"THE BEST OF THE DISPOSABLE FILM FESTIVAL" AT TREEFORT

In March of 2011 I had the good fortune to be introduced by publicist Amber Kaplan to Carlton Evans, Eric Slatkin and Katie Gillum, the founding members of San Francisco's Disposable Film Festival (DFF), who had come to my attention through a series of staged "bike-ins". My first piece on DFF was an overview of their shift away from the Roxie Theater—audiences since their launch in 2007 had grown so large, necessitating a larger venue—to the 1400-seater Castro Theater, which each year since 2011 has sold out to capacity crowds. With so many community film festivals in San Francisco sufferin

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GRAND COMME LE BAOBAB / TALL AS THE BAOBAB TREE (2012)—The Evening Class Interview With Jeremy Teicher and Alexi Pappas

Jeremy Teicher's Tall as the Baobab Tree (2012) [Official Site / Facebook] boasted its U.S. premiere at the 56th edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival, as part of that festival's Youth Education Program. Joanne Parsont—who runs that program for the San Francisco Film Society—synopsized in her program capsule: "While most American kids might consider school a daily chore that they're forced to endure by their parents, there are many parts of the world where attending school is a distinct privilege, and education may not always be a parent's first priority." Such is the cas

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SEBASTOPOL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL 2014—BENDING STEEL (2013)

Sure to eventually end up on a double-bill with Zachary Levy's Strongman (2009), Dave Carroll's Bending Steel (2013) [official site / Facebook] even includes Stanley "Stanless Steel" Pleskun—the subject of Levy's film—among its cast of characters. Pleskun's title as "The Strongest Man in the World at Bending Steel and Metal" comes up for grabs, however, when Chris "Wonder" Schoeck, an endearing and unassuming man, trains to become a professional "old-time" strongman, wooing audiences not only with his incredible feats of strength, but with his clean-cut looks, small stature, and evident vuln

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IN SEARCH OF EMAK BAKIA / EMAK BAKIA BAITA (2012)—OSKAR ALEGRIA ON....

Man Ray—known primarily in the art world for his avant-garde photography—produced major works in a variety of media, including film. In 1926, he directed the 19-minute short Emak-Bakia (Basque for "leave me alone"). Subtitled as a cinépoéme, it features many "experimental" filming techniques, including rayographs, double exposure, soft focus, stop-motion animation, and ambiguity, as well as incorporating sculptures by Pablo Picasso. Emak-Bakia can be viewed in its entirety here.In 1998, the Pompidou Center in Paris, France, mounted an exhibition "Man Ray: Photography and Its Double" drawn

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SEBASTOPOL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL 2014—NOAH (2013)

Effective for underscoring the near-Pavlovian response to social media with all its concomitant bloops and jingles, Walter Woodman and Patrick Cederberg's 17-minute short Noah (2013)—not to be confused with the Aronofsky Biblical epic about to rain on muliplexes any day now—is a story that plays out entirely on a teenager's computer screen. Noah follows its eponymous protagonist as his relationship takes a rapid turn for the worse in this fascinating study of behavior (and romance) in the digital age. The film ingeniously creates itself out of screenshots of common practices of Internet bro

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SFIFF 57—2014 NEW DIRECTORS PRIZE (NARRATIVE FEATURE) COMPETITION

The 57th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF)—running April 24 through May 8—have announced the films in competition for the New Directors Prize. The New Directors Prize of $10,000 will be given to a narrative first feature that exhibits a unique artistic sensibility and deserves to be seen by as wide an audience as possible.Los insólitos peces gato / The Amazing Catfish, Claudia Sainte-Luce, Mexico (2013)—Set in Guadalajara, The Amazing Catfish follows the quiet transformation of a solitary young woman informally adopted and absorbed into a rambunctious matriarchy in a state of

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