Deborah Hoke Smith Wealth Management Services Bank of Marin
Welcome to the 28th Mill Valley Film Festival! Last year, when the CinéArts@Sequoia was under repair, and we had to move the Festival at the eleventh hour, I did say that the Mill Valley Film Festival was a state of mind; while this is true in a spiritual sense, we are truly delighted to be physically back in Mill Valley.
We are also very happy to again have the Maybeckdesigned Outdoor Art Club as our meeting place before and after films. Please consult the schedule for OAC hours and special music events, several of which are free. This year we also have a more comprehensive program at 142 Throckmorton Theatre, and we continue our Festival presence in San Rafael at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center, which the California Film Institute owns and operates year round.
This year’s outstanding offering of 200-plus films and 116 programs is bookended by opening films Mrs. Henderson Presents, by veteran director Stephen Frears, and The Matador, with superstar Pierce Brosnan, and closing night selections, the superbly cast Bee Season and Jeff Daniels’ latest, The Squid and the Whale. And then there’s every spectacular thing in between.
Once again, I would like to thank our audience. The significance of the Bay Area audience for independent and specialty films cannot be underestimated: You make up one of the strongest markets in the US for independent films, both domestic and international. You support many of the most important film festivals in the US, among which we are honored to count this Festival.
In addition to introducing new works and new talent, the Mill Valley Film Festival honors those who have contributed greatly to the art of film. Among this year’s tributes we include a celebration of Michael Powell, in honor of the 100th anniversary of his birth. Mr. Powell’s work with his partner, Emeric Pressburger, had a tremendous influence on today’s directors—those of us who grew up in those grand years of great directors will never forget films like The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus. Thelma Schoonmaker, Mr. Powell’s widow
and an Academy Award®-winning editor and icon in her own right, will present this tribute program. A retrospective of Powell’s work will continue at the Smith Rafael Film Center immediately following the Festival.
We are also pleased to honor Jean-Pierre Jeunet, truly one of the most creative and successful directors working in contemporary cinema. M. Jeunet’s tribute will include some of his rare shorts that are not only amazingly entertaining but show the evolution of a great artist. After the Festival, a retrospective of Jeunet’s work will continue at the Smith Rafael Film Center.
Screen legend Donald Sutherland joins us for a tribute that will be followed by the premiere screening of the spectacular new Pride & Prejudice, in which Sutherland plays Mr. Bennet. Donald Sutherland is clearly one of the greatest actors in the world. Just a cursory glance at his filmography is mind-boggling—The Dirty Dozen, M*A*S*H, Klute, Don’t Look Now, The Day of the Locusts, 1900, Ordinary People. . . . He has made an indelible mark on the art of cinema.
Showing tremendous versatility and commanding respect from audiences and his peers alike, Jeff Daniels is an actor’s actor, with credits ranging from Ragtime to Terms of Endearment, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Something Wild, 101 Dalmatians to dozens of other great films, including Pleasantville. We honor Mr. Daniels with a tribute, after which we will watch his astounding performance in The Squid and the Whale , our prestigious Closing Night co-film.
The Festival’s Spotlight honors and acknowledges an artist who has shown the highest degree of artistic integrity in multiple areas over a recent period of time. It is our great pleasure to focus this year’s Spotlight on Felicity Huffman. Huffman has been nominated for an Emmy for her role as Lynette Scavo in the fabulously successful TV show Desperate Housewives , and during her Spotlight event we will present her film, Transamerica. It will be no surprise to those who have seen her inspired performance as a transsexual woman in Transamerica to find Huffman’s name mentioned regularly during the upcoming award season.
While the Mill Valley Film Festival is a noncompetitive event, this year, in addition to our BAFTA Award, which honors short narrative films, we have added audience awards in the categories of narrative and documentary. The Festival has a history of strong documentaries; many from Festivals past have gone on to great theatrical success. This year is no exception.
Our 28 th annual Festival program is diverse in many ways. As usual, a fine array of countries are represented, 55 this year, and there are 32 premieres, of which 15 are world premieres. In both documentary and narrative films a theme has emerged this year—a current of spirituality, in its many forms and expressions, runs throughout the program. This topic is certainly vital to us at this time, and its appearance affirms film as an incredibly powerful medium: Whether dealing with contemporary issues or nurturing our youngest audience members through our Children’s FilmFest (in its 11th year), it is our hope that, even if these films cannot provide all the answers to personal or global problems, at least they address and illuminate the questions.
Another of my fond but true annual sayings is that while it is impossible to see everything that is shown during these 11 days, we applaud those who try! I would also like to remind our audience that in producing a festival of this caliber, approximately 50 percent of our income is generated by contributions. I thank all of those who have worked so hard to make this possible: our generous donors, our dedicated and tireless staff, the board of directors and other volunteers, our extraordinary audience and, most of all, the artists who have offered us their unique visions.
Mark Fishkin MVFF Director/Founder
Mayor’s Proclamation
City of Mill Valley, Office of the Mayor
WHEREAS, the Mill Valley Film Festival has presented outstanding local and international films in this community for 28 years; and
WHEREAS, the Mill Valley Film Festival fulfills the important function of providing filmmakers an audience for their works; and
WHEREAS, international filmmakers and the film community in Marin County enhance our cultural life by participating in the Mill Valley Film Festival; and
WHEREAS, filmmakers, volunteers, sponsors and filmgoers join together to make the Film Festival one of the Bay Area’s social and cultural highlights of the year;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Dennis P. Fisco, Mayor of the City of Mill Valley, take great pleasure in supporting the 28th Annual Festival by proclaiming October 6–16, 2005, as Mill Valley Film Festival Days in Mill Valley.
Dennis P. Fisco
Mayor of Mill Valley
FILM FESTIVAL VENUES
CinéArts@Sequoia: SEQ
25 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley
Christopher B. Smith
Rafael Film Center: RAF 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael
142 Throckmorton Theatre: THR 142 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley
PARKING
Century Cinema: CIN
1 Tamal Vista, Corte Madera
Outdoor Art Club: OAC
1 W. Blithedale Ave., Mill Valley
Mill Valley Community Center
180 Camino Alto, Mill Valley
In Mill Valley: Two-hour parking meters in downtown Mill Valley operate 9AM–6PM Monday through Friday, and cars parked over two hours are subject to ticketing. Although meters are free after 6PM and on weekends, the two-hour limit is still enforced. See map for directions and parking areas.
In San Rafael: There are parking garages throughout the downtown San Rafael area. Two-hour parking meters in San Rafael operate 9AM–6 PM , Monday through Saturday, and cars parked for more than two hours are subject to ticketing. Meters are free after 6PM and on Sundays. See map for directions and parking areas.
MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
Membership information will be available at Festival ticket outlets, the Outdoor Art Club and at the Smith Rafael Film Center. New members may join, and old friends may renew or upgrade their existing memberships.
FESTIVAL SHOPS
Visit our Festival shop for official Festival merchandise—they make great holiday gifts for yourself and other film lovers. The Festival shop is located at the San Rafael ticket outlet and the Outdoor Art Club during the Festival.
ETIQUETTE
As a courtesy and in fairness to others, we ask that you only hold one seat per person when attending screenings and events. Please turn off pagers, cell phones and watch alarms. Thank you and enjoy the films.
PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEO AND RECORDING
Photography, video and audio recording are prohibited in all theatrical and other Festival venues.
Lytton Plaza Corner of Miller and Sunnyside, Mill Valley
Masonic Hall
19 Corte Madera Ave., Mill Valley
Frantoio Ristorante
152 Shoreline Hwy., Mill Valley
Sweetwater
153 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley
RESERVED SEATING
The Mill Valley Film Festival is made possible in part through the generous support of our sponsors and patrons. The reserved seating section at our screenings and events is provided for filmmakers and sponsors, to show our appreciation for their contributions and their generous support of the Mill Valley Film Festival.
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
Call Golden Gate Transit at 415.923.2000 for information about taking public transportation to and from the Mill Valley Film Festival.
ORDERING TICKETS
We offer many convenient ways to purchase tickets. Tickets go on sale to members on September 14 and to the general public on September 18. You may purchase tickets in the following ways:
• By Web Site at mvff.com.*
• By Phone 925.866.9559*
• In Person (Mill Valley ticket outlet, San Rafael Festival ticket outlet)
• By Mail/Fax*
Ticket outlet hours and information about how to purchase tickets can be found on our web site and on page 50 of the MVFF newsprint schedule.
*Each phone, fax, mail or internet order is charged a nonrefundable processing fee.
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2005 Officers
Richard Idell, President
W. Robert Griswold Jr., Vice President
K.C. Lauck, Vice President
Evelyn Topper, Secretary
Zach Zeisler, Treasurer
Emeritus Board
Ann Brebner
Rita Cahill
Mark Fishkin
Sid Ganis
Gary Meyer
Gordon Radley
Henry Timnick
Executive Director, Founder
Mark Fishkin
Founding Board
Mark Fishkin, President
Lois Kohl Shore, Vice President
Rita Cahill, Secretary/CFO
Honorary Advisory Board
Stewart and Barbara Boxer
Peter Flaxman
Robert Greber
Linda Gruber
Peggy Haas
Nancy Hudson
Andrew McGuire
Mary Poland
Lente and Eric Schwartz
Michael and Susan Schwartz
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
RICHARD BARKER
W. ROBERT GRISWOLD JR. ROGER GROSSMAN
RICHARD IDELL KATHRYN E. JOHNSON BRUCE KATZ
K.C. LAUCK
CHARLES McGLASHAN STEVE SHANE
CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH EVELYN TOPPER ZACH ZEISLER
major sponsors
major media
major events
membership sponsor major foundation support special support from
silver circle
The Bernard Osher Foundation
OUR DEEPEST APPRECIATION to the following individuals and foundations for their annual support of the California Film Institute.
LEADERSHIP SPONSOR
Christopher B. and Jeannie Meg Smith
MAJOR SPONSORS
Jennifer Coslett MacCready
The Bernard Osher Foundation
PLATINUM CIRCLE
Richard Barker
Capital Group Companies
County of Marin
Gruber Family Foundation
Margaret E. Haas
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Katz Family Foundation
Bobbie Meyer
Henry Timnick
Lois and Mel Tukman
Christine Zecca Foundation
SILVER CIRCLE
Allen Family Fund
William Hudson and Nora Gibson
Michael Klein
K.C. and Steve Lauck
Marcia Lucas
Northern Trust Bank
Eric and Lente Louw Schwartz
Michael and Susan Schwartz
FESTIVAL CIRCLE
Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences
Jennifer Barker
David Berry and Kamala Geroux-Berry
Stewart and Barbara Boxer
Jack and Gloria Clumeck
Brian and Marie Collins
Alice Corning / Springcreek Foundation
Nancy Curley
Tom and Diane Durst
Leonard and Robin Eber
Peter and Catherine Flaxman
Karen Fry
Robert and Nanette Griswold
Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Nancy Hudson
Lisa Graeber
Andrée Poirier Jansheski
Don and Donna Kelleher
Annette Nibley
Robert and Terese Payne
Gordon Radley
David Hering and Lynn Robbie
Carlos and Deborah Santana
Scott Family Fund
Joan K. Widdifield
festival circle
SCREEN ACTORS GUILD
BELLAM SELF STORAGE & BOXES
Coldwell Banker of Southern Marin
Events Produced by
Restaurants and Caterers
Beverage Sponsors
Event Services
hotel sponsors festival event sponsors
Massage Therapy In-Kind Donors
RENICK TURLEY
AARON IRONS
SHOSHANA KORSON
CONSTANZA BLONDET
DALILA CUNHA
F. JOSEPH SMITH MASSAGE THERAPY CENTER
MILL VALLEY MASSAGE
MARY HAMMOND
Opening Night Closing Night
Thursday Oct 6
THE MATADOR
7PM and 7:15PM Sequoia
9:30PM–12AM Gala at Lytton Plaza, downtown Mill Valley
7PM Film and Gala $125 MATA06P
7PM Film Only $20 MATA06S
7:15PM Film and Gala $125 MAT206P
7:15PM Film Only $20 MAT206S Gala-Only tickets are not available.
MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS
7PM Rafael
9:30PM–12AM Gala at Lytton Plaza, downtown Mill Valley
Film and Gala $125 MRSH06P
Film Only $20 MRSH06R
See page 64 for details.
THE SQUID AND THE WHALE with Tribute to Jeff Daniels
5PM Rafael
7:30–10:30PM Party at the Mill Valley Community Center
Film and Party $65 TRIB16P
Film Only $20 TRIB16R
Party Only $55 PARTY16
BEE SEASON
5PM Sequoia
7:30–10:30PM Party at the Mill Valley Community Center
Film and Party $65 BEE16P
Film Only $20 BEE16S
Party Only $55 PARTY16
See page 65 for details.
Children’s FilmFest Events
Opening Film and Festivities
THE FAKIR
Saturday Oct 8
11:30AM Sequoia
2–4PM Party at Outdoor Art Club, Mill Valley Film and Party $15 adults, $12 children FAKI08P Film Only $10 adults, $8 children FAKI08S
Join us for the Western US Premiere of The Fakir, a dazzling Danish tale of magic and mayhem for all ages. See page 73 for film description
Our special opening event gives kids a sneak peek at the new book (to be published in November) A Movie Mouse , the story of Marcello Moustroiani. Marin residents Liz Hock inson and Kathryn Otoshi who wrote and illustrated the book, will read from it and project animated pages for our delight. Refreshments will follow.
Ice Cream and Kazoos
Saturday Oct 15
12–2PM Rafael
FREE with any 2005 Children’s FilmFest ticket stub
After our Short Films for Little People program (see page 85) at the Rafael Saturday morning, join us in a costume parade to Ben & Jerry’s, with every child kazooing along with troubadors Orange Sherbet (Tamsen Fynn and Jill Pierce).
Closing Film
PELICAN MAN
Sunday Oct 16
2:45PM Rafael PELI16R
Join director Liisa Helminen for her international award-winning film. See page 82 for film description.
Tribute
Tribute Program and Reception $50 TRIB08P
Tribute Program Only $20 TRIB08R
Reception at the Outdoor Art Club follows the Tribute program. See page 35 for details.
Spotlight
Spotlight Program and Reception $50 SPOT09P
Spotlight Program Only $20 SPOT09R
Reception at the Outdoor Art Club follows the Spotlight program. See page 51 for details.
EVENTS
Tribute
Tribute
Closing Night Party at the Mill Valley Community Center follows the Tribute program.
See page 65 for details.
Tribute
Daily Happy Hour
Friday Oct 7–Saturday Oct 15
5–7PM Outdoor Art Club, Mill Valley Open to the public
Before the movies, join us for Happy Hour with beer and wine specials from Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. and Gallo of Sonoma. Music provided by Kimballs, opening its new San Rafael venue December 1.
The Outdoor Art Club Café
Friday Oct 7–Saturday Oct 15
Outdoor Art Club, Mill Valley Weekdays 4–8PM · Weekends 12–8PM Open to the public
For a delicious snack or refreshing beverage between films, come to the Outdoor Art Club Café. Menu items provided by Chef’s Touch Catering.
Music Events
LIVE AT THE OUTDOOR ART CLUB
Friday Oct 7
9PM $10 MUSC07O
OAC, Mill Valley
The celebrated Sun Kings set the stage for our ’60s-themed Hi De Ho Show (see page 76) with their fab renderings of Beatles tunes. Groove on the dance floor, or relax with a cocktail out on the patio and watch the fun unfold.
Friday Oct 14
9PM $10 MUSC14O
OAC, Mill Valley
Make your way over to the OAC for the superb sounds of Swing Fever, dedicated to the music of the ’30s and ’40s. Get together with other Festival fans and guests, dance and enjoy the lively, casual atmosphere— a perfect break from days and nights of intense moving watching!
Sponsored by
Saturday Oct 15
9PM $40 MUSC15W
Sweetwater, Mill Valley
Superstar of the pedal steel guitar, Robert Randolph makes a rare club appearance with his acclaimed Family Band and Calvin Cooke, one of Randolph’s mentors and a sacred steel legend in his own right. As Gillian Grisman’s fascinating new film Press On (see page 83 for film description) testifies, Robert Randolph and the Family Band’s rapid rise in the music business is nothing short of phenomenal. They’ll be sure to blow the roof off of the legendary Sweetwater in this very special event.
142 Throckmorton Theatre
142 Throckmorton Theatre returns as the premier venue for unique Festival screenings of works produced on video, including exciting new documentaries and the groundbreaking V(ision)Fest. This year’s schedule also includes live entertainment with a hilarious night of stand-up comedy and an evening of incredible music. A long-time friend of the Mill Valley Film Festival, 142 Throckmorton Theatre is a vibrant center for the arts yearround.
In Association with the Mill Valley Film Festival, 142 Throckmorton Theatre Presents
TUESDAY NIGHT COMEDY
Tuesday Oct 11
8PM $15 COME11T
Add more laughter to your life! Join us for Tuesday Night Comedy with a fine line-up of comedians tipping their hats to the world of film. Patrons 16 or younger must be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.
Thursday Oct 13
8:30PM $20 MUSC13T
After attending the world premiere of the exciting new documentary SOUND OF THE SOUL : The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music , make a beeline to 142 Throckmorton Theatre for this live concert of Afghan music featuring acclaimed vocalist Ustad Farida Mahwash, with Khalil Ragheb on harmonium and vocals, Ustad Aziz Herawi on rubab and sitar and Ehsan Ahmad on tabla.
For more information on these artists, please visit www.142ThrockmortonTheatre.com. See page 87 for film description.
Calvin Cooke
Robert Randolph and the Family Band
SOUND OF THE SOUL CONCERT Featuring Ustad Farida Mahwash, Khalil Ragheb, Ustad Aziz Herawi and Ehsan Ahmad
Ustad Farida Mahwash
Lights, Camera... Real Estate!
Front: Jim King. Back, left to right: Cloude Porteus, Linda Saint Amant, Harriet Chabrowe, Jimmy Wanninger, Ron Susskind and Chris Glave.
IN MEMORIAM
Robina Marchesi
March 23, 1965–May 22, 2005
Robina Marchesi’s extraordinary grace, open heartedness and affability drove her incredible engagement with all that she loved. And it seemed as though everything she did, she loved. A graduate of the American School in Paris (in comparative literature) and of Golden Gate Law School, she shifted her attention and multiple talents toward film, joining the Mill Valley Film Festival as Festival manager for many years, as well as working with the Sundance, San Francisco and Berlin film festivals. In 2004, Gumby Dharma, the feature documentary she directed and produced, played to a delighted sold-out crowd at MVFF. Robina’s enthusiasm and kindness and her integrity and courage inspired the same in all those whose lives she touched–her friends and colleagues, her husband, Tim, and her dog, Karmalita.
Ismail Merchant
December 25, 1936–May 25, 2005
Ismail Merchant’s filmmaking legacy is a cinematic oeuvre distinguished by eloquent, literary storytelling; lush, often architectural visuals; incredible casts; and a celebration of the human spirit—films so distinctive that the phrase Merchant-Ivory has become its own genre. Born in Bombay, Merchant met his longtime partner and director James Ivory and writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala shortly after making his first film. Of this providential meeting a collaboration was formed that continued, in various permutations, for more than four decades and more than 40 films. Merchant received Academy Award® nominations for A Room with a View, Howards End and Remains of the Day; in 2001 he attended MVFF, where he was honored both as director of the opening night film, Mystic Masseur , and as the recipient of a tribute. We remember him for his brilliance, energy, supportiveness and his great charm.
Lesley Cootes
January 2, 1958–September 19, 2004
Bay Area native Lesley Cootes had a passion for film, books, ideas and people that was matched by her astute intellect, insightful humor, honesty, warmth and care. These qualities served her well as a publicist (some would say publicist extraordinaire) whose work for Terry Hines and Associates and Bill Lanese Advertising earned her a reputation as one who would go out on a limb for films she loved. Lesley’s taste for the kind of brilliance that others might deem challenging or eccentric meant that there was indeed a champion for such films. Whether performing a small role in American Graffiti (as a teenager), promoting a film for clients like Miramax, or being a great friend, Lesley always lived life with the courage and confidence of her passions.
On the centenary of his birth, British director Michael Powell (1905–1990) is finally getting the recognition he deserves. During a recent boom of celebrations and retrospectives, it’s clear that film critics on his native soil have caught up with him; some have even called him Britain’s “greatest-ever” filmmaker. “It’s everything I wanted,” Thelma Schoonmaker said during a recent phone conversation. “I worked very hard on it, and it’s happened.” Then she laughs: “But I wish I weren’t doing a major motion picture at the same time!”
Schoonmaker is Powell’s widow and shared the final decade of his life. She is also one of America’s finest film editors, whose renowned longtime collaboration with director Martin Scorsese has earned her Academy Awards® for Raging Bull (1980) and The Aviator (2004). While working on their current production, The Departed, Schoonmaker spared a few minutes to discuss Michael, Marty and the bonds she shares with both.
Michael Powell once said of Martin Scorsese, “He breakfasts on images,” but he could have said the same of himself. Born near Canterbury, in Kent, Powell fell in love with the movies as a teenager. In the 1920s he leapt into an apprenticeship with émigré Hollywood director Rex Ingram in the south of France. After working for Alfred Hitchcock back in England in the late 1920s, he cut his teeth as a director on low-budget pictures known as “quota quickies.”
His first important film as director was a personal triumph: The Edge of the World (1937), a mystical tale of tragic romance filmed around
the rugged cliffs and shores of the Scottish Shetlands. He co-directed the Arabian Nights classic The Thief of Bagdad (1940) while World War II was breaking out, and during the same period embarked on his historic partnership with Hungarian screenwriter Emeric Pressburger. The two soon cemented their association with their own independent production company, The Archers, and underlined their resolve to make unconventional movies by forging the singular screen credit “Written, Produced and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.”
The Archers’ productions were indeed different; they were romantic and audacious in merging realism and fantasy. Their stories were innately British, while encompassing themes of art and myth and filled with surreal flourishes, eroticism and absurdist humor. As the team’s director, Powell experimented with visual poetry. Between the magical realism of A Canterbury Tale (1944) and I Know Where I’m Going! (1945), and the extravagant color canvases of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) and A Matter of Life and Death (1946), The Archers’ unique wartime efforts hit the bulls-eye artistically. For critics steeped in traditional British realism, however, the films sometimes seemed odd and idiosyncratic.
After the war The Archers worked toward what Powell conceived of as “composed” films. Collaborating with designers, cinematographers and composers, they achieved poetic heights with color spectacles such as Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948). In their 15-year partnership, Powell and Pressburger managed to stray from mainstream tastes even as their ambitions grew.
The Red Shoes was a success in the US before it was properly accepted at home, and at least one little boy who saw it in a New York movie-house became obsessed with it. Martin Scorsese later told Thelma Schoonmaker that every frame of the film’s dazzling ballet sequence was an influence on him.
Martin Scorsese looked up Powell during a visit to England in the mid-1970s, and found his hero virtually forgotten and unable to find work. In 1959, three years after he and Pressburger dissolved their partnership, Powell had made Peeping Tom, a thriller about voyeurism that shocked the critical establishment, and opportunities had been sporadic for him ever since. Powell was surprised and delighted that Scorsese knew his films and admired them for the very qualities that had alienated others.
“After our meeting in London,” Scorsese later wrote, “Michael saw Mean Streets and sent me a letter saying how much he liked it—except that I used too much red. Too much red? It’s all over his films, and that’s where I got it from!”
According to Schoonmaker, “The friendship with Michael and the long, wonderful resurgence of the movies began there.”
Scorsese later brought Powell to the Telluride Film Festival and supported a major US release for Peeping Tom, which they introduced to a younger generation of filmgoers at the New York Film Festival. Around the same time in London, Ian Christie organized the first major Powell-Pressburger retrospective for the British Film Institute. In the late 1970s David Thomson invited Powell for a lectureship at Dartmouth College, and in 1980, Francis Ford Coppola hired Powell as senior director in residence at Zoetrope Studios in Los Angeles, where the revitalized artist tried to develop new directing projects and compose his autobiography.
TRIBUTE TO MICHAEL POWELL
be bold!’ The degree of thought that went into all that, the careful planning, and then the beautiful way it’s carried out. You have to have thought it all out. That’s the way that Marty works, too.”
Powell’s health declined during the editing of Goodfellas (1990), while Scorsese was struggling with studio brass about the film’s edginess. For Schoonmaker, her husband’s unfailing support of Scorsese at that difficult time brought the men’s relationship full circle.
Raging
in the spare bedroom of the New York apartment he shared with his wife at that time, Isabella Rossellini. Schoonmaker had worked with Scorsese in the ’60s, but had not been able to resume their association until she joined the union on this production.
“We had this insane schedule, and we were working all night,” she recalls, “and Marty was gradually educating me on Powell and Pressburger. At one point I came to work and he said, ‘Listen, I want you to go into the other room and watch this tape. I’ve just seen another Powell-Pressburger masterpiece.’ He had been afraid to look at it for a long time because he had thought he might not like it. So I took the tape of I Know Where I’m Going!, went in and watched it. For him to stop me working on Raging Bull was quite something!”
Powell would call from Dartmouth late at night, and Schoonmaker often talked with him when Scorsese was busy. They met in person when Powell was invited to dinner one evening. “I just fell in love with him immediately.”
Although Powell was 74 and Schoonmaker was 40, they were soon inseparable, living in New York when she was working and at other times in a cottage she had in San Quentin. “It was an idyllic little place, with a great view of the bay and the point. Michael loved it, and he enjoyed writing his book on the porch. He struck up a relationship with a mutt dog named Rocky who lived across the way.”
Along with his autobiography, which exists today in two massive volumes, A Life in Movies and Million Dollar Movie, Powell worked on an unfinished story called The Dogs of San Quentin. Schoonmaker adds, “One of the things that’s becoming clearer with the centenary, I hope, is that Michael was a great writer himself.”
Scorsese tried to help Powell mount new film projects, and there were some tantalizing possibilities that never came to fruition. Nevertheless Powell remained an inspiration. “He was a great support to Marty,” says Schoonmaker, “and was very important to have around. For instance, he gave us the ending to After Hours (1985), and he’s the reason Raging Bull was in black and white.”
What about the influence of Powell’s films on Scorsese? “Marty and I agree that the influence is so massive, so overwhelming, that it’s sometimes very hard to illustrate. In The Red Shoes ballet, it’s the daring camerawork and the absolutely wild, emotional style. And Marty says, ‘I live these films, they’re with me every day.’ It’s like great painters going to see another painter in the Louvre. It inspires them, but it doesn’t mean they mimic them.
“. . . The amazing control that Michael had over these movies, that he could be a magician. He would say, ‘Make them believe—be bold,
Both artists knew that pushing the boundaries could invite controversy. “On The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), when we were almost finished, we were under severe attack. Marty had bodyguards—it was horrible—and Michael was such a support. Marty was afraid to show him the rough cut because he thought he wouldn’t like it. Michael stood up at the end of the crucifixion, and he turned around and tears were just streaming down his face, and I knew that was the greatest gift he could have given to Marty.”
“It was wonderful seeing the two of them together,” Thelma remembers.
Richard Peterson is director of programming for the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center. He will interview Thelma Schoonmaker onstage for the Mill Valley Film Festival tribute.
Following the Festival, an extensive retrospective of Michael Powell’s films continues at the Smith Rafael Film Center. It will include the following films:
Age of Consent (1969)
Peeping Tom (1960)
Gone to Earth (1950)
The Small Back Room (1949)
The Red Shoes (1948)
Black Narcissus (1947)
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
I Know Where I’m Going! (1945)
A Canterbury Tale (1944)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
49th Parallel (1941)
The Thief of Bagdad (1940)
The Spy in Black (1939)
The Edge of the World (1937)
Martin Scorsese, Michael Powell and Thelma Schoonmaker
Michael Powell and Thelma Schoonmaker
Age of Consent (1969)
Peeping Tom (1960)
Gone to Earth (1950)
The Small Black Room (1949)
The Red Shoes (1948)
Black Narcissus(1947)
A Matter of Life and Death(1946)
I Know Where I’m Going! (1945)
A Canterbury Tale (1944)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
49th Parallel (1941)
The Thief of Bagdad (1940)
The Spy in Black (1939)
The Edge of the World (1937)
TRIBUTE TO MICHAEL POWELL
Tribute Event
Presented by Thelma Schoonmaker
Saturday Oct 8
6:30PM Rafael
Tribute Program and Reception $50 TRIB08P
Tribute Program Only $20 TRIB08R
Reception at the Outdoor Art Club follows the Tribute program.
Michael Powell, the sterling British director we celebrate on this 100th anniversary of his birth, teamed with screenwriter Emeric Pressburger to create stylistically radical romances such as The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus. After a period of neglect, Powell was rediscovered by a younger generation of innovative filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. In an onstage interview with extensive film clips, Powell’s artistic legacy will be discussed and illustrated by Oscar ®-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker, Powell’s widow, who met Powell through Martin Scorsese.
As part of our tribute to Michael Powell, we will also be screening two of his classic films during the Festival:
I Know Where I’m Going!
Sunday Oct 9
12:15PM Rafael IKNO09R
UK 88 MINS 1945
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger conjured this enchanting masterpiece starring Wendy Hiller as a materialistic young woman who travels to the Scottish Hebrides to marry a rich industrialist. A storm tosses her in the path of a penniless laird (Roger Livesey), and her values and desires are transformed under the spell of the isles. This beautiful and romantic tale is suffused with moody landscapes, Celtic magic and eccentric humor. —R. Peterson
Sponsored by San Francisco magazine
Tribute
Sponsored by
The Red Shoes
Wednesday Oct 12
8:30PM Rafael RED12R
UK 133 MINS 1948
As the production team known as “The Archers,” director Michael Powell and writer Emeric Pressburger devised the concept of “composed” films that integrate music and color in expressive ways. Inspired by the Andersen fairy tale (embodied in a spectacular ballet sequence), this drama about art overshadowing life centers on a beautiful ballerina torn between her love for a young composer and her allegiance to the imposing impresario who made her a star. —R. Peterson
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Le Fabuleux destin of Jean-Pierre Je unet
By Kelly Clement
With only five feature films in 10 years to his credit, Jean-Pierre Jeunet has carved a place in the cinematic lexicon that few filmmakers even dream of achieving. In the process he has managed to create an entirely new genre that defies formulation and has garnered him an international fan base.
Born in Roanne, France, Jeunet had an early passion for comics and cartoons. He acquired his first movie camera as a boy and eagerly began to craft his own vision. His first forays into filmmaking were directing TV commercials and music videos; the world saw his first animated short films, L’Evasion (The Escape) in 1978 and Le Manège (The Merry-Go-Round) in 1980, the latter winning a César for best short film of the year. A fortuitous meeting with artist and comic-book creator Marc Caro, who recognized in Jeunet a kindred spirit with a love of the fantastic, began a successful 15-year collaboration. Their first short film, Le bunker de la dernière raffale (The Bunker of the Last Gunshots ) in 1981, won prizes at festivals throughout France. It was followed in 1984 by Pas de repos pour Billy Brakko and in 1989 by Foutaises (Things I Like, Things I Don’t Like), which earned the pair another César.
Emboldened by their success with short films, Jeunet and Caro co-wrote and co-directed their first feature, Delicatessen (1991), which quickly became an international art-house sen-
sation. It was with this film that the team developed their unique directing style, with Caro coordinating the artistic elements and Jeunet guiding the actors. Set in a surreal, post-apocalyptic world, Delicatessen focuses on the denizens of a boarding house and their carnivorous appetites, and it featured an ensemble cast that would appear in future Jeunet and Caro films. Delicatessen won César awards for best first film, original screenplay, editing and production design, and it picked up numerous awards on the international festival circuit.
Jeunet and Caro next embarked on an ambitious project that had been simmering in their minds for nearly 10 years. It took four more years of preparation, but the resulting fantasy epic continued the creative team’s successful run. The City of Lost Children (1995) is an operatic adult fairy tale that follows an evil scientist who is out to steal the dreams of children. Filled with lush visuals, elaborate sets and an international cast, the film opened the Cannes Film Festival and received international acclaim.
It was only a matter of time before Hollywood beckoned, on the weight of such commercial success, and while Caro chose to stay in France, Jeunet took the plunge and agreed to direct the fourth installment of the successful Alien series, Alien: Resurrection (1997). Teaming up Jeunet and the Alien franchise seemed like a good match. For Jeunet it was a challenging relationship, but it allowed him to continue to develop his vision.
His appetite for Hollywood satisfied, Jeunet returned to France to create a more personal project that would become his big-
gest hit yet. Amélie (2001) features the wonderfully talented Audrey Tautou as a lovelorn young woman who discovers the key to happiness by touching the lives of others, often in magical ways. Full of bits and pieces of stories Jeunet had been accumulating for years, Amélie further demonstrated his distinctive visual style and marked a shift from the dark, futuristic surrealism of his earlier work to a brighter contemporary world filled with optimism. A critical and commercial success, Amélie received César awards for best film and director, best original music and best production design, as well as five Oscar® nominations.
In his most recent work—and the third most expensive film in French history—Jeunet once again employed innovative camerawork, complex and fantastical storytelling, and lush landscapes. A Very Long Engagement (2004) is the epic tale of a young woman (Tautou) who refuses to believe her fiancé has died on a World War I battlefield and undertakes an extraordi-
nary journey to discover the truth. Arguably Jeunet’s most mature work to date, the film is a tender romantic portrait of hope and passion in a world gone mad.
The world eagerly awaits the next film from Jeunet, who is at the top of his game and who, in the years to come, will without doubt be considered one of the great storytellers of modern filmmaking.
Following the Festival, retrospective screenings of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s films will continue at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center. It will include the following films: Alien: Resurrection
The City of Lost Children Delicatessen
A Very Long Engagement
On new film technology:
“I think we are entering a new period of filmmaking that’s analogous to switching from black-and-white to color, or from silent to sound. The medium is completely flexible now, and it’s not bound by anything. If you imagine something, you can do it.”
