SETSUKO HARA

Continuing its commitment to contemporary Japanese fare, VIZ Cinema has been busy throughout the month of October with the San Francisco premiere of John H. Lee's Sayonara Itsuka: Goodbye, Someday (2010); encore screenings of Junichi Suzuki's documentary 442—Live with Honor, Die with Dignity (2010); the U.S. premiere of Takeshi Koike's anime Redline; while likewise hosting the San Francisco Film Society's Taiwan Film Days.But VIZ Cinema has granted equal time to honor classic Japanese cinema, most recently with four Yasujirō Ozu films profiling the performances of Setsuko Hara—Late Spring (19

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Setsuko Hara, VIZ,

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HALLOWEEN MAUDIT AT THE ROXIE

When I was a child trick or treating in my neighborhood on Halloween, word would travel fast between us kids of which house had the best treats—gooey popcorn balls, handfuls of candy corn, or homemade cookies—and we would all converge on that doorbell in greedy anticipation like a flock of Hitchcock birds. Years later, my insatiable sweet tooth has turned into an equally insatiable cinematic tooth and—during this heightened season of ghouls and ghosts, muertos and the Bay Area's orange and black baseball team poised to win the World Series—I touch base with Hell on Frisco Bay's listing of fes

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Elliot Lavine, Roxie Film Center,

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FCN 2010—Michael Hawley Previews the Lineup

For as long as I've lived here (35 years come December), the Bay Area has been a swell place to be a French film fanatic. Nearly all French titles with U.S. theatrical distribution get released here. We've got our big, French-heavy SF International Film Festival in the spring, and other fests like Frameline, Mill Valley, the Jewish and Arab Film Festivals fill in gaps during the rest of the year. And yet, with a national cinema as prodigious as France, plenty of good stuff goes unseen.To that end, French Cinema Now (FCN) was born two years ago. Presented by the San Francisco Film Society as p

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FCN 2010, Michael Hawley, SFFS,

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OIAF: SMALL DESTRUCTIONS—Adam Hartzell's Evening Class Interview With Lark Pien

Lark Pien is an award-winning cartoonist and illustrator. And she is also my friend. She is my sole connection to the world of comics, graphic novels, and animation. (I did have a comic book phase my first year of high school, but I noticed I wasn't hanging out with my friends nearly as much so I packed up the Power Packs, canceled my Alpha Flights and ceased the Secret Wars in favor of external rather than internal conversations.) Whenever Lark and I meet up, our conversations are rapid and breathless, having so many epiphanies and thoughts to catch up on. I have learned a great deal from La

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Adam Hartzell, Andrew Farago, Animation, Cartoon Art Museum, Dalton Grant, Lark Pien, Nina Paley, OIAF, Thien Pham,

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BERLIN & BEYOND 2010—The Evening Class Interview With Festival Director Sophoan Sorn

Sophoan Sorn is a Cambodia-born, American multi-faceted artist and film festival programmer. A miracle child, he was born in 1985, two weeks after his mother's water broke, in a refugee camp on the border of Cambodia. He arrived in the United States of America in 1991 with his family. He began classical and contemporary piano studies at age 11. An honor graduate of Lodi Seventh-day Adventist Academy Class of 2003, he has been studying at San Joaquin Delta College and the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, focusing on Film.From 2001 through 2010, he was proactive in the California Cen

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Barbara Sukowa, Benjamin Heisenberg, Berlin and Beyond 2010, Feo Aladag, Florian David Fitz, German Cinema, Jan Tenhaven, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Sophoan Sorn, Thomas Arslan,

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BERLIN & BEYOND 2010: FESTIVAL CROSSOVERS—Frako Loden Reviews Pianomania, Julia's Disappearance and When We Leave

Pianomania (Austria/Germany: Lilian Franck / Robert Cibis, 2009) screened at the 2010 San Francisco International Film Festival [where it won the Golden Gate Documentary Award] and plays at Berlin & Beyond on October 26. For those who love piano and the mysteries of sound, this documentary will be a treat. It's also a 90-minute-long commercial for Steinway & Sons, being a profile of its master tuner Stefan Knüpfer and a career that matches the exacting artistry and high professional standards of the pianists he serves—big names like Lang Lang, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Alfred Brendel.

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Berlin Beyond 2010, Bruno Ganz, Christoph Schaub, Corinna Harfouch, Feo Aladag, Frako Loden, Lilian Franck, Robert Cibis, Sibel Kekilli,

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