Mill Valley Film Festival 2018

Marin Magazine’s Ultimate Guide to the 41st

MVFF

MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL

It’s our fifth year of partnering with the California Film Institute and the Mill Valley Film Festival, and we are excited to present this guide to the event and whet your appetite for thrilling cinema. In these pages, founder/ executive director Mark Fishkin and director of programming Zoë Elton reveal what they value and anticipate most about MVFF today. Our regular writers Bernard Boo and Peter Crooks join Zack Ruskin, Kirsten Jones Neff and Emilie Rohrbach to bring stories on movies that showcase nature, are inspired by beloved books, give a glimpse of the future or feature music in a starring role. There’s also an intriguing piece on documentar y film, a challenging quiz on local cinematic landmarks, a Q&A with Paul Dano and, of course, a complete schedule of ever y film to be screened. We hope you enjoy this guide to the festival’s 41st year as it celebrates the power of the silver screen.

— marin magazine staff editors

PUBLISHER / EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Nikki Wood

Editorial EDITOR

Mimi Towle

MANAGING EDITOR

Daniel Jewett

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Kasia Pawlowska

COPY EDITOR

Cynthia Rubin

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Bernard Boo, Peter Crooks, Kirsten Jones Neff, Emilie Rohrbach, Zack Ruskin

Art

ART DIRECTOR

Rachel Gr iffiths

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Alex French

Advertising

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

Debra Hershon

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR

Michele Geoff rion Johnson

SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGERS

Leah Bronson

Lesley Cesare

ACCOUNT MANAGER

Dana Horner

ADVERTISING ART DIRECTOR

Alex French

Administration/Web

OFFICE MANAGER

Hazel Jaramillo

DIGITAL EDITOR

Leslie Lee

Contributors

Peter Crooks

Cinema’s Crystal Ball

What movies have you enjoyed the most this year? My favorite fi lm of 2018, thus far, is Ari Aster’s spectacularly scary Hereditary. After that: Alex Garland’s Annihilation, Paul Schrader’s First Reformed, Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here, Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. It has been a good year for Oakland on screen with Sorry to Bother You, Blindspotting and Black Panther

What was the most challenging part of this assignment? I was able to think of a number of fi lms that were prescient in their political content or used the sciencefiction genre to comment on things to come. The challenging part was knowing if I was picking the best examples for the article.

Where has your work appeared before? I’m a longtime senior editor at Diablo magazine and my fi rst book, The Setup: A True Story of Dirty Cops, Soccer Moms, and Reality TV, has been optioned for a feature fi lm adaptation.

Kirsten Jones Neff Doclands

What’s your earliest film memory? My first memorable movie experience was watching The Shaggy D.A. (the sequel to The Shaggy Dog) on the big screen, munching from a brown bag of homemade popcorn. I thought it was the perfect comedy, the perfect popcorn, and an all-around perfect night. I’ve been a movie fiend ever since.

Biggest movie theater pet peeve? I hate it when people let their phones light up, buzz, vibrate and ring in the theater. The other night we were in the luxury loungers and the guy next to me took a call.

Where has your work appeared before? Besides Marin Magazine, my recent work has appeared in Edible Marin & Wine Country, Modern Farmer, Stanford Magazine, Ms. Magazine, GreatSchools.org, and Grown and Flown, among other print and digital publications.

Zack Ruskin

Paul Dano; Book vs. Movie; Test Your Film IQ

Do you have an MVFF memory that stands out in particular? So many contenders, but I’ll always remember seeing Spotlight in 2015 and instantly knowing with complete certainty that I’d just seen the fi lm that would win that year’s Academy Award for Best Picture. My intuitions were correct.

What’s your favorite movie that features the Bay Area? While it’s hard not to go with Vertigo, I’m extremely partial to the 1997 David Fincher fi lm The Game What could possibly top Michael Douglas plunging into the San Francisco Bay while trapped in a taxicab?

Where has your work appeared before? My writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, Billboard, the San Francisco Chronicle, Paste, Bandcamp, San Francisco Weekly, Maxim, Uproxx, Everfest, and more. Follow me on Twitter @zackruskin.

Behind the Scenes

Roll Film

Mill Valley Film Festival founder/executive director Mark Fishkin and director of programming Zoë Elton, on curating the signature MVFF experience.

How do you maintain the festival’s unique low-key vibe while also introducing cutting-edge ideas and adapting to an ever-evolving market?

Mark: From the [festival’s] inception, we said we wanted to be professional but unpretentious. Change is a really important part of what we do. We have to focus on the present and the future.

Zoë: I think that also epitomizes what the Bay Area is. There’s a welcoming sensibility, but there’s also an inquisitiveness about who we are, what we are, and what we’re doing.

MVFF always features wonderful special guests. Who comes to mind as one of your favorites?

Zoë: The fi rst year we sort of officially did our “Mind the Gap” program [which focuses on women i n fi lm], we were honoring Sir Ian McKellen. He said, “But I’m a man! I think it’d be good to do something about women I’ve worked with.” He did just that, and it was extraordinary.

Can the excitement surrounding some of your higher-profile guests sometimes get out of hand?

Mark: Things have changed, and we do get more protective [of our guests]. People want to take photographs, but we still try to create an easygoing atmosphere and make it as enjoyable for the guest as it would be for the audience.

BY BERNARD BOO

Your “Mind the Gap” initiative has been one of your most successful innovations. How has that program been coming along?

Zoë: As a program director, I’ve always been driven by really wanting to make sure that we have programming that encompasses a lot of different sensibilities, a lot of different geographies. Throughout our history, making sure that women are [included] has been important, and it really became more compelling several years ago when we did a panel with Stacy Smith [of USC’s Annenberg School of Communication], who coined the phrase “inclusion rider,” which you may have heard at the Oscars this year. One of the ways of making change is to translate that into what you do in your work and in your life. Then, we can start to push things forward.

What conversations and themes do you see bubbling to the surface at this year’s festival?

Zoë: Race in America is defi nitely front and center [this year]. We’ve seen a number of fi lms addressing black issues in America on the festival circuit. We’ve also consciously started looking for fi lms that address a young adult audience, the same kind of audience you would see reading YA novels.

Mark: There wa s a fi lm we showed last year called Life and Nothing More, and we’re distributing that fi lm now. It highlights race in America but also represent s fi lms with nonprofessional casts, which may develop into a focus as well.

Zoë Elton and Mark Fishkin

in Marin County

Paul Dano

The actor discusses how Richard Ford’s novel Wildlife inspired him to step behind the camera for the first time.

BY ZACK RUSKIN

WHEN PAUL DANO fi rst discovered Richard Ford’s Wildlife, he was simply looking for a good book to read on the subway. What he found was the inspiration for his directorial debut.

An acclaimed actor known for his work in Little Miss Sunshine, Love & Mercy and There Will Be Blood, the 34-year-old Dano has long harbored the desire to hel m a fi lm. After he found himself revisiting Ford’s short novel numerous times over the course of a year, Dano fi nally mustered up the courage to write Ford and express his interest in adapting the author’s work.

“I wrote him a letter,” Dano recalls, “and he got back to me. He told me that his book was his book, and that my picture was my picture, and that I needed to do me. That was so important to hear from him, because that is what I wanted. I was looking to put myself through this material, but to have a writer that you admire so much give you that permission was a really important thing to hear.”

Dano set to work writing a draft of the screenplay. He confesses he secretly thought his fi rst effort was “pretty good,” but then he asked his longtime girlfriend, the actress and screenwriter Zoe Kazan, to read it and she returned the script with notes on every page.

