Film Feature: 66th SFFilm Festival Spotlights

The 66th SFFilm Festival opens tomorrow, Thursday, April 13th, and will run through Sunday, April 23rd. Tomorrow’s opening night premiere – a documentary about Steph Curry — is sold out for advance tickets and at rush (if you want to show up and take your chances), but luckily there’s tons more cool stuff to see over the next week and a half. Here we present just a taste: a look at four upcoming screenings — two documentaries and two narrative features. Continue reading “Film Feature: 66th SFFilm Festival Spotlights”

Film Feature: 65th SFFILM Festival Spotlight #3

The 65th SFFilm Festival opened on Thursday and will run through Sunday, May 1st, so there’s still plenty of time to check out some new films this weekend and through next week. Here’s a look at four more offerings. 

1.) NAVALNY
(USA/Germany/Russia, 2022. 98 min)

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Back in late January, nobody knew just how relevant this documentary about Russian opposition leader, poisoning victim, and current prisoner Alexi Navalny would be just a few weeks later, as the Russians invaded Ukraine. Nominated for Sundance’s Documentary Grand Jury prize and winning both the Festival Favorite Award and the Audience U.S. Documentary Award, this portrait of courage is as relevant as it is intriguing. An eye opening look at Russian politics, director Daniel Roher’s film shouldn’t be missed.  

Screenings (click here for tickets):
– Sat., April 23rd, 4:30pm at the Castro
– If you miss Saturday’s screening, the film is also available on CNN.

Continue reading “Film Feature: 65th SFFILM Festival Spotlight #3”

Film Feature: SFFILM Festival Spotlights #4

 

The 2021 San Francisco International Film Festival concluded yesterday, and announced its awards on Saturday. Those can be found here, but we have a final wrap up, too – nine capsules highlighting some of the Festival offerings – six dramas and three documentaries.  Check them out below, and see you next year!

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Film Feature: SFFILM 2021 Festival Spotlight #2 – “Supercool” Review

Filmic FOMO

Gilbert (left) and Neil (right) Just Dance at a high school party
Gilbert (left) and Neil (right) Just Dance at a high school party.

Oh, that Superbad, that super, super, somewhat bad 2007 film that spawned, or launched, or squirted out a thousand imitators. Well, maybe ten or so, but it sure feels like a thousand. Supercool, the subject of this review, and an entry in the 2021 San Francisco International Film Festival, is a tag-along that desperately, and I mean desperately, wants to get into the big kids’ party. It’s the lonely, undersexed, over-analyzed teen with a gawky face, messy hair, and a loopy gait who spends all night looking for the party, only to find it’s been broken up by the cops. Continue reading “Film Feature: SFFILM 2021 Festival Spotlight #2 — “Supercool” Review”

Film Feature: SFFILM 2021 Festival Spotlight #1 – Strawberry Mansion Review

Dream logic, logically dreamed

James Preble (Kentucky Audley) scans dreams to audit
VHS makes a comeback.

The writer, director, actor, and veteran Samuel Fuller is said to have remarked that the only way to make a truly realistic war film is to fill a theater full of patrons, then have soldiers shoot at them from behind the screen. No matter how realistic, a war film is still a film. 
Continue reading “Film Feature: SFFILM 2021 Festival Spotlight #1 — Strawberry Mansion Review”

Film Feature: SFFILM 2019 Spotlights #1

62nd annual San Francisco International Film Festival opens today, Wednesday, April 10th

The 62nd annual San Francisco International Film Festival begins today, Wednesday, April 10th, and runs almost two weeks, until Tuesday, April 23rd. This year’s Festival boasts 163 films from over 50 countries in 36 languages, and will include twelve world premieres and five North American premieres. The Festival is proud that this year close to 45% of its films are directed by women. More information, complete program listings, and online tickets can be found here.

With so many offerings, figuring out your Fest schedule can be tricky. But never fear! As always, Spinning Platters has your back. We’ll get you started by sharing five Festival film spotlights (two narrative features and three documentaries). And of course be sure to check back here throughout the Festival for more spotlights and updates. 

Continue reading “Film Feature: SFFILM 2019 Spotlights #1”

Film Feature: SFFILM 2018 Festival Spotlights #4

Wrap up: 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival 

The 61st San Francisco International Film Festival ended last Tuesday, but many of its offerings will find their way to your neighborhood cinema in the near future. We conclude our coverage of this year’s Fest by taking a look at four of the Fest’s films that you may want to keep your eye out for in the coming months (our previous coverage posts can be found here, here, and here). And if you’re curious to see which Fest films took home awards this year, you can see all the winners here. In the meantime, we’ll see you next year for SFFILM #62! 