On contrasting Amélie with surrealistic, nightmarish elements in his earlier works:
“The City of Lost Children, yes, is a dark film, and probably darker that most people imagine. It has taken me a long time to realize just how dark it is. After Alien , I realized I had never made a truly positive film. This was of interest to me; to build, rather than destroy, presented me with a new, interesting challenge. I wanted to make a sweet film at this point in my career and my life, to see if I could make people dream and give them pleasure. This is my personal film, one I dreamed of for a long time.”
Filmmaker Magazine interview, fall 2001.
—A.V. Club interview, The Onion, October 2001.
On whether he was satisfied with The City of Lost Children:
“You step back a little and accept that your film will be full of flaws, and that these flaws become part of the film. There is no perfect movie, ever—it doesn’t exist. If a film is successful, it’s due to a mixture of qualities and flaws. . . . At the same time, it’s a great source of frustration that there’s never perfection.”
Sony Pictures Classics™ interview, 1995.
Jeunet in His Own Words
Filmography
A Very Long Engagement (2004)
Amélie (2001)
Alien: Resurrection (1997)
The City of Lost Children (1995)
Delicatessen (1991)
Tribute Event
Thursday Oct 13
7PM Rafael
Sponsored by
Tribute Program and Reception $75 TRIB13P Tribute Program Only $20 TRIB13R
Reception at award-winning Frantoio Ristorante, Mill Valley, follows the Tribute program. One of the most creative fabulists in the world of international cinema today, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s career thus far has been filled with the kind of cinematic triumphs most filmmakers can only dream of. Starting with his collaborations with designer Marc Caro, Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children, and most recently on his own with actress Audrey Tautou in Amélie and A Very Long Engagement, Jeunet has consistently amazed with a thoroughly original style. Our tribute will open with an onstage interview with the director, during which we will present clips from his films and from his rarely seen award-winning shorts.
As part of our tribute to Jean-Pierre Jeunet, we will also screen two of his great films during the Festival:
Amélie (Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain)
Saturday Oct 15
1:15PM Rafael AMEL15R
BELGIUM/FRANCE 120 MINS 2001
After discovering an old box hidden in her apartment and returning it anonymously to its owner, a shy waitress undertakes a mission to secretly intervene in her neighbors’ lives. Shooting in more than 80 Parisian locations to create this fanciful comedy, director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children) applies his visionary style to capture the exquisite charm and mystery of modern-day Paris through the eyes of a beautiful ingénue.
Delicatessen
Saturday Oct 8
9:15PM Rafael DELI08R
FRANCE 99 MINS 1991
Delicatessen is a gloriously black comedy that follows the odd lifestyles and eating habits of the denizens of an ancient five-story block. ... Jeunet and Caro directed in a complementary fusion. Caro supplied the look—costumes, décor, hair, make-up—leaving Jeunet to direct the actors. The resulting delicacies made this one of the hits of the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. –Screen International
Amélie
Delicatessen
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Donald Sutherlan d’s Passionate Pursuit
An interview by Sura Wood
He’s not your average leading man. Unlike many movie stars, who only play themselves, Donald Sutherland is phenomenally versatile. In both major and minor parts, he consistently achieves a seamlessness between character and actor, a quality that has no doubt contributed to his steady work in film for more than 40 years.
And then there’s that extraordinary voice.
Sutherland began acting in 1963, but it was his breakthrough role as Hawkeye in Robert Altman’s cultural touchstone M*A*S*H (1970) that transformed the lanky Canadian’s career. He has worked with renowned directors from Federico Fellini (Casanova) and Bernardo Bertolucci (1900) to Fred Schepisi (Six Degrees of Separation), Philip Kaufman (Invasion of the Body Snatchers), Oliver Stone (JFK), Robert Aldrich (The Dirty Dozen) and Alan J. Pakula (Klute).
SW: You were training to become an engineer. What happened?
DS: I went to the University of Toronto because I hoped to be able to act—even though I’d never acted before, nor seen a theater before, neither inside nor outside—in their Hart House Theatre, which had a Canadian reputation. My father asked me to study engineering—I had evidenced certain skills in mathematics—as a fallback when I failed in the theater. We were a pragmatic family.
SW: You are the very definition of the working actor. You’ve appeared in more than a hundred films playing a wide variety of characters during a career that spans four decades and you’re still going strong. What do you think accounts for your longevity?
DS: Passion and an excellent wife.
SW: After reaching a certain point in their careers, some actors refuse to take small parts, but you’ve been willing to take both supporting and leading roles. Could you talk about that?
DS: In the theater that I was brought up in there was an old saw: “There are no small parts, only small actors.” I think probably that was passed around to assuage the regrets of the actors not playing the lead but, whatever, there’s a lot of relief to be found in performing when you’re not bearing a major part of the responsibility for the film’s success, and if you can find the delicious heart of the character and let him live inside you, it doesn’t make a lot of difference, creatively, how much time he spends on screen. The fellows in Backdraft, JFK, Johnny Got His Gun, Animal House, Little Murders, The Italian Job [and] Cold Mountain are all dear to my heart.
SW: What set of criteria do you use in selecting a script?
DS: It’s all changed over the years and it’s now down to whether or not it sings inside me. Whether or not I hear the character talking to me a couple of days after I’ve read the script. My natural inclination, though, is to turn it down, and I end up with either Josh Lieberman [his agent] or my son Roeg telling me to do it: Citizen X, Uprising, Path to War, Cold Mountain, Pride & Prejudice come immediately to mind.
SW: Hollywood is notoriously obsessed with youth. Now that you’re over 35, are there fewer opportunities than there once were?
[ I a lways thought my job was to disc over the truth of the character and rev eal it to the audience ... ]
At 70, Sutherland shows no signs of slowing down. He has completed four films that are soon to be released and he can be seen right now in Pride & Prejudice, Lord of War and a new fall TV series, Commander-in-Chief, in which he plays the speaker of the House. Stay tuned.
DS: Twice 35, and ah, the joys of sexual congress. These youngsters all have parents don’t they, and grandparents, and mentors and uncles galore. If you took the pains to avoid the pains of plastic surgery you can have a face that will go pretty much till you die. Look at the joyous Jessica Tandy.
SW: Your looks are quite distinctive and unconventional by Hollywood standards. Also, your voice has a very special quality in its timbre and diction. Did you work on your voice?
DS: I am who I am who I have been for years and years and years. I always thought my job was to discover the truth of the character
correctly, you played William H. Macy’s father and Barbara Bain played your wife. As a couple, you seemed closer to the Macbeths than the Cleavers. What went into your performance?
DS: That’s a question for the director. My work is subjective, and the fellow I was playing was doing a job, and he slept just fine. Do you think the reality of George Bush or Donald Rumsfeld is that much different? By degrees of course—but the reality of their crimes is infinitely greater than his, and I bet they sleep just fine, cosseted in the comfort of their lies.
SW: You may be most readily associated with the character of Hawkeye in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H. Altman is known as an actor’s director. What was your experience working with him?
DS: He wanted to fire me before I’d even met him. I’d been hired to play Hawkeye by Ingo Preminger [M*A*S*H’s producer] before Robert Altman was brought on the picture because of the role I played in Bob Aldrich’s Dirty Dozen, and Altman’s request that I be replaced by one of his acolytes was overruled by Ingo. Altman then wanted to give Elliott Gould first billing, and that, too, was overruled. What can I say, he left me in the picture, and I’m very grateful; it made my working life very interesting for me.
SW: Are there any particular roles that have been especially important to you? The fascist Attila in Bertolucci’s 1900 was a departure, was it not?
DS: No. Once again, the job’s about pursuing the truth. There are no departures. You either find the truth or you don’t.
SW: You were politically active in the ’60s. Are you still? Looking at Jane Fonda, who starred with you in Klute, one can see that there can be a price to pay for speaking out. What do you think of actors who use their fame as a platform for their political beliefs?
DS: I admire them, their passion, their commitment to the people who live in this world who have no voice. The Swift Boaters of this world, the Karl Roves and the Grover Norquists wait for them with salivating jaws to make mincemeat of their truths and then throw it in a big mélange with a sauce of lies into the feeding troughs of America. They are there with the reputations of John McCain and Cindy Sheehan and John Kerry, all mixed up with the discovered WMDs and the terrorist link between Saddam and Osama [bin Laden].
SW: Your son, Kiefer, is a successful actor in films and on Fox’s hit series, 24. Did you want him to become an actor, and has he taken any tips from the old man?
DS: Everything is and was his own decision. I just wanted him to have as good a life as he could make of it. I have no tips to give, and I think he has an agent.
SW: Speaking of TV, you’re playing the speaker of the House in Commander-in-Chief, a new TV series this fall. Why did you decide to take the role? How do you feel about working in television?
DS: It’s like being a fellow inside a novel. It’s extraordinary. Rod Lurie and Marc Frydman are very gifted men. For someone who thinks his job is looking for the truth, this is the mother lode.
SW: You’ve played everyone from well-heeled professionals to hippies and hit men. In an industry that tends to pigeonhole actors and keep them in a slot, you have defied classification. How did you pull that off?
DS: It’s the same question and the answer’s the same. You look for the truth in the life of the character, and you try to give it—give the information about it to the filmmaker. That’s the job. It’s a passionate pursuit. Endlessly exciting.
M*A*S*H
Steelyard Blues
extraordinary chameleonlike talent that makes the characters he plays larger than life— Casanova for Fellini, Attila in Bertolucci’s 1900, and the unforgettable Hawkeye Pierce in Altman’s M * A * S * H . Our tribute will feature film clips and an onstage interview with Mr. Sutherland, followed by a screening of a new version of Pride & Prejudice, in which he plays the beleaguered but droll Mr. Bennet. Afterward, we adjourn to Mill Valley’s Outdoor Art Club, where we raise our glasses to one of cinema’s coolest actors.
P ride & Prejudice
UK 127 MINS 2005
Sponsored by Christopher B. and Jeannie Meg Smith
Director Joe Wright Producers Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Paul Webster Screenwriter Deborah Moggach Cinematographer Roman Osin Editor Paul Tothill Cast Keira Knightley, Matthew MacFadyen, Brenda Blethyn, Donald Sutherland, Tom Hollander, Rosamund Pike, Jena Malone, Judi Dench Print Source Focus Features
Any straight-up, period-true adaptation of Jane Austen’s oft-retold Pride & Prejudice must contend with the long shadow of the wondrous 1995 BBC miniseries. In this perfectly cast and gorgeously filmed version, Keira Knightley expertly channels Elizabeth, by far the 20-year-old actress’ best role; and as her sparring, would-be lover Darcy, Matthew MacFadyen makes a dazzling match. The supporting cast are themselves worth the price of admission: Dame Judi Dench invents new levels of pique as the haughty Lady Catherine De Bourgh, and the peerless Donald Sutherland and Brenda Blethyn are a mismatch made in heaven as Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. The cinematography is Merchant-Ivory beautiful, even as the film reminds us that 19th-century England wasn’t exactly the cleanest era for romance. –J. Campbell TRIBUTE
selected
Filmography
Panic (2000)
Space Cowboys (2000)
Without Limits (1998)
A Time To Kill (1996)
Six Degrees of Separation (1993)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
JFK (1991)
Backdraft (1991)
Bethune: The Making of a Hero (1990)
A Dry White Season (1989)
Lost Angels (1989)
Crackers (1984)
Eye of the Needle (1981)
Ordinary People (1980)
The First Great Train Robbery (1979)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Animal House (1978)
The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)
The Eagle Has Landed (1976)
Il Casanova Di Federico Fellini (1976)
1900 (1976)
The Day of the Locust (1975)
Don’t Look Now (1973)
Johnny Got His Gun (1971)
Klute (1971)
Kelly’s Heroes (1970)
Start the Revolution Without Me (1970)
M*A*S*H (1970)
The Dirty Dozen (1967)
Il Castello Dei Morti Vivi (1964)
Pride & Prejudice
SPOTLIGHT on Felicity Huffman
By Kristine Kolton
Is it so wrong to be a little desperate? Perhaps a bit of reckless urgency provides the key element to understanding life “in the moment.” In her honest approach to scene and character Felicity Huffman makes both the familiar and the absurd moments not just hers, but ours.
An alumna of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, Huffman worked with David Mamet on stage in Speed the Plow and later won an Obie Award for her work in Mamet’s Cryptogram. She is a founding member of the Atlantic Theatre Company along with Mamet and her husband, actor William H. Macy.
In the brilliant and all-too-short-lived ABC series Sports Night (1998), Huffman played Dana Whitaker, the feisty, no-nonsense producer of an ESPN-like sports show. The show, created by The West Wing’s Aaron Sorkin, showcased Huffman’s talent with a rich combination of fast-paced dialogue, smart storylines and memorable characters.
Huffman has appeared in a supporting role in many films, including Reversal of Fortune (1990), Mamet’s The Spanish Prisoner (1997) and Magnolia (1999). On the small screen, she played Lady Bird Johnson in John Frankenheimer’s HBO miniseries Path to War (2002) and starred in the critically acclaimed Showtime series Out of Order (2003) with Eric Stoltz.
Then she found a home on the soon-to-be famous Wisteria Lane. Huffman won the 2005 Emmy® Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on Desperate Housewives. What attracted her to the role of Lynette Scavo was its raw and honest portrayal of motherhood. Huffman isn’t afraid to convey the notion that a mother can be completely normal and at the same time be driven to near insanity by her children. We watch as through their maddening trials, Lynette and her four kids grow in a way that rarely makes it to any screen, large or small.
Lynette’s neighbors would never recognize her in Transamerica, in which Huffman plays Bree, a role that won her Best Actress at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. When asked why a man did not play the film’s transsexual main character, Huffman admitted she had initially had the same thought herself. In her first meeting with director Duncan Tucker, she had actually tried to convince him that this might be a more logical option. Lucky for us, Tucker stood by his choice, stressing that the film is not about what’s under Bree’s skirt, but about Bree’s journey in becoming who she truly is.
The brilliance in Huffman’s performance of this role lies in her own journey to become more masculine as Bree learns to become more feminine. Ultimately, Huffman achieves full circle, taking Bree to a heightened, studied form of femininity that previously had been foreign to the actress herself.
Whether she’s playing an intensely self-conscious transgendered woman, a sexy but neurotic television producer or a harried mother at the end of her rope on Wisteria Lane, Felicity Huffman is always honestly in the moment, and we can’t take our eyes off her.
Raising Helen
Sunday Oct 9
3PM Rafael
Spotlight Program and Reception $50 SPOT09P
Spotlight Program Only $20 SPOT09R
Reception at the Outdoor Art Club follows the Spotlight Program.
This year’s Spotlight focuses on the dynamic Felicity Huffman. Achieving the status of household name with her role as Lynette Scavo in the hit series Desperate Housewives, this classically trained, award-winning stage actress first gained attention for her television appearances on Frasier and Sports Night. Huffman’s latest, a courageous, Oscar®-caliber performance in Transamerica, is sure to garner her even more attention.
Our Spotlight begins with an onstage inter view with Ms. Huffman, followed by a screening of Transamerica After the screening, we head to the enchanting Outdoor Art Club, at the foot of Mt. Tamalpais in Mill Valley, for a reception with a delicious array of food and drink.
Transamerica
US 103 MINS 2005
Director/Screenwriter Duncan Tucker Producers Rene Bastian, Sebastian Dungan, Linda Moran Cinema tographers Stephen Kazmierski, Tom Camarda Editor Pam Wise Cast Felicity Huffman, Kevin Zegers, Fionnula Flanagan, Graham Greene, Elizabeth Peña Print Source The Wein stein Company
In her moving portrayal of an emotionally frozen, closeted transsexual, Felicity Huffman sheds her Desperate Housewives image as ferociously as her character, Bree Osborne, wants to shed her masculinity. Bree is “living stealth,” estranged from her family and weeks away from the last surgical operation of her gender transformation, when the 17-year-old son she didn’t know she had calls from a Manhattan jail. Thus begins a series of events that leads to father and son journeying across the US from New York to Los Angeles. A humorous, mishap-laden road trip full of misperceptions, lies, smeared lipstick and fateful encounters (à la Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, but in prim pastel skirt-suits), the film explores the difficulties of reconciling the past with the future, and desire with social mores. Transamerica’s hopeful message is that accepting and being seen for all that we are is the ultimate, true transformation. —J. Campbell
Filmography
Transamerica (2005)
Christmas with The Kranks (2004)
Reversible Errors (2004)
Raising Helen (2004)
House Hunting (2003)
Magnolia (1999)
The Spanish Prisoner (1997)
Hackers (1995)
Reversal of Fortune (1990)
Things Change (1988)
Notable Television Appearances
Desperate Housewives (2004–2005)
The D.A. (2004)
Frasier (2003)
Sports Night (1998–2000)
Chicago Hope (1997)
The X Files (1993)
Law & Order (1992, 1997)
Transamerica
Transamerica
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In this case, an open mind.
Through the creativity and passion of filmmakers around the world, we are all able to see things a little differently. And understand ourselves and each other a little better. That’s why year after year, we proudly sponsor the Mill Valley Film Festival and its many outreach and educational program activities. We’re very lucky to have all of this right here in our community. And we applaud the festival for providing another dynamic line up that is sure to have a profound effect on us all.
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Jeff Daniels: The Triumph of Decency
By Michael Fox
From the moment he appears on screen, Jeff Daniels exudes likeabil ity and trustworthiness. He’s the quintessential guy next door, with a what-you-see-is-what-you-get quality that’s as refreshing as it is reassuring. We tend to dismiss such naturalness in actors—and people—and underestimate their depth. Take Daniels’ note-perfect performance as the clean-cut, square Mr. Johnson who runs the cor ner soda shop in Pleasantville (1998). When the town awakens from its ’50s fog and begins to morph from black-and-white to color, Mr. Johnson blossoms into an enthusiastic painter. Such passion and talent behind that smooth veneer—who knew?
The same might be said of Jeff Daniels, but only by someone who hasn’t been paying attention. From his start in the 1970s with Circle Repertory Company in Manhattan, Daniels displayed a fierce commit ment to the stage. Later, after achieving some success in the mov ies, he founded the Purple Rose Theatre in his hometown of Chel sea, Michigan. Daniels has written a number of plays for the company, which provides a training ground for young talent. (His latest, Guest Artist , premieres this winter.) He also brought indie filmmaking to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for Escanaba in Da Moonlight, a family comedy Daniels wrote, directed and starred in.
It is his big-screen contribution, however, that has brought Daniels wide acclaim. His first memorable appearance was in Terms of Endearment (1983), as Debra Winger’s fallible husband. Woody Allen then cast him as the improbably decent archaeologist who walks through the screen into waitress Mia Farrow’s life in The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985). With his square jaw and can-do stride, Daniels evoked the earnestness of vintage matinee idols but without the self-seriousness. This marvelous sensibility has lent itself to both comedy and family drama, and Daniels rang every change as the uptight yuppie held captive by Melanie Griffith in Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild (1986).
With a dignity and gravity that hearken back to an earlier era, Daniels shone as Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain in Gettysburg (1993), and again a decade later in Gods and Generals. In an opposing vein, he then embraced indignity, as Jim Carrey’s brother in Dumb and Dumber (1994), the movie that introduced the world to the Farrelly Brothers.
Daniels has portrayed myriad characters with unusual nuance and subtlety, from his father roles in Fly Away Home (1996) and Because of Winn-Dixie (2002) to Clint Eastwood’s sidekick in the detective story Blood Work (2002) and Meryl Streep’s romantic rival in The Hours (2002). In his most recent film Daniels gives richly layered performance as a Brooklyn professor whose marriage is ending, in Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale
Daniels is a pretty fair guitar player and a practiced singer-songwriter. Perhaps he’ll swing by the Sweetwater while he’s in town and treat the crowd to tunes like “If William Shatner Can, I Can Too” or his antiwar song, “Michigan My Michigan”—songs that commemorate key moments and that he keeps in an overstuffed notebook. “If you really wanted to get to know me, you’d find me in there,” he has said. We do know Jeff Daniels—trustworthy, self-effacing and a heck of a good sport—from his films. As talented an actor as he is, he can’t disguise his nature.
The Purple Rose of Cairo
TRIBUTE TO JEFF DANIELS
Tribute Event
Sunday Oct 16
5PM Rafael
Tribute Program and Closing Night Party $65 TRIB16P
Tribute Program Only $20 TRIB16R
Closing Night Party at the Mill Valley Community Center follows the Tribute program.
Tribute to Jeff Daniels
Jeff Daniels’ affable everyman appeal makes him one of the most accessible actors on screen. He’s the perfect straight man, whether it’s to a flock of geese or a maniacal Jim Carrey. In a departure from his usual good-guy roles, Daniels is wrenchingly brilliant as a passive-aggressive husband in The Squid and the Whale. Our tribute begins with an onstage interview and is followed by a screening of the film.
See page 65 for Closing Night Tribute information.
selected
Filmography
The Squid and the Whale (2005)
Imaginary Heroes (2004)
The Goodbye Girl (2004)
Gods and Generals (2003)
The Hours (2002)
Blood Work (2002)
Super Sucker (2002)
Escanaba In Da Moonlight (2001)
Chasing Sleep (2000)
My Favorite Martian (1999)
Pleasantville (1998)
101 Dalmatians (1996)
2 Days In the Valley (1996)
Fly Away Home (1996)
Redwood Curtain (1995)
Dumb and Dumber (1994)
Speed (1994)
Gettysburg (1993)
There Goes the Neighborhood (1992)
Rain Without Thunder (1992)
The Butcher’s Wife (1991)
Love Hurts (1991)
Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (1990)
Arachnophobia (1990)
Checking Out (1989)
Sweet Hearts Dance (1988)
The House on Carroll Street (1988)
Radio Days (1987)
Something Wild (1986)
Heartburn (1986)
The Squid and the Whale
The Squid and the Whale
824 Francisco Blvd, W. • San Rafael, 94901 • 456-5970
Films
Bluebird In Dutch with English subtitles
The Fakir In Danish with English subtitles
Hoppity Goes to Town
Immediate Boarding In French with English subtitles
The Incomparable Miss C. In French with English subtitles
Lepel In Dutch with English subtitles
Let the Children Lead (Shorts Program)
Max and Josef: Double Trouble In Swedish with English subtitles
Pelican Man In Finnish with English subtitles
Short Films for Little People (Shorts Program)
Spirit Bear: The Simon Jackson Story
Winter Song In Farsi with English subtitles
Wolf Summer In Norwegian with English subtitles
THE MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL IS PROUD TO PRESENT THE 11TH ANNUAL CHILDREN’S FILMFEST
The Festival isn’t only for adults! Welcome to the 11th anniversary of the Children’s FilmFest. The wide, wide world is out there in superb children’s films—they just rarely make it into theaters. Let the Children’s FilmFest be your remedy! Among this year’s Festival selections: Harry Potter has competition in The Fakir, and imagination overruns its limits with a pelican who achieves his goal to be human in Pelican Man. Dutch films treat serious subjects like bullying and body image in XL and Bluebird and then take off like a hot air balloon with the fantasy Lepel . The great news for parents is that you will enjoy these films as much as your kids. And our hands-on filmmaking workshop for young people rounds out another fun family experience.
Opening Film and Festivities
THE FAKIR
Saturday Oct 8
11:30AM Sequoia
2–4PM Party at Outdoor Art Club, Mill Valley Film and Party $15 adults, $12 children FAKI08P Film Only $10 adults, $8 children FAKI08S
Join us for the Western US Premiere of The Fakir, a dazzling Danish tale of magic and mayhem for all ages. See page 73 for film description
Our special opening event gives kids a sneak peek at the new book (to be published in November) A Movie Mouse, the story of Marcello Moustroiani. Marin residents Liz Hockinson and Kathryn Otoshi, who wrote and illustrated the book, will read from it and project animated pages for our delight. Refreshments will follow.
Ice Cream and Kazoos
Saturday Oct 15
12–2PM Rafael
FREE with any 2005 Children’s FilmFest ticket stub
After our Short Films for Little People program (see page 85) at the Rafael Saturday morning, join us in a costume parade to Ben & Jerry’s, with every child kazooing along with troubadors Orange Sherbet (Tamsen Fynn and Jill Pierce).
Closing Film
PELICAN MAN
Sunday Oct 16
2:45PM Rafael PELI16R
Join director Liisa Helminen for her international award-winning film. See page 82 for film description.
About Subtitles
To enhance our younger audiences’ appreciation of foreign films appearing in the Children’s FilmFest, we provide simultaneous subtitle reading by professional vocal artists for many of the films that are not in English. We are unique among North American children’s film festivals in that subtitled children’s programs at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center can be heard through individual earphones, allowing those who wish to read the subtitles or listen closely to the original language to do so undisturbed. To avoid confusion and disappointment, please refer to the film listings below for subtitle information on individual programs.
Age Recommendations
Please bear in mind that the age ranges assigned to children’s films (following each program description) are merely suggested recommendations based on careful assessment of tone, subject matter, language and other content that may be of concern to parents. Although we are very experienced in assigning these age designations, we also recognize that every child is different and every parent has different standards. Please use these recommendations as a guide to help you make your own decision.
SCRIPT TO SCREEN WORKSHOP: YOUNG FILMMAKERS PLAY CINEMASPORTS!
Saturday and Sunday
Oct 8 workshop 10AM–1PM
Outdoor Art Club, Mill Valley
Oct 9 workshop 9AM–4PM
Oct 9 film screening 8PM
Masonic Hall, Mill Valley
$200 WORK08
Limited Enrollment. Ages 8 to 18. Attendance required for both days. Includes individual ticket to screening.
We’ve given our traditional workshop format a new twist. As always, it provides kids with the opportunity to be both cast and crew and participate in nearly every stage of the filmmaking process of their own fiction film. But this year, MVFF has partnered with an organization called Cinemasports to add a new feature: a creative race against the clock to make a film in a day. Cinemasports has kindly invited three local youth teams to participate, and we need young team members to help us achieve this incredible cinematic feat!
Saturday we will learn basic filmmaking instruction and techniques and organize our teams and resources. Sunday we will join dozens of adult filmmaking teams in a race to make our movies!
Here’s how it works: Sunday morning, each team will receive a short list of predeter mined mandatory “ingredients” for their films, and they must return with a completed short (3 1 ⁄ 2 minutes or less) film by that same evening. The big payoff comes at 8PM with a public screening of the submitted entries. Everyone will get to see how each team used the same elements to create entirely different stories.
So come be a filmmaker for a day, and invite your friends and families to witness the results at the screening Sunday night. (Separate admission tickets for nonteam members cost $10 and are available for purchase at the MVFF box office.)
Sweet and Sick
Saturday Oct 15 11AM Rafael
In addition to our youth-produced reel, Sweet and Sick , and the Children’s FilmFest, many films in the festival involve youth and children:
5@5: All I Really Want To Do
5@5: It’s All Over Now Baby Blue Boats out of Watermelon Rind
Brick
Bride of Silence
Delwende
The Devil’s Miner
Fateless
Hidden Flaws
Innocent Voices
The Squid and the Whale Toon for the Misbegotten
Troop 1500: Girl Scouts Beyond Bars
While Michael Powell’s The Red Shoes (see page 35) has no youth in it, the film has inspired young dancers throughout its history.
YOUNG CRITICS JURY AND THE YOUTH REEL
Now in its fourth year, the Young Critics Jury is developing a rich history. It’s a three-day crash course in everything (and we mean everything) about film that we can cram in, through lectures, demonstrations, roundtable talks, film screenings and some hands-on work. Meeting in July, the young critics emerge from the course better prepared to understand the world of media around them.
A special treat this year was a screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation , a shot-by-shot remake of the Spielberg film done by three Mississippi teens, who appeared for a Q&A after the film and hung out with the students for a private hour.
The second tier of the Young Critics Jury program is the jury itself. Six students chosen from the larger three-day group go on to judge entries from youth all over the country, winnowing the selection down to a 90minute program. This year’s Youth Reel, Sweet and Sick, was juried by six patient peers: Russell Aguilar, Caitlin Carter, Justin Newcomer, Jeremy Rice, Andrew Rose and Arianna Taboada.
Youth Focus
California Film Institute Outreach
CFI Outreach and Education: Building the Next Generation of Audiences and Filmmakers
Film engages and inspires like no other medium. For nearly two decades, the Mill Valley Film Festival and the California Film Institute have pioneered film programs for Bay Area students of all ages, bringing film into the classroom as a personalized educational tool that expands and deepens our view of the world.
Crossing disciplines as well as borders, CFI Outreach in-school programming provides language, history, science and social studies teachers alike with dynamic material and activities. Film screenings, guest speakers and study guides expose students to new ideas and different cultures and create a forum for students to speak with filmmakers and well-known cultural figures.
Past programs have included filmmaker Sam Green, whose Academy Award®nominated The Weather Underground chronicles the turbulent political climate
of the 1960s, who appeared with Bill Ayers, a Weathermen co-founder; and David Hickson, director of Beat the Drum, a dramatic film that looks at the AIDS epidemic in Africa through a young boy’s eyes.
During the Mill Valley Film Festival, CFI Outreach goes behind the screen, offering workshops and seminars designed for young filmmakers to gain a better understanding of the medium, develop critical thinking skills and harness the power of film to find their own voices by creating their own stories. Please see page 59 for this year’s MVFF children and youth activities.
CFI Outreach annually serves more than 3,000 Bay Area students and teachers. Most programs are free of charge, thanks to generous underwriting from our community partners. For additional information or to help support this vital education program, please visit us online at cafilm.org, or call
415.383.5256 x113 to speak with John Morrison, CFI Outreach manager.
New Movies Lab
15 RULES ON SPIN
Saturday Oct 8
11AM—12:30PM Rafael $15 LAB08R
An essential for filmmakers, this workshop gives the fundamental tools of media communications. Learn how to prepare, to be empowered and to instantly win over your audience. Lynda Hansen will cover the different approaches needed for TV, radio and print interviews. Your passion, your experience, your story and how you tell it will win the attention of reps, festival programmers and future funders. Once you know the 15 rules, you can do anything.
Workshop Leader: Lynda Hansen
CEO of Lynda A. Hansen & Associates, Ltd. Her credits include: The New York Foundation for the Arts; Hamptons Film Festival; Berlin Film Festival; American Independents and Features Abroad. Presented in association with Film Arts Foundation.
FRAME BY FRAME: FILM, PHILANTHROPY AND CREATIVE ENGAGEMENT
Saturday Oct 8
1:30—3:30PM Rafael $15 SEM08R
Social-issue films so often inspire the question, what can I do? This panel addresses some of the ways filmmakers answer that question, creating work that engages with disenfranchised communities and with issues of social, racial, political and environmental justice. The panelists are all working on projects creatively involved in changing the world through film. This promises to be an inspiring discussion for filmmakers and film lovers alike.
Invited guests:
Facilitator: Shakti Butler PhD, executive director, World Trust Educational Services; producerdirector, The Way Home, Light in the Shadows
John Karr director, New Media, the Asia Foundation
Nancy Kelly producer-director, Smitten , Downside Up , Thousand Pieces of Gold
Silvije Petranovic director, The Society of Jesus (The Jesuits)
Elizabeth Silkes executive director, FilmAid International
CINEMASPORTS
Sunday Oct 9
Intro Meeting 9–9:30AM FREE Masonic Hall, Mill Valley
Sunday Oct 9 Film Screening
8PM Masonic Hall, Mill Valley $10 CSP09M
An energetic fusion of imagination, collaboration and tournament, Cinemasports is a race against the clock to make a film in a day! The requirements: Crews of any shape and size arrive at 9AM self-equipped and ready to shoot and edit their own films by the same-day deadline. They receive a short list of predetermined mandatory “ingredients” for the films and must return with a completed short film (31⁄2 minutes or less) by 6:30PM that evening. The payoff comes at 8PM at a public screening of the submitted entries, where we will witness the various ways in which the same elements have been used to make entirely different movies. The Mill Valley Film Festival and Cinemasports are pleased to co-present this exciting opportunity for filmmakers and film enthusiasts alike. Come be a filmmaker for a day, or just join us to behold the results!
DIGITAL INDEPENDENCE:
NEXT-GENERATION INNOVATIONS
Sunday Oct 9
10:30AM–12:30PM Rafael $15 LAB09R
Indie media makers are rapidly learning to surf the new waves of offline, online and on-demand production, postproduction and delivery systems. Come learn the latest tricks and treats of the trade from this stellar line-up of specialists operating in the high and low-tech domains.
Invited guests:
Jin Woo Joo founder, Cinemasports
Doug McMillan creative director and R&D development director, elementFX
Sandy Pearlman producer, music critic and former president, 415 Records
Brant J. Smith Vice President, Lasoo On-Demand Television, and producer, Quality of Life
Bart Weiss founder, Video Association of Dallas
Aerlyn Weissman director, Web Cam Girls
Facilitator: Karen Schwartzman, Creative Axis International
THE FUTURE OF FAMILY FILMS
Sunday Oct 16
11AM–12:30PM 142 Throckmorton $15 SEM16T
Family Films: What are they, who makes them (and how do they make them), who watches them, how do you find them and how do you know you can take your children to them? Our panelists will shed light on this elusive genre.
Invited guests:
Jim Steyer author, The Other Parent ; founder, Common Sense Media
Liisa Helminen writer-director, Pelican Man , Urpo and Turpo
Mary Jane Burke Marin superintendent of schools
Bob Peterson writer, Finding Nemo
Mark Rendall actor, Spirit Bear: The Simon Jackson Story
GOING OUT TO THE MOVIES: IS THE ROMANCE OVER?
Sunday Oct 16
1:30–3PM 142 Throckmorton $15 LAB16T
While newspapers, Entertainment Weekly and CNN predict the doom of the theatrical movie industry, audiences are flocking to films like March of the Penguins. Are on-demand and plasma TV and DVDs destroying America’s greatest pastime? Is the industry simply not paying attention or is it turning fear into reality? Join industry veterans, directors and others on the frontlines—sales agents and distributors—in a discussion about the future of cinema.
Panelists to be announced.
Please note: The lineup of panelists may change. We cannot guarantee that those listed will be the final guests. Updates will be listed at the festival box offices, or check our web site, mvff.com
To assist you in selecting your films, our Festival categories, described below, are identified next to each film’s description. Look out as well for two special Focus categories: Fespaco/PRAI (the Paul Robeson Awards Initiative), celebrating award-winning films from Africa and the African diaspora; and Women Make Movies , honoring the New York-based distributor that has helped women’s voices be heard throughout the world.