“She tore it apart,” he says, laughing. “We tried to go through it, and we maybe got five pages in before she said, ‘Why don’t you just let me do a pass on it?’ Then she took it and just made it a lot better.”

Having optioned the rights to Ford’s novel on their own, Dano and Kazan were under no deadlines and relished the opportunity to tinker with the screenplay to their satisfaction. At one point the couple even re-created the road trip in which the Brinson family travels from Idaho to their current residence in Great Falls, Montana.

Starring Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal as the parents of Joe — played by Ed Oxenbould (a strikingly talented young actor from Australia) — Wildlife is a sparse and quiet portrait of a boy in 1960 forced to realize that our mothers and fathers are

a s flawed as the rest of us. The setting of Montana almost serves as an auxiliary character; as Dano observes, the state’s stunning geography, captured vividly by cinematographer Diego García, serves dual purposes in the story.

“It is so magni ficent,” he says of the landscapes that serve as Wildlife ’s backdrop. “I think that was an important precipice to be on, because you could either view it with a sense of hope and possibility, or you could view it with this sense of desolation and despair that I think comes with being somewhere so much bigger than you.”

With only three main characters anchoring the fi lm, casting the right actors was of utmost importance. Kazan had previously worked with Mulligan on a Broadway play, and Dano felt the Oscar-nominated actress might enjoy the chance to change things up by playing the character of Jeanette, whom he accurately describes as “messy.” Dano fi rst met Gyllenhaal at Mulligan’s wedding and the two later worked together on the 2013 fi lm Prisoners. He is thrilled that Wildlife represents the fi rst time the two esteemed actors (and friends) have co-starred i n a fi lm.

The fi nal product is an expertly crafted debut for Dano, who is now eager to return to the director’s chair.

“I can’t wait to make another fi lm,” he says. “I don’t know what it’s going to be, but I want to make di fferent fi lms. However, I would be surprised if I didn’t come back to that sense of family somehow. It’s just something that’s always spoken to me — in writing, i n fi lm, in art, and in my life.”

The film won the first MVFF Award of 2018, and Paul Dano and Carey Mulligan will appear for a live onstage conversation on October 5.

Land, Sea, Sky

Cinema’s Wild Side

These films are all about interacting with Mother Nature.

BY BERNARD BOO

One of the many things that makes the Mill Valley Film Festival special is the fact that you can go for a walk in the woods, stare out at the ocean, and take in that big blue California sky — all in between screenings. Here are some MVFF standouts from years past that showcase nature on the big screen itself.

LAND

Into the Wild (2007)

The mysterious real-life story of Christopher McCandless, a privileged college grad who sold everything to trek across the country and up into Alaska, is infused with poetic nuance in this bracing, sorrowfu l fi lm. Starring Emile Hirsch as McCandless and directed by Sean Penn with music by Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, it paints a breathtaking picture of a man fading away into nature, holding on to the ones he loves until his very last gasp.

The Homesman (2014)

Hilary Swank made quite an impression when she kicked off VFF’s 37th year with this fi lm on opening night. It’s an American frontier tale, depicting the unlikely attempt by Mary Bee Cuddy (Swank) to transport three mentally ill women across the unforgiving Nebraska Territories by covered wagon, aided by a scru ff y hired drifter (Tommy Lee Jones, who also directs). A bizarre, beautiful portrait of female independence whose haunting, harsh vistas echo the protagonist’s internal strife.

Wild (2014)

Step by step, we follow Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) braving the elements on a 1,100-mile hike of the Paci fic Crest Trail while confronting emotional fallout from the recent death of her mother and the dissolution of her marriage. Witherspoon (Oscar-nominated for her performance) and director

Jean-Marc Vallée are in top form in this powerful, intimate character study based on Strayed’s memoir, framed evocatively by the trail’s arid expanses and spiny mountain ranges.

SEA

All Is Lost (2013)

Robert Redford plays a man adrift at sea on a damaged yacht, amid tempests and sharks, fighting to survive and searching the open ocean for a beacon of hope. A powerhouse cinematic experience with enveloping sound and gritty imagery, the fi lm wowed audiences in the festival’s 36th year. Director J.C. Chandor was in attendance to discuss the fi lm and joined Bay Area director Ryan Coogler and several other fi lmmakers for a special panel discussion.

Breaking the Waves (1996)

A wide-eyed young woman (Emily Watson) is dragged into a dark world of carnal and spiritual turmoil when her husband (Stellan Skarsgård) is paralyzed from the neck down in an accident on an oil rig. The chorus of the crashing waves near the couple’s coastal Scottish village acts as a sort of infernal soundtrack to this twisted romance from preeminent arthouse auteur Lars Von Trier.

Life of Pi (2012)

After surviving a shipwreck, Pi (Suraj Sharma) is thrust into a fantastical adventure at sea, forging an unlikely bond with

another survivor: a hungry Bengal tiger. After winning a lifetime achievement award at MVFF in 2007, Taiwanese director Ang Lee returned to the festival in 2012 with this movie, which brought his second Best Director Oscar win. The dazzling scenes at sea are a spectacular display of CGI wizardry and a shining example of visual effects and story working as one.

SKY

Arrival (2016)

For ages human beings have looked to the sky for answers, and few fi lms suggest the mystery and temptation of the cosmos better than Arrival, Denis Villeneuve’s Oscar-winning sci-fi rama. Amy Adams plays Louise, a linguist recruited by the military to communicate with an alien race who have scattered a dozen ominous, hovering spaceships across Earth for reasons unknown. Sci-fi ovies don’t often tug on the heartstrings, but there weren’t many dry eyes in the theater when this gem screened at MVFF 39.

The Wind Rises (2013)

The exhilaration of flying high above the clouds is bottled perfectly in mastermind auteur Hayao Miyazaki’s fi nal and arguably best fi lm. Based on the life of Jiro Horikoshi, an aeronautical engineer who designed fighter planes during World War II, The Wind Rises soars wit h flowing imagery and a dreamlike sensibility that makes the hear t flutter with delight. Hand-drawn animation is a rarity in movies these days, but MVFF attendees were lucky enough to catch Miyazaki’s artistry on the big screen.

Up in the Air (2009)

Ten million frequent flyer miles. That’s the goal of professional downsizer Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) in Jason Reitman’s jet-setting romantic drama, featured in MVFF’s 32nd lineup. In a time when lost souls can choose to spend most of their time sitting in a chair detached from humanity, this Oscar winner examines one man’s fear of grounding himself, bot h figuratively and literally.

All

Coming Soon

Special features and programs not to be missed. BY

KASIA PAWLOWSKA

Opening Night: A Private War

Thursday, October 4

Based on a Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner, the biographical drama tells the story of Marie Colvin, a celebrated war correspondent at the front lines of con fl icts across the globe. Directed by Academy Award nominee Matthew Heineman, A Private War boasts an all-star cast including Rosamund Pike, Jamie Dornan and Stanley Tucci.

Tribute to Pawel Pawlikowski

Friday, October 5

Oscar-winning director Pawel Pawlikowski’s latest feature, Cold War, will be screened, followed by a conversation onstage. Loosely based on his parents’ lives, the fi lm details a stormy relationship between a composer and a singer in mid-20th-century Poland.

Spotlight: Wildlife

Friday, October 5

The creative collaboration between writer/director Paul Dano and actress Carey Mulligan will be acknowledged

with an MVFF award. The two will have an onstage conversation that explores the director-actor relationship and how they work together to achieve great performances.

