sf indiefest

Castro Theater 2/8/2007 7PM

David Lynch’s mesmerizing, hallucinatory visit to the uncharted territories of the inland empire displays all of the master’s strengths, and yields great rewards to those who are willing to leave their egos at the door and go along for the ride. Filmed over a two-and-half-year period, Inland Empire may be his most extraordinary film project yet, a culmination of all of the themes touched on in his other masterpieces, Eraserhead, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive. Here Lynch is at the top of his powers—Inland is beautiful and terrifying and and funny—an example of an artist peeling back the layers of his own psyche, and in the process, like Hitchcock did in Vertigo, creating great art out of revealing his obsessions. Storm

The Opening Night Party Shorts Program

2/8, 1030p and 1150p,

Porn Palace Screening Room

924 Mission at 5th

THE CUBICLE

Cory De Lair

2006, USA, 19 min

An ashmatic mail carrier races for his job through the office when the company he works for falls on hard times.

SUCKING IS A FINE QUALITY IN WOMEN AND VACUUM CLEANERS

Nina Bradley

2006, UK, 10 min, http://www.honeypotfilms.co.uk

The Opening Night Party Shorts Program

2/8, 1030p and 1150p,

Porn Palace Screening Room

924 Mission at 5th

THE CUBICLE

Cory De Lair

2006, USA, 19 min

An ashmatic mail carrier races for his job through the office when the company he works for falls on hard times.

SUCKING IS A FINE QUALITY IN WOMEN AND VACUUM CLEANERS

Nina Bradley

2006, UK, 10 min, http://www.honeypotfilms.co.uk

Sometimes a marriage can survive a little indiscretion but one husband obsession with his mistress causes the wife to re-evaluate their marriage to deadly effect.

Roxie Cinema    2/9/2007    2:15PM

Chris Gore presents ‘Filmmaking in the Nude,’ on Friday, February 9 at 2:15p, in which he reveals his journey from movie geek to moviemaker. Best known as the creator of Film Threat, he reveals the gory details of slaving in underground publishing, surviving celebrity egos, battles with the studios and getting his first feature produced. Part stand-up, part helpful advice for those pursuing a life in indie film, this one-man show informs and entertains. Mature Audiences Only.

Free admission.

Victoria Theater 2/11/2007 9:30 PM

 

“Karen Kramer’s hopeful, lovingly made documentary, a ballad with a recurrent refrain, never lets us forget that the spirit will not die. It lives in the wet wood at the Bitter End, in every romantic who flees Idaho, sobbing onto the page—in all the eternal recurrence of revolt, youth, and art. Kramer, a respected New York-based filmmaker since her 1978 Appalacian snake-handling church film, uses a straightforward presentation to tell the story of a twisting, alternative land.

Roxie Cinema     2/9/2007     4:30PM

Victoria Theater     2/11/2007     4:30Pm

"Dance Party, USA is a remarkably delicate construction, directed with extraordinary empathy."- New York Times

“My goal was to create a film that feels like real life. Most films about teens are filled with people who don’t act how anyone really acts. I wanted to make a different kind of film.” - Director Aaron Katz

Apathetic Portland teen Gus hangs around doing nothing most of the time. Mainly he likes to tell half-true stories to his buddy Bill about all the girls he’s slept with and all the drugs he’s done. Jessica is seventeen too, and doesn't seem to have that much in common with anyone anymore – not even her best friend Christie.

Victoria Theater 2/9/2007 7PM

                            2/11/2007 12PM

IndieFest alumnus Sean Meredith (In Smog and Thunder) returns to the Festival with one of the most interesting films we've seen this year. Dante's Inferno has been around for 700 years, but it's never been interpreted with exquisitely hand-drawn paper puppets in a kind of apocalyptic graphic novel meets Victorian-era toy theater—until now.