[ Official Premiere Selection ]
The Official Premiere Selection introduces new domestic and international films to the US. The popularity of independent international films in the San Francisco Bay Area makes MVFF an important launching pad into the American market.
[ World Cinema ]
Whether their objective is to move, provoke, entertain, amuse or thrill, the films in the World Cinema section tell stories that reveal elements of the universal, while changing our ways of seeing and understanding our global neighbors.
[ US Cinema ]
A showcase for new American films, US Cinema celebrates the work of well-known masters and emerging filmmakers who share a common talent for independent, insightful storytelling.
[ Valley of the Docs ]
Reality spins some of the most fascinating yarns of all. The Valley of the Docs presents the latest in documentary filmmaking, in which filmmakers from around the world explore the consequences of truth.
[ V(ision)Fest ]
Tomorrow’s technology is today’s medium for the imagination. V(ision)Fest mediamakers come from the school of all possibilities. They are the innovators and experimenters who are ready to shake, rattle and reboot the state of cinema.
[ 5@5 ]
This popular daily screening series is a testament to the fine art of the short film. Eclectic in both content and filmmaking style, the series each year is an assortment of filmic gems by emerging and established makers and masters.
[ Children’s Filmfest ]
A cinematic globetrot for kids of all ages, the Children’s FilmFest gives young people a taste of cultures and adventures they won’t get anywhere else, as well as hands-on filmmaking workshops.
[ Official Premiere Selection ]
Accidents
Ramón Alòs Sánchez, Miloje Popovic, Toni Trupia Italy
Amongst White Clouds
Edward A. Burger Canada/China
The Art of Breaking Up
Michel Deville France
Bed Stories
Kirill Serebrennikov Russia
Been Rich All My Life
Heather Lyn MacDonald US
Berkeley
Bobby Roth US
Brotherly Jazz: The Music and Stories of Percy, Jimmy and Albert “Tootie” Heath Jesse Block US
SOUND OF THE SOUL: The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music Stephen Olsson US
Springtime
Ryu Jang-ha Korea
The Undeserved
Brad Coley US
Video Out
Paul Vlachos, Meredith Finkelstein US
7PM and 7:15PM Sequoia
7PM Film Only $20 MATA06S
Film and Gala $125 MATA06P
7:15PM Film Only $20 MAT206S
Film and Gala $125 MAT206P
US 2004 97 MINS
Director/Screenwriter Richard Shepard Producers Pierce Brosnan, Bryan Furst, Sean Furst Cinematographer David Tattersall Editor Carole Kravetz Cast Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Hope Davis, Philip Baker Hall, Adam Scott, Dylan Baker Print Source The Weinstein Company
In this stylish, hilarious confection about a hit man and the damage done, Pierce Brosnan drags his impeccable James Bond persona through the wringer and down several flights of stairs to create Julian Noble, a gone-to-seed assassin whose killer’s vanity is only matched by his love of liquor and sex. His own vanity forgotten, Brosnan makes Noble—a “facilitator of fatalities”—outrageously inappropriate, a profane wreck. Happenstance throws Noble together with chirpy suburban husband Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear); as this unlikely pair runs out of luck in Mexico City, each desperately wants what the other has. With gorgeous visuals (courtesy of Star Wars’ Tattersall) and a great soundtrack, the film crackles along as each man confronts his own Faustian bargain to a strangely sweet end. Still, it’s Brosnan and his magnetic cauldron of preening, pleading, irrepressible charm that really kills. —J. Campbell
Sponsored by Lucasfilm, Ltd.
Thursday Oct 6
7PM Rafael Film only $20 MRSH06R
Film and Gala $125 MRSH06P
UK 2005 103 MINS
Director Stephen Frears Producer Norma Heyman Screenwriter
Martin Sherman Cinematographer Andrew Dunn Editor Lucia Zucchetti Cast Bob Hoskins, Judi Dench, Christopher Guest, Kelly Reilly, Will Young Print Source The Weinstein Company
Raise your hand if you love Judi Dench! The unparalleled queen of the screen pairs up here with Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons) for an Oscar®-baiting musical comedy that re-creates the true story of Laura Henderson, a wealthy eccentric who founded the ill-reputed Windmill Theatre during World War II. In cahoots with irascible producer Vivian van Damm (Bob Hoskins), Mrs. Henderson hits on a scheme to mix musical revues and vaudeville acts with some titillating naughty bits to create “Revudeville.” Juxtaposing the gorgeously art-directed musical numbers with the encroaching threat of Nazism, Frears demonstrates a masterful touch. The cast is a joy to watch, filled out with comic stalwarts (Christopher Guest playing against type as the starchy Lord Chamberlain) and talented eye candy in the stage roles (including British pop star Will Young). Mix Topsy Turvy dramatics with a dash of Full Monty fun, and you’ve got yourself a wonderful night at the movies. —D. Quinones
Sponsored by Dolby Laboratories
KICK OFF the 28th MVFF with two fabulous films, followed by our gorgeous opening night gala.
[Opening Night Gala
Thursday Oct 6
9:30PM–12AM
Lytton Plaza, downtown Mill Valley
Opening Night Film and Gala $125 (see above)
Gala-Only tickets are not available
We’re back! Come celebrate our return to the CinéArts@Sequoia Theater—and to the heart of Mill Valley— after an unexpected year away. Whether you attend your opening night fi lm at the Rafael or the Sequoia, please join us after your screening in downtown Mill Valley on the historic plaza to celebrate the Opening Night of Mill Valley Film Festival no. 28. Toast the stars under the sequoias, in the perfect environment for film.
Sunday Oct 16
5PM Sequoia
Film and Party $65 BEE16P
Film Only $20 BEE16S
7:45PM Sequoia $20 BEE216S Film Only
US 2005 104 MINS
Directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel Producers Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa Screenwriter Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal Cinematographer Giles Nuttgens Editor Lauren Zuckerman Cast Richard Gere, Juliette Binoche, Flora Cross, Max Minghella, Kate Bosworth Print Source Fox Searchlight Pictures
The fragile, mystical connections of God and family are at the heart of this moving adaptation of Myla Goldberg’s novel Bee Season. As 9-year-old Eliza Naumann, whose gift for spelling has more to do with divine visions than studious practice, Flora Cross holds her own with the never-more-luminous Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche—indeed, Cross is a revelation herself. Preternaturally self-assured, Eliza starts winning spelling bees, and this upsets her family’s delicate balance. Her intellectual father, Saul (Gere), begins obsessively tutoring Eliza in Jewish mysticism, while neglected son Aaron (Max Minghella) fills the void with another kind of family, and mother Miriam (Binoche) secretly slides into her own shattered past. The characters’ interior landscapes are evocatively translated into sparkling imagery, playful visual metaphors of word and light that embody the numinous spaces inside us. Each character seeks the gift of holy, transcendent healing, and this rare film delivers it. —J. Campbell
Tribute Program and Party $65 TRIB16P
Tribute Program Only $20 TRIB16R
US 2005 89 MINS
Director/Screenwriter Noah Baumbach Producers Wes Anderson, Peter Newman, Charles Corwin, Clara Markowicz Cinematographer
Robert Yeoman Editor Tim Streeto Cast Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline Print Source IDP Distribution
Jeff Daniels soars to new heights (and plummets to many painful lows) as failing novelist-turned-academic Bernard Berkman, in writer-director Noah Baumbach’s brilliant depiction of the fallout of divorce, circa 1986. When Brooklyn intellectuals Bernard and Joan (Laura Linney, MVFF Spotlight 2004) end their marriage, the impact hits their sons, Walt and Frank, with the greatest force—no surprise to anyone, perhaps, except Bernard and Joan. Adolescent uncertainty, confusion and insecurity ooze from every pore as the boys endure a shared custody arranged by their ego-driven, equally confused parents. A coming-of-age story for both generations, The Squid and the Whale deftly navigates family breakdown with sharp humor, wit and true understanding that at times feels like a punch in the stomach. Baumbach’s treatment is a timeless, all-too-real exposition of a family under the influence—of the parents. —J. Parsont
[Closing Night Party
Sunday Oct 16
7:30–10:30PM
Mill Valley Community Center Party Only $55 PARTY16
AFTER 11 DAYS of fabulous cinema and celebration, round out the 2005 MVFF with two more exceptional films and our closing night party.
One of our favorite parties of the year is the one where we can sleep in the next day! Whether you compare notes on who saw the most films or which director was hottest, or schmooze with Bee Season directors or Closing Night Tributee Jeff Daniels, you won’t want to miss the last fandango as we say goodnight and good-bye. Tents, lights, music and a rocking party at the Mill Valley Community Center are our final farewell to another fabulous Festival.
Tribute to Jeff Daniels
39 Pounds of Love US 2005 70 MINS - TOTAL PROGRAM 79 MINS
Sunday Oct 9 1:30 PM POUN09R Rafael
Friday Oct 14 9 PM POUN14T 142 Throckmorton
Director Dani Menkin Producers Dani Menkin, Daniel Chalfen Screenwriters Dani Menkin, Ilan Heitner Cinematographer Yoav Klanman
Editor Geoff Bartz Print Source Priddy Brothers Entertainment
Ami Ankilewitz’s feather-light body is confined to a wheelchair, but he suffers no such limitations himself as he embraces life in all its humor, pathos and trials. He was diagnosed during infancy with a rare form of muscular dystrophy; the diagnosing physician predicted the child would not live beyond the age of 6. Now 34, Ankilewitz is a 3-D animator living in Israel; his signature character is a bird in flight. In pursuit of a lifelong ambition, Ankilewitz undertakes an American road trip with his best friend, Asaf, during which he plans to reconnect with his brother, ride a Harley and find the doctor whose original diagnosis was so terribly incorrect. Ankilewitz calls the journey his “Mt. Everest.” —S. Uyehara
Preceded by
The First Thing I Remember Director Tamara Meem
AUSTRALIA 2005 9 MINS This tender tale looks back with longing at the source of our deepest desires.
5@5: A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
Monday Oct 10 5 PM
5AT510S
Tuesday Oct 11 5 PM 5AT511R
War, peace and technology intersect with the natural world in these compelling shorts. Guy Dimenstein’s Messiah (Israel 13 mins) takes a sardonic look at the goings-on at an Israeli checkpoint. Monteith McCollum’s arresting Lawn (US 12 mins) beautifully draws a parallel between fastidious lawn care and a fear of nature. In Taika Waititi’s exquisitely humorous Tama Tü (New Zealand 18 mins), six Maori soldiers wait things out in a bombed-out building. In Eric Escobar’s riveting One Weekend a Month (US 12 mins), a single mother tries to find someone to take care of her children on the eve of her National Guard unit’s deployment to Iraq. Neil Jack’s droll, animated The Tree Officer (Scotland 8 mins) portrays the bureaucratic woes of a passionate botanist whose job is to cut trees down. Gabriela Tollman’s ravishing fable Birth of Industry (US 13 mins) personifies the industrial revolution as a mother who gives birth to a rapacious son. Kenzo Hakuta and Jimmy Mathew’s elegant Fall (US 5 mins) is a dreamy vision of life, death and the natural world. —A. Monga
5@5: All I Really Want to Do
Friday Oct 7 5 PM
Monday Oct 10 5 PM
TOTAL PROGRAM 84 MINS
5AT507S Sequoia
5AT510R Rafael
The human experience in all its glory and variety is the subject of these shorts. Gaëlle Denis’s breathtakingly inventive use of live action and animated filmmaking in City Paradise (UK 5 mins) tells the strange story of a Japanese girl in a very odd London. Cordelia Beresford’s gothic The Eye Inside (Australia 14 mins) is based on a true story of a Parisian teenager imprisoned in an asylum by a voyeuristic doctor. The Daily Show’s Ed Helms is a very differentlyabled citizen in Nick Poppy’s wickedly wry Zombie-American (US 9 mins). Phil Johnston’s loopy Flightless Birds (US 22 mins) tells how the residents of Fairburn, South Dakota, band together to save their dying town. In Justin Edgar’s wonderful comedy Special People (UK 13 mins), a group of smart, unenthusiastic kids in wheelchairs ascend a mountain to fulfill a depressed director’s vision of an art film. Israeli directors Oded Binnun and Mihal Brezis adapt a surrealistic story by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami in their hauntingly beautiful Tuesday’s Women (Israel 20 mins). —A. Monga
5@5: It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
Wednesday Oct 12 5 PM
Thursday Oct 13 5 PM
TOTAL PROGRAM 95 MINS
The pain, triumphs and sheer goofiness of childhood link these shorts. In Kim Spurlock’s beautiful Afternoon (US 10 mins), family bonds cannot be broken by death. Topaz Adizes’ poignant Seven Miles Alone (US 15 mins) tells of two adopted brothers whose paths diverge but come together years later in a boxing ring. Shaz Bennett’s penetrating voiceover counterpoints the lovely visuals in her memory film Top of the Circle (US 5 mins). Sugar Mountain (US 28 mins) by Aaron Himelstein (of Joan of Arcadia) is a brilliantly acted drama about a boy who has survived a deep childhood trauma. Keith Bearden captures the cadence of a boyhood summer with amazing authenticity in The Raftman’s Razor (US 8 mins). Karen Carpenter deftly gets the inchoate longing of small-town girl misfits in her beautiful My Scarlet Letter (US 10 mins). Holger Ernst’s exquisite short Rain Is Falling (Germany 15 mins) is based on an Iranian story about a small girl caring for her ailing mother. —A. Monga
5@5: Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat
TOTAL PROGRAM 103 MINS
Tuesday Oct 11 4:45 PM 5AT511S Sequoia
Wednesday Oct 12 4:45 PM 5AT512R Rafael
Sometimes the strangest stories are the most affecting. In Thor Freudenthal’s Motel (US 8 mins), a guy happens upon an abandoned motel with every amenity—but there’s a catch. An experimental filmmaker comes to a Mexican town in Scott Coleman Miller’s Uso Justo (US 22 mins), with his uproarious found-footage masterpiece. John Harden’s profound La Vie d’un Chien (US 13 mins) tips its hat to Chris Marker’s La Jetée in its exploration of love and freedom. Phil Ramuno’s boisterous Bringing Up BayBay (US 14 mins) critiques infotainment, as a supremely ambitious reporter chases down a celebrity known as BayBay Girl. Dali drops into Freud’s office in Delaney Bishop’s dazzling The Death of Salvador Dali (US 18 mins). Géza M. Tóth’s superb Maestro (Hungary 5 mins) is an animated behind-the-scenes look at an artist preparing for his big moment. Selma Blair and Elias Koteas star in J. Lisa Chang and Newton Thomas Sigel’s eccentric The Big Empty (US 20 mins), in which an unconventional gynecologist and patient take their show on the road. —A. Monga
5@5: Simple Twist of Fate
In these shorts, roads diverge and choices must be made and that, to paraphrase the poet, makes all the difference. Sandra Oh stars in Jon Goldman’s sparkling Kind of a Blur (US 10 mins), about a romantic, drunken camping trip. In the truly magical bar of La Magique Noire (US 12 mins), ordering a drink can be perilous. A bathing grandmother (Brenda Fricker, MVFF Tributee 1996) plays an unsettling trick in Peter Mackie Burns’s perverse Milk (Scotland 10 mins). In James Twyford’s wonderfully pithy Little Things (UK 5 mins) a little girl picks up an unintentional message. A boy “test drives” a dysfunctional family in Lance Slaton’s surreal Life Ride (US 11 mins). In Simon Hynd’s delirious comedy Tumshie McFadgen’s Bid for Ultimate Bliss, the eponymous star tries to perfect his experience of pleasure. A commitment-phobic man can see any relationship’s future through his grandfather’s magic glasses, in Hank Azaria’s Nobody’s Perfect (US 23 mins). Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s jewel Pas de repos pour Billy Brakko (France 5 mins) feels autobiographical in its frenetic catalog of film references. —A. Monga
5@5: Tangled Up in Blue
Thursday Oct 13 5 PM
TOTAL PROGRAM 77 MINS
5AT513S Sequoia Friday Oct 14 5 PM
5AT514R Rafael
Each one of these extraordinary shorts illustrates a deep sympathy for the human condition, focusing on relationships that abound with peculiarities and contradictions. Jacques Thelemaque’s Transaction (US 15 mins) limns the oldest transaction in the world, prostitution, with compassion and insight, featuring brilliant performances by Edmund L. Shaff and Diane Gaidry. Ken Wardrop films his beautiful, self-possessed 60-some-year-old mother reflecting on her life in Undressing My Mother (Ireland 6 mins). Renji Philip’s An American Dream (US 23 mins) turns to nightmare as a simple road trip devolves into a surrealistic Lynchian voyage. Shelly Silver explains her obsession with photographing strangers in the exquisite What I’m Looking For (US 15 mins). In John Mitchell and Jeremy Kipp Walker’s Goodnight Bill (US 19 mins), an odd couple—a cantankerous old homophobe and an elderly gay man—are forced to share a hospital room, where phobia finally turns to friendship. —A. Monga
Special added short to be included at Rafael on Oct 14 (total program 86 mins).
Accidents
Thursday Oct 13 8:15 PM ACCI13R Rafael
Saturday Oct 15 12:15 PM ACCI15R Rafael
Directors/Screenwriters Ramón Alòs Sánchez, Miloje Popovic, Toni Trupia Producer Centro Sperimentali di Cinematographia Cast Lando Buzzanca, Silvia Ferreri, Leo Gullotta, Ernesto Mahieux, Ralph Palka, Renato Scarpa, Emilio Solfrizzi, Manuela Ungaro, Adriano Wajskol Print Source Bruno Bossio/PromoFest
Three young cutting-edge Italian filmmakers present bravura variations on a theme in this triptych that provides a rich palette of cinematic styles as well as a peek at the future of European cinema. Toni Trupia gives a nod to Fellini in Good Friends Near and Far, a colorful, surrealistic fable about the carnival atmosphere that arises after game-show judge Ermes dies in a car crash and makes a public display of haunting the show’s vain and shallow host Lello. In The Day Nothing Happened, Ramón Alòs Sánchez combines live action with stills, animation and even a puppet show to reimagine the life, final hours and the motorcycle accident that killed British hero, T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia). Finally, in Miloje Popvi’s Nothing Serious, a man who regains consciousness after a horrible wreck looks back over his life as he waits for help. —P. Grady
5@5
5@5
world cinema
Al-Ghazali: The Alchemist of Happiness
UK 2004 80 MINS
Saturday Oct 8 7:15 PM ALGH08T 142 Throckmorton
Monday Oct 10 7:15 PM ALGH10R Rafael
Director/Producer Ovidio Salazar Screenwriter Simon van der Borgh Cinematographer Mahmoud Kalari Editor Gabriela Enis Cast Ghorban Nadjafi, Robert Powell, Daryush Arjmand, Mitra Hajjar Print Source Matmedia Productions
How can we best follow the path of love in the current world of confusion, fanaticism and terror? Ovidio Salazar’s exquisitely shot film takes us deep into the past for answers from Al-Ghazali, Islam’s greatest philosopher. Though AlGhazali lived in Iran a thousand years ago, his understanding of the mysteries of existence makes his teachings—and more importantly, his example—eternally relevant. Through a compelling blend of documentary footage and inspired dramatic re-creations shot in ancient locations in Iran, we follow this passionate thinker’s journey as he transforms a crisis of faith into a reawakening of the soul, reconciling faith with reason and moving beyond the intellectual mind and the limitations of religious dogma. Director Salazar beautifully bridges the centuries to connect us in the present with this profound man’s insights; watching a contemporary teacher speak to a crowd in Isfahan’s main square, we see that Al-Ghazali’s work continues. —N. Isaacs
Director/Cinematographer/Editor Edward A. Burger Producer Chad Pankewitz Print Source Cosmos Pictures Inc.
This meditative journey through the remote peaks, gorges and coves of China’s Zhongnan Mountains allows us a glimpse of the hidden lives of zealous students, gaunt hermits and wise masters following ancient Buddhist monastic traditions once thought to have disappeared forever. As Zen student, filmmaker and songwriter Edward A. Burger treks through the lush mountain terrain searching for wisdom, he studies scripture with a Chinese master; soaks up knowledge from saints and sages young and old, female and male; and learns ancient truths from poets and ascetics. Despite the great physical and mental hardships of this five-thousand-year-old solitary hermitage tradition, the monks’ single-minded devotion to liberation results in a tangible sense of joy and serenity, providing timeless insight for even the most modern among us into the causes of suffering—and the importance of finding freedom within our own hearts and minds, no matter what the circumstances. —N. Isaacs
Presented in association with International Buddhist Film Festival
The Art of Breaking Up FRANCE 2005 80 MINS
Friday Oct 7 9:15 PM ART07R Rafael
Saturday Oct 15 9:15 PM ART15S Sequoia
Director/Screenwriter Michel Deville Producer Rosalinde Deville Cinematographer Pierre-William Glenn Editor Andréa Sedlachova Cast Emmanuelle Béart, Charles Bearling, Sara Forestier, Dominique Blanc, Mathieu Demy Print Source Films Distribution
A bouncing romp of a bedroom farce, this final film of veteran director Michel Deville takes full advantage of Emmanuelle Beart’s brimming energy, as the chanteuse Lucette, and the spot-on comic timing of the cast caught in her irresistible orbit. As an ex-husband, a wealthy suitor and an adoring journalist vie for her attention, Lucette reunites with Edouard, the lover she’s missed so fervently. But a circus of ringing bells and slamming chamber doors prevents Lucette from learning that her true love is attempting to break it off with her and marry the heiress Viviane that afternoon. And of course, Edouard is unaware Lucette has been engaged by Viviane’s mother to sing at the wedding. Lush costume design and a galloping musical score combine with flash pans, a permeable “fourth wall” and a playful sauciness à la Tony Richardson’s Tom Jones, as these memorable characters sweep us off our feet. —E. King
Beah: A Black Woman Speaks US 2003 90 MINS
Saturday Oct 15 12:30 PM BEAH15R Rafael
Sunday Oct 16 5:15 PM BEAH16S Sequoia
Director/Screenwriter LisaGay Hamilton Producers Neda Armian, Jonathan Demme, LisaGay Hamilton, Joe Viola Cinematographer Soronto Green Editor Kate Amend Print Source Women Make Movies
Focus: Fespaco/PRAI and Women Make Movies Beah Richards does speak—with passion, humor and a sense of ongoing struggle—about her journey from childhood in the segregated South to a legendary career as an actress, poet and activist. Widely recognized as Sidney Poitier’s mother in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, Richards fills the camera with her fiery presence in both interviews and excerpts from her stage and screen performances. Perhaps most remarkable are her performances of her own poetry: visionary, radical words which have brought audiences to their feet, and which triggered an FBI investigation during the 1950s and ’60s. Director LisaGay Hamilton, who met Richards on the set of Beloved, lets us into their frank conversations that range from the limitations of Hollywood roles for African American women to Richards’ resolute belief in the power of words. —A. Corbin
valley of the docs world cinema
valley of the docs
Bed Stories RUSSIA 2004 70 MINS
Friday Oct 7 9:45 PM BED07R Rafael
Sunday Oct 9 6:45 PM BED09R Rafael
Director Kirill Serebrennikov Producers Ilya Khzghanovsky, Alexander Dullerain Screenwriters The Presnyakov Brothers Cinematographer Sergei Astakhov Editors Alexei Beresnev, Boris Taloverov Cast Alexander Sirin, Iya Savvina, Marina Golub, Natalia Kolyakanova Print Source Intercinema XXI Century
In this series of seven interwoven stories, acclaimed Russian stage director Kirill Serebrennikov follows in the tradition of Robert Altman’s Short Cuts, delving into the myriad ways that human lives are intricately connected yet perpetually isolated. Shot within the confines of the most private spaces—a soldier’s bunk, a hotel room, the boudoir of a wellkept wife—Bed Stories alternates between claustrophobia and intimacy as everyday dramas unfold via tragicomic misfires and miscommunications. From a middle-aged man browbeaten by his invalid mother, to a videotaped seduction gone horribly wrong, each vignette presents the bed as the focal point for our most basic emotions, the twilit relationship between love and death in all their gradations. As the ties (familial, sexual, or otherwise) between them are slowly revealed, the characters’ collective loneliness is not alleviated but rather deepens with an unspoken pathos that’s achingly recognizable. —A. Balkrishna
Meet the Silver Belles, the classiest, sassiest Harlem chorus girls ever to grace the stage . . . then and now. Ranging in age from 84 to 96, the women of this affectionate, be-bopping documentary are still dancing, relishing life and sharing a friendship that makes it all worthwhile. Weaving together their life stories—their glory days as the original 1930s Apollo Theatre Rockettes; working alongside the likes of Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald; USO tours and wartime work as barmaids and ship welders—director Heather Lyn McDonald conveys how deeply their art has kept these funny, passionate, fiercely independent women connected to each other and to the world around them. Newsreels and vintage stills illuminate their tales, creating a vivid picture of the past, while current rehearsals, performances and laughter-and-tears moments form an intimate, lovely portrait of a group of artists gleaming in their golden years. —D. Quinones
Sponsored by Coldwell Banker
Berkeley
Saturday Oct 8 6:45 PM BERK08S Sequoia
US 2005 87 MINS
Tuesday Oct 11 6:15 PM BERK11R Rafael
Director/Screenwriter Bobby Roth Producers Jeff White, Bobby Roth Cinematographer Steve Burns
Editors Carsten Becker, Emily Wallin Cast Nick Roth, Laura Jordan, Henry Winkler, Sarah Carter, Tom Morello, Bonnie Bedelia, Sebastian Tillinger, Wade Allain-Marcus, Sarah Bibb, Thomas Gibson Print Source Jungnrestless Films
Shot on location, Berkeley flows with energy, ideas and music that capture the excitement and danger of an iconic time and place. It’s 1968, and a world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll explodes around Ben Sweet, a clean-cut freshman at Cal. During class he studies math and literature, but it’s in the real world, among a colorful crew of new friends and lovers, where Ben’s true education occurs. Filmmaker Bobby Roth (Jack the Dog, MVFF 2001) has mined further into his life story to produce this vibrant portrait of a young man’s search for truth, love and meaning amid a cultural revolution, “. . . not because I thought myself so remarkable, but because I thought I was so very much a symbol of my generation.” Roth’s son, Nick, is Ben, adding a final touch of verisimilitude to this personal homage to a momentous era and the people who lived it. —B. Peterson
Sponsored by The Richmonds, Jane and Peter
Tuesday Oct 11 4:15 PM
Director Mijke de Jong Producer Hans de Wolf Screenwriter Heleen van der Meulen Cinematographer Goert Giltay Editor Dorith Vinke Cast Elske Rotteveel, Kees Scholten, Elsie de Brauw, Jaap Spijkers, Bright O’Richards Print Source Bonded Services
In Dutch with English subtitles. Earphones for children for audio of English subtitles at Rafael only. Merel is not a typical target for bullies. She is well liked in school, talented in her diving class and active in a local teen production of Turandot. In addition, she is the main form of entertainment for her adopted little brother, who is severely handicapped. Nevertheless, this lively yet bookish girl is plagued by a gang of boys and girls who are making her life miserable. Director Mijke de Jong deftly tackles a common theme with uncommon restraint, allowing her extraordinary lead actress, Elske Rotteveel, to shine. In a performance worthy of an Academy Award®, Rotteveel makes even the simplest gesture profound; just as Merel’s life seems to unravel around her, she surprises us with a gentle strength of spirit. Ages 9+ —J. Morrison
A Turkish 400 Blows, Director Ahmet Uluçay’s clever first feature tells the coming-of-age story of two friends whose passion for cinema is unstoppable. Recep and Mehmet dream of being film directors, but Recep’s apprenticeship to a watermelon vendor and Mehmet’s to an abusive barber yield little money, so the movie camera in a shop window is only a dream. Undaunted, they build a projector out of wood and a battery-run lamp, and manually pull scavenged filmstrips through the gate, trying to achieve the mystical formula of 24 frames per second. Along the way, Recep falls in love with a haughty town beauty who refuses to return his affection, and Mehmet reluctantly acts as the liaison for his smitten friend. Shot in the director’s own village of Tepecek, Boats out of Watermelon Rinds gives us a rare peek into rural Turkish culture and a reminder, perhaps, of our own adolescent dreams. —S. Handsher
Sponsored by Bellam Self-Storage & Boxes
Friday Oct 14 9 PM
Sunday Oct 16 7:45 PM
Director/Screenwriter/Editor Rian Johnson Producer Ram Bergman Cinematographer Steve Yedlin Cast Lukas Haas, Noah Fleiss, Megan Good, Noah Segan, Nora Zehetner, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emilie de Ravin Print Source Focus Features
A buzz-generating entry at Sundance this year, Brick won its first-time writer-director a Special Jury Prize for originality of vision. And what a vision it is—a dizzying amalgam of film noir tropes, classic detective-story banter, contemporary stylized visuals and a heavy dose of dark humor. Despite its high school setting, the film’s stars, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Third Rock from the Sun) and Lukas Haas (Witness), are all grown up and give inspired performances as Brendan, a fast-talking loner who begins a relentless search to solve the murder of the girl he loves, and The Pin, a 26-year-old drug dealer living in his mother’s basement. Twisting familiar character types in unexpected ways, Brick makes a fascinating and completely fresh study of contemporary teen angst. Along with the ultracool visuals and music, the film’s biggest draw is the revelation of Rian Johnson, whose debut promises more great things to come. —D. Quinones
Sponsored by WIRED magazine
Bride of Silence
VIETNAM/GERMANY 2005 114 MINS
Tuesday Oct 11 6:15 PM BRID11S Sequoia
Sunday Oct 16 4 PM BRID16R Rafael
Directors Doan Minh Phuong, Doan Thanh Nghia
Producer/Screenwriter Doan Minh Phuong Cinematographer Mak Hoi Man Editor Matt Villa Cast Truong Ngoc Anh, Truong Huu Quy, Nguyen Manh Thang Print Source Moonfish Films
The brother-sister directing team of Doan Thanh Nghia and Doan Minh Phuong conjures a long-ago, precolonial Vietnam of tiny villages and verdant forests that is glorious both to look at and listen to—the soundtrack is a luscious blend of Bach, traditional Vietnamese music and the deeply hypnotic buzz of the surrounding natural world. Ly An, a willful young unmarried woman, has been secretly slipping away from her village and is ostracized when she becomes pregnant, an unforgivable, and cruelly punishable, crime. Many years later, her child, now a young man, asks his stepfather to tell him about the mother he barely knew. Photographed with startling beauty, the film unfolds in overlapping flashbacks as young Hien spends years searching for his mother’s identity. The stories of mother and son blend past and present into a sad and vivid legend as Bride of Silence superbly evokes a myth in the making. —T. Booth
Sponsored by THE SAK
Bridge So Far: A Suspense Story
Director/Producer David L. Brown Screenwriter Stephen Most Cinematographers Vicente Franco, Dave Drum Editors Tal Skloot, Steven Baigel, Shirley Gutierrez Print Source David L. Brown Productions
Millions of dollars and thousands of lives at stake, catastrophic natural disaster looming in the not-too-distant future— the hallmarks of the thriller apply to the very current San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge’s eastern span affair, swirling in controversy 15 years after the bridge’s partial collapse during the Loma Prieta earthquake. Exposing forces behind outrageous delays and cost overruns, The Bridge So Far presents with coherence and humor a debacle that seems impossibly absurd, convoluted and without end. Originally conceived of by Emperor Norton, a Gold Rush tycoon who subsequently went broke and lost his mind, the Bay Bridge seems to embody Norton’s spirit, and madness reigns while everyone hopes the Big One won’t strike until the new span is completed. —T. Lopez
Preceded by
My Eyes Were Fresh, The Life and Photographs of John Gutmann Director Jane Reed US 2005 30 MINS San Francisco’s fascinating history is brought into focus through Gutmann’s impressive work.