California Premiere of Beautiful Boy

Saturday, October 6

Filmed in San Francisco and Marin, Beautiful Boy is director Felix Van Groeningen’s adaptation of the bestselling memoirs of father and son David and Nic Sheff. Actors Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet play father and son in this feature about a family’s grappling with addiction. Chalamet and the director will be at the screening.

North American Premiere of The Parting Glass

Saturday, October 6

After the unexpected death of their youngest sister, three siblings embark on an apprehensive road trip with their father and the sister’s estranged husband. Starring Anna Paquin, Cynthia Nixon, Melissa Leo and Denis O’Hare,

the fi lm is also the directorial debut of True Blood ’s Stephen Moyer.

Ja rvis Cocker at the Sweetwater

Saturday, October 6

Best known as the frontman for the band Pulp, musician, actor and author Jarvis Cocker has been making music for two-thirds of his life. In this time, he has gone from being the quintessential outsider to being one of the most recognized figures in British music.

Spotlight: Boy Erased

Sunday, October 7

Directed by Joel Edgerton, Boy Erased portrays a teenage son of a preacher who fi nds himself in a gay conversion camp after being outed to his family by a fellow student. Based on true accounts, the fi lm stars Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and Lucas Hedges.

MVFF Centerpiece: Roma

Monday, October 8

The program will feature an onstage talk with director Alfonso Cuarón, a screening of Roma, and a presentation of the MVFF Award. In a cinematic love letter to the Mexico City of his youth, the Oscar-winning director depicts the life of a family in 1970 and a housekeeper who is its emotional anchor.

Special Event: Kannapolis: A Moving Portrait

Wednesday, October 10

In this new live music and fi lm piece, musician Jenny Scheinman shows the captivating work of fi llmmaker and photographer H. Lee Waters, who documented over 118 small towns in the Southeast between 1936 and 1942. Scheinman and fi lmmaker Finn Taylor have re-edited the footage and scored it with Scheinman’s music.

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Sweet Sounds

Sweetwater Music Hall

This community gem hosts concerts that tie into MVFF films.

BY BERNARD BOO

AFTER A SCREENING at the Sequoia theater on Throckmorton Avenue at this year’s Mill Valley Film Festival, there’s a good chance that when you step outside you’ll hear the faint sound of rockin’ live music and a whole lot of people having a really good time just down the street at the legendary Sweetwater Music Hall, which hosts MVFF’s music program every year. If you do happen to hear that sweet, sweet sound, do yourself a favor: walk down the street and join the fun.

The original Sweetwater opened in Mill Valley in 1972 and served as a clubhouse of sorts for the likes of Bob Weir, Aaron Neville, Elvis Costello, Townes Van Zandt, Carlos Santana, Van Morrison, John Hiatt and Etta James, whom would often take the stage for intimate, rare performances.

This tradition continues at the venue’s current incarnation at 19 Corte Madera Avenue, which opened in 2012 and still carries the aura of all of those once-in-a-lifetime jam sessions that happened just two blocks away at the original location for over 30 years. With its velvet couches, elegant drapery and mood lighting, the venue feels of another time, in a delightful, nostalgic way, and there is nothing like watching a live band let loose on its stage.

Bob Weir acts as both investor and “spiritual leader” for the current establishment, says current Sweetwater general

manager Aaron Kayce: “He hand-picked a million-dollar Meyer Sound system and laid the foundation for what just might be the nicest 300-person venue in the nation.” The venue’s audio presentation is indeed pristine, which is only fitting considering some of the talents it has drawn: Joe Satriani, members of Metallica, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and Huey Lewis have all been featured as a part of MVFF’s concert programs here.

“There has always been a huge amount of synergy between fi lm and music,” Kayce notes of Sweetwater’s festival connection. “The goal is to provide concerts that complement fi lms and fi lms that complement music. Sometimes there is a documentary about a musician and then we have that musician perform, or perhaps we do a tribute to that musician.”

While the music schedule for this year’s MVFF isn’t set just yet, Kayce says fi lmgoers will have plenty to appreciate if they break up their binge-watching with a live show or two.

“We are excited to have Michael Franti on the lineup this year. We also have Jarvis Cocker, leader of the band Pulp, who has done voice work and musical scores for director Wes Anderson. And we are working on several other exciting shows that we just aren’t ready to announce,” he adds.

“Regardless of the speci fics, it’s always about creating a unique, heightened experience for the patron where fi lm and music blend, creating a once-in-a-lifetime evening.”

Rodrigo y Gabriella with Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo of Metallica in 2014

Books On Film

Book vs. Movie

Five popular adaptations put to the test.

BY ZACK RUSKIN

AS HOLLYWOOD CONTINUES to search far and wide for the fodder that will bring Oscar gold and box office blockbusters, the written word remains its most popular source for inspiration. Even cinema’s fi rst “talkie” — the 1927 Al Jolson fi lm The Jazz Singer — is based on a short story by the writer Samson Raphaelson. While many fi lms have failed to surpass their literary counterparts, some have risen to the challenge. Few would claim Mario Puzo’s 1969 pulp ma fia novel is superior to Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 masterpiece The Godfather, although James Franco’s 2013 take on William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying would arguably have been better left for dead.

In some cases, like Jaws, entire subplots are eliminated to help the film swim along. Thank goodness — who would want to see Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) sleeping with police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider)’s wife when they have a shark to catch? If readers and film fans can agree on one thing, it’s that the debate over which is better — the book or the movie — will outlive us all.

As we celebrate the annual return of the Mill Valley Film Festival, we’ve put five fi lms with Bay Area ties to the test against their source material. May the best medium win.

1Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)

vs. Alias Madame

Doubtfire

by Anne Fine Before Robin Williams donned oversize glasses and a blonde wig to win back the a ffections of his children, author Anne Fine fi rst introduced British audiences to Madame

Doubt fi re in her 1987 novel for young adults. While Fine’s work was short-listed for the Guardian Children’s Fiction and the Whitbread Children’s Book Award, it has largely been forgotten in favor of Williams’ iconic performance as a San Francisco father willing to go to any lengths to keep his kids by his side. Fine’s novel is no slouch, but it also doesn’t include a scene where Robin Williams plays two characters at once thanks to a face covered in frosting. If only because the phrase “Doubt fi re” will forever conjure the visage of Williams, nose dripping with confection, boisterously greeting an unexpected guest (“Oh, hello!”), the movie version takes the cake here. Winner Movie

2The Maltese Falcon (1941) vs. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett Hammett’s 1930 novel had already been adapted for the screen twice before Humphrey Bogart stepped into the shoes of private detective Sam Spade. Those earlier attempts — in 1931 and 1936, respectively — failed to capture the spirit of Hammett’s hard-drinking, eagled-eyed protagonist, but in 1941 Bogart made the role his own. Regarded today as a triumph of fi lm noir and one of the best fi lms ever set in the fair city of San Francisco, The Maltese Falcon is a rare bird indeed: both the novel and the 1941 fi lm adaption are brilliant. To choose between them seems as foolish as trusting Miss Brigid O’Shaughnessy at her word, but any book that merits three adaptations in just over a decade is truly impressive stu ff. Part of that is likely due to some overzealou s fi lmmakers eager to make a buck, but it’s also thanks to Hammett’s impeccable knack for spinning a hard-boiled yarn like no other. Winner Book

3Vertigo (1958) vs. D’entre les Morts by Boileau-Narcejac As Vertigo continues to be hailed as perhaps the greatest fi lm of all time, many remain unaware of the 1954 French crime novel upon which it was based.

