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An interview with Robinson Devore, maker of 'Zoo.'
From Gary Leva's Fog CIty Mavericks The San Francisco International Film Festival is celebrating its 50th birthday this year. And the oldest film festival in the Americas is marking the anniversary by looking back, looking forward and celebrating Bay Area filmmakers. The backward look, which has actually been going on for several years, went into high gear over the past year, as a treasure trove of nuggets from the festival's history have been posted on its website: a database of listings of films shown, awards and guests; historical photos and articles based on the vast archive of festival
From Uli Gaulke's Comrades in Dreams. Courtesy of Berlinale 2007 Like a Las Vegas weekend extended into weeks, a film festival rides on the hopes of a movie jackpot, luring spectators from screening to screening, and blurring day to night. Unlike Venice and Cannes, Berlin has the public sense to feature documentaries in its different sections and special programs. The festival's fertile ground for nonfiction gold leads crowds to persevere through head colds and down alcohol against the February chill. Yet the majority of this year's films proved illuminating in their disappointment. Rather
There is one that film keeps my dreams alive for a better, peaceful, more just world--one to which I go back often in these dark days. It is Chile , Obstinate Memory (1997) by Patricio Guzmán. Guzmán has turned the seminal trauma of his youth--the death of President Salvador Allende in a coup d'état and the subsequent subjugation of Chile's long-established democracy by General Augusto Pinochet--into a meditation on memory and forgetting. During the Pinochet dictatorship, the military's version of history--the junta as heroic guardians of social order--was imposed. Chile, Obstinate Memory
Over the next month, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the filmmakers whose work is represented in the DocuWeeks TM Theatrical Documentary Showcase, which runs from August 12 through September 1 in New York City and August 19 through September 8 in Los Angeles. We asked the filmmakers to share the stories behind their films--the inspirations, the challenges and obstacles, the goals and objectives, the reactions to their films so far. So, to continue this series of conversations, here is Cari Ann Shim Sham, director/executive producer of Sand. Synopsis: A rhythmic and visual
On Patrick Creadon and Christine O'Malley's 'Wordplay.'
Screenings Conclude in Los Angeles and New York
Was IDA Career Achievement Award Honoree in 1988
'A Film Unfinished' airs Tuesday, May 3, on PBS' 'Independent Lens.'
Amir Bar-Lev's 'The Tillman Story' Opens August 20.