito and Cyd Charisse: Meditate on that group for insight
into both the eclectic nature of the 47th San Francisco International
Film Festival and its range.
The event, which runs April 15-29 in San Francisco, Berkeley
and Mountain View, is scheduled to include appearances by
all of the above, as well as a host of other filmmakers from
around the world.
Names were named and programs and movies highlighted at a
packed press conference Tuesday at the Ritz-Carlton in San
Francisco.
This year's show, again budgeted at about $3 million according
to executive director Roxanne Messina Captor, consists of
175 films from 52 countries. The slate includes three world
premieres, 12 U.S. premieres, 113 programs, a handful of parties
and special events.
"Coffee and Cigarettes," director Jim Jarmusch's
"ode to bad habits and good conversation," will
open the festivities. Roberto Benigni, Steve Buscemi and Cate
Blanchett star. Director Peter Howitt's "Laws of Attraction,"
about getting married first and falling in love later, will
close the festival. Julianne Moore, Pierce Brosnan and Parker
Posey star.
Among the other high-profile items are a pristine print of
Buster Keaton's classic 1927 comedy "The General,"
accompanied by the Alloy Orchestra; Eric Rohmer's "Triple
Agent," an homage to Alfred Hitchcock set in 1930s France;
Japanese puppetmaster Hideyuki Kobayashi's "Marronnier,"
a horror film involving human puppets; and Paoloa di Florio's
"Home of the Brave," a look at the 1960s civil rights
movement via the murder of a Detroit teamster's wife by the
Ku Klux Klan in Selma, Ala.
Festival organizers also singled out Fernando Perez's "Suite
Habana," a film that uses no dialogue to tell the story
of a cluster of Cuba residents trying to make their lives
work the way they want them to; and
"Girl Trouble," a look at three teens caught up
in the San Francisco juvenile justice system by Bay Area filmmakers
Lexi Leban and Lidia Szajko. "Every year, what's
happening in films reflects what's happening in the world,"
Messina Captor said after the conference. "We're coming
off war, an economic downturn, and there's still unrest. Filmmakers
try to explore (those and other issues)."
Personal unrest is the subject of "Metallica: Some Kind
of Monster." The documentary follows the band for two
years as its members go through group therapy, clashing and
mending fences over a variety of issues. The members of Metallica
are confirmed for the April 18 screening.
Forman, whose movies range from "Hair" to "Amadeus,"
"The People vs. Larry Flynt," "One Flew Over
the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Man on the Moon," will
receive the Film Society Award for Lifetime Achievement in
Directing from DeVito. Forman and actor Chris Cooper ("Seabiscuit,"
"Adaptation," "American Beauty"), recipient
of the Peter J. Owens Award, will be feted April 22 at the
Film Society Awards Night, a black-tie benefit fundraiser
for the San Francisco Film Society. Cooper will be interviewed
on stage during an April 21 tribute. Forman will be interviewed
during an April 23 tribute.
Mario Van Peebles and his father Melvin are scheduled to
appear at the April 27 and 28 screenings of Mario's documentary
"BAADASSSSS!" The picture centers around Melvin's
1971 independent film "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song"
and his desire to make a movie with a black hero battling
bad cops.
Charisse, an actress and dancer who co-starred with Fred
Astaire in "The Band Wagon" and "Silk Stockings"
and with Gene Kelly in "Brigadoon" and "It's
Always Fair Weather," will be honored April 16 with an
on-stage interview and a screening of "Silk Stockings."
Other festival honorees include Bay Area documentary filmmaker
Jon Else and film archivist Paolo Cherchi Usai. Else, whose
works include "Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights
Years" and "The Day After Trinity," will receive
the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award on April 25. Usai
will get the Mel Novikoff Award on April 26. Both ceremonies
are at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley.
Screenings will be at the PFA, the Kabuki and the Castro
theaters in San Francisco, and the Century Cinemas 16 in Moutain
View. Tickets are $12 general, $9.50 for film society members.
Passes cost from $40 to $650 depending on the plan. Tickets
go on sale Tuesday.
For tickets or information, visit www.sffs.org or call (925)
866-9559. For festival updates, visit www.sffs.org or call
(415) 931-FILM.
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