Written by Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud (aka Thomas Narcejac) and credited to the portmanteau Boileau-Narcejac, Among the Dead actually establishes many of the themes that so fascinated Hitchcock in Vertigo and other fi lms, like doppelgangers and the madness that comes from guilt. Some critics have even begun to argue that this source material deserves more credit for the fi lm it would ultimately inspire. Against a lesser opponent, Boileau-Narcejac’s novel would more than

The Maltese Falcon

Marianne Kolb: I Am Here

October 2 - October 31, 2018

Reception for the Artist Saturday, October 6, 5:30 - 7:30

hold its own, but doing battle against the icy blonde Kim Novak, the camera tricks used to convey Jimmy Stewart’s terror of heights, and the unforgettable setting of Mission San Juan Bautista is a tall order. There’s simply no topping Hitchcock’s masterpiece, which takes the decisive victory. Winner Movie 4

Moneyball (2011) vs. Moneyball by Michael Lewis If Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane knew his gambit of gauging players’ talents using statistics would one day lead to Brad Pitt playing him in a major motion picture, he might’ve started the strategy sooner. Beane’s baseball innovations were first featured in the 2003 book Moneyball, in which writer Michael Lewis takes readers on a deep dive into the concept of sabermetrics — the valuing of certain stats to supplement a scout’s evaluation of a player’s potential. While the film Moneyball enjoyed several Oscar nominations — including Best Picture and a Best Actor nod for Pitt — the true guts of what Beane and his team devised cannot be distilled in the movie’s 133-minute run time. The beauty of baseball makes for some captivating visuals — you can never have too many shots of an empty diamond awaiting the athletic drama to come — but for those

eager to get a full grasp of what made the 2002 Oakland Athletics so special, they’ll need to go through Lewis. Winner Book

5 Zodiac (2007) vs. Zodiac by Robert Graysmith Director David Fincher has an eye for the Bay Area like few others. His 1997 thriller The Game sent Michael Douglas loose on a deranged puzzle hunt across San Francisco, while 2007’s Zodiac focuses on one of the most infamous serial killers of the past century. Inspired by Robert Graysmith’s book of the same name, Zodiac features Jake Gyllenhaal as Graysmith, a San Francisco Chronicle writer obsessed with ascertaining the madman’s true identity. Graysmith’s account is an enjoyable read, but in Fincher’s hands, the atmosphere of the Bay Area in the late 1960s and early 1970s becomes a character all its own. The risk of making a myster y fi lm that everyone knows cannot have a satisfying conclusion (the Zodiac’s identity remains undetermined to this day) renders Fincher’s work all the more intriguing: how do you offer a climax without rebuking history? The answer is one of several reasons the fi lm is able to best Graysmith’s own written account of a truly harrowing chapter in Bay Area history. Winner Movie

“While many fi lms have failed to surpass their literary counterparts, some have risen to the challenge.”

Moneyball

NEVER OUT OF STYLE. ALWAYS ON THE FOREFRONT. _

Year-to-date Top Producers. Back Row: Andrew Galbraith, Daniel Patrick Duffy, Renee Brunner, Chelsea E. Ialeggio (Sales Manager, Vanguard

Middle Row: Lori Saia Odisio, Julia Elkington, Christine Christiansen, Anna Frost, Vance Frost, Rachel Percival, Hannah Tai, Allison Salzer, Kathryn

DRE #01486075

Manager, Vanguard Properties Marin), Kevin Kearney, Jennifer Bowman, Bitsa Freeman, David Doyle vanguardproperties.com Salzer, Kathryn Ellman, Janey Kaplan. Front Row: Ken Dara, Tyler Stewart, Matt Francis.

