PANAMÁ IFF—HORA MENOS (HOUR LESS)

Hora menos / Hour Less, dir. Frank Spano (Spain / Venezuela, 2011)—In terms of camera style, Hour Less is 180° away from the calm compositions of Route of the Moon, and—though less a road movie in its usual sense—is every bit as much of a transformative journey. The film begins with archival helicopter footage of the 1999 mudslide that devastated La Guaira, considered one of the worst catastrophes in Venezuelan history. 15,000 victims succumbed to a torrent of muddy water, which is shown sweeping away houses and cars. It is every bit as horrific as the archival footage that begins The Tsun

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PANAMÁ IFF—RUTA DE LA LUNA (ROUTE OF THE MOON)

Ruta de la luna / Route of the Moon, dir. Juan Sebastian Jacome (Panama / Ecuador, 2012)—Tito, an introverted bowling champion must, suddenly and against his will, travel from his native Panama to San José in Costa Rica to take care of Cesar, his father who has fallen ill. They have a disaffected relationship. Cesar and Tito barely know each other. Tito's only wish is to go back to Panama as soon as possible to be able to participate in a Bowling Tournament, but Cesar has different plans for him. Official site. IMDb. Facebook.The waxing phases of the moon (i.e., the “route” of the moon)

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ALREADY GONE (2012)—The Evening Class Interview With Peter Katz

I first met producer-innovator Peter Katz in 2008 when he and his brother Evan L. Katz brought Adam Wingard's Pop Skull to San Francisco's IndieFest. We met in a grungy Tenderloin noodle shop to have a conversation. Subsequently, Peter kept in touch and we talked some when he was exploring the application of neuroscience to cinema (i.e., neurocinema), as detailed in Curtis Silver's write-up for Wired and Steven Kotler's for Popular Science. Katz was exploring if neurocinema could help genre filmmakers craft scarier films, as explained in his segment for CNN's The Screening Room.Ever atten

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PANAMÁ IFF: JUAN OF THE DEAD—The Evening Class Interview With Alejandro Brugués

Alejandro Brugués' Juan de los muertos / Juan of the Dead (Cuba / Spain, 2011) [official site] is not your papi's zombie flick! Sure, it has hordes of the walking dead who swarm upon the island of Cuba on the anniversary of the Revolution, and it has loads of guts and gore to make you squirm and squeal, but Brugues inflects his Havana-set homage to predecessors Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Shaun of the Dead (2004) with regional affects that make it a welcome and culturally distinct addition to an already ubiquitous genre. What sets it apart is its wry sociopolitical tone and an everyday acce

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Alejandro Brugués, Alexis Díaz de Villegas, Andrea Duro, Andros Perugorría, Claudia Calviño, Eliecer Ramírez, Javier Iglesias, Jazz Vilá, Jorge Molina, Panamá IFF,

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SFIFF55—14 Capsule Reviews by Michael Hawley

Only a few days left until the longest running film festival in the Americas launches its much anticipated 55th edition. Benoît Jacquot's Farewell, My Queen starts it all off on Thursday, April 19 and over the next two weeks the San Francisco International Film Festival will present 174 films (105 of them features), as well as honor such cinema luminaries as (director) Kenneth Branagh, actress Judy Davis and documentarian Barbara Kopple. In my fest coverage thus far, I've spotlighted the special programs and awards that were announced early on, then offered up a two-part overview of the com

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Michael Hawley, SFIFF55,

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HBO: GIRLS (Or a Generation and its Discontents)—By Ryan Lattanzio

The sometimes painful, sometimes funny world of twenty-something sex is Lena Dunham's specialty, and her new HBO series Girls is the 25-year-old woman at the height of creative powers. She really is the voice of her generation, as her character Hannah, an unpaid intern at a New York publishing house, tells her skeptical parents. "Or at least a voice, of a generation." Dunham's self-deprecation is also her signature, and this self-consciousness is what raises Girls above an outmoded series like Sex and the City. And as much as I have endlessly enjoyed Michael Patrick King's mythic comedy,

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Allison Williams, HBO, Jemima Kirke, Judd Apatow, Lena Dunham, Ryan Lattanzio, Zosia Mamet,

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PANAMÁ IFF: BONSÁI—The Evening Class Interview With Cristián Jiménez & Diego Noguera

With his wistful sophomore feature Bonsái (Chile / France / Argentina / Portugal, 2011), Cristián Jiménez reminds me of what it is that I detest in Hollywood rom coms. They're nowhere near as brave, or sexy, or truthful as Bonsái's delicate exploration of a young writer's first love, and how eight years later it becomes a story intricately manicured by his memory. The metaphor is, perhaps, apparent but effective: by trimming the roots and finding the proper container, a story of the past can be shaped to aesthetic purpose. Thus, editing is aligned to gardening. With deft strokes of humor

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Alejandro Zambra, Alicia Scherson, Che Sandoval, Cristián Jiménez, Diego Noguera, Ignacio Agüero, Miguel Littin, Panamá IFF, SFIFF55,

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