Brotherly Jazz: The Music and Stories of Percy, Jimmy and Albert “Tootie” Heath US 2005 73 MINS
Friday Oct 7
7:15 PM BROT07S Sequoia
Saturday Oct 8 9:30 PM BROT08T 142 Throckmorton
Director/Cinematographer/Editor Jesse Block Producer Danny Scher Print Source TeleVisual Studios
In jazz, as in baseball and haute cuisine, the most consistently reliable performers are often overshadowed by mediaanointed superstars or this year’s model. So it is with the Heath Brothers, the legendary Philadelphia triumvirate of jazz. Together and apart, these unassuming professional musicians have lent their talents to an amazing array of wonderful albums, including the Modern Jazz Quartet. Local filmmaker Jesse Block’s joyful tribute (produced by fellow Bay Area resident and renowned music man Danny Scher, who originated the project in his backyard) exudes affection and low-key mastery, blending upbeat interviews with invigorating music. The Heath Brothers may not swing as hard as they once did, but that’s only because—like veteran shortstops or chefs—they’ve eliminated all unnecessary motion. —M. Fox
Sponsored by Subaru
Bye-Bye Blackbird FRANCE/LUXEMBOURG/GERMANY/UK/AUSTRIA 2005 99 MINS
Friday Oct 14 8:45 PM
Sunday Oct 16 1:30 PM
Director Robinson Savary Producer Jani Thiltges Screenwriter Arif Ali Shah Cinematographer Christophe Beaucarne Cast James Thiérée, Izabella Miko, Derek Jacobi, Jodhi May, Michael Lonsdale Print Source Samsa Film
This period drama set in the early years of the 20th century features a bravura performance by James Thiérrée (grandson of the late great Charlie Chaplin), who choreographed the thrilling aerial sequences and shares with his legendary forebear a prodigious gift for physical business. Thiérrée plays Josef, a former construction worker who delighted in dancing on girders high above the city but who now sweeps up at the circus. Once the big top’s owner spots the young roustabout defying gravity on the trapeze, however, he endeavors to pair Josef with his aerialist daughter Alice in a perilous sky-high pas de deux. First-time feature director Robinson Savary deftly offers a romantic view of big top life, with a poetic sensibility that speaks to the heart. Enhanced by cinematographer Christophe Beaucarne’s incandescent compositions, the graceful young actor is mesmerizing and heartbreaking, the very picture of a motheaten angel in his feathered, tattered costume. —P. Grady
Sponsored by Marin Independent Journal
Director Jonathan Parker Producers/Screenwriters Jonathan Parker, Catherine di Napoli Cinematographer Steven Fierberg Editor Rick Le Compte Cast Noah Wyle, Illeana Douglas, Kate Mara, Cloris Leachman, Keith Carradine, Valerie Perrine, Joanne Whalley, Jane Lynch
Print Source Parker Film Company
The hills of Marin County are alive with the sounds of bulldozers and protest songs in Jonathan Parker’s winning and witty adaptation of Henry James’ satirical novel The Bostonians, shot on location throughout Marin. Developer Gavin Ransom (Noah Wyle) and his environmentalist sister, Olive (Illeana Douglas), are squaring off over Gavin’s controversial plan to create a coastal tract of McMansions, when they meet Zoe Tripp (Kate Mara), a vibrant young folksinger who’s come to protest the planned project. Brother and sister both become infatuated with Tripp, and their battle for her affection leads each of them into deep water, emotionally and politically. The story’s updated scenario, from the women’s suffrage movement of the 1890s to the current eco-wars over development, provides director Parker with plenty of ripe targets for satire. Abetted by a top-notch cast, he succeeds in gently lampooning both sides of the struggle. —P. Moore
At the meeting points of Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and the Ukraine lies a rugged, isolated stretch of land unknown to tourists and forgotten by time. This fascinating snapshot of life in the region’s small towns and villages is Andrzej Klamt and Ulrich Rydzewski’s captivating vérité update of a vintage German “mountain film,” painting poetic portraits of the landscapes and personalities that make up this rural Eastern European intersection. Everyone gets to speak his piece, from street musicians and carnival magicians to the gypsies, rabbis, cowboys and others who populate the area’s rustic hamlets. The harsh climate and hand-to-mouth daily living may not make this terra incognita a Shangri-La, but the quiet dignity and reserve of the people nips all maudlin sentimentality in the bud. “For me, this isn’t the middle of nowhere,” one of the subjects proudly says, “this is the place that I call home.” —D. Fear
in association with the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
valley of the docs
world cinema
world cinema
Dalecarlians SWEDEN 2004 98 MINS
Friday Oct 14 6:30 PM DALE14R Rafael
Sunday Oct 16 12 PM DALE16S Sequoia
Director/Screenwriter Maria Blom Producer Lars Jönsson Cinematographer Peter Mokrosinski Editors Petra Ahlin, Michal Leszczylowski Cast Sofia Helin, Kajsa Ernst, Ann Petrén, Lars G. Aronsson, Barbro Enberg, Joakim Lindberg Print Source Swedish Film Institute
When unmarried thirty-something urbanite Mia (Sofia Helin) reluctantly returns to her hometown of Dalarna, in rural Sweden, to attend her father’s 70th birthday celebration, her re-entry causes turbulence throughout the village. The provincial townspeople overwhelm her and she is at odds with her two older sisters, both mothers, one deeply resentful and the other ditzy and newly divorced. Outrageous amounts of alcohol fuel arguments, entanglements and revelations, reminiscent of Thomas Vinterburg’s masterful The Celebration, with its inebriated indiscretions during a party. Director Maria Blom wades confidently into the fray, drawing a rich portrait of small-town life and expertly blending genres, revealing a penchant for dark humor as she lightens the dramatic load with small comedic moments and intimate familial scenes. Brilliant performances by its excellent ensemble cast highlight the sharp edges of this tragicomedy that turns the Wolfian dictum “you can’t go home again” on its head. —R. Armstrong
Saturday Oct 8 4:30
Thursday Oct 13 6 PM
Director Robert Adrian Pejo Producer Lá Szló Ra’ntor Screenwriters G. Csemer, Adrian Robert Pejo Cinematographer Vivi Dragan Vasile
Editor Rèka Lemhènyi Print Source Magyar Filmunió
Love and community somehow survive a precarious balance of poverty, hope and cynicism in this beautifully shot, darkly humorous tale of life on the edge in contemporary Romania. Radu, a young Roma teacher living in the city, returns home to bury his father. Home is Dallas, as it’s referred to by its Roma inhabitants, a shantytown situated next to a toxic trash dump where the residents work for a living. Though he wants to return to the city as soon as possible, Radu is instead drawn back into the world of his hometown, reencountering his first love, Oana, and slowly shedding his city ways, eventually entangling himself with the villagers’ fate and confronting his own. Reminiscent of Slavic filmmaker Emir Kusturica’s best work, Pejo’s satire of Eastern Bloc corruption and social rot treats its community of hustlers and glue-sniffing teens with both affection and acidic wit as it cuts to the bone. —D. Fear
Delwende BURKINA FASO/FRANCE 2005 90 MINS
Sunday Oct 9 7:45 PM DELW09R Rafael
Thursday Oct 13 8:45 PM DELW13S Sequoia
Director/Screenwriter S. Pierre Yaméogo Producers S. Pierre Yaméogo, Pierre-Alain Meier Cinematographer Jürg Hassler Editor JeanChristophe Ané Cast Blandine Yaméogo, Claire Ilboudo, Célestin Zongo Print Source New Yorker Films
The intertwined stories of a mother and daughter caught in crises that force them to face their lot as women in a rural village are powerfully rendered by lead actresses Claire Ilboudo and Blandine Yaméogo, whose characters confront injustice exacerbated by the manipulation of traditional beliefs. Pougbila (Ilboudo) suffers an untenable situation that is compounded by the mysterious deaths of several children in the village. Witchcraft is suspected, and after Pougbila is dispatched to an early marriage in a neighboring village, ostensibly for her protection, her mother, Napoko (Yaméogo), is identified as the witch and banished. Pougbila then sets out to find her mother in the city and encounters a world starkly different from the villages she knows. As she scours women’s shelters in search of Napoko, Pougbila grows into the righteous strength she has inherited from her mother. Underscored by Wasis Diop’s beautiful soundtrack, director S. Pierre Yaméogo’s vision of contemporary Africa is compelling viewing. —Z. Elton
Sponsored by Gordon Radley
Directors/Producers Kief Davidson, Richard Ladkani Cinematographer Richard Ladkani Editor Kief Davidson Print Source Emerging Pictures
Fourteen-year-old Basilio is the main breadwinner in his family and one of 800 Indio children who work alongside the men digging silver out of Bolivia’s Cerro Rico mountains. The mines are an exceedingly nasty place, with 24hour shifts of exploding dynamite, lung-coating dust and hurtling wagons. The workers and their families trust God to protect them on the outside, but they believe the mines are the domain of the devil, Tio, whom they venerate with effigies and offerings in each of the 500 tunnels that honeycomb the mountain. Basilio’s dreams extend far beyond Cerro Rico, but his future is hardly assured: He’s already worked in the mines for two years with no end in sight. Co-directors Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani have crafted a sobering film without a whiff of cheap sympathy or political polemic. Above all, their portrait is infused with the resilience and optimism of youth. —M. Fox
Sponsored by KQED
Different Drummers TOTAL PROGRAM 82 MINS
Sunday Oct 9 5:30 PM DIFF09T 142 Throckmorton
This septet of shorts sizzles with the wit, whimsy and wherewithal of the iconoclasts whose lives form the centerpiece of each tale. Theo Lipfert’s Taubman Sucks (7 mins) soliloquizes on the ethics of globalization, while Renate Fleischer’s Fast Crapper (7 mins) celebrates the idiosyncrasies of small-town life. Erin Hudson and Ben Wu’s Unhitched (13 mins) explores a community of mobile-home residents struggling to survive among the upwardly mobile, and Beth Armstrong’s Passion With a Pedigree (6 mins) honors the ageless tradition of true love Down Under. Leah Wolchok’s City of Mermaids (16 mins) takes us to Weekiwachee Spring, Florida, to meet a group of sexy senior sirens of the deep and Nancy Kelly’s Smitten (29 mins) presents Northern California’s most eccentric and ebullient art-lover, Rene di Rosa, and his magnificent collection. Samantha Rebillet’s Butterfly Man (6 mins) closes the show with a tender look at a man beginning to emerge from his cocoon. —K. Davis
Presented in association with Marin Arts Council
Friday Oct 14 6:15 PM DRUM14R Rafael
Sunday Oct 16
Director Zola Maseko Producers Chris Sievernich, Dumisani Dlamini, Rudolf Wichmann Screenwriter Jason Filardi Cinematographer Lisa Rinzler Editor Troy Takaki Cast Taye Diggs, Jason Flemyng, Gabriel Mann, Tumisho Masha, Moshidi Motshegwa, Tanya Baleson Print Source Armada Pictures International Focus: Fespaco/PRAI Sophiatown, South Africa, in the mid-50s: an interracial oasis of musicians, gangsters and hipsters; home to the likes of Henry Nxumalo (Taye Diggs), sportswriter for the magazine Drum , and his friends, such as the charismatic young political activist Nelson Mandela. Nxumalo’s world revolves around the seductions of nightclub life—to the frustration of his otherwise adoring wife (beautifully portrayed by Moshidi Motshegwa). Everything changes when he volunteers for an undercover assignment as a farm laborer for a brutal white boss. His subsequent exposé of the appalling conditions he experiences projects him and the magazine—along with his editor and German photographer-sidekick, both white—into the front lines of the growing resistance to apartheid. Based on a real-life story, director Zola Maseko’s impressive debut feature is a portrait of courage, interracial camaraderie and transcendence in adversity, superbly filtered through the tale of Nxumalo’s transformation from hedonist to investigative journalist par excellence. —Z. Elton
Ellektra
BELGIUM/GERMANY/NETHERLANDS 2005 103 MINS
Tuesday Oct 11 8:45 PM ELLE11S Sequoia
Saturday Oct 15 5:30 PM ELLE15R Rafael
Director/Producer Rudolf Mestdagh Screenwriters Daniel Lamberts, Rudolf Mestdagh Cinematographer Danny Elsen Editor Jan Hammeuw Cast Axelle Red, Gert Portael, Serge-Henri Valcke, Matthias Schoenaerts Print Source Cosmo Kino
This provocative postmodern allegory unfolds most potently in the gritty panache of its visuals. During the opening credits, a pair of long silver shears tear violently into newsprint, showing us what the characters will soon learn: In this world, cuts happen fast and unexpectedly, and they transform us irrevocably. Set in a mobster-controlled Brussels that has never looked more shell-shocked and decadent, Ellektra shuffles a dozen unconnected lives like a lurid, stacked deck of cards; each person meets his or her unique fate and loses “the thing you love most.” A mother loses her child, a DJ his hearing, a perfumer his nose and, with gut-wrenching swiftness, all tumble headlong into the film’s central dilemma: How do you cope with such damage? In the end, a binder of newspaper clippings, gathered by the elusive Ellen, holds the answer to how these lost souls might bind and heal their wounds. —J. Campbell
The Fakir
Saturday Oct 8 11:30 AM
Wednesday Oct 12 4 PM
Director Peter Flinth Producers Tivi Magnusson, Mie Andreasen Screenwriter Mette Heeno Cinematographer Eric Kress Editor Mogens Hagedorn Christiansen Cast Sidse Babett Knudsen, Moritz Bleibtreu, Julie Zangenberg, Aksel Leth, Ole Thestrup, Lisa Nilsson, Fares Fares, Peter Gantzler, Ashwani Chopra Print Source Danish Film Institute
In Danish with English subtitles. Earphones for children for audio of English subtitles at Rafael only. A series of unfortunate events befalls twins Emma and Tom when their father is killed and their mother relocates them to a small town where the local realtor/undertaker giddily signs a creaky, creepy mansion over to them. Soon they discover they are not alone . . . and the fun begins, in this sweetly off-kilter adventure that mixes magic, mystery and a big dollop of dark humor. Once in the house, the twins begin to uncover its secrets—not the least of which is Lombardo, a Spanish magician clamoring for release from a pen he’s been trapped in for 50 years. When a pair of jewel thieves make a menacing appearance, the resourceful siblings join forces with Lombardo and pull out all the stops to protect their new home and, ultimately, make their family happy and whole again. Ages 7+ —D. Quinones
Presented in association with the Danish Consulate
valley of the docs
world cinema
Drum
US/SOUTH AFRICA 2004 94 MINS
world cinema
children’s filmfest
Fateless
Sunday Oct 9 5:45 PM
FATE09R Rafael
Monday Oct 10 8:15 PM FATE10R Rafael
Director Lajos Koltai Producer Handras Hamori Screenwriter Imre Kértesz Cinematographer Gyuda Pados Editor Hajanl Sello Cast Marcell Nagy, Áron Dimény, András M. Kecskés, József Gyabronka, Endre Harkányi, Daniel Craig Print Source THINKFilm Special Screening Exquisitely modulated and with exceptional performances, this masterpiece of cinema emerges as a genuinely new way of looking at the Holocaust, speaking to a more profound dimension of the human condition. The film is based on the 2002 Nobel laureate Imre Kertész’s moving novel about his endurance of German concentration camps as a 14-year-old boy, and his attempts after the war to reconcile his experiences. Told from the point of view of a young boy, the story opens in Budapest, where the boy’s extended family watches as his father is shipped off to what they believe is a forced labor camp. Oscar®-nominated cinematographer Lajos Koltai (associated with director Istvan Szabo’s Mephisto, Sunshine and Being Julia) makes a grand directorial debut, demonstrating equal expertise with intimate character development and large-scale tableaux. —J. Plotkin
Sponsored by Gruber Family Foundation
Forty Shades of Blue
Director Ira Sachs Producers Margot Bridger, Ira Sachs, Mary Bing, Jawal Nga, Donald Rosenfeld Screenwriters Ira Sachs, Michael Rohatyn Cinematographer Julian Whatley Editor Affonso Goncalves Cast Rip Torn, Dina Korzun, Darren Burrows, Paprika Steen, Red West, Jenny O’Hara, Jerry Chipman, Andrew Henderson Print Source Capital Ent/First Look Pictures
Soaked in smoky R&B and deep soul grooves, Forty Shades of Blue tells the story of Laura, a young Russian woman living in Memphis with a much older legendary music producer. In bars and bedrooms a love triangle forms, the film following Laura’s gradual estrangement in the wake of her ill-fated affair with her lover’s alienated son. As buried emotions burn their way to the surface, the characters reveal not only private anguish but a profound search for inner peace. Rip Torn is mesmerizing in a brilliant performance reminiscent of his work in edgy ’70s films like Payday and Coming Apart . Winner of the 2005 Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, Forty Shades of Blue is a multilayered, exquisite illumination of the hearts and souls of three tangled lives. —J. Shepard Sponsored by SAG Indie
Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher
Wednesday Oct 12 7:15 PM
Sunday Oct 16 4 PM
Director/Producer/Screenwriter/Cinematographer David Di Sabatino Editor Ron Zauneker Print Source Jester Media
One of the most fascinating, enigmatic characters to grace a movie screen this year, Lonnie Frisbee was a charismatic Pied Piper who found God as a teenager, gave up LSD and became one of the original Jesus freaks. His story corkscrews from Orange County to the Haight to a homemade seminary in Novato and back to Southern California, where his talent with young people manifested itself in enormous growth in the Calvary Chapel and Vineyard church movements. A true believer of uncommon integrity, Frisbee was also a conflicted gay man whose homosexuality proved a revelation that his church could not abide. Frisbee was asked to leave his ministry, and, more than a decade after his death from AIDS, he has been erased from history or simply forgotten. Propelled by a touching soundtrack of vintage Christian folk-rock, David Di Sabatino’s remarkably evenhanded “Bible story” examines a key chapter in California spirituality with passion and insight. —M. Fox
Monday
Directors/Producers Eric Black, Frauke Sandig Cinematographer Eric Black Editor Silke Botsch Print Source Umbrella Films What would humanity look like if we could choose our offsprings’ genetic makeup—or at least their appearance? It’s already underway. In our increasingly tech-tailored world, the degree to which reproduction is customized (mostly in the form of blond hair and blue eyes) shouldn’t be shocking, but it is. Set in Los Angeles—identified as the fertility capital of the world—this visually stunning film reads reality as science fiction in its thorough examination of reproduction technology, from surrogacy to egg donation to choosing the sex of fetuses. Candid stories from all sides emerge through an interweave of interviews, cinema vérité and shots of dark urban landscapes. While it’s understood that children are gifts no matter how they get here, questions about mortality and issues of race, class and globalism come together here to create a portrait of reproduction in the balance. —C. Lozano
world cinema
us cinema
valley of the docs
Frozen Land
FINLAND 2005 124 MINS
Thursday Oct 13 9:30 PM FROL13R Rafael
Saturday Oct 15 2:45 PM FROL15R Rafael
Director Aku Louhimies Producer Markus Selin Screenwriters Aku Louhimies, Jari Rantala Cinematographer Rauno Ronkainen Editor Samu Heikkila Cast Jasper Paakkonen, Mikko Leppilampi, Pamela Tola, Petteri Summanen Matleena Kuushiemi, Mikko Kouki Print Source
The Finnish Film Foundation
A hot 500 Euro note ignites a string of interwoven tales in this negative “pay it forward” story that tracks near misses and bullseye hits in the gritty, icy streets of Helsinki. Niko, son of an unemployed professor, kicks off the downward spiral, using his best friend Tuomas’ computer hacker tools to forge the money, which subsequently lands petty criminal Isto in jail. Isto’s high jinks cannot be contained, but the comedy becomes a bit skewed when he meets a recovering-alcoholic vacuum salesman who falls off the wagon with a vengeance. Policewoman Hannele arrives at the scene to help. An unhappy mother with a disempowered professor husband, Hannele crosses paths with Tuomas, and their lives, as well as Niko’s, are changed forever. Director Aku Louhimies (Lovers and Leavers, MVFF 2003) employs semi-improvised dialogue and gripping visuals to guide his characters through the depths. —E. King
The Girl from Auschwitz
SWEDEN 2005 76 MINS - TOTAL PROGRAM 106 MINS Saturday Oct 8 3 PM GIRL08R
Director/Screenwriter/Editor Stefan Jarl Cinematographer Haldor Gunnarsson Print Source Stefan Jarl AB
Against a backdrop of searing historical footage lyrically interwoven with images of daily struggle in contemporary Israel, we meet Cordelia Edvardson, a journalist, author and Auschwitz survivor who has dedicated her career to exposing injustice in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a child in Auschwitz she learned a terrible lesson: “You have to care, or else you’ll die.” As an adult, Edvardson left a life in Sweden to take up her self-appointed task in Jerusalem. Renowned documentary filmmaker Stefan Jarl has created an unusually sensitive film that sounds out deep resonances as it moves carefully among Edvardson’s camp experience, Jarl’s own understanding of the Holocaust and Edvardson’s efforts to address oppression today. —M. Simon
Preceded by Poumy Director Sam Ball
FRANCE/US 2004 30 MINS Extraordinary circumstances turn an ordinary young French Jewish mother into an ardent member of the underground resistance.
Presented in association with the Swedish Consulate
Girlfriend, Someone Please Stop the World JAPAN 2004 105 MINS Friday Oct 7 7:30 PM GIRF07R Rafael
This visually haunting, beautiful character study follows the intimate, complex connection of two young Japanese women. Kyoko is a photographer in search of a subject; Miho, a hairdresser in search of her father. From the moment they meet, when Kyoko asks Miho to pose, these dynamic women form a bond that transcends the pain and confusion of their respective realities. The fragmented story is built around distinct moments in time, the camera capturing the young women as they navigate the delicate world around them. Director Hiroki combines still photographs and long stretches of film without dialogue to create a dreamy, hypnotic collage that unfolds like a distant memory. With subtle, stunning performances from the two lead actresses and a fascinating focus on the power of the camera eye, this film quietly becomes a stirring meditation on the power of love and friendship that resonates well after the final frame. —B. Peterson
Guernsey
BELGIUM/NETHERLANDS 2005 90 MINS
Friday Oct 7 9 PM GUER07R Rafael
Tuesday Oct 11 9:30 PM GUER11S Sequoia
Director/Screenwriter Nanouk Leopold Producers Stienette Bosklopper, Rudolf Mestdagh Cinematographer Richard Van Oosterhout
Editor Katarina Wartena Cast Fedja van Huêt, Maria Kraakman, Johannater Steege, Frank Vercruyssen Print Source Holland Film
With visual self-assurance and narrative skill, Nanouk Leopold wastes not a syllable but lets elegant, moody image after image build to tell her story. In this way, we come to occupy the same watchful position as the film’s protagonist, Anna, an international aid worker who travels every few weeks to Egypt, leaving her husband and son at home in Holland. On one trip, Anna discovers the suicide of a co-worker whom everyone, even the co-worker’s husband, thought was happy. This leads Anna to begin questioning her own closest relationships—what secrets, if any, lurk there, unspoken and hidden behind the facade of pleasantries? Guernsey explores the sometimes vast, silent terrain that can develop in long-term relationships, and it does so in the language of glances and gestures that so often substitute for conversation. It is, in other words, that cinematic rarity: a picture really worth a thousand late-night talks. —J. Campbell
world cinema
world cinema
world cinema
v(ision)fest
The Hi De Ho Show
Saturday Oct 8 10 PM HIDE08S Sequoia
MVFF’s musicologist in residence, grand vizier of the vox populi and über-meister of all things—well, all culturally eclectic things—returns to Mill Valley with the Hi De Ho Show. This year, John Goddard promises to reveal his take on the ’60s, that pivotal decade that made the twentieth century come of age, ready or not. This selection from Goddard’s personal video archive will be an array of gems from the bobby-sox-and-blue-jeans innocence of the early part of the decade to the decadence of flower power and psychedelia. Whether you lived, cruised, slept or surfed through the ’60s; whether you weren’t born yet; or whether you just can’t remember . . . this year’s Hi De Ho show celebrates an incredible time in our musical and cultural lives. After all, it’s the era that took us from Venus in Blue Jeans to Careful With That Axe, Eugene—in a single decade. Don’t miss it! —Z. Elton
Sponsored by Tureaud Events
Director Paula van der Oest Producers Jacqueline de
Bob Last Screenwriter Tamara Bos Cinematographer Bert Pot Editor Sander Vos Cast Henry Orri, Priscilla Knetemann, Bram van den Hooven Print Source Holland Film
When a shroud of mist off the coast of Scotland parts to reveal her ferry from the Netherlands, Agnes, clutching the urn containing her brother, is shaken from troubled memories to find two children hiding in her car. Runaway Chrissy is fiercely protective of her little brother and only warily accepts the shelter of Agnes’ childhood summer home. Despite a 60-year age gap, these two begin to uncover what they have in common, including a complex relationship each had with an older brother. What the young girl is running from, and what Agnes cannot face, is the link holding together this tenuous connection, but when their cottage hideaway is threatened, an instinctive struggle to defend each other has tragic consequences. Director Paula van der Oest (Oscar®-nominated Zus and Zo) draws flawless performances from young and old, bringing these complex characters into their own in gorgeous, widescreen Scotland. —E. King
Sponsored by Crystal Geyser
Highway Courtesans
Saturday Oct 15 3 PM
US/INDIA 2005 71 MINS
HIGH15R Rafael
Director Mystelle Brabbeé Producers Mystelle Brabbeé, Anura Idupuga, Tom Donahue Cinematographers Mystelle Brabbeé, Todd Holmes, Craig McTurk, Purva Naresh Editor Todd Holmes Print Source Women Make Movies
Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action US 2005 88 MINS
Wednesday Oct 12 9:15 PM
Director Roberta Grossman Producer Lisa B. Thomas Cinematographer Dyanna Taylor Editors Vivien Hillgrove, Blake West Print Source Katahdin Productions
Focus: Women Make Movies Bucking tradition is never easy, but in central India’s rural Bachara community, Guddi Chauhan finds it nearly impossible. Situated along a busy trucking route, Bachara has for centuries made prostitution its primary profession. When Guddi tries to reject the traditional fate of women in her village—a life, she says, “on the road to nowhere”—she faces ridicule and threats from the men closest to her. Alcoholism, AIDS and abuse complicate her already vulnerable position. Sensitively and beautifuly shot over a timespan of nearly 10 years, this powerful film records Guddi’s transformation from a 17-year-old girl loyally selling herself to support her family into a young woman determined to control her destiny. Highway Courtesans captures both resignation and hope in a region where fathers sell their daughters for sex and marriage, and offers rare perspective into this ancient community, whose very existence is challenged by the goal of a better life. —C. Lozano valley of the docs
According to Gwich’in Athabascan mythology, a piece of caribou heart lives inside every human heart, and a piece of human heart lives within every caribou one; in this way, each knows what the other is doing. This integrated worldview is Homeland ’s central theme. A cinematic weaving together of the lives of indigenous peoples in disparate parts of the US—the Gwich’in Athabascan tribes of Alaska, the Northern Cheyenne in Montana, the Navajo in New Mexico and the Penobscot in Maine—Homeland argues that the fate of native peoples, and our own fate as well, depends on the outcome of their struggles for cultural and environment preservation against a formidable opponent: an alliance of corporations and the federal government. In four deeply moving tales, Homeland paints a powerful portrait of Native American activists fighting the “new Indian wars” over their homelands with skill and determined resistance. —S. Hollister
Sponsored by Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
Mill Valley Film Festival
world cinema
Goeij,
valley of the docs
Hoppity Goes to Town
Sunday Oct 9 11:30 AM
HOPP09S Sequoia
US 1941 78 MINS
Director Dave Fleischer Print Source Paramount Repertory Dave and Max Fleischer’s genius far exceeded the renown of their most popular characters, Popeye and Betty Boop. Opening a studio five years before Disney in 1915, Dave Fleischer developed the technique of “rotoscoping” live images, which turned them into animated ones and gave lifelike motion to the most basic characters. This new print (a stunning transfer originally done by UCLA Film Archives) of Hoppity Goes to Town, one of the studio’s best features, exemplifies the Fleischer Brothers’ sophisticated tone and exceptional storytelling. A village of insects in a city lot is threatened by construction. Hoppity, a Jimmy Stewart-like self-effacing hero who comes to the city to be with Honey Bee, gets embroiled in what amounts to a good old-fashioned real estate scandal. With swinging songs and a hive of great characters, Hoppity is fresh and classic, a real delight. All ages —J. Morrison Presented in association with Marin Country Day School
Immediate Boarding
Sunday Oct 9 10 AM
Tuesday Oct 11 4 PM
SWEDEN 2003 89 MINS
IMME09R Rafael
IMME11R Rafael
Director/Screenwriter Ella Lemhagen Producers Charlotta Denward, Tomas Michaelsson Cinematographer Anders Bohman Editor Malin Lindström Cast Amanda Davin, Helena AF Sandeberg, Jørgen Langhelle, Torkel Petersson Print Source Swedish Film Institute In Swedish with English subtitles. Earphones for children for audio of English subtitles at Rafael only. Move over Hayley Mills and Lindsay Lohan! Swedish tween Amanda Davin takes the classic Parent Trap dual role one better—she plays Julia, a smart-mouthed tomboy, and her (unrelated) look-alike, Martin, a shy piano prodigy. Total strangers who meet in a chance encounter at the airport as each is being sent off to visit the absent half of their divorced parents, they pull a sudden switcheroo and the fun begins: Impulsive Julia lands happily on Martin’s father’s pig farm, and straight-laced Martin is overwhelmed by the dazzling weirdness of life with Julia’s mom and the flashy TV-star “gladiator” she’s about to marry. Though the parents are delighted by their troublesome children’s seemingly new attitudes, things soon go haywire, until the eventual arrival at a happy ending, where the kids discover how much they are loved for who they really are. Ages 8+ —D. Quinones
In Memory of My Father US 2005 96 MINS
Saturday Oct 8 6 PM
Sunday Oct 9 4:15 PM
INME08R Rafael
INME09R Rafael
Director/Producer/Screenwriter Christopher Jaymes Cinematographer Abe Levy Editors Christopher Jaymes, Eric Cole Cast Jeremy Sisto, Christopher Jaymes, Judy Greer, Monet Mazur, Matt Keeslar, Eric Michael Cole, Pat Healy, Christine Lakin, Nicholle Tom Print Source TCDM & Associates
An aged Hollywood producer’s wake brings together his dysfunctional offspring for a marathon day of drug-taking, infidelity and amateur filmmaking. The youngest of the three grown sons, Chris (writer-producer-director Christopher Jaymes) has been charged by the now-deceased patriarch with documenting his death and its aftermath. Shot on handheld video, the film plays out as a more frenetic version of the Dogme 95 style, oscillating from moments of wild laughter to awkward tears. The oft-filmed premise is energized by a tender musical score from Scottish pop heroes Belle and Sebastian and by a quirky ensemble cast whose pitch-perfect improvisation lends a remarkable quality of authenticity to the faux-documentary aesthetic. In Memory of My Father will surely garner comparisons to Six Feet Under , not only due to Jeremy Sisto’s knockout performance, but also due to the film’s deceptively intelligent rendering of the innumerable transgressions that come with being human. —M. Talbott Sponsored by A Party Center
The Incomparable Miss C.
CANADA 2004 105 MINS Sunday Oct 16 11 AM
INCO16R Rafael
Director Richard Ciupka Producers Jacques Bonin, Claude Veille Screenwriter Dominique Demers Cinematographer Steve Danyluk
Editor Simon Webb Cast Marie-Chantal Perron, Pierre Lebeau Print Source Films Vision 4
In French with English subtitles. Earphones for children for audio of English subtitles at Rafael only. Life in a dreary town gets an unexpected but much-needed jolt when a postman’s mail sack lands in front of Miss C., and she becomes the self-appointed postlady—an excellent position from which to interfere in residents’ affairs and restore joy to their lives. Among those who need her aid are 12-year-old Léonie, who is angry and confused about her father’s disappearance; and Abraham and Napoléon, the repressed sons of a strait-laced prime minister who sees only life’s duties. Miss C. engages Léonie’s help in her mail deliveries, and together they bring the boys and their tutor, Timothée, out into the world. As this group turns its attention to restoring the town’s rundown theater, a devious gambling mogul, Mr. Moron, plots to expand his casino empire, with sinister implications for the town. Only Miss C. can stop him, and share with all her incomparable touch of “spling.” Ages 7+ —R. McNair
children’s filmfest
children’s filmfest
us cinema
children’s filmfest
Monday Oct 10 6:30 PM INNO10C Cinema
Director Luis Mandoki Producers Lawrence Bender, Luis Mandoki, Alejandro Soberon Kuri Screenwriters Oscar Torres, Luis Mandoki Cinematographer Juan Ruiz Anchía Editor Aleshka Ferrero Cast Carlos Padilla, Leonor Varela, Gustavo Muñoz, José María Yazpik, Ofelia Medina, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Jesus Ochoa Print Source BB Entertainment Marketing
At an age when most children are running carefree on a playground, Chava must agonize over the possibility of being drafted into war. El Salvador in the 1980s was a bloody battlefield and no place for an 11-year-old. Although he works to help his newly single mother and wants desperately to explore a crush on a pretty classmate, Chava’s innocence is threatened most by a corrupt government conscripting children to bolster its failing effort to suppress the FMLN peasant resistance. Despite a forbidden anthem of love and peace that reaches him via a treasured radio, there actually seems to be little hope for Chava. The remarkable script is based on the true story of writer Oscar Orlando Torres’ embattled childhood. With strong performances and a stunningly lush landscape, renowned Mexican director Luis Mandoki (When a Man Loves a Woman) superbly details the plight of child soldiers everywhere. —E. King
Friend of the Festival Screening Free to members, ticket required Sponsored by Tamalpais Bank
Directors Keefe Murren, Nelson Walker Producers Jason Harlow, Keefe Murren, Nelson Walker Cinematographers Keefe Murren, Brock Graham, Mary Molina, Mary Robertson Editor Lynn True Print Source Murren-Walker Films
As Zinhle, a young South African woman with AIDS, recounts her initial denial of the diagnosis and her subsequent antiretroviral treatment, we witness her evolution into a captivating spokeswoman and an inspiration to those around her. iThemba follows Zinhle as her HIV-positive Sinikithemba Choir travels to an international AIDS conference to perform and uplift—and to remind us that, as Zinhle declares, helping people is part of being human. —A. Corbin Preceded by Rosevelt’s America Directors Roger Weisberg, Tod Lending
US 2004 26 MINS A new émigré from Liberia, Rosevelt Henderson notices aspects of America often overlooked—such as its peace and comparatively open middle class—and considers them a miracle. This hopeful yet very down-to-earth documentary lets its characters narrate their own ups and downs, including Rosevelt’s capricious employment situation and weekly phone calls with the wife he had to leave behind.
The Lady from Sockholm
Saturday Oct 8 4:15 PM
Saturday Oct 15 12 PM
Directors Eddy Von Mueller, Evan Lieberman
Producer/Screenwriter Lynn Lamousin
Cinematographers Evan Lieberman, Jon Swindall Editors Jon Swindall, Jacob Gentry Cast Vince Tortorici, Chris Clabe, Eric Guins, Reay Kaplan, Melanie Parker, Annie Petere, R.T. Steckel, Melanie Walker, Evy Wright Print Source Kittyboy Creations, Inc.
It’s Wool War II and Knitler’s forces are on the march—out to unravel the tightknit operation of private eye Terrence M. Cotton. Ensnared by the villainous stinkers Big Toeny and Phoot Fung-us, Cotton tracks the disappearance of a stooge named Darnell and falls under the spell of femme fatale Heelda Brum in this absolutely delightful send-up of a 1940s film noir, enacted entirely by an all-star cast of thespian sock puppets! Hilarious scenes tread lightly and deftly on screen classics such as Double Indemnity, Chinatown, and of course Orson Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai —but all film references aside, this one is pure pleasure for the whole family in a one-size-fits-all tale that spins a ripping good yarn. —K. Davis
Preceded by
The Blue Aspic Director Thomas J. Cabela
US 2004 13 MINS A lugubrious, darkly funny film-noirette based on the tale by Edward Gorey.