Festival Schedule: October 4–9 Master Plan

LARKSPUR

4:00pm Who Killed Lt. Van Dorn? 78 min

4:30pm Bushwick Beats 83 min

7:00pm Two Plains & a Fancy 89 min

7:30pm Ash Is Purest White 150 min

OUTDOOR ART CLUB

TDB PANEL: State of the Industry

OUTDOOR ART CLUB TDB

THE HIVERY

State of the Industry THE

2:00pm WORKSHOP: From Scene to Screen for Teens 180 min

TUESDAY OCT 9

Master Plan Festival Schedule: October 10–14

WEDNESDAY OCT

THURSDAY OCT

SATURDAY OCT 13

SATURDAY OCT 13

SUNDAY OCT 14

SEQUOIA

11:00am

SWEETWATER MUSIC HALL

SWEETWATER MUSIC HALL

FRIDAY OCT 5

FRIDAY OCT 5

CONCERT - Freddy Jones Band

CONCERT - Freddy Jones Band

Doors open – 8:00pm Show starts – 9:00pm

Doors open – 8:00pm Show starts – 9:00pm

SATURDAY OCT 6

SATURDAY OCT 6

CONCERT - Jarvis Cocker

CONCERT - Jarvis Cocker

Doors open – 7:30pm Show starts – 8:30pm

Doors open – 7:30pm Show starts – 8:30pm

SUNDAY OCT 7

SUNDAY OCT 7

11:30am Can You Ever Forgive Me? 107 min

12:00pm MASTER CLASS: The Heroine’s Journey Onscreen 90 min

12:00pm MASTER CLASS: The Heroine’s Journey Onscreen 90 min

2:00pm From Baghdad to The Bay 68 min

2:00pm From Baghdad to The Bay 68 min

2:15pm One Voice 64 min

2:15pm One Voice 64 min

2:30pm Becoming Astrid 123 min

2:30pm Becoming Astrid 123 min

4:30pm An Afternoon with Eleanor Coppola and Allie Light 90 min

4:30pm An Afternoon with Eleanor Coppola and Allie Light 90 min

4:45pm Alifu the Prince/ss 96 min

4:45pm Alifu the Prince/ss 96 min

5:30pm Saint Judy 106 min

5:30pm Saint Judy 106 min

7:15pm Viper Club 109 min

7:15pm Viper Club 109 min

7:30pm Chris the Swiss 90 min

7:30pm Chris the Swiss 90 min

8:30pm The Hi De Ho Show 100 min

8:30pm The Hi De Ho Show 100 min

LARK THEATER

LARK THEATER

11:30am The Kindergarten Teacher 97 min

11:30am The Kindergarten Teacher 97 min

2:00pm Bias 88 min

2:00pm Bias 88 min

5:30pm Bathtubs Over Broadway 87 min

5:30pm Bathtubs Over Broadway 87 min

8:00pm Mug 91 min

8:00pm Mug 91 min

LARKSPUR

LARKSPUR

12:30pm The Big Bad Fox... 83 min

12:30pm The Big Bad Fox... 83 min

3:00pm Woman at War 101 min

3:00pm Woman at War 101 min

3:45pm It’s a Girls’ World 92 min

3:45pm It’s a Girls’ World 92 min

5:30pm Wild DaZe 102 min

5:30pm Wild DaZe 102 min

6:30pm When the Trees Fall 100 min

6:30pm When the Trees Fall 100 min

8:00pm Rafiki 82 min

8:00pm Rafiki 82 min

9:00pm TBA

9:00pm TBA

TENNESSEE VALLEY TRAIL

TENNESSEE VALLEY TRAIL

10:00am Active Cinema Hike 120 min

10:00am Active Cinema Hike 120 min

MARTIN COUNTRY MART

MARTIN COUNTRY MART

2:00pm The Hoopla! 120 min

2:00pm The Hoopla! 120 min

OUTDOOR ART CLUB

Graphic Novel Writing for Teens 120 min

2:00pm WORKSHOP: Graphic Novel Writing for Teens 120 min

CONCERT - Holly Near

CONCERT - Holly Near

Doors open – 5:30pm Show starts – 6:30pm

Doors open – 5:30pm Show starts – 6:30pm

MONDAY OCT 8

MONDAY OCT 8

CONCERT - Michael Franti

CONCERT - Michael Franti

Doors open – 8:00pm Show starts – 9:00pm

Doors open – 8:00pm Show starts – 9:00pm

TUESDAY OCT 9

TUESDAY OCT 9

CONCERT - TBA

CONCERT - TBA

WEDNESDAY OCT 10

WEDNESDAY OCT 10

CONCERT - Oakland

Interfaith Gospel Choir

CONCERT - Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir

Doors open – 8:00pm Show starts – 8:30pm

Doors open – 8:00pm Show starts – 8:30pm

THURSDAY OCT 11

THURSDAY OCT 11

CONCERT - TBA

CONCERT - TBA

FRIDAY OCT 12

FRIDAY OCT 12

CONCERT - Half Pint

CONCERT - Half Pint

Doors open – 8:00pm Show starts – 8:30pm

Doors open – 8:00pm Show starts – 8:30pm

SATURDAY OCT 13

SATURDAY OCT 13

3:00pm PANEL: Medical Marijuana

3:00pm PANEL: Medical Marijuana

4:20pm PANEL: The Waldos 420

4:20pm PANEL: The Waldos 420

Cannabis - Podcast

Cannabis - Podcast

CONCERT - Honus Honus

CONCERT - Honus Honus

Doors open – 8:30pm Show starts – 9:00pm

Doors open – 8:30pm Show starts – 9:00pm

Cinema’s Crystal Ball

From time to time, movies have eerily predicted the future.

BY PETER CROOKS

Filmmaker Adam McKay offered an interesting discussion topic on Twitter recently.

“Which movie was most ahead of its time and prophetic?” tweeted McKay (@GhostPanther) to just over a million followers. McKay, who won an Academy Award for his screenplay adaptation of Michael Lewis’ book The Big Short, should know a thing or two about being ahead of the curve: the movie, which he also directed, is a dark comedy about a handful of prescient investors who were able to cash in on the collapse of the U.S. mortgage market during the end of the George W. Bush administration.

While that fi lm, as well as McKay’s upcoming Dick Cheney biographical drama Backseat (which he also wrote and directed), provide context for recent events that few understood as they were happening, on Twitter he was asking about an even more specialized category: movies that accurately envisioned future events, cultural shifts and political movements before they occurred in real life.

McKay’s own pick was Network, the brilliant satire about a low-rated TV news program that juices its ratings by staging coverage to fit a sensational agenda. Writer Paddy Chayefsky won an Oscar for his original screenplay and Faye Dunaway and Peter Finch (posthumously) received Best Actress and Best Actor awards for their respective roles as an amoral news producer and a mentally disturbed anchor ranting about corruption, consumerism and cultural malaise.

Into Focus

When the fi lm hit theaters in 1976, there was no Fox News, no Glenn Beck, no Alex Jones. I remember seeing the fi lm in a communications class in college in the early 1990s, the same day Geraldo Rivera had his nose broken by a white supremacist during a daytime talk show — a very Network moment. Years later, I ran into Faye Dunaway at a Bay Area fi lm festival and I asked her about the fi lm.

“When you were making that movie, did it feel like what it predicted could actually happen someday?”

“Not in a million years,” Dunaway replied. “It was just such wonderful writing, but it was so outrageous that it might as well have been happening on Mars. But it all came true.”

Into Focus

Idiocracy, McKay’s runner-up for most predictive movie, is even more disturbing. As he points out, Mike Judge’s comedy imagines a future world in which the most average man from 2005 is by far the most intelligent person in 2505. The fi lm, released in a handful of theaters in 2006, earns wince-inducing laughs for its satiric jabs at an American society that elects a professional wrestler as president, lets garbage pile to skyscraper heights, waters its crops with sports drinks, scarfs fried food from fully automated fast food franchises, and enjoys latte bars that double as brothels. Just 10 years after the fi lm’s release, a fast-food corporation announced that it was exploring fully automated stores, a brothel/cafe opened in Switzerland, and a former reality TV star with ties to professional wrestling is the leader of the free world.

“I guess there are things I didn’t exaggerate nearly enough,” Judge told Fast Company in 2016.

SATIRE AND SCI-FI

Idiocracy makes its points by combining political satire with science fiction, two genres that lend themselves to foretelling. The top-shelf example of this one-two punch is Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, one of cinema’s darkest-ever comedies, which tapped into Cold War fears by showing a geopolitical landscape governed by bureaucratic incompetents and conspiracy theory paranoiacs. The fi lm is just as funny and chilling today as it was in 1964 — let’s just hope that fi nal punch line never comes true. Peter Sellers, who appears in another fi lm on this list, plays multiple roles as the U.S. president, a British attaché on a military base, and the titular Strangelove, a military adviser with a very dark past.

Another satirical sci-fi lm is John Carpenter’s 1988 cult classic They Live, in which Roddy Piper plays a drifter who uncovers an alien conspiracy to

make humans docile and subservient via subliminal brainwashing. Carpenter, a former North Bay resident, uses the sci-fi alien invasion plot to take wicked jabs at American consumerism. They Live’s themes and images inspired the work of street artist Shepard Fairey, who rented the movie for $1 when he was struggling to make ends meet, long before he designed the famed stylized “Hope” poster for Barack Obama.

“The fi lm, though it is somewhat silly, has a rather profound concept, which is that people don’t realize that they are being manipulated because they are so caught up in consumption and the rat race — the drag of day-to-day life,” Fairey says in a YouTube interview. “They don’t realize that they are being controlled by aliens, who are the authoritarians.”

Of course, science fiction fi lms have been artistically and thematically forward-looking since the earliest days of cinema. In the 1927 silent Metropolis, director Fritz Lang dazzled audiences

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

with images of a futuristic city while commenting on the enormous gulf between the wealthy few and the hardworking masses. During the 1950s, Invaders From Mars and Invasion of the Body Snatchers invoked the totalitarian possibilities of communism by portraying a diabolical takeover of parents and friends by alien oppressors. Movies like Them! and The Naked Mantis played on fear of nuclear bombs by enlarging ants and bugs into skyscraper-size terrorists. But the King Kong of nuclear nightmare movies was Godzilla, created by Japanese director Ishiro Honda in 1954.

In the 1960s and ’70s, many sci-fi hrillers were environmental cautionary tales, with Charlton Heston as tour guide to the apocalypse. Planet of the Apes and The Omega Man featured Heston resisting apes and mutants, respectively, on a futuristic Earth, while Soylent Green addressed overpopulation and food supply.

Another classic from that period was 1972’s Silent Running, in which Bruce Dern, groundskeeper of an outerspace biodome, is charged with taking care of plant specimens saved from an

uninhabitable Earth. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) and Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 (2017) envisioned a near-future Los Angeles as an ecologically devastated dystopia inhabited by rich, poor and synthetic humans.

No science fiction fi lm was more in fluential than Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. The 1968 fi lm predicted space stations, commercial space travel, flat-screen televisions, FaceTime and the complications posed by arti ficial intelligence. Celebrating a 70 mm re-release in theaters for its 50th anniversary this year, 2001 is worth seeing for myriad reasons, including groundbreaking special effects, spectacular marriage of music and imagery, and its uncanny depictions of human life in the near future and beyond.