1.) Sorry to Bother You  (USA 2018, 107 min. Centerpiece)

Detroit (Tessa Thompson) and Cassius (Lakeith Stanfield) join with striking workers at their telemarketing firm in Oakland.

Oakland rapper and artist Boots Riley got the hometown reception from the Festival this year, as his debut feature film was given a first-of-its kind, dual-venue Bay Area premiere at two of the Bay Area’s most iconic and beloved theaters: Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater and San Francisco’s Castro Theater. The movie had previously premiered at Sundance, where it garnered a Grand Jury prize nomination, but its Bay Area premiere definitely felt more special. Riley’s film centers on Cassius (Lakeith Stanfield, Get Out), a new employee at a telemarketing company in downtown Oakland (exteriors were shot around Kaiser’s Franklin Street building) whose rise up the corporate ladder doesn’t come without cost, to himself, his girlfriend (Tessa Thompson), and his friends, colleagues, and community. While inarguably entertaining, Riley’s film has a definite first attempt feel: elements of political satire, social criticism, surrealist comedy, outrageous sci-fi, and sweet romance often overlap to an extreme, coming dangerously close to burying the picture beneath its own everything-but-the kitchen-sink weight. Comedically deft performances from Stanfield and Armie Hammer, as a villainous corporate head, though, are appealing enough to make the flaws of Riley’s jam-packed screenplay forgivable.

Sorry to Bother You will open in the Bay Area on Friday, July 6th.

Continue reading “Film Feature: SFFILM 2018 Festival Spotlights #4”

Film Feature: SFFILM 2018 Festival Spotlights #2

Make time for these three great documentaries at the 61st San Francisco International Film Festival

1.) Carcasse
(Iceland/France 2016, 61 min. Vanguard)

Faraway lands and anthropologic impulses lured filmmaker Gústav Geir Bollason to the subject of how we adapt the 21st century’s material bounty to the timeless problems of survival. Drawing heavily from Robert Flaherty and Basil Wright, Bollason is fascinated with the ways in which we repurpose the consumerist world to adapt quite nicely in the survivalist one. Aircraft fuselages become shelters for lamb flocks. Volkswagen bodies become boat bridges. Compact car bodies become horse drawn buggies. Flaherty showed how the Inuk bent nature to tame nature. Bollason shows both the pervasive nature of modern material culture, and our ingenuity at bending it our needs. Plays with the short The Art of Flying (Jan van Ijken, Netherlands 2015, 7 min).

Screenings (tickets available here):
— Saturday, April 14th, 3:15pm, YBCA Screening Room
— Sunday, April 15, 2018, 8:00pm, YBCA Screening Room 

Continue reading “Film Feature: SFFILM 2018 Festival Spotlights #2”

Film Feature: SFFILM 2018 Festival Spotlights #1

61st annual San Francisco International Film Festival opens this Wednesday, April 4th

The 61st annual San Francisco International Film Festival begins this Wednesday, April 4th, and will run almost two weeks, until Thursday, April 17th. This year’s Festival features 186 films from over 40 countries, and will include eight world premieres, five North American premieres, and six U.S. premieres. Of special note is that over a third of this year’s selected films are directed by women. Tickets and more information about films and programs can be found here.

To help you plan your Fest schedule, we’ll start you off here with five Festival film spotlights (three narrative features and two documentaries). And be sure to bookmark Spinning Platters and check back frequently, as we’ll have more coverage throughout the Festival.

Continue reading “Film Feature: SFFILM 2018 Festival Spotlights #1”

SFIFF58 Spotlights #6: Eden/Results/Democrats/Far From Men/Hill of Freedom/Goodnight Mother

Less than a week left and sadly there are many great titles that have finished screening at SFIFF58. But we here like to keep you in the loop nonetheless, so here’s six more titles to add to your cinema radar (including Democrats, which still has some screenings left!):

Eden
(France, 2014, 131 min, Marquee Presentations)

EDEN
EDEN

Whether you’re familiar with the “French touch” influence of the 90s or not, it’s hard to deny the sensory power of this semi-biographical story about a French DJ rising to prominence in the Parisian electronic music scene, paralleling the origins of Daft Punk (who appear as characters throughout). Director Mia Hansen-Løve co-wrote with her brother Sven Hansen-Løve, of whom the story is loosely based. Eden juxtaposes a futile DJ lifestyle with house music’s high energy atmosphere and evolving media formats, set against the pulsating vibrant backdrop of some gorgeously shot clubs and raves.

There are no more upcoming screenings for Eden at the festival.
Info for Eden is available here.  *Interview with actor Felix de Givry and Sven Hansen-Løve coming soon*

Continue reading “SFIFF58 Spotlights #6: Eden/Results/Democrats/Far From Men/Hill of Freedom/Goodnight Mother”