Director/Screenwriter Miguel Littin Producer Coke Infante Cinematographer Miguel Joan Littin M. Editor Rudolfo Wedeles Cast Ayman Zbu Zoulouf, Tamara Acosta, Alejandro Goic, Francisca Merino Print Source Vision International
A steady flow of immigrants traveled between South America and the Middle East in the early 1900s, and acclaimed Chilean writer-director Miguel Littin, himself a descendant of Palestinian Christian immigrants, examines this historical footnote with The Last Moon. In this bittersweet tale of two unlikely friends in Palestine in 1914 as World War I looms, Jacob, a newly arrived Argentinian Jew, buys land from Soliman, a Palestinian Orthodox Christian, in order to build a home. The two strike up a friendship, little knowing that this small parcel of arid land will become a deciding factor in the men’s friendship and in the violence that slowly engulfs them. Littin captures this world through affectionate scenes of daily life—tea with guests; the postman reading the mail to its recipients; weddings and other festivities. In the end, no one can escape the conflict that sweeps down upon them all. —S. Hollister
valley of the docs
Lepel
NETHERLANDS 2005 92 MINS
Friday Oct 14 4:15 PM LEPE14R Rafael
Sunday Oct 16 10 AM
LEPE16S Sequoia
Director Willem van de Sande Bakhuyzen Producers Leontine Petit, Joost de Vries Screenwriter Mieke de Jong Cinematographer Guido van Gennep Editor Wouter Jansen Cast Loes Luca, Carke van Houten, Barry Atsma, Joep Truijen, Neelhe de Vree, Kees Hulst Print
Source Lemming Film
In Dutch with English subtitles. Earphones for children for audio of English subtitles at Rafael only. There’s something about kids’ films from the Netherlands. Subtle absurdities and visual quirks mix with clever storytelling and endearing characters, making it impossible for viewers of any age to resist their charms. Lepel is just such a film. Hilarious and heartbreaking all at once, and with terrific performances by its young stars, it is the story of a 9-year-old boy’s search for a family. Lepel (“Spoon” in Dutch), who lives a lonely life with his grandmother, uses his astonishing skill with numbers to keep inventory of the millions of stolen buttons she traffics for a living, while he waits for his parents to return from a round-the-world hot-air balloon trip and restore his happiness. When he encounters a girl living inside a clothing display at the local department store, Lepel’s life takes a dramatic turn, and he discovers what it takes to make one’s dreams come true. Ages 7+ —D. Quinones
Sponsored by Nutella
Let the Children Lead
Saturday Oct 8
2005 - TOTAL PROGRAM 87 MINS
Beneath labels like “lost generation,” “me generation,” “gen X” and “gen Y,” youth continues as ever to be a touchstone for change. This cache of short films testifies to all kinds of change, some historical and some very personal. An adolescent preoccupation exploited by popular media, negative body image is addressed both in Holland’s XL (in Dutch with English subtitles; earphones for children for audio of English subtitles at Rafael only), in which two girls and a boy pose some thought-provoking alternatives to the norm, and in the United States’ Flutter Kick, about a boy who can’t take off his T-shirt while swimming The concept of terrorism is challenged when a Pakistani child wanders across an invisible border in the Academy Award ®-nominated The Little Terrorist (in English). When adults got bogged down in politics during the ’60s civil rights actions, young people assumed leadership roles, in the Academy Award®-winning Mighty Times: The Children’s March Ages 10+ —J. Morrison
Director Radu Mihaileanu Producers Denis Carot, Marie Masmonteil, Radu Mihaileanu Screenwriters Radu Mihaileanu, Alain-Michel Blanc Cinematographer Remy Chevrin Editor Ludo Troch Cast Yael Abecassis, Roschdy Zem, Moshe Agazai, Mosche Abebe, Sirak M. Sabahat, Roni Hadar, Meki Shibru Sivan, Mimi Abonesh Kebebe, Yitzhak Edgar Print Source Menemsha Films
Special Screening: Spotlight on Human Rights In the mid-1980s, Ethiopians displaced by civil war and famine await help in a Sudanese refugee camp. Hope is at hand for Falashas—Ethiopians Jews—as “Operation Moses” begins, and thousands are airlifted to new homes in Israel. Seizing an opportunity, a non-Jewish mother sends her son to join the exodus in the identity of another boy who has recently died. Placed with liberal adoptive parents, the newly named Schlomo (the wonderful Moshe Agazai) struggles not only with his secret, but with a new country and culture, and with insidious racism. But he’s smart and thrives academically, and he finds support within his family and in Qes Amhra (Yitzhak Edgar), an Ethiopian community leader and sometime-mentor. Epic in scope, human to the core, director Mihaileanu’s achievement is impressive as big issues—famine, racism, love and compassion—are played out in a single life. —Z. Elton
Sponsored by Jennifer Coslett MacCready
Saturday Oct 8 10 AM
Saturday Oct 15 10:15 AM
SWEDEN 2004 82
MAX08S Sequoia
MAX15R Rafael
Director Erik Leijonborg Producers Waldemar Bergendahl, Cecilia Norman Screenwriter Lars Lundström Cinematographer Rolf Lindström
Editor Anders Nylander Cast Axel Skogberg, Per Svensson, Tintin Anderzon, Johan Rheborg, Leo Holm, Jonas Karlsson Print Source Swedish Film Institute
In Swedish with English subtitles. Earphones for children for audio of English subtitles at Rafael only. Adored all his life, 8-year-old Max happily anticipates becoming the big brother of a new baby boy. When that boy is born a girl, his hopes are dashed. Feeling invisible to his parents and displaced by his mewling baby sister, Max takes bad advice from Josef, a devious talking turtle who convinces the boy that he may soon be on sale at the Kid Store. One seriocomical misunderstanding follows another, as Max falls under the spell of Josef’s subversive, self-serving interpretations of Max’s parents’ innocent but clumsy actions. The film’s sunny, colorful look is a sharp counterpoint to Max’s unfounded yet understandable fears. In Sweden’s first foray into live action with a computer-generated character, the motor-mouthed Josef makes a dubious yet strangely endearing companion for Max, and their relationship illuminates believable and humorous responses to the age-old dilemma of sibling rivalry. Ages 8+ —R. McNair
children’s filmfest
children’s filmfest
world
children’s filmfest
Max and Josef: Double Trouble
MINS
The Milk Can US 2005 95 MINS
Friday Oct 14 7:15 PM MILK14R Rafael
Saturday Oct 15 9:30 PM MILK15R Rafael
Director/Screenwriter/Editor Matt Kresling Producer Seth Toedter Cast Grady Cousins, Donna Wieczorkowski, Bennett Jones, Wes Atkinson, Joe Collins Print Source Matt Kresling
Fortuna blitzes, but Ferndale lets loose a long bomb! Sound like football? It’s not; when the annual football game in a 70-year rivalry between two rural Northern California towns is called on account of weather, war ceases to be a metaphor and becomes reality. First-time director Matt Kresling’s fast-paced, inventive satire races toward a smalltown apocalyptic showdown, hauling everyone in its wake, including the chess club and Linus, a history teacher inspired by past battles and by a wartime romance with the local deputy. On the one hand, you think, “It can’t happen here”; on the other, you begin to believe that it just might. Aided by a tightly written script and effective acting, The Milk Can is an ingenious no-budget production that is a treat to watch. —P. Moore
In this tender and unique coming-of-age story, college student Tadokoro joins an erotic fiction writing club— comprised of a band of nerdy guys who don’t fit in anywhere else. There is one young woman in the group, Mayama, and Tadokoro slowly falls in love with her. She, however, has something else in mind. She uses Tadokoro as a kind of guinea pig for sexual research for her writing—pushing his limits into some uncomfortable, even dark, realms of sexuality. Though a winsome young co-worker tries to start a romance with Tadokoro, he is drawn to the intense, unpredictable and highly sexual Mayama. Will she break his heart, or will he win hers? Erotic, intelligent and very funny, Moon and Cherry is a striking new work from the young woman director Yuki Tanada, clearly a filmmaker to watch. —J. Shepard
Music Is My Life, Politics My Mistress US 2005 110 MINS Sunday Oct 9 5 PM MUSI09S Sequoia
Monday Oct 10 9 PM MUSI10T 142 Throckmorton
Director/Producer Donnie L. Betts Cinematographers Mark Alston, Charles Gary Editor Dave Wruck Print Source No Credits Productions, LLC
Poet, jazz singer, stage actor, composer, trade union activist, radio host and senatorial candidate, Oscar Brown Jr. was a self-educated polymath whose voice, both musical and political, reached the empowered and disempowered alike. Born into one of Chicago’s most respected African American families, Brown took personal and professional risks few others dared to; at the height of his career as a Broadway playwright and singer, he maintained an active affiliation with both the American Meat Packers’ Association and the American Communist Party. This jazzy, highenergy biographical portrait mixes a masterful blend of archival and animated sequences and features renowned friends and fans including Al Jarreau, Abbey Lincoln, Studs Terkel and Amiri Baraka. Irrepressible, outspoken and extraordinarily talented, Brown lived life in the thick of things, and he made miracles happen. Music Is My Life, Politics My Mistress keeps his dancing spirit alive. —A. Carleton-Glen
My Nikifor
Director Krzysztof Krauze Producer Juliusz Machulski Screenwriters Joanna Kos-Krauze, Krzysztof Krauze Cinematographer Krzysztof Ptak, p.s. c. Editor Krzysztof Szpetmánski Cast Krystyna Feldman, Roman Gancarczyk, Lucyna Malec, Jerzy Gudejko, Artur Steranko, Jowita Miondlikowska Print Source Film Polski-Promotion Agency
In an extraordinary cross-gender performance, actress Krystyna Feldman becomes the curmudgeonly Polish folk artist Nikifor, a naïve painter whose prolific talent and sheer stubbornness brought him national fame. Based on a true story, My Nikifor (Crystal Globe award, Karlovy Vary 2005) unfolds in mid-20th-century Poland across a gray winter landscape further oppressed by Communist party politics and perpetual shortages. The sickly beggar Nikifor, a cantankerous troll who dismisses everything and everyone, freely invades other people’s homes uninvited in order to paint. When he claims the studio of state-employed painter Marian Wlosinski, Wlosinski’s life begins to unravel. He can’t figure out where Nikifor came from or where he belongs, can’t get rid of him and, ultimately, can’t help but adopt him at the expense of his own comfort and family. This vivid character study presents Nikifor as the necessary grit that upsets complacency, leaving us to ponder the Nikifors in our world today. —J. Campbell Sponsored by Joie de Vivre Hospitality
Mill Valley Film Festival us cinema
world cinema
valley of the docs
world cinema
my tiny universe US 2004 94 MINS - TOTAL PROGRAM 105 MINS
Friday Oct 7 6:45 PM MYTI07R Rafael
Wednesday Oct 12 9:30 PM MYTI12S Sequoia
Directors/Screenwriters Glen Scantlebury, Lucy Phillips Producer Lucy Phillips Cinematographer Eliot Rockett Editors Todd Miller, Glen Scantlebury Cast John Heard, Lesley Ann Warren, Debi Mazar, Andy Comeau Print Source Pavement Pictures Inc. Crackling, animated performances and witty dialogue fuel the frenzied action in this fast-paced satire of life in Tinseltown. Dickie Bates is a washed up actor ready to cash it in. Bobby Devillin is a sleazy A-list producer with a disgruntled wife and a pregnant mistress. When a twist of fate brings them together, an acerbic and surprising series of events unfolds. Luring Devillin to his home, Dickie pushes the big-shot player’s weak spots by toying with the one thing that matters—his cell phone. The actor’s small house soon fills with an irrepressible crowd of characters linked to the messy lives of these two men. Abetted by a superb cast, directors and former Bay Area residents Glen Scantlebury and Lucy Phillips (My Dubious Sex Drive, MVFF 1995; Steal America, MVFF 1991) deliver the goods. —B. Peterson
Preceded by
Ruby’s Tuesday Director Heather Cappiello
US 2005 11 MINS Should Ruby yield to temptation on this luscious afternoon?
Need
Sponsored by Frank Howard Allen Realtors
Thursday Oct 13 7:15 PM
Friday Oct 14 9:30 PM
Director Rob Nilsson Screenwriters Bruce Marovich, Rob Nilsson Cinematographer Mickey Freeman Editors Chikara Motomura, Alix Lacoste Cast Brette McCabe, Marianne Heath, Diane Galdry, Gabriela Maltz-Larkin, David Fine, Cory Duval Print Source 9 @ Night Films
San Francisco Tenderloin district denizens of the night reluctantly emerge in the darkness of the day during a solar eclipse. There’s Lou, a sex trade worker with an addiction problem—love, men, false hope and promises—a life adrift in search of an anchor. Jane, Lou’s daughter, is the apple that tries desperately to fall a bit further from the tree, working in a strip club but eager for a way out. And Petite is a call girl and small-time crook, new to the streets and dangerously sure of herself. Rob Nilsson’s (SAMT, MVFF 2004; Attitude MVFF 2003) singular style of free-jazz filmmaking, accompanied by the talents of the Tenderloin Y Group and Mickey Freeman’s stunning cinematography, are masterfully at work in this complex narrative of nuanced characters set in San Francisco’s untouristed and decidedly unglamorous underworld. You need to see for yourself. —K. Davis
Sponsored by SF Weekly
Niji No Shita Ni / Under the Rainbow JAPAN/US 2005 75 MINS - TOTAL PROGRAM 91 MINS Saturday Oct 15 4 PM NIJI15T 142 Throckmorton
Sunday Oct 16 12:15 PM NIJI16S Sequoia
Director/Producer/Screenwriter/Cinematographer/Editor J.R. Heffelfinger Cast Yasuda Haruki, Abe Shigeyoshi, Junyko Takahashi, Oshigane Atsuko, Shibayama Tokio, Yasunori Yoshimi Print Source J.R. Heffelfinger Yasuda, an overburdened and underappreciated salaryman, works tirelessly at his job. Confined to his cubicle and suffocating under an avalanche of incomplete work orders, there’s more than a hint of bathos in his voice as he answers the phone: “Rainbow Travel—We Sell Dreams.” Outpaced by younger colleagues and badgered at home, Yasuda escapes into his imagination to discover the world of pop music, pachinko parlors and tragic teenage love, in this nuanced portrait of life in 21st-century Japan. J.R. Heffelfinger’s delightful first feature is touched by the spirits of Kurosawa and Imamura, filled with unexpected wonders and gentle humor, and radiating with the resiliant glow of life. —K. Davis
Preceded by Depression Served Six Ways Director Christian Svanes Kolding DENMARK 2005 16 MINS An odd assemblage of condominium-dwelling Danes nervously await Nostradamus’ predictions in this hilarious short.
Monday Oct 10
Director Niki Caro Producers Jeff Skoll, Nick Wechsler, Nana Greenwald Screenwriter Michael Seitzman Cinematographer Chris Menges
Editor David Coulson Cast Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand, Sissy Spacek, Woody Harrelson, Sean Bean, Richard Jenkins Print
Source Warner Bros. Pictures
An extraordinary cast drives this gripping story of Josey Ames, a single mother who returns to her hometown in northern Minnesota in hopes of building a better life. Josey—a beautiful performance by Charlize Theron—accepts the help of Glory (the wonderful Frances McDormand) in getting a job as one of the few female workers at the local mining company. It’s demanding work, though it offers a chance for self-sufficiency not available elsewhere; but the constant, ugly harassment of the women by male co-workers reveals a sexism both base and brutish. Against the odds, Josey struggles to stand up for her beliefs—even if it means standing alone. Director Niki Caro (Whale Rider) again proves her keen eye for landscape as she juxtaposes the majesty of the northern countryside and its industrial pockmarks against the interior landscapes and personal struggles explored in this true story. It’s a riveting journey. —Z. Elton
Sponsored by Fireman’s Fund
One Love UK/JAMAICA 2003 96 MINS
Wednesday Oct 12 8:45 PM ONEL12R Rafael
Saturday Oct 15 9:30 PM ONEL15S Sequoia
Directors Rick Elgood, Don Letts Producers Yvonne Deutschman, Shelaagh Ferrell Screenwriter Trevor Rhone Cinematographers John Christian Rosenlund Cast Ky-mani Marley, Cherine Anderson, Idris Elba Print Source One Love Films Ltd.
Focus: Fespaco/PRAI Jamaica is more than the backdrop for this sweet tale of star-crossed lovers drawn to one another through the love of music; it is a lush and fertile presence that creates a story that could have grown nowhere else. Ky-Mani Marley, son of Reggae legend Bob Marley, is Kassa, a soulful Rasta musician whose musical ambitions are imbued with a deep love for Jamaica and desire to help his people. Cherine Anderson is Serena, the loved and protected daughter of a Christian minister, whose rich, clear voice longs to soar beyond the restrictions of her Gospel choir. When Kassa and Serena meet during a World Music competition, they realize their connection transcends the barriers of their beliefs and social restrictions, proving that the deep musical need that is uniquely Jamaican truly triumphs over prejudice. —R. McNair
Sponsored by KGO Newstalk AM810
Sunday Oct 16 6:45 PM PARA16R Rafael
Director/Producer Hany Abu-Assad Screenwriters Hany Abu-Assad, Bero Beyer, Pierre Hodgson Cinematographer Antoine Heberlé
Editor Sandor Vos Cast Kais Nashef, Ali Suliman, Luba Azabal, Amer Hlehel, Haim Abbass Print Source Warner Independent Pictures
This remarkable drama by Dutch-Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad (Rana’s Wedding, Ford Transit) focuses on two Palestinians who have been recruited as suicide bombers. Khaled and Said are mechanics and friends since childhood. For these young men the next 24 hours not only include detailed preparation but also fear, anger and reflection. Filmed amid actual violence in Nablus on the West Bank, Paradise Now puts human faces on its protagonists without glorifying their undertaking. Abu-Assad establishes a Palestinian perspective by depicting the daily humiliations of military occupation and checkpoints, and then generates moral debate through Suha, the daughter of a legendary fighter, who is opposed to bombing and lethal martyrdom as methods of resistance. Urgent, thoughtful and, like the reality it depicts, a story with no easy answers, this gripping, controversial movie received the Amnesty International prize following its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. —R. Peterson
Pelican Man FINLAND 2004 89 MINS
Thursday Oct 13 4 PM
Sunday Oct 16 2:45 PM
PELI13R Rafael
PELI16R Rafael
Director Liisa Helminen Producer Hanna Hemilä Screenwriters Liisa Helminen, William Aldridge Cinematographer Timo Salminen Editor Jukka Nykänen Cast Kari Ketonen, Roni Haarakangas, Inka Nuorgam Print Source Finnish Film Foundation In Finnish with English subtitles. Earphones for children for audio of English subtitles at Rafael only. Reeling over his parents’ separation, 10-year-old Emil brightens when he spots a pelican hitchhiking on the side of the road. That would be Mr. Berd, whose curiosity leads him to hide his plumage beneath a smartly tailored suit that transforms him into an elegant gentleman. Even though Mr. Berd catches herring in his mouth and sheds feathers when he’s excited, only Emil can see through his disguise. The pair quickly become best friends, and Emil teaches his pal the ways of humans, while pelican-man offers the child refuge from his unhappy home life. Kari Ketonen received a Jussi (Finland’s Oscar®) award nomination for his inspired comic performance as the bird that never becomes quite comfortable in human skin. This lively, funny children’s fable celebrates the tight bond of friendship while offering gentle lessons on tolerance and the importance of taking kids and their concerns seriously. Ages 5+ —P. Grady
El Perro Negro: Stories from the Spanish Civil War NETHERLANDS
Director Péter Forgács Producer Cesar Messemaker Editor Kathi Juhász Print Source Lumen Film
A fascinating collection of antique home movies fuels this remarkable documentary about the personal drama and historical turbulence of life in Spain in the 1930s, before and during the Spanish Civil War. Hungarian filmmaker Péter Forgács pieces together amateur film footage, photos and letters from both sides of the conflict into a singularly balanced portrait of a country overturned by fascism, labor unrest and the rise of anarchy. Focusing on the biographical details of people actively engaged in the events of their time, Forgács tells the stories of Joan Salvans Piero, a Catalan industrialist, and Ernesto Diaz Noriega, a student from Madrid. The quality and breadth of the 70year-old footage, which includes unique 9.5mm home-movie stock, is an astounding tribute to the talent and perspective of hobbyist filmmakers, and the resulting fusion of images, sound and music creates an unusually illuminating, very intimate history lesson. —B. Peterson
Presented in association with the San Francisco Cinematheque
world cinema
world
children’s filmfest
world cinema
A Piece of Bread IRAN 2005 93 MINS
Saturday Oct 8 12:30 PM PIEC08R Rafael
Director Kamal Tabrizi Screenwriter Mohammadreza Gohari Cinematographer Hossein Jafarian Editor Hossein Zandbaf Cast Esmeel Khalaj, Ahmad Aghaloo, Reza Kianian, Roya Nonahal Print Source Cimi Media International (CMI)
In this satirical critique of the Iranian clerics who banned his previous feature, The Lizard, director Tabrizi illustrates that anyone can reach God. On a dusty road trip with an abusive commanding officer and a condescending mullah, an illiterate, naïve soldier is the only character open to inexplicable wonders. The threesome drive to a remote village to investigate a supposed miracle: A woman unschooled even in her own language of Farsi has been miraculously empowered to read the Koran in Arabic. Hopeful pilgrims believe she has healing powers. Ignored by men racing to compete for jobs, harassed by the sergeant, chided by the mullah for practicing his signature on a precious shroud and injured by disabled people seeking a cure, the young soldier manages to learn from mysterious strangers how to pray. In the end, everyone—including the audience—discovers how wrong they have been: Compassion is what religion is supposed to teach us, Tabrizi insists. —S. Handsher
Let the joy of this wondrous documentary by Gillian Grisman (Grateful Dawg, MVFF 2000) wash over you. “Sacred steel music” has been a part of church communities in the US for more than 60 years. It is now reaching rock and roll audiences via 25-year-old pedal steel guitar virtuoso Robert Randolph. Interviews with Randolph’s mentors and with famous musicians and historians trace the evolution of a musical genre that combines gospel, blues, country, jazz and rock. But it’s the performance footage that will leave you breathless. This celebration of the power of music explodes with infectious energy and excitement. —B. Peterson
Preceded by
The Big Race Director Phil Aupperle US/MADAGASCAR 2004 6 MINS Two boys create their own fun in the picturesque town of Antsirabe, Madagascar. Robert Randolph and the Family Band, and Calvin Cooke perform live at the Sweetwater Saturday, Oct. 15. See page 24.
Tuesday Oct 11 7 PM
Director/Screenwriter Ben Younger Producers Jennifer Todd, Suzanne Todd Cinematographer William Rexer Editor Kristina Boden Cast Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman, Bryan Greenberg, Jon Abrahams Print Source Universal Pictures
Prime, starring Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman, is a sophisticated character comedy about Rafi (Thurman), a recently divorced 37-year-old career woman from Manhattan, and what happens when Dave, a 23-year-old painter from Brooklyn (Bryan Greenberg), falls in love with her. Rafi’s therapist, Lisa (Streep), is gingerly helping Rafi out of her post-divorce slump and through the urgent alarm of her ticking biological clock. Prime looks at love from everyone’s point of view—friends, relatives, and in this case, Rafi’s therapist—and follows all who come apart, and some who pull it together, when two people fall in love. The film is written and directed by Ben Younger ( Boiler Room ) and is produced by Team Todd.
Sponsored by American Airlines
The Queen of Sheba’s Pearls
SWEDEN/UK 2004 132 MINS
Friday Oct 7 9:15 PM QUEE07S Sequoia
Sunday Oct 9 8:45 PM QUEE09R Rafael
Director/Producer/Screenwriter Colin Nutley Cinematographer Jens Fischer Editor Perry Schaffer Cast Helena Bergström, Lorcan Cranitch, Tim Dutton, Lindsay Duncan, Rolf Lassgård, Natasha Little, Elizabeth Spriggs Print Source Swedish Film Institute
A lush period piece set in post-World War II England, The Queen of Sheba’s Pearls touches on several universal themes: coming of age, mortality, longing—and on the fine line between reality and illusion. Eight years after the death of Emily Pretty, a beloved mother and wife, a beautiful stranger (Swedish actress and director Colin Nutley’s wife, Helena Bergstrom) who looks identical to the dead woman, arrives at the family’s home. The stranger’s presence throws the close-knit family into upheaval when she inexplicably stays on as the housekeeper. As the mystery of the stranger’s identity unfolds and a family secret is revealed, each character goes through life-altering changes. Working from his own excellent script and with a superb cast, Nutley artfully weaves together the film’s engaging subplots, bringing this complex and powerful tale of love and redemption to dramatic, extremely satisfying conclusion. —N. Isaacs
Sponsored by Peet’s Coffee & Tea
valley of the docs
world cinema
Race Is the Place US 2005 91 MINS
Saturday Oct 15 6:45 PM RACE15S Sequoia
Directors/Producers Ray Telles, Rick Tejada-Flores Cinematographers Vicente Franco, Robert Shephard, Emiko Omori Editor Herb Ferrette II Print Source Paradigm Productions
With in-your-face immediacy, a panoply of contemporary performance artists, comics and poets transform experiences of racism into art, turning anger and sorrow into cathartic expressions of humor, righteousness, rage and hope. Some are elders—James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Piri Thomas—and some are young turks, like hip-hop performance artist Danny Hoch. Threaded through the interviews and performance clips, a vivid collage of historical images from cartoons, newsreels, packaging and films reminds us of the dehumanizing caricatures that were once an acceptable part of popular culture. As this sharp, fast-moving film attests, despite social progress these stereotypes haven’t been erased but only submerged, obscured and made polite. There is nothing polite about the performers here, however. They raise a holy ruckus—preferring to “make art than commit murder,” as one Hawaiian poet says— and their passion is a healing antidote. —J. Campbell
Sunday Oct 9 12:15
Director/Producer/Screenwriter/Cinematographer/Editor Maysoon Pachachi Print Source Type Cast Films/AFD
Despite the continuing debate over the legitimacy of the US occupation of Iraq, few Americans have heard unmediated, firsthand accounts from Iraqis about the events reconfiguring their nation. Iraqi-born director Maysoon Pachachi provides such reportage, filmed during her return to her homeland in 2004 with her father, Adnan Pachachi, former Iraqi foreign minister and head of the committee drafting Iraq’s constitution. The film is both a lyrical personal diary and an impassioned vérité account of deeply frustrating political struggles. With resilience, nobility and candor, Iraqis reflect on their burned-out paradise, where amid war and loss they still fight for their rights, and a new generation takes up hope. —D. Kaufman
Preceded by
An Iraqi Lullaby Directors Allie Light, Irving Saraf
US 2005 6 MINS A requiem to all the childen, body and soul, lost to a war that could not be stopped.
Romántico
US 2005 80 MINS - TOTAL PROGRAM 84 MINS Sunday Oct 16 2:45 PM ROMA16S Sequoia
Director/Producer/Cinematographer Mark Becker Print Source Meteor Films
Often seen strolling down the streets of San Francisco’s Mission district, mariachis have long been a fixture of this newly gentrified, traditionally Latino neighborhood. Former Bay Area producer-director-cinematographer Mark Becker slips underneath the festive costume and vibrant music to reveal a bittersweet portrait of Carmelo, a musician from Salvatierra, Mexico, who is torn between his desire to provide for his family in Mexico and his own subsistence on the meager income he makes from tips. This universal plight for migrant workers is inflected by Carmelo’s various roles as a struggling husband, father and musician whose soulful guitar and true voice win you over as he and his best friend, Arturo, play the restaurants, bars and street corners. The tale takes a turn when Carmelo is called back home to Mexico. A profound, poetic film, Romántico consistently rings true. —S. Uyehara
Preceded by
Police Blotter Director Kristen Nutile
US 2004 4 MINS The view from a police patrol car reveals the tense relationship between class and crime. Presented in association with the International Latino Film Festival Sponsored by Kodak
Round Trip
Friday Oct 14 9 PM
Sunday Oct 16 12 PM
ITALY 2004 115 MINS
ROUN14R Rafael
ROUN16R Rafael
Director/Screenwriter Marco Ponti Producer Roberto Buttafarro Cinematographer Marcello Montarsi Editor Walter Fasano Cast Kabir Bedi, Vanessa Incontrada, Libero De Rienzo, Giovanni Carretta Print Source Bruno Bossio/PromoFest
Hip Italian bike messenger Dante Cruciani bids friends and family farewell, ostensibly to globe-trot for a year, when really he’s on the run from neighborhood thugs eagerly awaiting repayment of a hefty loan. Flight attendant Nina departs from Spain for another day of work. Both fall victim to a nationwide Italian airline strike just before Christmas, and their paths collide after Dante is forced to return to his hometown but is unable to stay in his apartment for fear of retribution. When he does go back, things have changed quite drastically, including the decor. Meanwhile, Nina’s boyfriend dumps her via voicemail. What do either of them have going for them at home now that “home” is a distinctly different place than it was when they left? Slick aesthetics and lovably eccentric characters shine in this breakneckpaced, cosmopolitan action/suspense/romantic comedy. Fasten your seatbelts, because Round Trip won’t leave you stranded. —T. Lopez
Presented in association with Instituto Italiano di Cultura
Mill Valley Film Festival
valley of the docs
valley of the docs
world cinema
Saratan KYRGYZSTAN/GERMANY 2004 85 MINS
Saturday Oct 8 4 PM SARA08R Rafael
Director/Screenwriter Ernest Abdyshaparov Producers Tynai Ibragimov, Kanat Sartov, Herbert Schwering, Hans-Erich Viet Cinematographer Jorzsh Hamitski Cast Kümöndör Abylov, Askat Sulaimanov, Tabyldy Aktanov Print Source mdc int. GmbH
While the fall of the Soviet Union has so far brought more confusion and bitterness than joy, it has provided fodder for a new generation of wonderfully poignant tragicomic cinema. Armed with the odd pairing of classic post-communist cynicism and carpe diem ethics, Saratan is dedicated to the here and now, proclaiming, “Don’t wait for better times!” Absurd bureaucratic rules, scarcity and the loss of value systems put a tiny Kyrgyz village on edge. While several stories unfold under this overarching theme (most prominently a policeman’s tracking of a cattle rustler), first-time feature director Ernest Abdyshaparov focuses on the dark humor and sublime beauty of the everyday, the ordinary details that make life bearable in inconceivable times. Truly impressive, Abdyshaparov conveys his aesthetic without preaching or pandering. Hilarious slapstick usually carries the plot forward, but, as in the best neorealist films, it is in the quiet moments that Saratan speaks loudest. —S. Uyehara
Director/Cinematographer Chris Brown Producer/Screenwriter/Editor yahn soon Cast Lena Zee, Fanny Ara-Herms, yahn soon, Harriet Schiffer-Scott, Zachary Schramm, Josh Millican Print Source John Balquist Productions Director Chris Brown (Daughters, MVFF 1997) returns to the Festival with his latest, an emotionally satisfying, tightly scripted film—that has such people in it. Affairs are tempestuous, indeed, for a substitute teacher and struggling novelist; a pot-dealing single mother; and a sexually reckless French exchange student, all sharing a house in Oakland. But their intertwining lives, and the lives of those they touch, are brought to the screen with such tenderness and grace that you root for them to make it through the storm. There is bravery too in the filmmaking, which uses acting and dialogue instead of special effects to tell the story (it’s almost revolutionary to see a drug trip portrayed through the character’s behavior rather than through “trippy” camera tricks). This may be a Scared New World for some, but it augurs a bright future of filmmaking. —P. Moore
Monday Oct 10 7 PM
SHOP10R
Director Anand Tucker Producers Ashok Amritraj, Jon Jashni, Steve Martin Screenwriter Steve Martin Cinematographer Peter Suschitzky
Editor David Gamble Cast Steve Martin, Claire Danes, Jason Schwartzman, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras Print Source Touchstone
Pictures/Hyde Park Entertainment
Based on Steve Martin’s bestselling novella, Shopgirl is a funny and poignant story of love in the modern age. The film catches a glimpse inside the lives of three very different people on diverse paths, but all in search of the same thing. Mirabelle (Claire Danes) is a “plain Jane” overseeing the rarely frequented glove counter at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. An artist struggling to keep up with even the minimum payment on her credit card and student loans, she keeps to herself until a rich, handsome fifty-something named Ray Porter (Steve Martin) sweeps her off her feet. Simultaneously, Mirabelle is being pursued by Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman), a basic bachelor who’s not quite as cultured and successful as Ray. When fate steps in, the outcome may not always be a storybook ending, because in the end . . . it was life.
Sponsored by CBS 5
Short Films for Little People
Sunday Oct 9 11 AM
Saturday Oct 15 10 AM
SHOR15R Rafael
A bagful of pleasures for the smallest person in the house. Duck says “quack” to red and blue states in Duck for President, and his rubber likeness hunts for that perfect bathtub in Rubber Duckling. In Oakland, bread rises to music in the wonderfully simple but excitingly kid-friendly Feed the Starter; also from the East Bay, Train and Truck brings big excitement right to the level of the youngest audience member, with fun music from the ’50s. The classic children’s author Jane Yolen explains all in How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon?, and Jules Feiffer, the classic author of angst, follows the trials and tribulations of a little girl’s search in I Lost My Bear! Can Arnie the Doughnut find the perfect person, who won’t eat him? Will our old friend Pingu prove charming as always in the brand new Pingu and the Band and Pingu Digs a Hole? Come and see. All ages —J. Morrison
us cinema
us cinema
Shopgirl
US 2005 104 MINS
children’s filmfest
Sir! No Sir! US 2005 83 MINS
Saturday Oct 8 5:15 PM SIR08S Sequoia
Tuesday Oct 11 7 PM SIR11R Rafael
Director/Screenwriter David Zeiger Producers Evangeline Griego, Aaron Zarrow Cinematographers May Rigler, David Zeiger Editor May Rigler Print Source Peter Broderick
The story of those who burned their draft cards and refused to serve in Vietnam is well known; what makes this eyeopening documentary unique is its chronicle of the near-collapse of the entire US army from within its own ranks. Sir! No Sir! is the long-overdue tale of the enlisted men and women who began a nationwide resistance movement and what they risked to do so. Archival footage reveals the heroic—and sometimes shocking—resistance activities among the soldiers and the harsh penalties that awaited them. Contemporary scenes place us in intimate contact with veterans and activists (including the inimitable “GI Jane” Fonda), as passionate about their convictions now as they were 40 years ago. A must-see for anyone interested in understanding the real forces at play during the Vietnam era, this vital historical document brings to light the largely untold activities that helped to bring the government to its knees. —A. Carleton-Glen
The Sleeping Child
Saturday Oct 15 4:45
Director/Screenwriter Yasmine Kassari Producer Jean-Jacques Andrien Cinematographer Yorgos Arvanitis Editor Susana Roosberg Cast Mounia Osfour, Rachida Brakni Print Source Les Films de la Drève
Exquisitely shot in the desert landscapes of Morocco, Yasmine Kassari’s insightful feature debut takes place in the extreme simplicity and poverty of a rural village. Newly married, Zeinab soon finds herself pregnant, but her husband, along with the other menfolk, has left to join the clandestine labor force in Europe. So she uses a charm to have her unborn infant sleep until a more auspicious time for its birth. Meanwhile, Zeinab’s friend Halima pursues an encounter with a young man from a neighboring village, to the ire of her elders. With no telephone, the women go to enormous lengths to communicate with the men, via videos and photographs made in a town nearby—it’s as though everyone, like the unborn baby, is stuck in time. Kassari’s poetic visuals reveal lives supported and sustained by so little tangible stuff, yet driven by a passion and intelligence that even illiteracy will not stop. —Z. Elton
Director Seyyed Reza Mir-Karimi (Under the Moonlight) is known for his subtle integration of a timeless spirituality into his contemporary Iranian dramas, and in his newest feature he focuses on a lost soul forced to confront his core values in the face of personal tragedy. Mahmoud Alem, a highly successful but self-absorbed neurologist, is shocked to discover that the 18-year-old son he has long neglected is terminally ill. Setting off to locate and reconcile with his child, who has left on an astronomy project in the desert, Alem’s travels soon become a journey of self-discovery as he encounters along the way a number of seemingly ordinary people who challenge his very limited view of the world. A rare gem of a film, So Close, So Far is a compelling new vision of Iranian society, with exquisite cinematography that reveals the desert’s sweeping grandeur as you have never seen it before. —K. Clement
The Society of Jesus (The Jesuits)
Director/Producer/Screenwriter Silvije Petranovic Cinematographer Miso Orepic Editor Andrija Zafranovic Cast Leona Paraminski, Milan Plestina, Ivica Vidovic Print Source Maydi Film
A missionary assigned to be the confessor for a rich young widow is urged by his superiors to sway her into “donating” her land and wealth to the church. The elegant, lonely countess, meanwhile, has her own, slightly more carnal ulterior motive for keeping the handsome priest around. While the battle for the priest’s soul rages, he struggles against both his own temptations of the flesh and the machinations of a post-medieval Faith, Inc. Epic panoramic visuals contrast with the characters’ aims and efforts, reminding us of life’s awesome natural beauty. Masterfully performed by an all-star Croatian cast, director Silvije Petranovic’s tale of repression and religion may take place in 17th-century Eastern Europe, but don’t let the historical setting fool you: Substitute the film’s power-hungry Jesuits with the corrupt factions that have run roughshod over the Balkans during the last fifty years, and the message would remain the same. —D. Fear
Mill Valley Film Festival
valley of the docs
world cinema
world cinema
world cinema
Sophie Scholl: The Last Days GERMANY 2005 117 MINS Friday Oct 7 6:30 PM SOPH07S Sequoia
Director Marc Rothemud Producers Christoph Müller, Sven Burgemeister Screenwriter Fred Breinersdorfer Cinematographer Martin Langer Editor Hans Funck Cast Julia Jentsch, Alexander Held, Fabian Hinrichs, Johanna Gastdorf Print Source Zeitgeist Films
In what began with idealistic, if naïve, determination, disillusioned university students decide to resist the government by distributing leaflets advocating passive resistance; the action results in their arrest, interrogation and trial. In 1942, Sophie and Hans Scholl were students at the University of Munich, when their group of friends, sharing a love of the arts and a passion for philosophy and theology, formed the underground anti-Nazi group the White Rose. The film focuses on a psychological war of will and determination in which Sophie, played unerringly by Julia Jentsch (The Edukators), spars, unapologetic and defiant, first with her Gestapo interrogator and later with the show trial’s judge. Drawing from recently released transcripts of these sessions and with artful and assured direction, Sophie Scholl: The Finals Days is an impassioned, unforgettable experience. Jentsch’s performance of a lifetime won her Best Actress at the 2005 Berlin Film Festival. —R. McNair
Presented in association with the Goethe Institute Sponsored by Hartmann Studios
Soul of Justice: Thelton Henderson’s
Oct 10
Director/Producer Abby Ginzberg Screenwriter/Editor Rick Goldsmith Cinematographers Vicente Franco, Eli Adler Print Source California Newsreel
From the inhumane treatment of inmates at California’s Pelican Bay prison to the annihilation of dolphins by tuna harvesters, Judge Thelton Henderson has heard countless abuses of power and has consistently ruled on the side of justice. A quietly eloquent man of unsurpassed character, Henderson was the first black attorney recruited for the Civil Rights Division of Robert F. Kennedy’s Department of Justice, and was appointed to the federal bench in 1980. Never one to seek the spotlight, Henderson drew strong public criticism from conservatives after ruling Prop. 209 (which ended affirmative action) to be unconstitutional. Local filmmaker Abby Ginzberg delivers a rousing profile in courage. —M. Fox Preceded by Lion Director Adam Pilkington
US/ZAMBIA 2005 15 MINS One of the innumerable orphans AIDS has created in Zambia, 15-year-old Anthony “jumps up” from street life to attend high school.
SOUND OF THE SOUL: The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music US 2005 70 MINS
Sunday Oct 9 5:45 PM SOUN09R Rafael
Thursday Oct 13 7 PM SOUN13S Sequoia
Director/Producer/Screenwriter Stephen Olsson Cinematographers Andy Black, Stephen Olsson Editors Rhonda Collins, Marianne Yusavage Print Source Cultural and Educational Media
The human spirit’s communion with others, with God and through music shines in Stephen Olsson’s glorious homage to the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music in Morocco. He begins with Fez itself: its ancient heritage of tolerance, as a city of Muslim, Jewish and Christian inhabitants; its Sufi foundations; its evocative medieval sites. It’s the ideal location for a festival that brings together an incredible array of musicians, including an early music ensemble from France, a group of north African Berber women, a Portuguese Fado singer, players from Afghanistan, Russia, Ireland, England and, of course, Moroccan Sufis. All are bound by the expression of love and longing through their artistry, and by the communication of the divine they impart to their audiences. Olsson captures a glimpse of this ecstasy for us and reveals the heartbeat behind brilliant Afghan singer Farida Mahwash’s observation, “Music is the sound of the soul.” —Z. Elton
Ustad Farida Mahwash performs live at 142 Throckmorton, Thursday Oct 13. See page 24. Sponsored by Katz Family Foundation
Spirit Bear: The Simon Jackson Story
Director Stefan Scaini Producers Heather Haldane, Mary Young Leckie Screenwriter Kent Staines Cinematographer Michael Storey Editor Michael Lee Cast Mark Rendall, Graham Greene, Ed Begley Jr. Print Source Marvista
In English British Columbian teen Simon Jackson stopped a lumber conglomerate in its tracks in the late 1990s when it became evident that its business threatened the habitat of a rare white bear called “Spirit Bear” by native Indians. Jackson was no superhero; he wasn’t even a perfect kid, just a boy with a strong love of nature whose personal commitment bloomed into a large grassroots organization—before he had even graduated from high school. Mark Rendall gives a standout performance as Jackson, who jockeys for public attention with his archenemy, timber magnate Frank Perdue, played with some sympathy by Ed Begley Jr. Graham Greene plays a wonderful character who finds his own redemption in Simon’s campaign. Told with honesty and immediacy, Spirit Bear speaks to youth who want to make a difference in the world. Ages 9+ —J. Morrison
world cinema
valley of the docs
valley of the docs
children’s filmfest
Springtime KOREA 2004 128 MINS
Saturday Oct 8 2:15 PM SPRI08S Sequoia
Sunday Oct 9 2:45 PM SPRI09R Rafael
Director Ryu Jang-ha Producer Choi Yong-bae Cinematographer Lee Mo-gae Editor Kim Hyun Cast Choi Min-sik, Jang Sin-young, Kim Kang-woo Print Source TUBE Entertainment
Lee Hyeon-woo is dangerously close to hitting rock bottom. A former professional trumpeter and composer, Lee has been reduced to giving music lessons for petty cash. His bitterness has alienated his friends, his ex-wife and his mother, who’s ready for her cantankerous son to quit moping around her house. In desperation, Lee leaves Seoul and begrudgingly accepts a job teaching band classes in a small-town middle school. It is only once he gets to know his tone-deaf students that Lee finds the courage to slowly rebuild his life from the ground up. A popular hit at home, this South Korean drama about second chances never stoops to conquer with easy sentimentality or sappy moral codas. Grounded by a beautifully understated performance from Choi Min-sik (Oldboy), Springtime is the rare inspirational movie that doesn’t require an insulin shot and finds true grace in its seasonal tale of rebirth and blooming anew. —D. Fear
Presented in association with NAATA
State of Fear
Monday Oct 10 9:30 PM STAT10R Rafael
Saturday Oct 15 2:15 PM STAT15S Sequoia
Director Pamela Yates Producer Paco de Onís Screenwriters Pamela Yates, Peter Kinoy, Paco de Onís Cinematographer Juan Durán
Editor Peter Kinoy Print Source Skylight Pictures
Insurgents attack the military and murder their fellow countrymen without remorse. Government officials go beyond the law to curb the terrorist threat they begin to see in every face. Sound familiar? No, not Iraq, but Peru, whose blood-soaked 20-year “war on terror” (1980–2000) erupted out of a volatile atmosphere of desperation, corruption and ideology gone wrong. Oscar®-winning filmmaker Pamela Yates (Poverty Outlaw, MVFF 1997) traces the war’s origins and lays bare its devastations, giving equal weight to the fanatic Marxist-Maoist Shining Path movement and the power-hungry government of President Alberto Fujimori for creating a state of fear and escalating violence that left 70,000 civilians dead. Interviews with both perpetrators and victims, paired with archival footage and a sharply focused historical overview, make this masterful documentary essential viewing for anyone still unclear about how the commodities of democracy and terrorism can be traded against the people for personal and political gain. —D. Quinones
Sweet and Sick
Saturday Oct 15 11 AM
2005 - TOTAL PROGRAM 74 MINS
SWEE15R Rafael
Out of the drizzle and fog of Seattle, Washington, and the deserts of Santa Fe, New Mexico; along the Delaware River in New Jersey, and from Idyllwild, San Francisco and the sweet smell of redwoods in Marin County in California come those indefatigable youths holding cameras and boom mikes—the filmmakers of tomorrow. Borrowing two favorite teen words as its title, this reel of short films was peer juried, as it is every July, by the Young Critics’ Jury, and it’s full of surprises. It’s been a banner year for all genres, with films that range from the mature and thoughtful to the immature and rude, from documentary to personal cinema and from political to apolitical. No apologies for age here, either; anyone of any age would be proud of these films. Many of the 15-year-old and older filmmakers will be at the screening to answer questions afterward. —J. Morrison
In the world of sexuality one thing is true: We are all unique. This delightful collection of gay and lesbian shorts bares extraordinary passions. Gay families are described through the eyes of their children in Jacqui Frost’s What Is Gay? (25 mins). In Kathy Huang and Leigh Iacobucci’s Jaywalking (9 mins), local drag king performance artists Jay Walker (Jeanne Sevelius), Elvis Herselvis (Leigh Crow) and Arty Fishal (Leslie Einhorn) push the gender limit. Chaste love is transformative, in San Francisco-based filmmaker Eric Smith’s Irene Williams: Queen of Lincoln Road (23 mins) and Michael Wallin’s To Hold a Heart (13 mins). Colorado filmmakers Wade Gardner and Josh Weinberg’s Beers, Steers and Queers (7 mins) liberates rodeo from stereotypes. In Antonia Kao’s Pup (23 mins), devout Bay Area gay Christian men expose what they like to do for fun. —J. Plotkin
world cinema
valley of the docs
youth produced
A Toon for the Misbegotten 2005 - TOTAL PROGRAM 98 MINS
Saturday Oct 15 4:15 PM TOON15R Rafael
In these animated shorts, you may want to be careful around John Cernak’s Dear, Sweet Emma (US 6 mins), as she may just kill you with kindness, while Derek Flood’s Emelia (US 9 mins) shows Goth may not be as dark as you think. Tim Burton’s protégé director Henry Selick brings you Moongirl (US 9 mins), taking you on an enlightened journey to the moon, and Burton has recently picked up Shane Acker’s Student Academy Award®-winning film 9 (US 11 mins) to produce as a feature. Frédéric Tremblay’s Remote Paradise (Canada 7 mins) takes you away from your TV adventures, and Dwight Hwang’s Goo’d War (US 15 mins) shows you the oxymoron of the title. Aaron Sorenson’s Bastard Wants to Hit Me (US 3 mins) is the newest music video from They Might Be Giants; Alex George’s Santa Claus Happy Tyme Show (US 30 mins) takes you behind Toy Town. Mike Blum’s The Zit (US 5 mins) brings you youth’s common foe, while Robert Taylor and Michael McCormick’s Arrest Assured (US 3 mins) has a burglar’s bungles. —S. Reder
A Touch of Spice
TURKEY/GREECE 2003 108 MINS
Friday Oct 7 6:30 PM TOUC07R Rafael
Monday Oct 10 6:30 PM TOUC10S Sequoia
Director/Screenwriter Tassos Boulmetis Producers Harry Antonopoulos, Lily Papadopoulos Cinematographer Takis Zervoulakos Editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis Cast Georges Corraface, Ieroklis Michaelidis, Renia Louizidou Print Source Menemsha Films
In this all-time biggest box office hit in Greece, a boy is taught by his grandfather that both food and life need a little salt to give them flavor. A delectable foodie movie told in three bittersweet courses, the story is based on writerdirector Tassos Boulmetis’s own experience. Set against a backdrop of political tension between Turkey and Greece, it is filmed in sensuous detail, beginning in the dusty splendor of Constantinople in 1959, shifting to Athens, and then back to the modern-day city now known as Istanbul. Once the boy, Fanis, is separated from his grandfather, he loses his connection to the culinary life lessons that once guided him, and it takes him 35 years to realize the effect. After decades of feeling torn between his Greek ethnicity and his home in Turkey, Fanis’s journey of reconciliation is handled with warmth, humor and just the right amount of metaphorical flavoring. —D. Quinones
Sponsored by Maroevich, O’Shea & Coghlan
Troop 1500: Girl Scouts Beyond Bars US 2004 68 MINS - TOTAL PROGRAM 76 MINS Saturday Oct 15 7:15 PM TROO15R Rafael
Directors Ellen Spiro, Karen Bernstein Producer Karen Bernstein Cinematographers Ellen Spiro, Deborah Eve Lewis Editors Lilian Benson, Ellen Spiro, Jenn Garison Print Source Women Make Movies
Focus: Women Make Movies This heart-wrenching, provocative doc from firebrand filmmakers Ellen Spiro and Karen Bernstein explores a truly innovative Girl Scout program by spotlighting seven resilient scouts and their moms, who are serving time for crimes ranging from drug dealing to murder. Filmed in part by the girls themselves during specially arranged visits at Hilltop prison in Gatesville, Texas, the “girlcams” capture emotionally charged interviews with their mothers as they confront each other’s fears, reveal their hopes and repair broken trust. Balancing the inherent drama with playfully intercut vintage Girl Scout newsreels, Troop 1500 offers an empathetic but clear-eyed perspective on each subject’s personal tug-of-war with the responsibilities of family, society and self-determination. —D. Quinones
Preceded by
The Mother in Me Director Leigh Iacobucci
US 2005 8 MINS A young woman deconstructs generations of mother-messages and discovers they also lie within.
Alternately seductive and jarring, Eugenio Polgovsky’s riveting film is a prime example of the new wave of contemporary observational cinema. With stunning imagery that at times rivals the best nature photography and human portraiture, this unforgettable film presents the people and desert habitat of one of the poorest areas of the world, Mexico’s San Luis Potosi region, and depicts the daily existence of a community whose subsistence depends on hunting and gathering snakes, birds and cacti to eat and sell at the tourist-frequented roadside. There is nearly no dialogue; instead, a quiet intensity marks the clash between a respectful realization of the Spartan existence of its human subjects and the stark pictorial beauty of their environment. —S. Uyehara
Preceded by Ripples of Light Director Lesley McClintock
US 2005 18 MINS This experimental elegy to a great river honors California’s Tuolumne.
world cinema
valley of the docs
Trudell US 2005 80 MINS
Monday Oct 10 6:45 PM TRUD10S Sequoia
Sunday Oct 16 7:30 PM TRUD16S Sequoia
Director Heather Rae Producers Heather Rae, Elyse Katz Screenwriter B. Russell Friedenberg Cinematographer Gilbert Salas Editor Gregory Bayne Print Source Appaloosa Pictures
Branded by the FBI as “extremely eloquent, therefore extremely dangerous,” John Trudell, Native American activist, organizer, poet, performer and visionary, is one of those extraordinary individuals who remain clearsighted and strong in the face of tragedy, both personal and cultural. Supported by moving testimony from his many supporters and friends, including Sam Shepard, Robert Redford, Val Kilmer, Bonnie Raitt and Kris Kristofferson, the film interweaves Trudell’s earth-centered poetry and music with compelling accounts of his rise to activism in the 1960s with the American Indian Movement. Director Heather Rae transcends a divisive “us versus them” argument and masterfully reveals the universality of Trudell’s inclusive, uplifting message. The result is a rare film that, like its subject, reminds us of our own power and place in the universe and inspires us to participate. —D. Wolens
Director/Screenwriter Brad Coley Producer Csaba Bereczky Cinematographer Lasse Toft, Dave Daniel Editor Seth E. Anderson Cast Frank Wood, Sean Gullette, Paul Sado, James Martinez, Autumn Dornfeld, Alexandra Geis Print Source Carmichael Films
A mysterious murder sets the stage for this highly improvised, character-driven film. On the surface, the small town of Athens, Vermont, might seem like any rural New England hamlet that’s home to salt-of-the-earth locals and a progressive school for gifted students. Look beneath the placid exterior, however, and you’re apt to find any number of less-than-saintly activities. First-time feature filmmaker Brad Coley plunges viewers into a world where everyone—a young college-bound genius, his perpetually screwed-up best friend, a lecherous teacher, the pretty blond girl who suddenly leaves town—harbors dark secrets. Like a New England version of Twin Peaks this indie drama slowly turns a quaint portrait of northeastern living into an American Gothic nightmare where the mysteries keep unraveling layer upon layer until the dramatic conclusion. —D. Fear
Sponsored by Chef’s Touch Catering
Saturday Oct 15 8:30 PM USHP15R Rafael
Sunday Oct 16 5:15 PM USHP16R Rafael
Director Gidi Dar Producer Rafi Bu-kaee Screenwriter Shuli Rand Cinematographer Amit Yasar Editors Isaac Sehayak, Nadav Havel Cast Shuli Rand, Michael Bat Sheva Rand, Shaul Mizrahi, Daniel Dayan Print Source Picturehouse Ushpizin (the word comes from the ancient Aramaic, meaning “royal guests”), reveals a world of miracles and wonder in the Jerusalem courtyards of pious ultra-Orthodox Jews. On the eve of the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkoth, Moshe, an impoverished ultra-Orthodox man struggling to make ends meet, and his wife, Mali, need a miracle. They pray fervently, and as unexpected events begin to occur, two escaped parolees from Moshe’s wild, secular past appear. Believing they are being tested by the divine, the couple invite their guests to stay, with unpredictable results. This first collaborative effort between Israel’s religious and secular communities, which was made possible due to a promise to strictly adhere to religious law, features a first-class cast of many non-professional actors from the religious community. Critically acclaimed Israeli actor Shuli Rand, who gave up his wildly successful career to return to religion nine years ago, wrote the script and plays Moshe. —J. Plotkin
Presented in association with the Israeli Consulate
Directors/Producers Paul Vlachos, Meredith Finkelstein Cinematographer Paul Vlachos Editor Meredith Finkelstein Print Source 13BIT
Productions LLC
The lineage of VJs and video artists featured in Video Out traces a fascinating timeline in the history of media technology, from the rock ’n’ roll lightshows of the 1960s to the latest in laptop plug ’n’ play club creations. With nothing more than plates of oil on water, overhead projectors and, eventually, Sony Porta-Paks on their shoulders, these bicoastal visionaries of light and sound scripted the soundtrack of the late-20th century and ushered in the 21st with their wizardry and self-taught savoir faire. Most of these heroes—Joshua White, Glenn McKay, Jerry Abrams, Bill Etra, Steina and Woody Vasulka—remain unknown outside their field. Video Out sings their well-deserved praises and lets them shine. —K. Davis
Preceded by
Second Sight Directors Stephanie Maxwell, Allan Schindler, Peter Byrne US 2005 6 MINS This skilled digital video artwork combines color, abstraction and form with a hypnotic audio design. Sponsored by Groove Eleven
Mill Valley Film Festival
valley of the docs
us cinema
world cinema
The Wandering Shadows COLOMBIA 2004 89 MINS Wednesday Oct 12 6:30 PM WAND12S Sequoia
Director/Screenwriter Ciro Guerra Producer Jaime Osorio Gómez Cinematographer Emanuel Rojas
Indigent, one-legged Mane is at the mercy of both the landlord who keeps threatening to evict him and the street toughs who beat him up for sport. One of these muggings leaves him sprawled on a Bogotá roadway where the Chair Man, who ekes out a subsistence transporting people via a chair anchored to his back, comes to his aid. An awkward friendship develops between them, eagerly sought by Mane but greeted with ambivalence by his reticent new pal, who seems bent on atoning for some past sin. Reflected in this uneasy relationship is the sometimeshorrifying price ordinary Colombians have paid for their country’s decades of violent struggle. This stark, black-andwhite and, at times, nearly silent drama leavens its doleful tale with a rich, unexpected measure of black humor and surrealistic flourishes. It is an impressive debut by 24-year-old Guerra, who seems equally inspired by David Lynch and Italian neorealism. —P. Grady
Director/Screenwriter Aerlyn Weissman Producers Harry Sutherland, Carl Green, Frank van de Ven, Aerlyn Weissman Cinematographer Rolf Cutts Editor Heather Frise Print Source Picture Box Distribution Inc.
Web Cam Girls introduces us to some of the savvy and sexy pioneers of cyberspace who turn the camera on themselves and use technology to generate art, money and fame by creating, projecting and controlling their own images over the Internet: Ducky Doolittle, “sexologist” and postmodern burlesque queen; Ana Voog, visual artist with the moniker “Hello Kitty with a gun”; Dionne Loewen, former used-car saleswoman and successful entrepreneur; and Teresa Senft, PhD and media historian. This wonderfully stylish and smart film examines and celebrates the politics of “microcelebrity,” where on the Web everyone is famous—not for 15 minutes, but for 15 people. —M. Simon Preceded by Dear Reid Director Aliaa Remtilla
US 2005 28 MINS This tenderhearted, technology-driven Godardian love story explores longing, presence and absence over the Internet in a tragicomic tale of unrequited love for the modern age.
Wellstone!
US 2004 88 MINS Saturday Oct 8
Directors Dan Luke, Lu Lippold, Laurie Stern Producer Pam Colby Screenwriter Laurie Stern Cinematographers Bob Durland, Ed Matney Editors Dan Luke, Lu Lippold Print Source Hard Working Pictures
As a high school wrestler, Paul Wellstone could only take on someone his own (diminutive) size. Once he was free to pick his battles, all bets were off. Wellstone was a tenacious organizer and activist who challenged the exploitation of workers, racial injustice and immoral wars. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants took an unlikely path to electoral politics, winning acolytes as a political science professor. Minnesotans recognized the unpolished, enthusiastic Wellstone as a man of the people, unlike the multimillionaire movie stars and Ivy League ranchers who masquerade as populists. This affectionate but evenhanded portrait also honors his wife, Sheila, a passionate crusader against domestic violence. Tragically, just days before the voters were to decide whether to give Wellstone a third term in 2002, the couple and their daughter were killed in a plane crash. Progressives still mourn, but take inspiration from this Wellstone adage: “Sometimes you’ve got to start a fight to win one.”—M. Fox
Monday Oct 10 4:45 PM WINT10R Rafael
Director/Editor Farhad Mehranfar Screenwriters Farhad Mehranfar, Musa Alijani Cinematographer Nader Masoumi Cast Nazbanu Mohammadyari, Simin Amidi, Musa Alijani Print Source Farabi Cinema Foundation
In Farsi with English subtitles. Earphones for children for audio of English subtitles at Rafael only. Nazbanu lives with her four children in the rural Delfak mountains. With the nearest school a day’s walk away, the calm but authoritative Nazbanu assertively petitions for a teacher for her rascally, ragtag brood. The young urban woman who arrives to take the job finds she must use tree stumps for desks and the side of the house as a chalkboard; goats, geese and the occasional donkey wander through the outdoor classroom. A visit from the male music teacher from over the hill, however, brightens the harsh winter, and by springtime, everyone has adjusted to each other. Director Farhad Mehranfar (Paper Airplanes, MVFF 2001) allows his background in documentary film to infuse his gentle, eccentric dramatic comedy with a very real love of place and local customs. You too will feel you’ve lived with this marvelous family. Ages 9+—J. Morrison
valley of the docs
children’s filmfest
The Winter Song IRAN 2002 90 MINS
Mill Valley Film Festival
Wolf Summer NORWAY 2003 87 MINS
Friday Oct 7 4:30 PM WOLF07R Rafael
Saturday Oct 15 2:45 PM WOLF15S Sequoia
Director/Screenwriter Peder Norlund Producers Axel Helgeland, Kaare Storemyr, Ellen Jacobsen Cinematographer Harald G. Paalgaard Zaklina Stojcevska Cast Julia Boracco Braaten, Line Verndal, Niklas James Knudsen, Jørgen Langhelle, Samuel Fröer, Ingar Helge Gimle, Aksel Hennie, Robert Skjaerstad, Asne Serierstad Print Source Norwegian Film Institute
In Norwegian with English subtitles. Earphones for children for audio of English subtitles at Rafael only. Twelve-year-old Kim has a talent for rock climbing—and for getting into trouble. Her wild nature, which bewilders her mother, leads Kim into the adventure of a lifetime: Attempting a dangerous solo climb, she is badly injured in a fall and is rescued by a nurturing mother wolf. Forming an instant bond with the wolf and her sweet cub, Kim soon discovers that local hunters are out to kill the sheep-hunting wolf pack, and she dedicates herself to saving the animals. This tense, moving portrait of a friendship formed against all odds combines the urgent drama and spirited playfulness that make animal adventure films enduringly popular. Filmed in beautiful locations in Norway and Montana, the film stars a remarkable young actress and amazing real wolves you’ll be cheering for as their race for freedom becomes a matter of life or death for them all. Ages 9+ —D. Quinones
Contributing Writers
Rod Armstrong
Anna Balkrishna
Tod Booth
Jeff Campbell
A. Carleton-Glen
Kelly Clement
Amy Corbin
KD Davis
Zoë Elton
David Fear
Michael Fox
contributing writers
Pam Grady
Sandy Handsher
Sidney Hollister
Nora Isaacs
Deborah Kaufman
Erin King
Kristine Kolton
Trina Lopez
Carrie Lozano
Roberta McNair
Anita Monga
Peter Moore
John Morrison
Joanne Parsont
Brendan Peterson
Richard Peterson
Janis Plotkin
Deanna Quinones
Steven Reder
Joel Shepard
Molli Amara Simon
Michael Talbott
Sean Uyehara
Doug Wolens
Our tribute to Jean-Pierre Jeunet continues after the Festival at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center, with a series of retrospective screenings of his films:
ALIEN: RESURRECTION
THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN
DELICATESSEN
A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT
Dates and showtimes to be announced. Check the fall Rafael calendar or look for updates on our website at cafilm.org.
Following the Festival, the Michael Powell centenary celebration will continue at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center, running through December 4 with retrospective screenings of these additional films:
THE AGE OF CONSENT
BLACK NARCISSUS
A CANTERBURY TALE
THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
49TH PARALLEL
GONE TO EARTH
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
PEEPING TOM THE SPY IN BLACK
THE THIEF OF BAGDAD
Dates and showtimes to be announced. Check the fall Rafael calendar or look for updates on our website at cafilm.org.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet retrospective
Michael Powell retrospective
The Girl from Auschwitz 3PM GIRL08R 106 MINS
Saratan 4PM SARA08R 85 MINS
The Lady from Sockholm 4:15PM LADY08R 84 MINS
Springtime 2:15PM SPRI08S 128 MINS
The Californians 2PM CALI08S 91 MINS
Tender Gender Benders 2:45PM TEND08T 101 MINS
Carpatia 12PM CARP09R 127 MINS
Hoppity Goes to Town 11:30AM HOPP09S 78 MINS
Springtime 2:45PM SPRI09R 128 MINS
39 Pounds of Love 1:30PM POUN09R 79 MINS
of Justice 2:45PM SOUL09S 77 MINS
Hidden Flaws 1:30PM HIDD09S 92 MINS
Spirit Bear: The Simon Jackson Story 1:30PM SPIR09T 92 MINS
Tribute: Michael Powell 6:30PM TRIB08R 120 MINS
In Memory of My Father 6PM INME08R 96 MINS
Tropic of Cancer 6:45PM TROP08R 70 MINS
Sir! No Sir! 5:15PM SIR08S 83 MINS
Dallas Among Us 4:30PM DALL08S 93 MINS
Delicatessen 9:15PM DELI08R 99 MINS
The Undeserved 8:30PM UNDE08R 106 MINS
Web Cam Girls 9PM WEB08R 81 MINS
Wellstone! 7:30PM WELL08S 88 MINS
Berkeley 6:45PM BERK08S 87 MINS
iThemba | Hope 5:15PM ITHE08T 84 MINS SOUND OF THE SOUL 5:45PM SOUN09R 70 MINS
Fateless 5:45PM FATE09R 130 MINS
In Memory of My Father 4:15PM INME09R 96 MINS
Music is My Life, Politics My Mistress 5PM MUSI09S 110 MINS
Al-Ghazali 7:15PM ALGH08T 80 MINS
Jazz 9:30PM BROT08T 73 MINS
The Devil’s Miner 3:30PM DEVI09T 82 MINS
Different Drummers 5:30PM DIFF09T 82 MINS
Stories 6:45PM BED09R
Delwende 7:45PM DELW09R 90 MINS
Scared New World 7:45PM SCAR09S 82 MINS
The Undeserved 7:45PM UNDE09T 106 MINS The Hi De Ho Show 10PM HIDE08S North Country 9PM NORT08S 130 MINS
A Toon for the Misbegotten 4:15PM TOON15R 98 MINS
Land 2:45PM FROL15R
Tribute: Donald Sutherland 7PM TRIB15R 150 MINS
Ellektra 5:30PM ELLE15R 103 MINS 5@5: Simple Twist of Fate 5PM 5AT515R 85 MINS
Press On 4:30PM PRES15S 83 MINS
Race Is the Place 6:45PM RACE15S 91 MINS
Paradise Now 7PM PARA15S 94 MINS
Web Cam Girls 6:30PM WEB15T 81 MINS
Squid and the Whale Tribute: Jeff Daniels 5PM TRIB16R 130 MINS Pelican Man 2:45PM PELI16R 89 MINS
of Silence 4PM BRID16R 114 MINS Romantico 2:45PM ROMA16S 84 MINS
91 MINS
Dalecarlians 12PM DALE16S 98 MINS
Going Out to the Movies Seminar 1:30PM LAB16T 90 MINS
2:15PM DRUM16S 94 MINS Frisbee 4PM FRIS16T 95 MINS
Beah: A Black Woman Speaks 5:15PM BEAH16S 90 MINS Bee Season 5PM BEE16S 104 MINS Ushpizin 8:30PM USHP15R 90 MINS Troop 1500 7:15PM TROO15R 76 MINS
9:30PM ONEL15S 96 MINS
Out 8:45PM VIDE15T 89 MINS
7:45PM BRIC16R 119 MINS Ushpizin 5:15PM USHP16R 90 MINS
Paradise Now 6:45PM PARA16R 94 MINS
Trudell 7:30PM TRUD16S 80 MINS The Milk Can 9:30PM MILK15R 95 MINS The Art of Breaking Up 9:15PM ART15S 80 MINS TBA 7:30PM Bee Season 7:45PM BEE216S 104 MINS
Andy Gellepis,Manager
Pat Asimakis
Anita Berman
Melissa Bialla
Athena Christodoultos
Avril Couris
JJ Davis
Rachelle Dorris
Jaime Dupont
Jasper Esterhuizen
Sharon Faccinto
Becky Gould
Corey Graham
Gerry Hardiman
Melissa Hardiman
Sammy Dean Hosseini
Serita Hutton
David Ogden
Sandra Park Suzanne Parsell
Patterson
Riazi Gayle Riegler
Mark Rushford
Kat Ryan Paul Seif
Jason Sisilli
Carol Spence
Theresa Spindler
Kevin Tirpack
Fay Torson Holly Turner
KQED Public Broadcasting congratulates the 28th Mill Valley Film Festival on their continuing dedication to the richness, depth and diversity of Bay Area independent filmmaking.
KQED celebrates the power of media and invites you to share in the creative spirit of independent film all year long on KQED.
THE ONLY THING MISSING IS YOU.
Marin County's Best Kept Secret! Courtyard. Our rooms were made for you.SM
To reserve your room, call 1-800-MARRIOTT or visit Marriott.com/sfoll Congratulations to a great festival in our hometown — Mill Valley 69 W ALNUT A VE. � M ILL V ALLEY 415.380.9765
General Contractor Lic. # 527445
IT’S THE MARRIOTT WAY.SM
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CREATIVE CREDITS
PROGRAM
2005 TRAILER
Agency Scheyer/SF
Creative Director Dennis Scheyer
Director George Hickenlooper
Producer Katie Burke
Production Company Right Brain Media
Executive Producer Stuart Wilson
Producer Lisa Sechser
Editorial Right Brain Media
Editor Jennifer Tiexiera
Cast
Maintenance Man: Xander Berkeley
Silver-Haired Buyer: Michael Des Barres
Gallery Owner: Meredith Ostrom
Young Pretty Woman: Marian Faddis
Music Ubiquity Recordings
Music Composer Quantic Soul Orchestra “The Conspirator” (W. Holland) Full Thought Publishing courtesy of Ubiquity courtesy of Ubiquity Recordings, Inc., www.ubiquityrecords.com and Tru
Thoughts / Full Thought Publishing UK www.tru-thoughts.co.uk
Music Executive Producer Andrew Jervis
Director of Photography Igor Meglic
Assistant Director Mike Risoli
2nd Assistant Director Kimberly Daniels
Assistant Camera Paul Janossy
Steadicam George Billinger
Art Director Arnd Stockhausen
Set Director Ralph Herscu
Sculpture Nick Van Woert
Gaffer Tim Morton
Best Boy Electric Brian Gowan
Electrician Mark Goodwin
Grip/Electric E & M Lighting
Key Grip Peter Chrimes
Best Boy Grip Hiro Kakuhair
Grips Bobby Ukeda, Ron Edmondson
Sound Taylor Tosh
VTR Kai Morrison
Wardrobe Miriam Burke
Makeup Bridgett O’Neal
Production Assistants Zakk Moore, Karen Pelloni, Rob Del Valle
Client Services Todd Basil
Catering RTS Food Service
Talent Payment American Residuals & Talent Inc.
Camera The Camera House
Dolly Chapman Leonard
Genny Illumination Dynamics
Insurance Marsh Risk & Insurance
Permits Film This
Production Supplies Miller Production Supplies
Location Rec Center Studio
Trucks Budget Car Rental
Film Stock Kodak
Post-production Sound Services Skywalker Sound, a Lucasfilm
Ltd. Company, Marin County, California
Re-recording Mixer Juan Peralta
Director of Finance and Production Operations Josh Lowden
Film Processing/Prints CFI/Technicolor
Telecine Technicolor Creative Services Hollywood
DI Technicolor Digital Intermediates
DI Colorist Steve Dalman
DI Producers Chris Prejza, Tim Kennedy
Sound Optical NT Audio
Credits Chris Dudley
Art Donated By Greg Anka, Paul Guillemette, Robert Harsch, Stuart Wilson, Arnd Stockhausen
Special Thanks Dana Ross
POSTER DESIGN/PROGRAM COVER DESIGN
Agency Scheyer/SF
Design Company Public Design
Designer Todd Foreman
Photographer Jonathon Sprague
Film Processing Robyn Color
Digital Artist Chris Dudley
:15 TV SPOT
Agency Scheyer/SF
Creative Director Dennis Scheyer
Producer Katie Burke
Production Company Teak Edit
Executive Producer Greg Martinez
Producers Jan Frei, Melanie Barter
Motion Graphics Designer Josh Miller
WEB SITE
Brand Consultants Groove Eleven
Creative Director/Partner Sean Dunn
Art Director Chris Lanier
Project Manager Kristin Nielsen
Designer Rainey Straus
Developer Marc Centani
Programmers Craig Serachene, Tony Boyd
PUBLICITY
Agency Hamilton Ink
Principal Pam Hamilton
Publicists Stephanie Clarke, Serene Moussa, Clara Franco, Elizabeth DeVito
Agency Larsen Associates
Principal Karen Larsen
Publicists Timothy Buckwalter, Chris Wiggum, Wendy Leung
Founder and Director
Mark Fishkin
Director of Programming
Zoë Elton
CALIFORNIA FILM INSTITUTE
Operations Manager
Steven Reder
Director of Marketing and Public Relations
Cheryl Moody
Outreach Manager
John Morrison
Executive Assistant
JoAnn Hastings
Finance Manager
Connie Chang
Graphic/Web Designer
Michele Johnston
Graphic Designer
Justin Wambolt-Reynolds
IT Consultant
Tom Herrington
Database Designer
Sandy Gow
Interns
James Chenney, Tom Filcich, Gary Flatow, Lisa Katovich, Richard Vance
DEVELOPMENT
Corporate Development Associate
Trinity West
Major Gifts Associate
Kim Bender
Membership and Volunteers Manager
Lori Malm
Development Assistant
Jeanne Sweet
Membership Assistant
Suzi Hynes
Development Consultant
Atissa Manshouri
Interns
Muriel Hammond, Suzie Kidder, Joan Lehua, Stef, Jackie Tabb
SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER
Director of Programming
Richard Peterson
Assistant Programmer
Jennifer Schmidt
Manager
Dan Zastrow
Assistant Manager
Ryan Hastie
Shift Managers
Jennifer Johnson
Brandon Wisecarver
Program Consultant
Jan Klingelhofer
Intern
Danny Kasman
FESTIVAL STAFF
Festival Coordinator
David Owen
Events Manager
Dave Tureaud
Events Assistant/Merchandise Manager
Shelley Goodale
Logistics Manager
Paul Hegarty
Logistics Assistant
Craig Walton
Photography Coordinator
Patrik Argast
Volunteer Coordinator
Jacquelyn Chi
Volunteer Assistant
Ilya Tovbis
Theater Operations
Jill Brooke
Box Office Management
Trilogy Productions
GUEST SERVICES
Filmmaker Liaison
Joni Cooper
Hospitality
Anne Rogers O’Hearn
Transportation
Molli Amara Simon
PROGRAMMING
Senior Programmer
KD Davis
Programmers
Kelly Clement
Janis Plotkin
Anita Monga
Programmer/Research Associate
Erin King
Children’s FilmFest Programmer
John Morrison
Programming Administrator
Holly Roach
Programming Assistant
Seema Arora
Youth Workshop Coordinator
Joanne Parsont
Print Traffic Coordinator
Jennifer Bauman
Print Traffic Assistant
Gabriel Garza
Interns
Jesse Edwards, Adam Gothelf, Virginia Kelley,
Katelyn King, Jay McBride, Sofia Phillips, Beverly Thorman, Blake Thorman
Technical Director
Marcus McWaters
Technical Advisors
Marty Brenneis
Marcus Pun
Projectionists
Jeff Kauffman
Ben Lopata
Nayt Myers
Max Savage
Consultant
David Goodyear
PUBLICATIONS
Managing Editor
Joanne Parsont
Copy Editor
Carrie Pickett
Proofreaders
Linda Moore
Christine Rickerby
Graphic Designers
Michele Johnston
Kenneth Lockerbie
Digital Prepress
Richard Repas
Print Ads
Winifred MacLeod
MARKETING
Publicity
Hamilton Ink
Larsen Associates
Advertising Agency of Record
Scheyer/SF
Poster/Program/Environmental Design
Public
Brand Consultant
Groove Eleven
F Frre essh h & & F Frro o z zeen n S Seea affo oood dss, , C Crra a b bffe eeed dss, , M Meea att & & P Poou ullt trry y
WITHYOURHELP, THESAK CONTRIBUTES TOTHEFIGHT AGAINST BREASTCANCER!
Jennie Finch
All-American Pitcher in 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist
IN-KIND DONORS
Aidells Sausage
Anchor Steam
Avance Restaurant
Beefeaters London Dry Gin
Ben & Jerry’s
Best Beverage Catering
Blake’s at Boundary Oak
Bogie’s Café
Brickley Production Services
Bungalow 44
CaterMarin
CG Roxanne
Chef’s Touch Catering
Cingular Wireless
Clover Stornetta
Coldstone Creamery
Cook Paging
Crystal Geyser
Design Within Reach
Digital Revolution
Ed Delmon
F. Joseph Smith Massage
Therapy Center
Fiske Video Productions
Frantoio Ristorante
From Soup to Nuts Catering
Gallo of Sonoma
Gourmet Mushrooms Inc.—
Mycopia Brand Mushrooms
Hain, Health Valley Terra Chips
Hartmann Studios
The Jazz Institute
Joe Puccini & Sons Seafood
SCREENING COMMITTEES
Adrian Belic
Nick Bogle
Micah Brenner
Chris Brown
Jeff Brown
Megan Cassidy
Tiffany Che
Amy Corbin
Molly Debower
Rama Dunayevich
Rico Estrada
Blake Facente
Michael Falter
Gary Flatow
Catherine Flaxman
Michael Fox
Rick Goldsmith
Stacey Goodman
Dianne Griffin
Jennifer Hammett
Caroline Hanni
Mitra Karimi
SCREENING COMMITTEE SPONSORS
Bay Area Video Coalition, San Francisco
Blowfish Sushi, San Francisco
The Cantina, Mill Valley
Fantasy Studios, Berkeley
John & Jill’s Cheesecake
Judy’s Breadsticks
Kimball’s
Maker’s Mark Homemade
Kentucky Bourbon
Maria Manso
Marin Copier
Mecca SF
Mill Valley Flowers
Mill Valley Health Club & Spa
Mill Valley Massage
A Party Center
Peet’s Coffee & Tea
Prime Smoked Meats
Pt. Reyes Farmstead
Cheese Co.
Salsa de Luna
Nancy Kelly
Hossein Khosrowjah
Vivian Kleiman
Becky Mertens
Christine Metropoulos
Peter Moore
Elizabeth Morse
Mike Overbeck
Joanne Parsont
BZ Petroff
Francesca Prada
La Méditerranée, Berkeley
La Méditerranée Fillmore, San Francisco
Piazza D’Angelo Restaurant, Mill Valley
Vail Schaeffer
See’s Candy
Sierra Nevada
Sparks Music Management
Group
Tea-n-Crumpets
Whole Foods
Yet Wah
French Consulate
Frédéric Desagneaux, Consul General
Christophe Musitelli, Cultural Attaché
Cara Ballard, Cultural Services
Tala Russell
Golareh Safarian
John Sanborn
Molli Amara Simon
Wendy Slick
Dale Sophiea
Melinda Stone
Stacey Wisnia
Doug Wolens
Kenji Yamamoto
Picante, Berkeley
Slow Club, San Francisco
Small Shed Flatbreads, Mill Valley
Venezia, Berkeley
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Alexander’s Decorative Rugs
Nigel Algar
Joan Allen
Gunnar Almer
Anastasia Alvarado
Tamar Argov, Consulate of Israel
Tiffany Bair
Paul Bales
Cara Ballard
Rick Barsotti
Carol Batte
Greg Beal
Melissa Belli
Peter Belsito
Alexander Berkeley
Andrea Bertolini
Tim Bird
J. Alan Blackburn
Gerry Blake
Pamela Blinn
Constanza Blondet
Richard Board
Janis Bosenko
Bruno Bossio
Ann Brebner
Marty Brenneis
Gary Brickley
Anne Broeker
Arianna Brook
Tom Bruchs
Patti Burke
Cindy Bussing
Rita Cahill
California Film Institute Volunteers!
California Newsreel
Jeff Campbell
Coran Capshaw
Caroline Chapman
Micheline Chau
James Chenney
Chicago Film Festival
Cima Media International
Rebeca Conget
Patti Cook
Calvin Cooke
Roberta Cootes
Cassandra Cosby
Peter Coyote
Grover Crisp
Jason Crosby
Jennifer Cuneo
Dalila Cunha
Bridget Cunningham
Danish Film Institute
Nisha Darbar
Jodie Davis
Ninfa Dawson
Ed Delman
Karl Dennecker
Denver Film Festival
Michael Des Barres
Frédéric Desagneaux
Stephen Dobbs
Julie Dolan
Dolby Laboratories
Dot
Mouse Downes
Ruth Downing
Rama & Bernard Dunayevich
Steve Elkins
Moy Eng
Marian Faddis
Andrea Faiss
David Fenkel
Tom Filcich
Film Arts Foundation
Sara Finmann
Nancy Fishman, San Francisco
Jewish Film Festival
Shawn Fitzpatrick
Gary Flatow
Jim Flavell
Raissa Fomina
Ben Fong Torres
Julie Fontaine
Jan Foster, Marin Acura
Michael Fox
Neil Friedman
Cathy Gallagher
Peter Gamez
Mark Garwood
John Goddard
David Goodyear
Mike Govan
Alice Gray
Paul Grippaldi
Gillian Grisman
Ken Grossman
Sierra Grossman
Linda and Jon Gruber
David Guastavino
Mike Guelfi
Robin Gurland
Richard Habib
Brian Hackfeld
Lynne Hale
Lin Hall
Mary Hammond
Muriel Hammond
Lynda Hansen
Ellen Harrington
Bob Hawk
Ron Henderson
Mary Herr
Tara Hoddy
Bob Hoffman
Holland Film
Douglas Holmes
Karen Holmes
Melissa Howden
Marcus Hu
Don Hunter
Suzi Hynes
Icelandic Film Centre
Richard Idell
Aaron Irons
Susanne Jacobson
Terri Jaffe
Aliya Jaffe Whitney
Andrée Poirier and John Jansheski
Perry Jeff
Michelle Jonas
Jin Woo Joo
Kim Kaechele
Bruce Katz
Jeff Kauffman
Aviva Kempner
John Kirk
Nancy Klasky
Kristine Kolton
Shoshana Cathy Korson
Edith Kramer
Don Krim
Heidi Kuhn, Roots of Peace
Holly Kulak
Anne-Marie Kurstein
Brent Kush
Thea Langer
Joe Lawrence
Pam Lawrence
Ledger Film & Theatre Services
Yoonhyung Lee
Joan Lehua
Sydney Levine
Lee Lewis
Christine Light
Sheri Lloyd
Ken Lockerbie
Johanna Lopez
William Lowe
Tom Luddy
Michael Lumpkin
Ms. M
Jennifer Coslett MacCready
Becky MacDonald
Scott MacQueen
Miss Madhi “Bless Her”
Van and Lydia Maroevich
Dan Martin
Christine McCafferty
John McGuirk
Erin McKinney
Mary Jane, Paul & Phoebe McKown
Bill McLeod
Mary Ella Medina
Ann Marie Melanephy
Menemsha Entertainment
Lucy Mercer
Gary Meyer
Marcia Michael
Anthony Minitti
Anita Monga
Anne Montgomery
Cornelius Moore
Peter Moore
Dani Moresi
Tamara Moresi
Danyel Morgan
Julie Morgan
Jennifer Morris
Jennifer Moss Clay
Christophe Musitelli
Sue Muzzin
NAATA
Patricia Nagle
Ariana Nash
Roy Nee
Andrea Nelson
Harlow Newton
Nikolaj Nikitin
Norwegian Film Institute
Catherine Olin
Pamela On
Steve Orgain
Marjorie Orth
Bernard and Babro Osher
Meredith Ostrom
Pacific Film Archive
Shiva Pakdel
Diana Peters
Tom Peters
Ira & Pat Potovsky
Dianne Provenzano
Marcus Pun
Billie Purdie
Deanna Quinones
Pat Qwimby
Gordon Radley
Irene Ramos
Marcus Randolph
Robert Randolph
Richard Repas
Peter and Jane Richmond
Rosemary Roach
Peter Rodgers
Jena Rose
Rachel Rosen
Roxie Cinema
Lisa Russell
Josiane Sadoun
Christine Sansom
Patricia Sarris
Dennis Scheyer
Michael Schlesinger
Ray Schmalz
Cynthia Schwartz
Phyllis Secosky
Kathy Severson
Ali Reza Shahroki
Rhody Shaw
Gail Silva, Film Arts Foundation
Christopher B. and Jeannie Meg Smith
Fiske Smith
Joseph Smith
Mandy Smith
Mary Smith
Steve Smith
Kaufman-Snitow Productions
Brian Sparks
Dwayne Sparks
Josh Sperry
Shelley Spicer
Becky Steere
Tom Steere
Melissa Stolper
Judy Stone
Strand Releasing
Jackie Suzuki
Swedish Film Institute
Sweetwater
Reza Takkeshori
Mark Talucci
Melanie Tebb
The Finnish Film Foundation
Andrew Thompson/Public Affairs, Consulate General of Canada
David Thomson
Bev Thorman
Blake Thorman
Kyle Thorpe
Evelyn Topper
Trilogy Productions Staff
Renick Turley
C. Sade Turnipseed
Richard Vance
John Weaver
Joanne Webster
Erin Weir
Anne Wintroub
Doug Wolens
Jean Young
Simon Yung
Christine and Roberto Zecca
Pamela Zeh
Debra Zimmerman
The California Film Institute gratefully acknowledges 2005 Members who have made the no. 28 Mill Valley Film Festival possible:
ASSOCIATE
Joseph and Anne Abbott, Mimi Abers, Dr. Holly Abrams, Noma Adelman, Michele Affronte and Gabov Bunda, Charles Agler, Gary and Maureen Aguilar, Phil Akers, Bob Akka, Merry Alberigi, J. James Albrecht, Eugene Albright, S. Alfandari, Mary Alger, Dolores E. Ali, John Aliano, Kim Allen, Marlena Allison, Paula Alsterlind, Bunny Alsup, Lorraine P. Altamirano, Bob Alto, Alfonso Alvarez, Rosemary Ames, Annette Amorello, Carol Anderson, Hilary Anderson, Marliyn Anderson, Robert E. Anderson, Trent W. Anderson, David Andes, Shahla Ansari-Jaberi, Laura Arago, Judy Ardzrooni, Robert C. Aregger, Derick Aripol, Jean Arnold, Mary Arnold, Steve Arnold, Mindy Aronoff, Wendy A. Arthurs, Sandra Ash, Nancy Aurley, Chris and Lorraine Avery, Tracy Ayres, Sonia Azar, Pamela Bacci Scott, Laura Bachman, Paula Bailey, Patricia Bailey, Christopher H. Baldwin, Katheryn M. Baldwin, Georgie Ball, Chuck Ballinger, Brian Barbaria, Sara Barbieri, Jeremy D. Barcan, Barbara Barclay, Newcomb Barger, Joan Barnes, Cora Baron, Alice Bartholomew, Mai L. Bartling, Jim Barton, Sara Basque, Rickie Baum, Anne Baxter, Kate Bayart, Elizabeth Baylis, Diane Bazler, Katherine Beacock, Suzanne Bean, Lyda Beardsley, Tony Beccaccio, Scott Ray Becker, John Becker, Aaron Becker, Larry Becker, Kathy Beckerley, K.O. Beckman, Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Beebe, Daniel and Sue Beittel, Elizabeth Benedict, Gary C. Bennett, Robin Bentel and Bruce McAboy, William and Beverlee Bentley, JoAnn Berman, Sally Berman, Ann Bernhardt, Philip M. Bernstein, Jackie Berreman, Caroline Berry, Deborah Bertola, Walter and Rebecca Bess, Deborah Beveridge, Kathyrn Beyers, Gigi L. Bibeault, Mai Billaud, Christina Birch, Beverly and Mark Birnbaum, Steven Birnbaum, Michelle L. Blaisdell, Jim Blakeley, Bruce Blakely, Lynn Blankfort and Steven Martin, La Vonne Blasche, J. David Blatchford, Patricia Blau, Kathy Bliss, Edward Bloomberg, Julia Bloomfield, Andrea Blum, Dafna Blum, Nancy Bohnet, Bonnie Borenstein, Carolyn Botts, James Boyce, Kanda Boykin, Rebecca Brackman, Patricia Bradley, Catherine Brady, Phyllis Bragdon, Alison Brantley, Linda L. Breeden, J.D. Brewer, Suzanne Brice, Fran Brigmann, Bridget Brink, Emily Brockman, Hannah Brodzinsky, Amy Brokering, Mary Lee Bronzo, Karla Brooke and Peter Roodhuyzen, Kerry Brossier, Charles Brousse, Josie and Martin Brown, Chris Brown, Devi Brown, Peter Brown, Becky Brudniak, Jay Brusseau, Susie Buck, Anna Buoncristiani Irvine, Gertrude Burke, Peggy Burke, Shirley Burnett, Sally Burr, Carolyn Burt, Robert and Elza Burton, Jan Burval and Leslie Katz, Marti Bush, Tara Bushore, Libby Byers, Bob Cahn and Jackie Engstrom, Meridith Cahn, Patricia A. Cambron, Sally Mars Carey, Joe and Sue Carlomagno, Matt Carlson, Kathy Carrasco, Jennifer Carrick, Albert Casselhoff, Sue Castagna, Francine Castner, Mario Cattaneo, Barbara Cerutti, Lindsay Chambers, Monika Chan, Stewart Chapman, Shirley S. Chater, Lucia Chaudron, Steven Che, Tiffany Che, Jane Cheshire-Allen, Catherine Chiosso, John Chiosso, Julie H. Chrisman, Sondra Claire, Gillian Clark, Megan Clark, Naomi Z. Clark, Leanne Clayton, Lita Clear Sky, Skip and Lorinda Clemens, Karen Clothier, Janet Clover, Ronald and Clyman, Mary Coccellato, Jeffrey and Bonnie Cohen, Alexander J. Cohen, Joan Cohen, Nina R. Cohen, Suzi Cohen, Denise Cohn, Michael Colacchio, Brian and Barbara Comnes, Patricia A. Connelly, F. Conrad, Sophia Constantinou, Meli Cook, Fred and Mary Coons, Sondra P. Cooper, Amy Corbin, Al and Maggie Cornwell, Teresa Corrigan, Carolyn Sue Couls, Brigitte Coutu and Kevin Klatt, Jack K. Covington, Frances Cowan, Janice Coyne, Marney Craig,
Elaine B. Cramer, Jeannine Creighton, Robert and Jacqueline Crowder, Josh Crummey, Helen Culiner, Dalila Cunha, Virginia Cunningham, Syd Cushman, Jacqueline Dagg, Joy Dahlgren, Deborah H. Damrow, Justine Daniel, Susan Daniel, Bill Daniels, Georgette Darcy, Lynette Daudt, Loris Davanzo, Paul and Ursula Davidson, Stephen and Grania Davis, Maradee Davis, Nancy S. Davis, S. W. Davis, Pam Day, Donald Day, Frank De Luna, Ginger Deehan, Suzanne Degen, Edmond Delmon, Jill M. Denney, Robert Desmond, Heidi and Jack Detjen-Creson, William and Sarah Devlin, Victoria DeWitt, Doug Dibble, Carolyn E. Dingwall, Bill and Barbara Dittmann, Ann Donovan, Cathleen K. Dorinson, Lee and Debbie Dorosin, Paula Doubleday, Michael and Andrea Dougan, Angelo Douvos, Joe and Kendra Downey, Diane Dresser, Cecily A. Drucker, Suzanne Duerden, Ali N.H. Duerr, Charles Dunkel, Karen Dunning, Tyler Dupuis, Cory M. Duval, Andrew Easterlin, Heidi Eberle, Rolanda Ebert, Teresa Eckton, Virginia Egan, Erik Ehrke, Nico Eichlsedar, Judith Einbinder, Evelyn Eisen, Eric Michael Eiserloh, Theresa Elaine, Lou Ellsworth-Yow, Sina Elychova, Patti Embert, Linda Emery, Bob Engel, Susan C. English, Samuel Ennis, Sharon Enright, Helga Epstein, Robert Epstein, Donald L. and Lois Errante, Richard Estrada, Nicole Evatz, Ms. Mary Ewers, Kay Ewing, Melanie Facen, Michael Falter, Nancy Fanady, Paul Farber, Joe Faria, Jim Farley, William Farley, Ellen Felcher and Michael Burns, Vickie Feldstein and Dennis Orwig, Laraine Ferguson, R.E. Fesler, Barbara Fewell, Gabrielle Fishman, Kent W. and Lee B. Fitzgerald, Kathryn M. Fitzgerald, Lisa Fitzpatrick, Robert Fleharty, Virginia Fleming, Yolanda Fletcher, Heidi Flori, Jessica Flynn, Barbara J. Fopp, Robert Ford, Danny Forer, Alex Forman, Howard and Sharyn Foster, Michael Fox, Sandra Francour, Julia Frank, Jean Fraschina, Mark Fredericks, Cherry Frederiksen, Tom and Sally Freed, Dr. and Mrs. Albert Freedman, Edith Freeman, Joan R. Freidman, Denise Freinkel, Robert Freist, Adele French, Debra Friday and David Vaupel, Mike Frideger, Robert Fried and Wendy Cheit, Mark and Carole Friedlander, Judy Friedman, Wendy Friefeld, Gail Fullen, Jack and Diane Fulton, Bill Fulton, Linda Futrell, Holly Gadsby, Kimberly and Anthony Galatolo, Kenneth Gallegos, Jack Gallivan, Kathleen Gallivan, Alessandra Gallo, Barbara Galyen, Donna Gamble, Julia Gans, Robert and Linda Garb, Beth Garbutt, Deborah Garcia, Theresa Gardiner, John Gardner, Barbara L. Gately, Peter and Leslie Gavin, Stephanie Gaw, Jerry Gayle, Gisela Geisler, Debbie Geller, Edna Getz, Viviane Ghammache, Kathleen Giel, Maria Giessler, Leslie Gifford, Jill Gilbert, Eric and Paula Gillett, Joel Gingold, Jeffrey Ginsberg, Libby Ginsberg, Joan Glassheim and Elizabeth Pearce, Bob Goff, Michael Goldbaltt, Joan Goldhamer, Bernice Goldmark, Mark Goldrosen, Dixie Goldsby, Laura Good, Linda C. Goodman, Lion Goodman, Karen Gordon, Rick Gordon, Catherine T. Goshay, Laurel Gothelf, Leslie Gould, Deborah Grant, Kathleen Grant, Jackie Greenberg, L.D. Greenberg, Liz Greenberg, Joanne Greene, Gisela Greene, Paula Greller, Patty Grey, Carol Griffin, Dianne Griffen, Gini Griffin, Michael Gross, Vicki Gross, John and Koren Grubb, Robyn Gue, Roberta Gwin, Lois Hadfield, Beverly Hall, Mary Hall, Margaret Hallett, Arlene Halligan, Maribeth Halloran, Diana Hammer, Louise Hammond, Doug and Liz Hancock, Brian and Betsy Hand, Mark Hansen, Peri Hansen, Nancy Hanson, Charlie Harb, John P. Hardgrave, Kathe N. Hardy, Robert P. Haro, David P. Harp, Katie Harrar, Roger Harris, Tom Harrison and Barbara Harrison, Joan Hartwell, Eric Harty, Tasha and Chris Hatton, Sherry Havill, Alison Hawthorne, Gigi Haycock, Reilly Hayes, Linda Heide, Dennis Heinzig, Elisabeth Heisler, Terri Henderson, Gayle S. Hendry, Anthony Henin, Jeff Hennier, Catherine Henry, Marie Henry, Sharon Herrera, Susan and Robert Hersey, Sheila Hershon, Sharon L. Herzer, Jeff Hickman, Edna Hickok, Velma R. Hileman, Faye
and Louis Hinze, Ruthe Hirsch, Michael Hoeber, Lucelle Hoefnagels, Laurie Hoey, John and Lynne Hoffman, Amy J. Hoffman, Dr. Arlene F. Hoffman, Patricia Holland, Michael and Claire Hollander, Carol Hollenberg, Laura Holliday, Annette Holloway, Robert Holloway, Teri Hollowell, Karen and Douglas Holmes, Darla Holst, John D. Holton, Robert Holtz, Ken Homer and Diane Fischler, Melissa Honig, Bradea Horan, Liz Hotchkin, Dorothy Houston, Kathie and Terry Howard, Lori Howard and Greg Wolff, Mary Hubert, Erik R. Hughes, Audrey Hulburd, Cynthia Hunter, Duffy and Ron Hurwin, Mr. and Mrs Robert Husak, John and Madeline Ingram, Carol Inkellis, Mary Ellen Irwin, Nancy Isles Nation, Sylvia R. Israel, Eugenia A. Ives, Susana Ives, Beth Jackson, Ellen Marie Jackson, Martha Jackson, Kenneth C. Jacobs, Susan Jacobs, Debbie Jacobsen, Judy James, Carl and Joanne James, Cary and Elaine James, Nancy Jancar, Piotr Jankowski, Gail Jarach, Gerry and Martha Jarocki, Joy Jarrell, Uta Jehnich, Sheila Jenkins, Karen Jensen Brown, Phyllis Jeroslow, Richard S. and Rose Jeweler, Denise Jindrich, Abby Johnson, Beverlee Johnson, Jennifer Johnson, Patricia A. Johnson, Jennifer Johnston, Matthew Johnson, Jane M. Jonckheer, Roberta Jones, Sharon Jones, Sylvia Jones, Toby Jones, Joost Torres, Lindsay and Peter Joost, Marj Joost, Mary Evalyn Jordan, Robert Jordan, T.C. Jordan, Diana Jorgensen, Edie Joslin, Wendy and Brian Kahn, Diane Kallet, D. Ward Kallstrom and Rosemary Morgan, Laurie Kalter, Jack Kamesar, Eliot Kaplan, Eliot Kaplan, Lawrence Kaplan, Ron Kappe, Susanne M. Karch, Kay C. Karchevski, Eva Karlen, Dana Karlsons, Suzanne Karp, Stanley Karter, Beth Stefan, Patricia Kelly, Lloyd Kenneth, Beverly Kern, David L. and Barbara Kessell, David Kessner, Monib Khademi, Mary Kahn, Hossein Khosrowjah, Dorothy Kidd, Rita Kiesow, Brian Kim, Erin King, Paul Kingsley, John and Ann Kirby, Joan Kirsner, Karen Kissler Law Office, Vivian Kleiman, Pam Klein, Richard F. Klier, Jeanne Kline, Joan Kloehn, Katherine Koelle, Joseph S. Kohn, Janice Koprowski, Marty and Tammy Kornfeld, Joan T. Korngut, Judit Korosmezei, Cathy Korson, Tuomas Kostianen, Kraemer Winslow, Executive Communications, Larry and Sue Kramer, Martin Krasney, Neil Kraus, Betty J. Krause, Kristel Krepelka, Susan Kreuz Flint, Stanley Krippner, Wendy Krueger, Steve Kuever, Holly Kuhlman, Joy Kuhn, Eve Kupferman, Kathy Kurpita, Kiki La Porta, Alice La Rocca, Denise Labuda, Ann Lacey, Jan E. Lachman, Laurel Ladevich, Robert C Lafore, Frances Lana, Richard Landis, Lela Landman, Jenai Lane, Juliet Michele Lanfried, Karen Lang and Rafael Garcia, Wendy Lang and Phillip Weber, Monica Lange, Gina Laudisio, Alison Lavoy, Minjae Laws, Rob Lay, Kathryn Lazzaretti, Marie D. Lazzari, Terry Lazzari, Robert Lea and Melinda Booth, Diane Lebrun, Bernie Lee, Leslianne Lee and Scott Evans, Craig Lee, John S. Lee, Shofen Lee, Marla R. Leech, Jacqui Lehman, Claudine LeMoal, Lynn Lent, Jay and Barbara Leopold, Gloria Leptich, Mark and Jeanne Lerner, Judith Levin, Lawrence Levin, Norman Levin, Jane Levinsohn, Joanie Levinsohn, Sue and Marv Levinson, Bob Levitt, Kevin Lew, Maryline Lewett, Becky Lewis, Darcy Lichter, Linda Lieberman, Chloe Lietzke, Molly Light, Gretchen Likander, Beth Lillard, Ann Linder, Sheri Lloyd, Minhoi Loanic and Frank Wiggers, Linea D. Loberg, Juli Logemann, Kathleen Lopes, Toby C. LoPresti, Pat Lorentzen, Michael Lotter, Catherine Loudis, Thomas Luehrsen and Linda Baron, Dolores Lydon, Cathy Lynch, Cheryl S. Lyons, Lynda Lyshoj, Shawn Lysowski, Diana A. Lyster, Lynn MacDermott, Amy Machado and Richard Horne, Robert Macke and Karen Gallagher, Joe J. Madalena, Don Magdanz, Anna and Patrick Mahony, Barbara Mahoney, Theresa Mahoney, Peter and Melanie Maier, John Major, Renu Malhotra, Stela Mandel, Marianne Mander, Harriot Manley, Michele Manos, Judith and Melvyn Mark, Jim Maroney, Amy Marr, Joe Marrino, Roger Marsden, Helena Marsh, Heather Martin, Mrs. Charles Martin, Susan
Martling, Laura Marx, Deborah Masters, Don Mathews, Brandon Matthews, Dianne Maxon, Gary Maxworthy, Heidi Mayer, Peter and Sarah McAndrew, Matt Mcbride, Cristi McCabe, Maureen McCabe, Michael McCabe, Frances McCain, Ian McCamey, Scott McCargar, Tully McCarroll, Lynn McCarthy and David Malone, Mark and Auriela McCarthy, Charles P. McCarthy, Kieran McCartney, Mark McCaustland, Charmene McClarren, Mary Beth McClure and Paul Marra, Mary Margaret McClure, Nancy McCombs and Ken Lai, Corky McCord, Susan Madeline McCormick, Jane and Ian McDonald, Timothy and Susan McDonald, Nancy K. McDonald, Sue McDowell, Bill McGlashan, Teresa McGlashan, Mickey McGowan, Shirley McGrath, Beverly McIntosh, Mikki Mcintyre, Elizabeth M. McKersie, Wendy McLaughlin, Mike McLennan, Joe McLoughlin, Deborah McMahan, Laura McNabo, Nancy McNary, Jo McPeak, Martin McReynolds, Carolyn Means, Gail M. Meblin, Dennie Mehocich, Nita B. Mehrten, Juan’s Place, Daniel Meltzer, Loretta Merat, Janet Mercer, Jennifer Merkle, Glinda Messina, Marcia Meyers, Doreen Miao, Blossom Michaeloff, Golda Michelson, Caleb and Terri Miller, Marc Miller and Patrice Forte-Miller, Ina Miller, Ronald Miller, Victoria L. Miller, Frances Miller, Kristina Millikan, Abigail Millikan-State, Will Minor, Joan Miura, Curt Miyashiro, Jayme Mogen, Karen Mondoux, Lynn Monica, Carol Monpere, Susan Montrose, Michael Moore, Gail Morfin, Tamara Morgan, Marjorie Morgenstern, Patricia Morris, Doris Mortensen, Sharon L. Mortenson, Cindy Morton, Jan Mosgofian, Gerald M. Moskowitz, Philip Moyer, John Muller, Anne Mulvaney, Susan Mulvey, Catherine Munson, Laura Murra, Barbara Myers, Ursula Nachtrieb, Hilda Namm, Nadine N. Narita, Ali Navarro, Lisa Nave, Richard Neill, James Nelson and Mary Armour Nelson, Jean R. Nelson, Robert Neumann, William Newland, Amy Ng, Doug Nichol, Pamela Nichter, Jill Nicols and John Harris, Robin Niemeyer, Jan Nilsen, Joan Nilsen, Rob Nilsson, Dan Nishimura, Susan Nissim, Nancy Ziegler Nodelman, Mark and Kay Noguchi, Inger Norman, Clair Norman, Marion Novasic, Karla Nygaard, Lynne Oberlander, Lily O’Brien, Sean O’Brien, Robert O’Donnell, Karen P. Offereins, Kaori Okada, Carol Oldham, David Oliver, Susan Olsen, Lane and Steven Olson, Jeffrey Olson, Laurie Oman and Brian Gould, Karyn Omohundro, Caroline Oreilly, Lesley Orford, Eileen Ormiston, Judy Osborne, Stephen B. Oshry, George Osterkamp, David Ostiller, Gary Oswald, Dianna and David Overmyer, Burr Overstreet, Joan Owen, Christine Owens, Victoria Palmason, Pat Palmer, Solvig PalmNicholls, Darci Palmquist, Anita Palonsky, Eric Palubinskas, Beverly Parayno and Isso Noir, Dwight and Celeste Parcell, Davida Pardo, John Parker, Denise Parsons, Margaret Partlow, Michael Patten, Lois Patton, Drew Pearce, Cybelle Pelcher, Yveline Pelletier, Dana Pepp, Penny Pera, P.J. Perring, Alicia Perry, James Pesavento, Tamra Peters and Bill Carney, Johanna Petersen, Linda Petri, Sherry Petrini, John Petrovsky, Ronald Pharis, Woody and CC Phillips, David W. Phillips, Mark Phillips, Susan Piallat, Jeanne Pieters, Kathlyn Pihl, William A. Piltzer, Mindy Pines, Selma Pinsker, Jacob Pispecky, Joanna Plocki, Harry Podany, Dave Pogrel and Chalita Photikoe, Michael Polaire, Maggie Polan, Carol and William Pollak, Edward Pollak, Chris Pollock, Susan Porth, Emily Porzia, Robert Powell, Madeleine L. Powers, Francesca Prada, Flora Praszker, Sean and Eileen Prendiville, Paul Preston, Paul Pribuss, Carol Price, Sandra Prickitt, Fred and Ineke Priest, Val Pristera, Charlotte Prozan, Alan Ptashek, Audrey K. Pulis, Jon Paul Puno, Conan Putman, Kenn Rabin, Sue Ellen Raby, Howard and Evi Rachelson, Alissa Ralston, Michael Ralston, Alan S. Ramadan, Lewis Rambo, Ingrid Ramsay, Su Ranft, Nani L. Ranken, Patricia Ravitz, Douglas Reilly, Ulla Reilly, Steven Reinstein, Haydn Reiss, Robert Riboli, Sheri Rice, Lori Rifkin, Mimi Riley, Fred Ritzenberg and Stacey Cooper, Ann Rivo, John
Mill Valley Film Festival
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Ann Shaw and Michael Grotjahn, Lynda Sheehan, Shannon Sheppard, Bill Shine, Jill L. Shoemaker, Kathleen Shore, Diane Sidjakov, Eileen Siedman, Elsie Siegel, Skip Sikora, Harold and Harriet Silen, Bibi Sillem, Ivan Silverberg, Kathy Simon, David Simoni, Jane Singer, Marcus Siu, Francoise Skurman, Michelle Slatalla, Martin and Emily Smith, Lee and Perry Smith, Warren Smith, Linda K. Smith, Ken Smith, Antoinette Snyder, Judith Sommer, Joan Sommer, Lauren Sorkin, Marcia and David Sperling, Josh Sperry, Leonard and Rita M. Sperry, Walt Spevak, Bonnie and Louis Spiesberger, Bettina Sporkenbach, Joanne Spotswood, Suzanne Stafford, Marjorie Stark and Vince Del Gado, Joan Steidinger, Alan Steier, Juliet Stein, Richard and Susie Stern, Beverly Sterry, Susan and William Stewart, Charles Stewart, Stan Stock and Nikzad Khansari, Norman and Runa Stone, Brook Stone and Douglas Wallace, Bruce Stone, Terry Strauss, Geoffrey Strawbridge, Jennifer Stroman, Steve and Carolyn Stromberg, Mr. Chuck Stuckey and Ms. Donna Eng, Charles and Sherri Sugarman, Alex Suter, Susan T. Sutton, Sandy Sverdloff, Jeanne Sweet and Dave Stephens, Victoria Swift and Robert Caint, Joel Symmes, Peter and Irene Tabet, Cheryl D. Tallman, Carole Talmage, Sari Taylor and Roger Pierce, Joseph and Donna Terdimon, Phyllis and Max Thelen, John and Joyce Thomas, Will and Leslie Thompson, Blake and Bev Thorman, Tom Thorner, Anne Tillotson, Peter A. Tolger/Tam Systems, Inc., Robert and Ellen Tollen, Nancy Tompkins, Richard Torney, Rick Trautner, Lee Trucker and Henrietta Cohen, Janet Morgan Tucker, Mel and Lois Tukman, David M. Tureaud and Brian Hackfeld, Janna Ullrey, Alan and Ruby Unger, Susan and Lynn Upshaw, Kirk Usher, Chris Valentino, Nancy Van Gelder, Sim Vanderryn, Sally Veauta, Barbara Verkozen, Molly Viebrock, Tess Villas, Andrea Visconte, Tom Voigt, Weir/ Andrewson Associates, John Wallace, Alta Walters and Dan Zucker, Deirdre Warin, Jessica Wasserman, Betsy Waud, Barbara Webb, Dr. A. Alan Weber and Ms. Julie Mullin, Linda C. Weill, Penny and Bob Weiss, Milton and Joan Weiss, Jill Weissich, Amanda Weitman, Cris Welish, Ms. Mary Jane Wets and Ms. Raymonde Kaplan, Richard Wheeler, G. White, Robert Wilkins and Amanda Wilkins, Dora Williams, Jody Wilson and Barbara Searles, Tiana Wimmer, Marty and Barbara Winter, Najean Witt, Kari Woldum, Margaret Woodring, Marsha Workman, Avalon Enterprises, Penny W. Wright-Mulligan, Richard Wynkoop and Catherine Main, Annella Wynyard, Stephen Yafa and Bonnie Dahan, Kenji Yamamoto and Nancy Kelly, Jan Yanehiro, Susan York, Joan You, Jerry and Sharon Young, Andy Zabko, Martin and Margaret Zankel, Kate Zawistowski, Mark Zelinsky, Patricia Zimmer, Tom Zizzo
DIRECTOR’S CIRCLE
Joanna Beard, Bob and Loraine Berry, Mark E. Bettini, Karen Bolig, Ann Brebner, Gina Brewer, Caldwell Banker, David Coduto and Rhonda Karsch, Tom and Kristi Cohen, Teresa Wilson Crosbie, Jennifer Cuneo, Warren and Edie DeGraff, Gillian and Teague Donahey, Daniel and Diane Durst, David and Erin Elliott, Ruth Epstein and Mark Shafir, Mary Farmer and Michael Dowling, Saul and Gloria Feldman, Dennis and Pam Fisco, Margritha Fliegauf, Jeffrey and Bonnie Freiberg, Eric Gelman, Warren George, Robert and Judith Greber, Roger Grossman, Charlotte Gurin, Lynne Hale, Joan Hansen, Richard and Julie Harris, Eliza Haskins, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Heller, Monica Heredia, Allan Herzog, Marcelo and Nora Hirschler, Paul Hoffman, Lynn Holton and Bradley Rothbach, Mishana Hosseinioun, Kimberly Hughes, Shahram Ijanbijan, Allan E. Jackman, John B. and Glennis Jones, Dave Korol, Lynn and Roger Kuhn, Jean Larette, Barbara Llewellyn, Beryl Lusen, Maroevich, O’Shea & Coghlan, Christina McArthur, Dr. Richard and Mrs. Barbara McAuliffe, Tim McCarthy, Bill and Sharon McKeon, Media
Networks, Inc., Dan and Joy Millman, Holly Milne, Kathleen Moore, Melinda Moore, Richard H. Mogensen, Walter and Muriel Murch, Jacklyn E. Stroud, Melanie and Paul Nichols, Susan Nightingale, Barbara Norton, Michael and Susan Painter, Robin Parer, Joy Phoenix, Russ and Joni Pratt, Carol Price, Beth Rader, Marty and Naomi Rayman, James and Kyle Redford, Gary and Joyce Rifkind, Jeanne Rizzo and Pali Cooper, Thomas and Patricia Rosbrow, Danny Rubinstein, Nancee Rubinstein, Patricia Sarris, Jeffrey M. Scales, Dorene and Robert Schiro, David Schrader and Brett Robertson, Joyce Shank, Shadeh Shooshtary, Michael and Marsha Silberstein, Carol Solomon, Ellis and Ann Stephens, Barbara Stewart, Mary Lee Strebl, Jackie Suzuki, Ray and Jean Taylor, Kathryn Thyret, Evelyn Topper, Marjorie Tremblay-Silva, Jeannine Voix Paganini, Diane and Michael Wakelin, Martha R. Walters, Judy Webb, Anthony and Dafne White, Bari and Sean Williams, Bruce and Marya Wintroub, Stephanie Witt, Roberto and Christine Zecca
PREMIER PATRON
Yvonne Angelo, Steve and Vicki Beck, John G. Bors, Dr. Michael and Mrs. Vivien Bronshvag, Edwin Caldwell, Joel and Justine Coopersmith, Judith and Mel Croner, Karl Dannecker, Andrew W. and Stephanie Evans, Lee Flynn, Maureen Galliani, Katherine Higgins Gianola and James Gianola, Mark M. Glickman, Frank and Barbro Greene, Tony Hooker, Bettina Hughes, Elisabeth Jaffe, Conrad Jorgensen, Michael and Chris Kasman, Douglas and Cessna Kaye, Brian Lehman, Huey Lewis and Sidney Conroy, Donald G. Linker, Carol Marshall and Thomas Price, Krista and Bill Martin, Patricia C. McDowell, Peter and Alana Morris, Michael Musser, Catherine Newman, Sylvia Reynolds, Barbara Richardson, Stan Savage, Kirsten Shilakes and Christopher Shilakes, Lauri Tanner, Janet Taylor, Peter and Peggy Trethewey, Virginia Reiss Associates, Harry Willis, Brian and Candy Wilson
CINEMA BENEFACTOR
Marty Brenneis, Ken and Jackie Broad, William and Jill Burkart, Marx L. Cazenave II, Jennifer Chaiken and Sam Hamilton, Donald Clark, Peter and Stefanie Coyote, James Dines, Carole Dolton, Gordon and Joanne Dunn, Michael V. Dyett and Heidi Richardson, Jeffrey Edman, Paul M. Elliot, Carla Emil and Rich Silverstein, Melissa Fairgrieve, Mark and Lorrie Fishkin, Lang Gerhard, Paul and Marcia Ginsburg, Michelle Griffin and Tom Parker, Robert and Nanette Griswold, Kenneth and Linda Hicken, Richard and Susan Idell, Tina Jennings, Kathryn E. and Peter Johnson, Barry Kushner, Myla Lerner and Larry Kramer, Victoria Love and R. Max Yusim, Ed and Susan Lowe, Hugh Marasa and Liza Marasa, Ms. Deborah Matthies, James Mochizuki, Tim Muller, Harold and Gertrud Parker, Jonathan Parker, Dwight R. Peterson, Mary and Bill Poland, Art Rothstein and Julia Erickson, Bradley and Diane Shore, Francoise Stone, Dr. Kay Thompson, Monte and Ruthellen Toole, Jeffrey Walker, Eastman Kodak, Zachary and Marlies Zeisler
Please see page 17 for acknowledgement of Major Donor members who hold Festival, Rafael and California Film Institute Fast Passes.
The California Film Institute makes every effort to properly acknowledge our members and supporters. If we inadvertently left your name off this list, or you joined and renewed your membership after August 15th, 2005, please accept our sincere apologies.
Thank you.
Mill Valley Film Festival
Ernest Abdyshaparov
Saratan
Hany Abu-Assad
Paradise Now
Shane Acker
9
Topaz Adizes
Seven Miles Alone
Maciek Albrecht
Duck for President
How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon?
Beth Armstrong Passion with a Pedigree
Phil Aupperle
The Big Race
Hank Azaria
Nobody’s Perfect
Sam Ball
Poumy
Noah Baumbach
The Squid and the Whale
Keith Bearden
The Raftman’s Razor
Mark Becker
Romántico
Shaz Bennett
Top of the Circle
Cordelia Beresford
The Eye Inside
Karen Bernstein
Troop 1500: Girl Scouts Beyond Bars
donnie l. betts
Music is My Life, Politics My Mistress
Oded Binnun
Tuesday’s Women
Delaney Bishop
The Death of Salvador Dali
Eric Black Frozen Angels
Blair Academy MSU Chapel
Jesse Block
Brotherly Jazz: The Music and Stories of Percy, Jimmy & Albert “Tootie” Heath
Maria Blom
Dalecarlians
Mike Blum
The Zit
Tassos Boulmetis
A Touch of Spice
Mystelle Brabbeé Highway Courtesans
Mihal Brezis
Tuesday’s Women
David L. Brown
The Bridge So Far: A Suspense Story
Chris Brown
Scared New World
Edward A. Burger
Amongst White Clouds
Peter Mackie Burns
Milk
Peter Byrne Second Sight
Thomas J. Cabela
The Blue Aspic
Heather Cappiello
Ruby’s Tuesday
Manuel Carmons
Ché in Our Lives
Niki Caro
North Country
Marc Caro Delicatessen
Karen Dee Carpenter My Scarlet Letter
Alyssa Cashman ¡Ole!
John Cernak Dear, Sweet Emma
Tania Cervantes Victims of Fashion
J. Lisa Chang The Big Empty
Aloura M. Charles
La Magique Noire
Richard Ciupka The Incomparable Miss C.
Brad Coley
The Undeserved
Paul Couvela Pingu Digs a Hole
Gidi Dar Ushpizin
Kief Davidson The Devil’s Miner
Nicole de Coteau Train Truck
Mijke de Jong Bluebird
Gaelle Denis City Paradise
Michel Deville The Art of Breaking Up
David Di Sabatino
Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher
Guy Dimenstein The Messiah
Clara Dudley
Indebted Joyfully
Justin Edgar Special People
Rick Elgood One Love
Holger Ernst Rain Is Falling
Eric Escobar One Weekend a Month
Jules Feiffer I Lost My Bear!
Meredith Finkelstein Video Out
Renate Fleischer Fast Crapper
Dave Fleischer Hoppity Goes to Town
Peter Flinth The Fakir
Derek Flood
Emelia
Péter Forgács
El Perro Negro: Stories from the Spanish Civil War
Stephen Frears
Mrs. Henderson Presents
Thor Freudenthal Motel
Jacqui Frost What Is Gay?
Daniel Garcia Ché in Our Lives
Wade Gardner
Beers, Steers and Queers
Tyler Garner Victims of Fashion
Alex George
The Santa Claus Happy Tyme Show
Abby Ginzberg Soul of Justice: Thelton Henderson’s American Journey
Jon Goldman Kind of a Blur
Gillian Grisman Press On
Roberta Grossman
Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action
Ciro Guerra
The Wandering Shadows
Lucas Guilkey
The Weight of Justice
Kenzo Hakuta Fall
LisaGay Hamilton
Beah: A Black Woman Speaks
John Harden
La Vie d’un Chien
J.R. Heffelfinger
Niji No Shita Ni / Under the Rainbow
Liisa Helminen Pelican Man
Aaron Himelstein
Sugar Mountain
Ryuichi Hiroki
Girlfriend, Someone Please Stop the World
Alex Hoof
Hearts Will Break
Bobby Houston Mighty Times: The Children’s March
Kathy Huang
Jaywalking
Erin Hudson Unhitched
Dwight Hwang The Goo’d War
Simon Hynd
Tumshie McFadgen’s Bid for Ultimate Bliss
Leigh Iacobucci
Jaywalking
The Mother in Me
Dan Ivanick
Arnie the Doughnut
Neil Jack
The Tree Officer
Melissa Jacobs
Solemates
Ryu Jang-ha
Springtime
Stefan Jarl
The Girl from Auschwitz
Christopher Jaymes In Memory of My Father
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Amélie
Delicatessen
Pas de repos pour Billy Brakko
Youna Jin
The Gift
Rian Johnson
Brick
Phil Johnston
Flightless Birds
Antonia Kao Pup
Yasmine Kassari
The Sleeping Child
Nancy Kelly
Smitten
Tamarind King
Solemates
Andrzej Klamt
Carpatia
Sarah Klein Feed the Starter
Christian Svanes Kolding
Depression Served Six Ways
Lajos Koltai
Fateless
Krzysztof Krauze My Nikifor
Matt Kresling
The Milk Can
Gil Kruger
Flutter Kick
Ashvin Kumar
The Little Terrorist
Richard Ladkani
The Devil’s Miner
Shannon Latham
Solemates
Erik Leijonborg
Max and Josef: Double Trouble
Ella Lemhagen
Immediate Boarding
Tod Lending
Rosevelt’s America
Nanouk Leopold
Guernsey
Don Letts
One Love
Evan Lieberman
The Lady from Sockholm
Allie Light
An Iraqi Lullaby
Wilma Ligthart
XL
Theo Lipfert
Taubman Sucks
Lu Lippold Wellstone!
Miguel Littin
The Last Moon
Aku Louhimies
Frozen Land
Sarah Lovrien Examining the Teenage Girl
Dan Luke Wellstone!
Heather Lyn MacDonald
Been Rich All My Life
Luis Mandoki
Innocent Voices
James Mangold Walk the Line
Samantha Marx
Solemates
Zola Maseko
Drum
Jimmy Mathew Fall
Stephanie Maxwell
Second Sight
Lesley McClintock Ripples of Light
Monteith McCollum
Lawn
Michael McCormick
Arrest Assured
Scott McGehee
Bee Season
Tamara Meem
The First Thing I Remember
Farhad Mehranfar
The Winter Song
Dani Menkin
39 Pounds of Love
Rudolf Mestdagh Ellektra
Radu Mihaileanu Live and Become
Coleman Miller Uso Justo
Seyyed Reza Mir-Karimi
So Close, So Far
John Mitchell
Goodnight Bill
Keefe Murren
iThemba | Hope
Doan Thanh Nghia
Bride of Silence
Rob Nilsson
Need
Peder Norlund
Wolf Summer
Kristen Nutile
Police Blotter
Colin Nutley
The Queen of Sheba’s Pearls
Stephen Olsson
SOUND OF THE SOUL: The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music
Maysoon Pachachi
Return to the Land of Wonders
Jonathan Parker
The Californians
Robert Adrian Pejo
Dallas Among Us
Silvije Petranovic
The Society of Jesus (The Jesuits)
Renji Philip
An American Dream
Lucy Phillips my tiny universe
Jarrell Phillips Victims of Fashion
Doan Minh Phuong Bride of Silence
Adam Pilkington Lion
Eugenio Polgovsky
Tropic of Cancer
Marco Ponti Round Trip
Miloje Popovic Accidents
Nick Poppy
Zombie-American
Michael Powell
I Know Where I’m Going! The Red Shoes
Emeric Pressburger
I Know Where I’m Going! The Red Shoes
Heather Rae Trudell
Phil Ramuno
Bringing Up BayBay
Samantha Rebillet
Butterfly Man
Jane Reed
My Eyes Were Fresh, The Life and Photographs of John Gutmann
Matt Reiter
Hearts Will Break
Aliaa Remtilla
Dear Reid
Carina Renner
The Virgin Suicides
Jody Rice
The Rubber Duckling
Bobby Roth Berkeley
Marc Rothemud
Sophie Scholl: The Last Days
Ulrich Rydzewski
Carpatia
Ira Sachs
Forty Shades of Blue
Ovidio Salazar
Al-Ghazali: The Alchemist of Happiness
Ramon Alos Sanchez Accidents
Frauke Sandig
Frozen Angels
Irving Saraf
An Iraqi Lullaby
Robinson Savary
Bye-Bye Blackbird
Stefan Scaini
Spirit Bear: The Simon Jackson Story
Glen Scantlebury my tiny universe
Allan Schindler Second Sight
Henry Selick Moongirl
Kirill Serebrennikov Bed Stories
Joe Shapiro Rooted in Rebellion
Richard Shepard The Matador
David Siegel Bee Season
Newton Thomas Sigel
The Big Empty
Daniel Silber-Baker
Hearts Will Break
Shelly Silver What I’m Looking For
Lance Slaton Life Ride
Eric Smith
Irene Williams: Queen of Lincoln Road
Aaron Sorenson
Bastard Wants to Hit Me
Elise Southwick Solemates
Ellen Spiro
Troop 1500: Girl Scouts Beyond Bars
Kim Spurlock Afternoon
Laurie Stern Wellstone!
Students of SF Art and Film Postcards from Paris
Kamal Tabrizi A Piece of Bread
Yuki Tanada Moon and Cherry
Robert Taylor Arrest Assured
Rick Tejada-Flores Race Is the Place
Ray Telles Race Is the Place
Jacques Thelemeaque Transaction
Gabriela Tollman Birth of Industry
Keith Tonini Light in an Elevator
Géza M. Tóth Maestro
Frédérick Tremblay Remote Paradise
Toni Trupia Accidents
Anand Tucker Shopgirl
Duncan Tucker Transamerica
James J. Twyford Little Things
Ahmet Uluçay Boats out of Watermelon Rinds
Willem van de Sande Bakhuyzen Lepel
Paula van der Oest
Hidden Flaws
Paul Vlachos
Video Out
Eddy Von Mueller
The Lady from Sockholm
Taika Waititi
Tama Tü
Nelson Walker iThemba | Hope
Jeremy Kipp Walker Goodnight Bill
Michael Wallin
To Hold a Heart
Ken Wardrop Undressing My Mother
Josh Weinberg Beers, Steers and Queers
Roger Weisberg
Rosevelt’s America
Aerlyn Weissman
Web Cam Girls
Liz Whitaker Pingu and the Band
Leah Wolchok City of Mermaids
Joe Wright
Pride & Prejudice
Ben Wu
Unhitched
S. Pierre Yaméogo Delwende
Pamela Yates State of Fear
Ben Younger Prime
Samantha Yu The Winner
Jay Yu
Victims of Fashion
David Zeiger Sir! No Sir!
Afghanistan
SOUND OF THE SOUL: The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music
Australia
Butterfly Man
The Eye Inside
The First Thing I Remember Passion with a Pedigree
Austria Carpatia
Dallas Among Us
Belgium
Amélie
Ellektra
The Sleeping Child
Bolivia
The Devil’s Miner
Burkina Faso
Delwende
Canada
The Incomparable Miss C. Spirit Bear: The Simon Jackson Story
Web Cam Girls
Remote Paradise
Amongst White Clouds
Chile
The Last Moon
China
Amongst White Clouds
Colombia The Wandering Shadows
Croatia
The Society of Jesus (The Jesuits)
Denmark
Depression Served Six Ways The Fakir
Egypt Guernsey
El Salvador
Innocent Voices
Ethiopia Live and Become
Finland
Frozen Land Pelican Man
France
Amélie
The Art of Breaking Up
Bye-Bye Blackbird
Delicatessen
Delwende
Foutaises
Frozen Angels
Live and Become
Paradise Now
Poumy
SOUND OF THE SOUL: The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music
Germany
Bye-Bye Blackbird
Bride of Silence
Carpatia
Dallas Among Us
The Devil’s Miner
Frozen Angels
The Girl from Auschwitz Paradise Now Rain Is Falling
Saratan
Sophie Scholl: The Last Days
Greece
Touch of Spice
Hungary Dallas Among Us
Fateless Maestro
India
Highway Courtesans The Little Terrorist
Iran
Al-Ghazali: The Alchemist of Happiness
A Piece of Bread So Close, So Far The Winter Song
Iraq
An Iraqi Lullaby Return to the Land of Wonders
Ireland
SOUND OF THE SOUL: The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music
Undressing My Mother
Israel
39 Pounds of Love
The Girl from Auschwitz The Last Moon Live and Become The Messiah Paradise Now Tuesday’s Women Ushpizin
Italy
Accidents Round Trip
Jamaica One Love
Japan
Girlfriend, Someone Please Stop the World Moon and Cherry Niji No Shita Ni / Under the Rainbow
Korea
Springtime
Kyrgyzstan Saratan
Liberia Rosevelt’s America
Luxembourg
Bye-Bye Blackbird
Madagascar The Big Race
Mexico
Innocent Voices
The Matador
Romántico Tropic of Cancer
Morocco The Sleeping Child
SOUND OF THE SOUL: The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music
Netherlands
Bluebird
Guernsey
Hidden Flaws
Lepel
Paradise Now
El Perro Negro: Stories from the Spanish Civil War
XL
New Zealand
Tama Tü
Norway
Wolf Summer
Palestine
The Girl from Auschwitz
The Last Moon
Paradise Now
Peru
State of Fear
Poland
Carpatia
My Nikifor
Portugal
SOUND OF THE SOUL: The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music
Puerto Rico
Innocent Voices
Romania
Carpatia
Russia
Bed Stories
Scotland
Hidden Flaws
Milk
The Tree Officer
Tumshie McFadgen’s Bid for Ultimate Bliss
South Africa
Drum
iThemba | Hope
Spain
El Perro Negro: Stories from the Spanish Civil War
Sweden
Dalecarlians
The Girl from Auschwitz
Immediate Boarding
Max and Josef: Double Trouble
The Queen of Sheba’s Pearls
Turkey
Boats out of Watermelon Rinds
Touch of Spice
UK Accidents
Al-Ghazali: The Alchemist of
Happiness
Bye-Bye Blackbird
City Paradise
I Know Where I’m Going!
The Little Terrorist
Little Things
Mrs. Henderson Presents
One Love
Pingu and the Band
Pingu Digs a Hole
Pride & Prejudice
The Red Shoes
Return to the Land of Wonders
The Queen of Sheba’s Pearls
Special People
Ukraine
Carpatia
US 9
39 Pounds of Love
Afternoon
An American Dream
Arnie the Doughnut
Arrest Assured
Bastard Wants to Hit Me
Beah: A Black Woman Speaks
Bee Season
Been Rich All My Life
Beers, Steers and Queers
Berkeley
The Big Empty
The Big Race
Birth of Industry
The Blue Aspic
Brick
The Bridge So Far: A Suspense Story
Bringing Up BayBay
Brotherly Jazz: The Music and Stories of Percy, Jimmy and Albert “Tootie” Heath
The Californians
Ché in Our Lives City of Mermaids
Dear Reid
Dear, Sweet Emma
The Death of Salvador Dali
The Devil’s Miner
Drum
Duck for President
Emelia
Examining the Teenage Girl
Fall
Fast Crapper
Feed the Starter Flightless Birds
Flutter Kick
Forty Shades of Blue Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher
Frozen Angels
The Gift
The Goo’d War
Goodnight Bill
Hearts Will Break
Highway Courtesans
Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action
Hoppity Goes to Town
How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon?
I Lost My Bear!
In Memory of My Father
Indebted Joyfully
Innocent Voices
An Iraqi Lullaby
Irene Williams: Queen of Lincoln Road
iThemba | Hope
Jaywalking
Kind of a Blur
The Lady from Sockholm
Lawn
Life Ride
Light in an Elevator Lion
La Magique Noire
The Matador
Mighty Times: The Children’s March
The Milk Can
Moongirl
Motel
The Mother in Me
MSU Chapel
Music Is My Life, Politics My Mistress
My Eyes Were Fresh, The Life and Photographs of John Gutmann
My Scarlet Letter my tiny universe
Need
Niji No Shita Ni / Under the Rainbow
Nobody’s Perfect North Country ¡Ole!
One Weekend a Month
Police Blotter
Postcards from Paris
Poumy
Press On Prime
Pup
Race Is the Place
Raftman’s Razor
Ripples of Light
Romántico
Rooted in Rebellion
Rosevelt’s America
Rubber Duckling
Ruby’s Tuesday
Santa Claus Happy Tyme Show
Scared New World
Second Sight
Seven Miles Alone
Shopgirl
Sir! No Sir!
Smitten
Solemates
Soul of Justice: Thelton
Henderson’s American Journey
SOUND OF THE SOUL: The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music
Moonfish Films moonfishfilms@yahoo.com +49 179 556 2555 phone www.brideofsilence.com
The Bridge So Far: A Suspense Story
David L. Brown Productions docmaker1@aol.com 415.468.7469 phone 415.467.5428 fax www.dlbfilms.com
Bringing Up BayBay Soleil Films florence@soleilfilms.com www.bubb.soleilfilms.com
Brotherly Jazz: The Music and Stories of Percy, Jimmy and Albert “Tootie” Heath TeleVisual Studios jb@octalouie.com 415.567.2749 phone www.octalouie.com
Butterfly Man AFTRS sami@bigpond.net.au +612 9130 1862 phone
Sarah Klein thesarahklein@yahoo.com www.sarahklein.com
The First Thing I Remember Tamara Meem tamie_tm@hotmail.com +614 1331 8840 phone
Flightless Birds
Odd Number Productions phil@oddnumberproductions.com 917.538.0274 phone 718.369.4872 fax
Flutter Kick How Far Films gil@howfarfilms.com 917.514.1819 phone 212.253.6929 fax www.howfarfilms.com
Forty Shades of Blue Capital Ent/First Look Pictures david@vitagraphfilms.com 310.314.9567 phone www.capitalent.com www.flp.com
Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher Jester Media sabbi@cox.net 949.297.4879 phone www.lonniefrisbee.com
Frozen Angels Umbrella Films umbrellafilms@sandig.com +49 304 473 8624 phone/fax
Frozen Land Finnish Film Foundation ses@ses.fi +358 9 622 0300 phone +358 9 622 03060 fax www.ses.fi
The Gift Idyllwild Arts Academy bradleybattersby@yahoo.com 951.659.2171 phone 951.659.8485 fax www.idyllwildarts.org
The Girl from Auschwitz Stefan Jarl AB stefanjarl@hotmail.com +46 501 42072 phone +46 501 42071 fax www.stefanjarl.se
Girlfriend, Someone Please Stop the World Open Sesame Co., Ltd kaho@open-sesame.jp +81 3 5159 0871 phone +81 3 3561 6262 fax
The Goo’d War Dwight Hwang dwighty74@yahoo.com 253.241.8856 phone
Goodnight Bill Maida Vale Films jeremykippwalker@gmail.com 917.545.7676 phone 212.989.3907 fax www.goodnightbill.com
Guernsey Holland Film a.naus@hollandfilm.nl +31 20 570 7572 phone
Hearts Will Break Berkeley High School drasiah@berkeley.k12.ca.us 510.601.5164 phone
Hidden Flaws Holland Film a.naus@hollandfilm.nl +31 20 570 7572 phone
Mill Valley Film Festival PRINT SOURCES
Highway Courtesans Women Make Movies cgeorge@wmm.com 212.925.0606 phone 212.925.2052 fax www.wmm.com
Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action Katahdin Productions rgrossman@katahdinproductions.com 323.337.1177 phone 323.337.1443 fax www.katahdin.org
Hoppity Goes to Town Paramount Repertory 818.380.7801 phone 818.380.7852 fax
How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon? Weston Woods Studios nfuentes@scholastic.com 800.243.5020 phone 203.845.0498 fax www.scholastic.com/westonwoods
I Know Where I’m Going! Sony Pictures Repertory repertory@spe.sony.com 310.244.2066 phone www.sonypicturesrepertory.com
I Lost My Bear! Weston Woods Studios nfuentes@scholastic.com 800.243.5020 phone 203.845.0498 fax www.scholastic.com/westonwoods
Immediate Boarding Swedish Film Institute gual@sfi.se +46 8 665 1100 phone
+46 8 666 3698 fax www.sfi.se
In Memory of My Father TCDM & Associates info@personafilm.com 213.624.7827 phone www.personafilm.com
The Incomparable Miss C. Films Vision 4 info@telefiction.com 514.499.0972 phone 514.844.5498 fax www.telefiction.com
Indebted Joyfully Clara Dudley dandiesjunkie@aol.com 415.387.2248 phone
Innocent Voices
BB Entertainment Marketing bbentertainment@adelphia.net 818.562.9432 phone 818.562.9472 fax
An Iraqi Lullaby Light-Saraf Films sarafilm@comcast.net 415.469.0139 phone/fax lightsaraffilms.com
Irene Williams: Queen of Lincoln Road World Love Productions, Inc. irenequeen@sbcglobal.net 415.695.8259 phone 415.695.7479 fax www.worldloveproductions.com
iThemba | Hope Murren-Walker Films keefemurren@yahoo.com 917.207.0467 phone www.ithembafilmproject.org
The Society of Jesus (The Jesuits) Maydi Film maydi@zg.htnet.hr +385 1 66 92 500 phone +385 1 66 73 774 fax www.maydi.com
Solemates Girls Film School agrisso@csf.edu 505.473.6403 phone www.girlsfilmschool.cfs.edu
Sophie Scholl: The Last Days Zeitgeist Films woodburne@zeitgeistfilms.com 212.274.1989 phone 212.274.1644 fax www.zeitgeistfilms.com
Soul of Justice: Thelton Henderson’s American Journey California Newsreel 415.284.7800 phone 415.284.7801 fax www.newsreel.org
SOUND OF THE SOUL: The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music Cultural and Educational Media solsson@linktv.org 415.331.7345 phone 415.331.5363 fax www.cemproductions.org
Special People 104 films justinedgar@beeb.net +44 20 86 90 04 24 phone/fax www.104films.com
Spirit Bear: The Simon Jackson Story Tapestry Pictures beth@tapestrypictures.com 416.535.7402 phone 416.535.1839 fax