POLITICAL WARNINGS

Plenty of earthbound fi lms have been prescient as well, particularly about our political media landscape. For example, in Elia Kazan’s 1957 drama A Face in the Crowd, Andy Gri ffith plays Lonesome Rhodes, a rabble-rouser who gets people’s

attention over the radio and, though corrupt to the core, quickly becomes a national superstar. Gri ffith here is nothing like the nice-guy hero of his eponymous sitcom ; he’s pure evil, power hungry and extremely compelling. It’s not a stretch to say the fi lm could be convincingly remade in the era of so-called “fake news.”

Two subsequent political thrillers, The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and The Parallax View (1974), also foretold today’s events: the former, based on one of President John F. Kennedy’s favorite novels (legend has it JFK was in fluential in getting United Artists to greenlight the fi lm), is, eerily, about a political assassination. But even more indelibly relevant is its titular candidate — the brainwashed tool of a foreign power who is carefully placed into government to do damage from within. In The Parallax View, Warren Beatty, a news reporter investigating the assassination of a U.S. senator, uncovers a conspiracy involving a powerful multinational corporation pulling the strings of world a ff airs. It’s a murky, haunting fi lm that’s just as pertinent now as it was in the Nixon era. Director Alan J. Pakula’s next fi lm was All the President’s Men, one of the all-time great journali sm fi lms, although, like The Big Short, it concisely interprets recent events rather than forecasting later ones.

Political comedies in past decades have been remarkably prophetic too, including Wag the Dog, Barry Levinson’s 1997 comedy with Robert DeNiro as adviser to an unnamed president embroiled in a sex scandal. DeNiro’s character consults a Hollywood producer, played by Dustin Hoff man, who uses movie magic to create an elaborate smoke-and-mirrors distraction. Another gem is Being There, director Hal Ashby’s belove d fi lm about Chance, a simple-minded gardener who becomes a presidential adviser due to a series of misunderstandings. The main character, “Chauncey Gardiner” — who is like an alternate-universe version of Lonesome Rhodes — was Peter Sellers’ fi nal great role.

“It was so outrageous that it might as well have been happening on Mars. But it all came true.”

The Manchurian Candidate

Movie Quiz

Test Your Film IQ

In celebration of the 41st Mill Valley Film Festival this month, we’ve put together a movie quiz with a Bay Area twist that will put your local silver screen savvy to the test.

BY ZACK RUSKIN

1 Which former James Bond famously played the only man to ever successfully escape from Alcatraz, in 1996’s The Rock ?

❑ A) Pierce Brosnan

❑ B) Roger Moore

❑ C) Sean Connery

❑ D) George Lazenby

2 In a 2014 remake of Godzilla, the lizard monster terrorizes San Francisco. When was the original Japanese Godzilla released?

❑ A) 1947

❑ B) 1954

❑ C) 1962

❑ D) 1970

3 In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, what Marin locale was used as a stand-in for the German countryside?

❑ A) Mount Tamalpais State Park

❑ B) Samuel P. Taylor Park

❑ C) Muir Woods

❑ D) Stinson Beach

4 The George Lucas film American Graffiti had a number of scenes shot at the original Mel’s Diner on Van Ness Avenue in S.F. When did that diner first open?

❑ A) 1947

❑ B) 1955

❑ C) 1968

❑ D) 1972

5 While Alfred Hitchcock’s infamous Bodega Bay thriller The Birds has no musical score, which famed Hitchcock composer and collaborator does the film credit as a “sound consultant”?

❑ A) John Williams

❑ B) Leonard Bernstein

❑ C) Jerry Goldsmith

❑ D) Bernard Herrmann

6 Emeryville’s Pixar Animation Studios has quite the Oscar trophy case. Which of the following Pixar films did not win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature?

❑ A) Finding Nemo (2003)

❑ B) Cars (2006)

❑ C) Ratatouille (2007)

❑ D) Brave (2012)

7 In the 1947 noir Dark Passage, Humphrey Bogart’s character escapes from San Quentin before falling in love with which actress?

❑ A) Betty Grable

❑ B) Ginger Rogers

❑ C) Lauren Bacall

❑ D) Ingrid Bergman

8 The Bay Area proudly claims Academy Award winner Tom Hanks as a native son. In fact, Hanks has performed in two film adaptions of which beloved local writer’s work?

❑ A) Michael Chabon

❑ B) Daniel Handler

❑ C) Jack London

❑ D) Dave Eggers

9 In the 1996 thriller The Fan, Wesley Snipes is an all-star athlete targeted by an obsessive stalker. Which Bay Area team does Snipes’ Bobby Rayburn play for?

❑ A) Oakland Raiders

❑ B) San Francisco Giants

❑ C) San Francisco 49ers

❑ D) Oakland Athletics

10 Which of the following action films does not feature a scene in which the Golden Gate Bridge is destroyed?

❑ A) Independence Day (1996)

❑ B) Pacific Rim (2013)

❑ C) X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

❑ D) San Andreas (2015)

11 The 1997 film Gattaca settled on which Marin building to serve as the near-future locale of the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation?

❑ A) Mission San Rafael Arcangel

❑ B) Marin Civic Center

❑ C) Osher Marin JCC

❑ D) Bay Area Discovery Museum

12 Which film finds Woody Allen and Diane Keaton spending a few moments traipsing across Stinson Beach?

❑ A) Stardust Memories (1980)

❑ B) Radio Days (1987)

❑ C) Play It Again, Sam (1972)

❑ D) Deconstructing Harry (1997)

13 In Vertigo, the mysterious Madeleine returns day after day to view the “Portrait of Carlotta” at what landmark San Francisco museum?

❑ A) Legion of Honor

❑ B) de Young

❑ C) SFMOMA

❑ D) Exploratorium

14 In The Disaster Artist, James Franco plays real-life director Tommy Wiseau. What is the name of Wiseau’s infamous 2003 cult film “set” in San Francisco?

❑ A) The Promise

❑ B) You’re Tearing Me Apart

❑ C) My Best Friend Johnny

❑ D) The Room

15 Which James Bond film famously ends with a battle on the Golden Gate Bridge?

❑ A) A View to a Kill (1985)

❑ B) Thunderball (1965)

❑ C) Live and Let Die (1973)

❑ D) GoldenEye (1995)

the DISH

EAT, DRINK AND BE ENTERTAINED

RangeCafe Bar and Grill, located on the course at Peacock Gap Golf Club, offers a delicious array of dining options. Enjoy weekend brunch and seasonal specials or stop in for Happy Hour drinks and appetizers. All our dishes are prepared fresh and sourced from local ingredients.

RANGECAFE 333 Biscayne Drive, San Rafael, CA 415.454.6450 rangecafe.net

Craving local, fresh-caught seafood and stunning views of the harbor? Look no further than the award-winning Seafood Peddler! Call to make reservations or stop by for the best happy hour in Marin, every day from 4-7pm.

SEAFOOD PEDDLER 303 Johnson Street, Sausalito, CA 415.332.1492 seafoodpeddler.com

Come enjoy local, organic, non-gmo Italian cuisine and handcrafted libations from the full bar in our family-owned restaurant open since 1995. We also feature an extensive wine list, a robust happy hour and two private dining areas as well as patio dining. Located just offHighway 101.