Dante’s Inferno is a unique, subversive, darkly satirical update of the original 14th century literary classic. Sporting a hoodie and a hellish hangover, Dante (Dermot Mulroney, last heard at IndieFest in Bill Plympton's “Hair High”) wakes up in a strange part of town. The first guy he sees is the ancient Roman poet Virgil (James Cromwell, “The Queen,” and “The Revenge of the Nerds”), wearing an industrial-strength mullet and a brown bathrobe. With limited options, Dante follows Virgil on a darkly comedic travelogue of the underworld.

Roxie Cinema    2/9/2007    7PM

                            2/18/2007    9:30PM

California Theater-Berkeley    2/13/2007    7PM

USA Premiere

“I am reworking old sexploitation movies from the 60s and early 70s from a woman's point of view. Vintage sexploitation films interest me because they revolve around fantasies of a woman's power over the male, her beauty, her desirability, her sex appeal.” - Writer/Director/Star Anna Biller

“Viva” is a cult freak-out retro 1970s spectacle, about a bored housewife who gets sucked into the sexual revolution. Abandoned by her Ken-doll husband, Barbi is dragged into trouble by her girlfriend, who spouts women's lib as she gets Barbi to discard her bra and go out on the town.

Roxie Cinema    2/9/2007    9:30PM

                            2/11/2007    12PM

World Premiere

 In today’s Tokyo you can find anything you can imagine—and at the same time get a new surprise on every corner. While most of Japanese society still preaches uniformity and order, there is an important underground world, where people lead a freer life. This is the Tokyo of “Rock N Tokyo.”

In Valente’s film we experience a succession of Japanese rock stories: The incredibly popular, leather-and-shades Guitar Wolf; some garage rock amongst the loudest ever heard; The 5678’s, rockabilly queens with a wild 50s elegance (recently introduced to the world in a memorable scene from Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill”); the Jet Boys, lead by an exhibitionist singer/guitar player; and Nine, young guys who’re playing in Shinjuku station as if it was the most important concert of their lives.

Victoria Theater    2/9/2007    9:30PM

                                2/11/2007    2:15PM

World Premiere

It is with great pleasure that we bring you the World Premiere of Leah Walker's “The Third Eye,” a truly weird, psychological thriller that delves into the bizarre realm of voluntary trepanation: i.e. an ancient procedure that involves drilling a hole in you head to relieve the pressure in your skull and achieve enlightenment. If this sounds like an unbelievable premise for an IndieFest film, please visit the International Trepanation Advocacy Group at www.trepan.com for more information about the wonders of this old-school elective surgery.

Primitive Screwheads and Tossing Alice

Victoria Theater

2/9/2007 11:45PM

2/10/2007 11:45PM

2/16/2007 11:45PM

2/17/2007 11:45PM

The Primitive Screwheads, along with their friends Tossing Alice, present “The Crazy Go Nuts Show;” a late night comedy/horror variety program that harkens back to the glory days of The Donnie and Marie Show and Creature Features.

The Show features a variety of outrageous sketches, music, improv, and the Stand-up Comedy Contest: Driest Comic Standing, in which local comedians perform their routines and audiences get a chance to throw water balloons at the contestant they dislike. Think Gong Show…only with water balloons.

Roxie Cinema     2/9/2007     11:45PM

Victoria Theater     2/17/2007     9:30PM

“...Plunges its audience into a violent abyss of extremities so potent that a person fainted during its World Premiere.” - FantAsia film festival program note

Our midnight films traditionally push the envelope, but “Neighborhood Watch” re-sets the bar. The acclaimed (and often controversial) director of music videos for The Residents, Renaldo and the Loaf, and Oingo Boingo, Graeme Whifler brings us his feature debut—the sickest, most disgusting movie that IndieFest has ever presented. So we really hope you enjoy it!

Victoria Theater     2/10/2007     12PM

                                2/16/2007     4:30PM

Our relationships with our mothers is usually a charged dynamic, beginning the moment we’re born. The mother-daughter variety can be particularly complex, especially if your single mom is mentally unstable and threatens to kill when you’re 19 years old, as is the case for filmmaker Tara Wray.

Near the beginning of Wray’s debut feature, “Manhattan, Kansas,” she notes, “My mother was my entire life...she and I were so close it was difficult to tell where one of us ended and the other began. But we were always running from her demons, both real and imagined. All the while it was my job to love and protect her as much as I could, but it was never enough.”

Roxie Cinema     2/10/2007     12PM

                            2/12/2007     7PM

Desperate Measures

The things we do for love, money, and family.

The Trainee

Craig Rosenthal

Singapore, 2006, 9 min

US Premiere

Better think twice before trying to rob this inconvenience store…

Shank

Jenessa Joffe

USA, 2006, 17 min

Lilah is about to learn the meaning of the word “shank.”

Musi Byt Ma (She Must Be Mine)

Brian Emery and Max Hoffman

Czech Republic, 2006, 10 min

Roxie Cinema 2/10/2007 2.15PM

Roxie Cinema 2/18/2007 2:15PM

All The Lonely People

Where don’t they all come from?

A woman working in a condom factory tries to buy happiness.

Victoria Theater 2/17/2007 7PM

Victoria Theater  2/10/2007    2:15PM

Thrill to the strange adventures of Tex Kennedy after the great nation formerly known as the United States collapses completely. By the year 2097, history has begun to unfold again in New America. The survivors are re-emerging from the ashes to take (by any means necessary) their rightful places as the founding fathers of a brutal and bizarre new nation.

Roxie Cinema    2/10/2007   4:30PM

                            2/18/2007  12PM

California Theater-Berkeley   2/14/2007  9:30PM

Oliver Meyrou’s Beyond Hatred is a calm and moving cinema-verite documentary about moving past anger and revenge. François Chenu, a young gay man, was beaten by three skinheads and thrown in a pond to die in Rheims, France.

Winner of the Teddy Award for Best Documentary at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival, the film bears witness to the strength and dignity of Chenu’s parents and siblings as they travel from despair to hope. Told without narration, the story portrays the families, the victim, and the accused, and details the French legal system in its examination of the aftermath of this terrible attack. Austerely composed and flawlessly directed, the film is powerful without being preachy. Beyond Hatred is shot in the classic Verite style where the crew is invisible and the characters in this real-life tragedy speak on their own, and in their own way. In one bravura sequence, Chenu’s sister recounts her memory of the evening her brother was killed as the camera calmly surveys the park two years after the attack, accompanied by an evocative and sparse score by François Eudes Chanfrault.

Victoria Theater    2/10/2007    4:30PM

                                2/18/2007    7PM

"LOL is a witty mini-satire of post-collegiates trying to connect romantically and erotically… in a tangle of up-to-the-minute technology." - Gerald Peary, The Boston Phoenix

“We started with nothing but the theme of relationships and technology, and over the course of 6 months we discovered a film much funnier, sadder, and more relevant that I ever could have hoped for.”- Joe Swanberg

Alex, Tim, and Chris view the women in their lives through a computer screen or the lens of a camera-phone, struggling to balance their online fantasies and addictions with the demands of real life. Featuring a nonprofessional cast, video contributions from people all over the world, and music by lead Kevin Bewersdorf, “LOL” shows how the latest tools of communication can either help us click or turn us off.

Victoria Theater    2/10/2007    7PM

                            2/18/2007    12PM

“Mojave Phone Booth is a rebellion against the Hollywood philosophy and all the bloat it stands for. I believe that a compelling story can be told without it costing an arm and leg.” - Director John Putch

In the middle of the Mojave Desert rests an abandoned phone booth, riddled with bullet holes, its windows broken, but otherwise functioning. Its identity was born on the Internet, and for years travelers would make the trek down a lonely dirt road and camp next to the booth, in the hopes that it might suddenly ring, connecting them with a stranger (often from another country) on the other end of the line.

Roxie Cinema    2/10/2007    7PM

                          2/12/2007    9:30PM

California Theater-Berkeley    2/15/2007    7PM

US Premiere

To those of us familiar with Kumakiri Kazuyoshi’s controversial body-of-work (HoleHead’s “Kichiku dai Enkai” and IndieFest’s “Antenna”), his latest film comes (literally) out of left field: It’s a baseball movie. However, with one of the most provocative talents in new Japanese cinema behind the camera, it's not going to be a traditional sports film by any stretch of the imagination.

Roxie Cinema 2/10/2007 9:30PM

Please put on your party hats for this rare theatrical presentation of Infra-Man. We will unveil an original 35mm IB Technicolor film print (in excellent condition), so you witness it as it was originally intended - in stunning Thunderball Fist-O-Scope!

Hong Kong's legendary Shaw Brothers produced this mind-blowing cinematic spectacle, and we're going rip off Roger Ebert in a futile attempt to describe the wonders that await:

Victoria Theater     2/10/2007     9:30PM

Roxie Cinema         2/16/2007     11:45PM

US Premiere

“I hope this independent film has both Irish and Canadians identifying with this dysfunctional but loving Irish family as they take on the biggest fight of their lives - all the while being entertained by the perverse humor.” - Director Mike Scullion

“Good, unclean, plain-old adult fun.” - Calgary Sun

Gobshite is a (blacker than pitch) comedy crime thriller about Ronnie Banks, an amoral (and more than slightly demented) English gangster, who upsets the underworld pecking order by deciding he wants a bigger piece of the criminal pie controlled by “The Gov.”

Roxie Cinema 2/10/2007 11:45PM

Victoria Theater 2/18/2007 9:30PM

“Why would anybody watch a scum show like Videodrome?” - Barry Convex

Do you want to watch S&MAN?

S&MAN (pronounced “Sandman”) is a movie about voyeurism and underground horror, focusing on our balance of sympathy and sadism when we watch death. JT Petty, a filmmaker responsible for his own underground horror films (e.g. “Soft For Digging” that played here a few years ago), tracks down and interviews psychologists, scholars, actors, and most importantly—the underground and extreme filmmakers themselves.

Primitive Screwheads and Tossing Alice

Victoria Theater

  2/9/2007 11:45PM

 2/10/2007 11:45PM

2/16/2007 11:45PM

2/17/2007 11:45PM

The Primitive Screwheads, along with their friends Tossing Alice, present “The Crazy Go Nuts Show;” a late night comedy/horror variety program that harkens back to the glory days of The Donnie and Marie Show and Creature Features.

Roxie Cinema 2/9/2007 9:30PM

Roxi Cinema  2/11/2007 12PM

World Premiere

In today’s Tokyo you can find anything you can imagine—and at the same time get a new surprise on every corner. While most of Japanese society still preaches uniformity and order, there is an important underground world, where people lead a freer life. This is the Tokyo of “Rock N Tokyo.”

Victoria Theater 2/9/2007 7PM

Victoria Theater 2/11/2007 12PM

Roxie Cinema 2/20/2007 9:30PM

Roxie Cinema   2/11/2007   2:15PM

                           2/14/2007    2:15PM 

World Premiere

Based on Bukowski's “Copulating Mermaid of Venice, CA,” this unsavory story follows two pathetic barflies. On their way to the pensione where they both live, they spot a parked ambulance. Presumably accustomed to corpses in this old port town, they decide to steal one and take it back to their apartment. Several drinks later, the body bag is opened to reveal a beautiful, freshly-dead young woman—and the best sex they’ve ever had. One falls helplessly and disturbingly in love, but when the sun comes up, he must let her go.

Victoria Theater 2/9/2007 9:30PM

Victoria Theater  2/11/2007 2:15PM

World Premiere

It is with great pleasure that we bring you the World Premiere of Leah Walker's “The Third Eye,” a truly weird, psychological thriller that delves into the bizarre realm of voluntary trepanation: i.e. an ancient procedure that involves drilling a hole in you head to relieve the pressure in your skull and achieve enlightenment. If this sounds like an unbelievable premise for an IndieFest film, please visit the International Trepanation Advocacy Group at www.trepan.com for more information about the wonders of this old-school elective surgery.

Roxie Cinema 2/9/2007 4:30PM

Victoria Theater 2/11/2007 4:30Pm

"Dance Party, USA is a remarkably delicate construction, directed with extraordinary empathy."- New York Times

“My goal was to create a film that feels like real life. Most films about teens are filled with people who don’t act how anyone really acts. I wanted to make a different kind of film.” - Director Aaron Katz

Roxie Cinema   2/11/2007   4:30PM

                            2/17/2007     12PM

This ground-breaking documentary reveals the struggles and victories of South Africa's women from the perspectives of three major performers in South Africa’s hip-hop scene.

MC Chi asks if there’s a contradiction of values between African and hip-hop cultures, and if it’s possible to reconcile the two. Her questions thread together the obstacles encountered by fellow sistaz. DJ Sistamatic, challenged by a distorted media portrayal of her persona, candidly addresses the influence of male-formed images of women. World-renowned graffiti artist Smirk finds a way beyond her family’s initial misgivings about her art and prepares to merge a life with hip-hop and motherhood.

Victoria Theater 2/11/2007 7PM

2/17/2007 4:30PM

“Dear San Francisco Independent Film Festival Programmer:

‘Rolling’ is a film that explores a subject that other films only touch upon. (The use of) MDMA (Ecstasy) is, without question, one of the most significant drug phenomena in human history. Despite this, there has yet to be a fictional film that focuses on the drug or, more specifically, the users’ experiences with the drug. It is our belief that audiences are long overdue for a film that fully explores Ecstasy. …Thank you, in advance, for your consideration, The Rolling Team.”

Roxie Cinema    2/11/2007 7PM

                         2/16/2007 4:30PM

California Theater-Berkeley    2/14/2007  7PM

Many so-called independent films nowadays are more like polished calling-cards for the makers to get their three-picture deal and Hollywood perks. Julian Goldberger’s The Hawk is Dying is a gripping and and intense exploration of grief, obsession, and madness that has a raw impact more in common with the spirit of the independent films of the early 1980s. Paul Giamatti (Sideways) stars as Geroge Gattling, a Gainesville, Florida auto upholsterer, whose passion is falconry. His life is as constricted as the birds he seeks to tame are free. Living with his obese sister and her mentally challenged nephew, he pours his soul into his attempts to master his craft and train a magnificent red-tailed hawk. A tragic event drives him into obsessive madness. The film is carried by Giamatti’s riveting performance as a man lost in his quest to discover himself and his place in the world. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it was called “Entirely original…a beautiful and metaphorically film rich with genuine emotion and unexpected epiphanies.” With Michael Pitt, Rusty Schwimmer, Ann Wedgeworth, and Michelle Williams. (2006) 112 minutes

Victoria Theater     2/9/2007     4:30PM

                                2/11/2007     9:30 PM

“Karen Kramer’s hopeful, lovingly made documentary, a ballad with a recurrent refrain, never lets us forget that the spirit will not die. It lives in the wet wood at the Bitter End, in every romantic who flees Idaho, sobbing onto the page—in all the eternal recurrence of revolt, youth, and art. Kramer, a respected New York-based filmmaker since her 1978 Appalacian snake-handling church film, uses a straightforward presentation to tell the story of a twisting, alternative land.

Roxie Theater 2/11/2007 9:30PM

Victoria Theater 2/17/2007 2:15PM

Roxie Cinema 2/19/2007 9:30 PM

Nothing makes the IndieFest crew happier than discovering new artists, and presenting the world premiere of a local filmmaker's debut feature film is a particular pleasure. Cyrus Amini's stunning 25-Cent Preview is a gritty cinema-verite-style drama that journeys headlong into San Francisco's dark underbelly.

Director/editor Amini's balanced, brutally honest film is a sympathetic yet unflinching portrait of two young guys cruising lower Polk—and the brutal reality of their hard-drug & sex-for-pay lifestyle. Marcus (Merlin Gaspers), a white, jagged-edge pretty-boy, is the protégé of a more seasoned black street hustler “DotCom” (Dorian Brockington). They join forces to self-medicate, turn tricks, deal with the power-plays and random violence that come with the lifestyle, and to find basic solutions to their common problems of daily survival.

Roxie Cinema 2/12/2007 4:30PM

2/17/2007 9:30PM

California Theater-Berkeley 2/15/2007 9:30PM

This is a big true story of the long ago time and the time before that. A story within a story with spears and humor, goose eggs, wives, more wives, and perhaps too many wives. Ten men set out in canoes into the Arafura Swamp to collect goose eggs and an elder notices the youngest member of the clan is making eyes at his brother’s youngest wife. To divert him the elder tells the story of ten men setting out in canoes to collect eggs and how a young member of the clan covets his brother’s youngest wife.

Roxie Cinema 2/10/2007 12PM

Roxie Cinema 2/12/2007 7PM

The things we do for love, money, and family.

Better think twice before trying to rob this inconvenience store…

California Theater 2/12/2007 7PM

Roxie Cinema 2/13/2007 7PM

2/18/2007 4:30PM

Millions of people believe in him. Thousands claim to have seen him. But only one man, Dr. Lloyd Darrow, self-proclaimed 'Santa-ologist', is actively attempting to prove his existence. Acclaimed actor/singer/author William Shatner discovered Dr. Darrow's research on the internet and asked to provide the narration for this important overview of his ground-breaking work.

Dr. Darrow will stop at nothing, taking on government conspiracies, corporate suppression, and phony mall Santas in pursuit of the truth about the world's oldest Yuletide enigma. With genuinely heart-wrenching emotional support from his loving, considerate and understanding wife Barbara; not to mention her generous and ever-necessary financial backing.

Roxie Cinema 2/10/2007 7PM

2/12/2007 9:30PM

California Theater-Berkeley 2/15/2007 7PM

US Premiere

To those of us familiar with Kumakiri Kazuyoshi’s controversial body-of-work (HoleHead’s “Kichiku dai Enkai” and IndieFest’s “Antenna”), his latest film comes (literally) out of left field: It’s a baseball movie. However, with one of the most provocative talents in new Japanese cinema behind the camera, it's not going to be a traditional sports film by any stretch of the imagination.

From the incredible opening sequence’s errant pitch to the head until the inevitable showdown between the former teammates, “Green Mind, Metal Bats” is more about the effect of the game on three psychologically wounded people, and how baseball can be a force for healing, than in the game itself.

California Theater-Berkeley    2/12/2007    9:30PM

Roxie Cinema    2/14/2007    9:30PM

                         2/17/2007    11:45PM

USA Premiere

“Unholy Women” is an omnibus film—three stories by three directors. Each tells the horrific tale of a woman, who for one reason or another, becomes very very scary.

“Rattle Rattle” (Kata Kata) Written and directed by Amemiya Keita.

One day, Kanako hears a rattling sound in front of the red building while walking back to her house. The moment she looks, something from above hits her very hard. She loses consciousness and wakes up dazed—but unhurt. As soon as she arrives home, she starts seeing a horribly deformed woman with supernatural powers.

Victoria Theater     2/13/2007     4:30PM

                                2/18/2007 4:30PM

Special (Creepy) Talents

Bring an extra pair of underpants.

4U
Ehren Koepf
USA, 2006, 4 min
www.shortfilm4u.com
A man in a secluded cabin has a long list of people he's been wanting to knock off.

Bad Dreams
Anneli Gelbard
Sweden, 2006, 25 min
Your worst nightmare is when you wake up screaming and realize you haven’t fallen asleep yet.

Gran Rumore (Great Noise)
Claudio Capanna
Italy, 2006, 7 min
The sound from the ground…

Chickenfut
Harrison Witt
USA, 2006, 19 min
A cautionary tale of a boy, his chicken, and their paranormal quest for barnyard justice.

Cherry Bloom
Alexandre Moors
USA, 2007, 25 min
www.uvph.com
World Premiere
A family capitalizes on the psychic abilities of their eight-year-old daughter.

Roxie Cinema 2/9/2007 7PM

2/18/2007 9:30PM

California Theater-Berkeley 2/13/2007 7PM

USA Premiere

“I am reworking old sexploitation movies from the 60s and early 70s from a woman's point of view. Vintage sexploitation films interest me because they revolve around fantasies of a woman's power over the male, her beauty, her desirability, her sex appeal.” - Writer/Director/Star Anna Biller

“Viva” is a cult freak-out retro 1970s spectacle, about a bored housewife who gets sucked into the sexual revolution. Abandoned by her Ken-doll husband, Barbi is dragged into trouble by her girlfriend, who spouts women's lib as she gets Barbi to discard her bra and go out on the town.

California Theater 2/12/2007 7PM

Roxie Cinema 2/13/2007 7PM

2/18/2007 4:30PM

Millions of people believe in him. Thousands claim to have seen him. But only one man, Dr. Lloyd Darrow, self-proclaimed 'Santa-ologist', is actively attempting to prove his existence. Acclaimed actor/singer/author William Shatner discovered Dr. Darrow's research on the internet and asked to provide the narration for this important overview of his ground-breaking work.

Dr. Darrow will stop at nothing, taking on government conspiracies, corporate suppression, and phony mall Santas in pursuit of the truth about the world's oldest Yuletide enigma. With genuinely heart-wrenching emotional support from his loving, considerate and understanding wife Barbara; not to mention her generous and ever-necessary financial backing.

California Theater-Berkeley 2/13/2007 9:30PM

Roxie Cinema 2/14/2007 4:30PM

Roxie Cinema 2/16/2007 7PM

“You Cannot Walk Straight When the Road Bends” - Romani Proverb.

Roxie Cinema 2/13/2007 9:30 PM

2/16/2007 2:15PM

Breath, Death and Prayer

Intercontinental experimentals

Rumsfeld Rules

Bryan Boyce

USA, 2006, 3 min

Breathing Chamber

Carlos Marulanda

USA, 2005, 15 min

13 Ways to Die at Home

Lee Lanier

USA, 2006, 3 min

Untitled Video on Lynn Stewart and Her Conviction, the Law, and Poetry

Paul Chan

USA, 2006, 18 min

Io il mare non lo sento

Viezzoli Laura

Italy, 2006, 5 min

Roxie Cinema 2/14/2007 12PM

Roxie  2/17/2007 4:30PM

“[Nick Peterson] is one of the best young filmmakers I have come across in a long time. His unity of vision is rare and gives me hope for the next generation of American filmmakers.” - Gus Van Sant

Roxie Cinema 2/11/2007 2:15PM

Roxie  2/14/2007 2:15PM

World Premiere

Based on Bukowski's “Copulating Mermaid of Venice, CA,” this unsavory story follows two pathetic barflies. On their way to the pensione where they both live, they spot a parked ambulance. Presumably accustomed to corpses in this old port town, they decide to steal one and take it back to their apartment. Several drinks later, the body bag is opened to reveal a beautiful, freshly-dead young woman—and the best sex they’ve ever had. One falls helplessly and disturbingly in love, but when the sun comes up, he must let her go.

California Theater-Berkeley 2/13/2007 9:30PM

Roxie Cinema 2/14/2007 4:30PM

2/16/2007 7PM

“You Cannot Walk Straight When the Road Bends” - Romani Proverb.

The Rom people know music. And travel. So it’s not surprising that their music comes from every part of the globe. In Jasmine Dellal’s amazing “Gypsy Caravan,” five Gypsy bands from four countries on a North American concert tour astound audiences with styles ranging from flamenco to brass band, Romanian violin to Indian folk. And with humor and soul in their voices, they celebrate the best in Gypsy culture and the diversity of the Romani people in an explosion of song and dance.

Roxie Cinema 2/11/2007 7PM

2/16/2007 4:30PM

California Theater-Berkeley 2/14/2007 7PM

Many so-called independent films nowadays are more like polished calling-cards for the makers to get their three-picture deal and Hollywood perks. Julian Goldberger’s The Hawk is Dying is a gripping and and intense exploration of grief, obsession, and madness that has a raw impact more in common with the spirit of the independent films of the early 1980s. Paul Giamatti (Sideways) stars as Geroge Gattling, a Gainesville, