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August 30, 2011
'Film Socialisme'
Sep 2, 2011San Francisco Film Society | New People Cinema sets sail with Jean-Luc Godard's 2010 provocation, 'Film Socialisme.' As Robert Avila writes in SF360.org later this week, the "playful, somber meditation on where history has brought us is brimming with ideas and aesthetic pleasures." Screenings begin September 2. More info on the new SFFS venue at Post Street (between Webster and Buchanan) in sffs.org.
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Home
Jean-Luc Godard Sets Course for Adventure
Robert Avila
Sep 1, 2011The first feature to play SFFS | New People Cinema, Godard's ‘Film Socialisme’ is both poetic rumination and urgent intervention.
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Reviews
Jean-Luc Godard Sets Course for Adventure
Robert Avila
Sep 1, 2011The first feature to play SFFS | New People Cinema, Godard's ‘Film Socialisme’ is both poetic rumination and urgent intervention.
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September 1, 2011
Jean-Luc Godard Sets Course for Adventure
Robert Avila
Sep 1, 2011The first feature to play SFFS | New People Cinema, Godard's ‘Film Socialisme’ is both poetic rumination and urgent intervention.
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Festivals
Unrestrained at SFIFF54, Barney Offers Live Insight
Robert Avila
May 2, 2011Matthew Barney talks art, sports and spectacle at the Sundance Kabuki.
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Home
Unrestrained at SFIFF54, Barney Offers Live Insight
Robert Avila
May 2, 2011Matthew Barney talks art, sports and spectacle at the Sundance Kabuki.
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May 5, 2011
Unrestrained at SFIFF54, Barney Offers Live Insight
Robert Avila
May 2, 2011Matthew Barney talks art, sports and spectacle at the Sundance Kabuki.
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December 16, 2010
John Waters, New Leadership Renew Roxie
Robert Avila
Dec 15, 2010Waters’ live Christmas show at the Roxie raised money for San Francisco’s oldest continuously operating theater as it moves full-steam into its second century.
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Home
John Waters, New Leadership Renew Roxie
Robert Avila
Dec 15, 2010Waters’ live Christmas show at the Roxie raised money for San Francisco’s oldest continuously operating theater as it moves full-steam into its second century.
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News & Blogs
John Waters, New Leadership Renew Roxie
Robert Avila
Dec 15, 2010Waters’ live Christmas show at the Roxie raised money for San Francisco’s oldest continuously operating theater as it moves full-steam into its second century.
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Festivals
'Masquerades' Opens Arab Film Festival
Robert Avila
Oct 14, 2010Appearances deceive in Lyès Salem’s 'Masquerades,' at the Arab Film Festival.
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Home
'Masquerades' Opens Arab Film Festival
Robert Avila
Oct 14, 2010Appearances deceive in Lyès Salem’s 'Masquerades,' at the Arab Film Festival.
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October 14, 2010
'Masquerades' Opens Arab Film Festival
Robert Avila
Oct 14, 2010Appearances deceive in Lyès Salem’s 'Masquerades,' at the Arab Film Festival.
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In Depth
Dialogues: Gary Snyder on Art, Anarchy and the Environment
Robert Avila
May 3, 2010Poet, essayist, environmentalist, Buddhist, public intellectual and teacher Gary Snyder speaks on life and the making of 'The Practice of the Wild.'
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Q & A
Dialogues: Gary Snyder on Art, Anarchy and the Environment
Robert Avila
May 3, 2010Poet, essayist, environmentalist, Buddhist, public intellectual and teacher Gary Snyder speaks on life and the making of 'The Practice of the Wild.'
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In Depth
Dialogues: Jim Harrison on Poetry, Documentary
Robert Avila
Apr 23, 2010Writer Jim Harrison offers thoughts about his relationship to Gary Snyder and his contributions to 'The Practice of the Wild.'
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Q & A
Dialogues: Jim Harrison on Poetry, Documentary
Robert Avila
Apr 23, 2010Writer Jim Harrison offers thoughts about his relationship to Gary Snyder and his contributions to 'The Practice of the Wild.'
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Q & A
'Lesh Sabreen?' On Red Vic Screen
Robert Avila
Mar 15, 2010Muayad Alayan, a 24-year-old filmmaker from the only remaining Arab neighborhood in West Jerusalem, was not even aware there was such a thing as Palestinian cinema until, as a teenager, he came to the Bay Area to visit his brother and sister.
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Festivals
SFFS's Debut Cinema by the Bay
Robert Avila
Oct 22, 2009A new, four-day showcase of local filmmaking doubles as a forum for the region's influence as subject and setting for filmmakers beyond the bay.
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Festivals
What's up, DocFest?
Robert Avila
Oct 14, 2009Fans of the San Francisco festival, now in its eighth year, have developed a well-honed appreciation for the eccentric.
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Reviews
SFIFF52 Blogs: Dinosaurs, Disease, and Delirium
Robert Avila
May 7, 2009The Lost World, the 1925 silent fantasy
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Reviews
SFIFF52: Lourdes Portillo, Persistence of Vision Award Recipient
Robert Avila
Apr 27, 2009The San Francisco-based and internationally acclaimed documentarian Lourdes Portillo speaks about her work; she wins the 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival Persistence of Vision Award.
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Reviews
William Kentridge at SFMOMA
Robert Avila
Mar 25, 2009The films of William Kentridge make up a significant and absorbing part of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art enthralling survey of recent work by the acclaimed South African artist
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Reviews
Bud Cort Honored at Sketchfest
Robert Avila
Jan 20, 2009SF Sketchfest pays tribute to Bud Cort with a live Q&A and screening of Harold and Maude.
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Reviews
'Secrecy' Up For Debate
Robert Avila
Oct 22, 2008Robb Moss and Peter Galison's deliberative, atmospheric and engrossing documentary, Secrecy, puts democratic transparency to the test.
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Festivals
12th Arab Film Festival
Robert Avila
Oct 20, 2008In its 12th season, the country's first and largest independent exhibitor of Arab cinema has gotten to be one of the bigger small fests in the Bay Area.
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Reviews
Global Film Initiative: Funding the Bigger Picture
Robert Avila
Aug 12, 2008The Legend of the Holy Net Potato, the first feature by Kerala-based filmmaker Vipin Vijay, concerns a cyborg, black magic, and a hacker.
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Q & A
Muayad Alayan, Christian Bruno
Robert Avila
Jul 29, 2008Muayad Alayan, a 24-year-old filmmaker from the only remaining Arab neighborhood in West Jerusalem, speaks about the making of Lesh Sabreen?.
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Reviews
Fatih Akin and 'The Edge of Heaven'
Robert Avila
Jul 7, 2008The Edge of Heaven weaves two stories together across geopolitical, cultural, and generational lines.
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News & Blogs
SFFS Screen at Sundance Kabuki
Robert Avila
Jun 12, 2008The SF Film Society is optimistic that its year-round screen at the Sundance Kabuki will contribute to the spectrum of films in Bay Area theaters.
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Festivals
SFIAF: 'Mordake' and Week Two -- Reviewed, Previewed
Robert Avila
May 28, 2008Composer Erling Wold's solo chamber opera enjoys a thrillingly intimate world premiere this week under the banner of the San Francisco International Arts Festival.
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Festivals
S.F. International Arts Festival
Robert Avila
May 23, 2008In addition to bringing a host of worldwide performers to the Bay Area for the first time, the San Francisco International Arts Festival (May 2-June 8), now in its fifth year, has become an indispensable showcase for collaborative work by leading Bay Area artists and their peers across all manner of geographical, cultural and disciplinary borders. The more than 40 performances in this year’s lineup, taking place at 14 separate venues across the city and in Berkeley, span the worlds of dance, music, opera, theater, visual arts and multidisciplinary work. The following four highlights are all hybrid productions with strong film and/or video components.
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Q & A
SFIFF51: On the Breeding Behind "Evolution: The Musical!"
Robert Avila
Apr 22, 2008Think of it as The Sound of Music meets Quest for Fire, or Jesus Christ Superstar rocks Land of the Lost.
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Festivals
"Palestine: Interior/Exterior"
Robert Avila
Apr 9, 2008Two films at the Arab Film Festival's program Palestine: Interior/Exterior map physical, personal and ideological terrain.
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Festivals
Earthdance Short-Attention-Span Environmental Film Festival
Robert Avila
Apr 2, 2008The fifth annual EarthDance Short-Attention-Span Environmental Film Festival screens a juried compilation of 20 short films in two 90-minute installments.
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Q & A
Christopher Coppola Wants You
Robert Avila
Dec 6, 2007Somewhere between iPhone and YouTube there’s a wee festival known as miniPAH. A more slender version of PAH-FEST, the touring weeklong digital film festival founded a year and a half ago by filmmaker Christopher Coppola, “miniPAH: San Francisco” happens this weekend at Coppola’s alma mater, San Francisco Art Institute, ahead of a full-fledged Bay Area PAH sometime next year.
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Reviews
S.F. Silent Film Festival“s Third Annual Winter Event
Robert Avila
Nov 30, 2007The List: A commentary-filled list of the lineup at the silent film festival, which consists of three separate programs and an evening mixer with live music.
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Festivals
International Latino Film Festival and S.F. International Animation Festival
Robert Avila
Nov 8, 2007In the wake of Mexican cinema's triumphant showing at the 2007 Oscars, these films serve to confirm how some of the biggest surprises can come from the shortest of distances.
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Q & A
Connie Field, from Berkeley to Johannesburg
Robert Avila
Nov 5, 2007The filmmaker talks about her recent projects, including Salud!, which looks at Cuba's world-class health system.
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Festivals
The 11th Arab Film Festival
Robert Avila
Oct 18, 2007The Arab Film Festival, now in its 11th year, is featuring not just 80 movies from 13 countries, but is also including screenings in LA, a first for a Bay Area-based fest.
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Festivals
SF Docfest Report
Robert Avila
Sep 27, 2007Reality, generally considered over-rated by the moving-going public, is the unapologetic core of SF DocFest.
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Reviews
Abbas Kiarostami: "Image Maker"
Robert Avila
Aug 2, 2007An impressive PFA series runs alongside an exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum of Kiarostami's striking photographic work.
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Reviews
Reviews: "Bamako" and "Angel-A"
Robert Avila
May 29, 2007A masterful stroke by writer-director Abderrahmane Sissako; Luc Besson returns to American theaters after a nearly decade-long absence.
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Festivals
2007 Mendocino Film Festival
Robert Avila
May 24, 2007The four-day festival offered over 100 films, with an emphasis on documentaries, and attracted some 60 filmmakers, including Albert Maysles.
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Q & A
Hal Hartley, Not So simple
Robert Avila
May 13, 2007Changes in Hal Hartley's geography and work styles have put distance between his early films and also given the director a chance to experiment with form.
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Q & A
Hal Hartley, Not So simple
Robert Avila
May 13, 2007Changes in Hal Hartley's geography and work styles have put distance between his early films and also given the director a chance to experiment with form.
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Q & A
Hal Hartley, Not So Simple: Part II
Robert Avila
May 7, 2007The Unbelievable Truth helped jumpstart the independent film movement in the U.S. in 1989, followed by eight more Hartley features in the next decade.
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Q & A
Hal Hartley, Not So Simple: Part II
Robert Avila
May 7, 2007The Unbelievable Truth helped jumpstart the independent film movement in the U.S. in 1989, followed by eight more Hartley features in the next decade.
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Festivals
Picturing Politics at SFIFF50
Robert Avila
May 1, 2007A shot in Wonders Are Many makes visual reference to Guernica as shorthand for art's charge to speak for the voiceless.
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Reviews
Reviews: 'Comedy of Power'
Robert Avila
Apr 17, 2007in Claude Chabrol's latest film, Isabelle Huppert plays a judge plunging headlong into a dangerous investigation of french corruption and gender dynamics.
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Reviews
Loach's Palme d'Or Winner
Robert Avila
Apr 5, 2007A Western occupying power faces opposition from the locals and responds with brutal military suppression, spurring a countrywide resistance movement reaching down to the grassroots.
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Reviews
Now and Zen and an Imperial Adventure
Robert Avila
Mar 27, 2007Robert Avila reviews A Zen Life: D.T. Suzuki and The Situation.
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Reviews
The Countercultures of "Commune"
Robert Avila
Feb 22, 2007The cinematic image of the Ô60s commune is normally as two-dimensional as the screen it's projected on, and rarely very kind.
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Festivals
Noir City5, Fun with Dicks and Janes
Robert Avila
Jan 25, 2007A preview of the festival's rich program with festival's organizer Eddie Muller
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Reviews
"Samoan Wedding"; "Romantico"
Robert Avila
Jan 16, 2007A delightfully funny movie on boy-men redeeming themselves from New Zealand, and Mark Becker's absorbing documentary on a musician in the Mission.
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Reviews
"Absolute Wilson"; "Army of Shadows"
Robert Avila
Jan 9, 2007A documentary provides an in-depth description of Robert Wilson's life and art. Melville's spy story on a Resistance cell in Nazi-occupied French challenges our idea of heroism.
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Reviews
James Broughton, and a DVD Eden
Robert Avila
Dec 20, 2006The product of a true cinematic innovator and gloriously individual poet, Broughton's film work remains much too idiosyncratic to be deconstructed,
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Reviews
"Radical Closure" at the PFA
Robert Avila
Dec 7, 2006This series of cinematic responses to war, curated by Lebanese video artist Akram Zaatari, opens up possibilities for re-imagining the dehumanized landscape of violence.
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Reviews
A U.N. Ten
Robert Avila
Oct 20, 2006The List: Ten to catch at the 9th annual United Nations Association Film Festival October 25 through 29 at Stanford University in Palo Alto.
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Festivals
Arab Film Festival 2006
Robert Avila
Sep 7, 2006Executive director Bashir Anastas discusses this year's lineup.
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Festivals
A Tale of Two Shorts Festivals
Robert Avila
Aug 10, 2006SF Shorts and the SF Underground Short Film Festival provide a big-screen showcase for oft-overlooked short subjects.
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Festivals
2006 San Francisco International Arts Festival
Robert Avila
May 25, 2006The 2006 San Francisco International Arts Festival focuses on Latino culture across North and South America.
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Q & A
Filmmaker William Farley's Peripheral Vision
Robert Avila
May 16, 2006After 35 years of underground success, veteran indie filmmaker William Farley still hovers just off the shore of mainstream respectability.
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Festivals
Werner Herzog, Setting the Record Straight
Robert Avila
May 9, 2006The 2006 recipient of the Film Society Directing Award was full of raised-finger pronouncements, self-effacing demurrals, and unsolicited rebuttals at a Q&A preceding his film.
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Q & A
Choose Your Words
Robert Avila
Apr 27, 2006Memorize these words that supposedly can bring you under government scrutiny when said over the phone, or written in a text message or email.
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Reviews
Masharawi Finds Palestinians In States of Suspended Animation
Robert Avila
Apr 20, 2006Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi's Waiting intricately and ingeniously intertwines irony, humor, and pathos.
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Reviews
Tehran Contemporary Art Exhibit On Tour
Robert Avila
Mar 23, 2006The documentary Persian Garden chronicles the grandest art exhibition in Iran since the 1979 Revolution.
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Festivals
Human Rights Watch Film Festival: More Than "Watching"
Robert Avila
Mar 2, 2006HRW's series of films chosen for aesthetic value and human rights content continues to grow as it stays true to its roots.
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