FRANTOIO RISTORANTE

152 Shoreline Highway, Mill Valley, CA 415.289.5777 frantoio.com

Once a counter-culture mecca for musicians, actors and artists, today’s Trident welcomes guests from near and far to its landmark waterfront location to enjoy locally-sourced fare for casual meals or celebratory feasts, served indoors or out against a backdrop of stunning bay views.

THE TRIDENT 558 Bridgeway, On the Water, Sausalito, CA 415.331.3232 thetrident.net

Open since 1994, Left Bank continues to be a destination for folks from all over the Bay Area to enjoy a casual snack on the sunny terrace, a glass of wine or hand crafted cocktail at the lively bar, or an elegant dining experience near the fieplace. At Left Bank, you are sure to capture the true feeling of the Rive Gauche in Paris.

LEFT BANK BRASSERIE

507 Magnolia Ave, Larkspur, CA 415.927.3331 leftbank.com

Luna Blu is a seafood-focused Italian restaurant in contemporary digs with a gorgeous harbor view and deck dining. Luna Blu is the best place to enjoy great Italian seafood and fresh pasta in a romantic and tranquil environment. They serve mouthwatering dishes with all fresh ingredients prepared by a master chef.

LUNA BLU RESTAURANT 35 Main Street, Tiburon, CA 415.789.5844 lunablurestaurant.com

True Tales

Doclands

A festival built solely on documentary films has become a big success.

IT IS CLOSING night of the Doclands Documentary Film Festival, May 2018, and 16 Bars, a fi lm about the United States incarceration system, has just had its world premiere in a packed Smith Rafael theater. The fi lm, featuring Arrested Development singer-songwriter Speech Thomas and four inmates in a Richmond, Virginia, jail, weaves a big-picture story of the addiction, mental health, race and class issues that lead to imprisonment. Teddy Kane, a former inmate and centra l figure in the fi lm who is living homeless on the streets of Miami, has been flown to San Rafael for the opening. After the fi lm, Kane takes the stage to recite a poem he has written. When he fi nishes, the audience stands in ovation. Then it is time for questions, and the room is silent. All eyes turn toward a woman holding the microphone, preparing to ask a question. But no words come, only tears.

“She just stood there crying,” says 16 Bars director Sam Bathrick. “The Doclands screening opened our eyes to the power of this fi lm, and the power of what can happen in a room with a live audience.” By the end

BY KIRSTEN JONES NEFF

of the night, a donor had stepped up to offer Teddy Kane funding to go into Serenity Knolls treatment and rehabilitation center in Forest Knolls. According to Bathrick, Kane is thriving in the treatment program and will have housing and job support when he graduates. “With this fi lm we want to humanize folks behind bars. We want viewers to stop and say, ‘Wow, these are real people with real stories. They are trying and are imperfect and deserve a second chance,’ ” Bathrick says. Having witnessed the power of this fi lm, he feels a greater responsibility to develop a distribution plan aimed at education — in high schools, jails, police departments — and at fundraising for prison-reform nonprofits.

Joni Cooper, Doclands director of programming, has been producing or programming documentary films for 20 years, but she still gets chills and shivers at screenings, as she did at this one. “This is the power of documentary,” she says. “Although I love narrative films, these are amazing real stories about real superheroes.” Cooper, who was executive director at Doxa Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver and director of the Banff ountain Film Festival, had worked on and off ith the Mill Valley Film Festival when, in 2015, MVFF founder/executive director Mark Fishkin approached her with an idea. “He said, ‘You know what

“He said, ‘You know what I want to do, I want to start a documentar y fi lm festival.’ ”

True Tales

I want to do, I want to start a documentar y film festival,’ ” Cooper recalls. “And I immediately said, ‘OK, let’s do it!’ ” Although the MVFF has an excellent documentary program, Valley of the Docs, both felt certain there was room for an entire festival built on documentaries,

Midway Atoll, a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific. An environmental tragedy unfolds as thousands of young birds lie dead, their stomachs opening in decay to reveal plastic items, the legacy of our single-use plastic lifestyle. “It is not a film that preaches, preaches. Instead it shows you the facts in beautiful cinematography and you cannot help but be a ffected,” Cooper says. “I personally will never use single-use plastics again. And now I speak up about it.”

especially in Marin county where, from Cooper’s perspective, a significant number of people do not have interest in blockbusters or even narrative films, but love documentaries. Already Cooper and Fishkin’s instincts have proven correct; in 2018, the festival’s second year, attendance increased by 50 percent.

Doclands features films in three categories: Art of Impact, The Great Outdoors, and Wonderland. Impact films, such as 16 Bars, are pointedly aimed at inspiring public engagement, but all three categories can move audiences toward change and action. “The Great Outdoors films offer inspiration, which compels us to help save our environment. And the Wonderland documentaries are so important because they lift our spirits and give us hope, which strengthens us and helps us to act,” Cooper points out.

Doclands has featured severa l films with unconventional distribution models meant to fuel activism and fundraising. Victoria Sloan Jordan and her partner, photographer Chris Jordan, spent eight years making Albatross, documenting the albatross population on

The Albatross team eschewed traditional distribution channels and instead offered free streaming on June 8, 2018, World Oceans Day, and ongoing free access for education and fundraising purposes. They have partnered with ocean conservation and anti–plastic pollution organizations such as Audubon, Sea Shepherd and Friends of Midway Atoll, and they’ve received requests to screen Albatross from countries around the globe, including India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Chile and Australia. “People want to host screenings because there is value in watching the fi lm as a community,” Victoria Jordan says. “They come together and understand that their grief about what we are losing is not a dark hole of despair. It is a process we need to go through to galvanize ourselves and take action.”

Soon after the Mill Valley Film Festival 2018 wraps, Cooper will begin receiving new submissions for Doclands 2019, and right now she has one concern: too many great fi lms. “Each year more and more powerful documentaries are being made and are coming to us. Trying to pick and choose between these fi lms, oh my God, it is a struggle.”

Albatross

“The Doclands screening opened our eyes to the power of this fi lm, and the power of what can happen in a room with a live audience.”

Movies and Music

Listen Up

Movies that find the music in us all.

BY EMILIE ROHRBACH

Music can be much more than background, and the Mill Valley Film Festival has long acknowledged that, by showing movies where song and instruments play starring roles. In this year’s lineup, for instance, composer-violinist Jenny Scheinman presents Kannapolis: A Moving Portrait, which melds string music with Depression-era footage from America’s small towns; she’ll appear at the festival on October 10 along with musical collaborators Robbie Gersoe and Robbie Fulks. To set the mood for that and other treats, here are examples of musical treasures from cinema’s past.

DOCUMENTARIES

20 Feet From Stardom This fascinating fi lm, about the lives and aspirations of backup singers like Darlene Love and Judith Hill, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2014 and the Grammy for Best Music Film in 2015.

Amy From the opening sequence where she sings “Happy Birthday” at a fellow teenager’s party, there is a sense of foreboding: what is going to happen to this pint-size girl with the superstar voice? Amy Winehouse’s rise and fall and her untimely death at 27 are heartbreakingly explored in thi s fi lm that won both Best Documentary Oscar and the Best Music Film Grammy award in 2016.

Buena Vista Social Club In the 1990s, Ry Cooder went to Havana to help produce a record by legendary Cuban musicians, a project that wound up reviving the music of their pre-revolutionary past. The seamless soundtrack includes Cooder’s son Joachim along with Rubén González and Ibrahim Ferrer. Director Wim Wenders’ Oscar-nominated fi lm won 20 awards and was nominated for 10 others worldwide.

Gimme Shelter This 1970 counterculture artifact, co-directed by Charlotte Zwerin and Albert and David Maysles, records the run-up to and action at the free Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway

in Tracy, where a fan was killed after the audience became violent and Hells Angels were acting as security.

Scratch Produced in 2001, this was one of the fi rst feature-length documentaries about the hip-hop DJ and turntable movement, from its inception in the South Bronx of the ’70s to its rise in San Francisco. Interviews with artists help illuminate the di fferences between rap and hip-hop and DJs and MCs.

grapple, through group therapy, with 20 years of emotional history.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston Home movies, performances, audiotapes, and interviews are interwoven to tell the story of Daniel Johnston, a singersongwriter who, while revered by the likes of David Bowie and Kurt Cobain, spent time in psychiatric institutions, struggling with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The 2005 fi lm won a Documentary Directing award at the Sundance Film Festival.

The Last Waltz Scorsese’s fi lm is about much more than the Band’s farewell show at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom on November 25, 1976 — it includes interviews tracing their 17-year history, plus performances by Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton and many more.

Honorable Mentions

Anvil: The Story of Anvil

It Might Get Loud

Tupac: Resurrection

Searching for Sugar Man Two Cape Town fans explore whether rumors of the death of musician Rodriguez — obscure in his native U.S. but a sensation in South Africa, unbeknownst to him — are true. Both the plot and the all-Rodriguez soundtrack are haunting, and the fi lm won the Best Documentary Oscar in 2013.

Long Strange Trip

No Direction

Home: Bob Dylan

Don’t Look Back

Woodstock

Beatles: Eight Days a Week Dig!

Imagine: John Lennon

Shut Up & Sing

This Is It

Rattle and Hum

What Happened, Miss Simone? This 2015 Netflix movie about “high priestess of soul” Nina Simone debuted at the Sundance Film Festival; afterward, John Legend did a tribute performance. The film, which includes previously unreleased footage and interviews with family and friends, was nominated for a Best Documentary Feature Academy Award.

MOVIES ABOUT MUSIC

Some Kind of Monster “This is not a concer t fi lm,” the trailer begins.

“... This is something else.” The movie goes behind the scenes with heavy-metal band Metallica as they

8 Mile The title evokes the divide between Detroit the city and its suburbs — and the distance white rapper B-Rabbit (Eminem) wants to bridge to make it in a predominantly African American music genre.

Almost Famous Based loosely on Cameron Crowe’s experience as a teenage writer for Rolling Stone, this semi-autobiographical 2000 film portrays

a young journalist coming of age while on tour with a famous band in the 1970s.

Crazy Heart Inspired by Thomas Cobb’s 1987 novel, the movie stars Jeff Bidges as country singer Bad Blake, trying for one last shot at love and redemption.

High Fidelity The 2000 adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel is a love song to vinyl, as played by John Cusack in the role of Chicago record store owner Rob Gordon.

Mr. Holland’s Opus Glenn Holland takes a temporary high school music teaching job as he tries to compose an unsurpassable original piece that will stand as his legacy. The all-star cast includes Glenne Headley, Olympia Dukakis and William H. Macy, with Richard Dreyfuss in the title role.

Once The story in this megahit is simple: in Dublin, Ireland, a vacuum cleaner repairman and a flower-selling Czech immigrant are musicians who

collaborate — and fi nd lovely music and a kind of love as a result. With a $150,000 budget, the movie grossed $23.3 million; it also skyrocketed Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová to fame, with a Grammy soundtrack nomination and an Oscar win for the song “Falling Slowly” in 2008.

Straight Outta Compton The 2015 biographical drama traces the rise and fall of gangsta rap group N.W.A. Three key members — Eazy E, Ice Cube and Dr. Dre — were involved in the production, which grossed over $200 million on a budget of $50 million, and Ice Cube is played by his real-life son.

The Doors Oliver Stone’s 1991 take on the famed ’60s rock band portrays lead singer Jim Morrison, played flawlessly by Val Kilmer, as he struggles with addiction on his way to stardom.

The Visitor An undocumented immigrant helps a seemingly washed-up professor

Honorable

Mentions

find his soul through playing the drums. Richard Jenkins was nominated for Best Actor in the 2009 Academy Awards.

This Is Spinal Tap

This classic 1984 Rob Reiner comedy about fictional band Spinal Tap was dubbed “the funniest rock movie ever made” and brought mockumentary to another level. Who can forget the miniature Stonehenge or the band getting lost backstage?

A Proud History

Everything you ever wanted to know about the past 40 years of the Mill Valley Film Festival.

BY KASIA PAWLOWSKA

The fi rst festival (1978) was three days long. The festival grew longer incrementally, going to 11 days in 1992.

THE 1985 MVFF TRAILER WON THREE CLIOS, ALONG WITH A GOLDEN LION AT CANNES.

NOTABLE PREMIERES

Northern Lights

The Wanderers

Stand and Deliver The Brother from Another Planet

My Bodyguard

My Left Foot Cinema Paradiso

Strictly Ballroom

Like Water for Chocolate

The Book Thief

The festival dates moved from August to September to October due to the success of Jaws and Star Wars. With these fi lms, the “summer blockbuster” was born, and MVFF was rescheduled accordingly.

NOTABLE EVENTS

In 1987, the MVFF premiered Walking on Water — later titled Stand and Deliver — with Edward James Olmos in the starring role. Olmos said the festival started his career.

FIVE OF DIRECTOR ANG LEE’S FILMS HAVE BEEN SHOWN AT MVFF: LUST, CAUTION; PUSHING HANDS; LIFE OF PI; THE ICE STORM; AND RIDE WITH THE DEVIL . THERE WAS ALSO A SPECIAL SCREENING OF BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN AT THE SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER.

MILL VALLEY ARTIST

ALICE CORNING CREATED THE MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL AWARD FIGURINE IN 2007. THE FIRST RECIPIENT WAS ANG LEE.

The late actor Harry Dean Stanton played his fi rst public music show at Sweetwater Music Hall at the 1987 MVFF.

NEW PROGRAMS ADDED

1996

5@5

1999

O fficial Premiere Selection

2000

Valley of the Docs

2001

US Cinema

2001

World Cinema

Proud to Support the Mill Valley Film Festival

“TMS offers the extraordinary opportunity to learn in an atmosphere that is warm, individualized and happy. Students here are deeply engaged with both their work and their teachers. This is what education should look like.”

-Madeline Levine , Ph.D., Author

Well

Shining Bright

The red carpet is full of stars at the Mill Valley Film Festival. KASIA

PAWLOWSKA

Since its inception in 1978, the Mill Valley Film Festival has built a reputation based on its high-quality selections and is now one of the more prestigious and longest-running film festivals in the country. But aside from an Oscar harbinger, it’s also a prime spot for stargazing in October. From Greta Gerwig and Sean Penn to Andrew Garfield and Aaron Sorkin, here are some of the famous faces seen in Marin last year.

Clockwise from top left: Zoë Elton, Catherine Hardwicke and Connie Nielsen; Greta Gerwig; Kristin Scott Thomas; Aaron Sorkin; Sean Penn.

Stargazing

Clockwise from top left: Dee Rees; Simon Astaire and Danny Hudson; Andrew Garfield; Holly Hunter; Huey Lewis.

Proud sponsor of the Mill Valley Film Festival

Traveling through Marin County’s photographic landscape can feel like you are on a movie set. However, beyond its big views, Marin’s rich and diverse arts community, award-winning schools, desirable weather, and culture savvy population are the reasons we feel there is “No place like home.”

Let us take you on a tour.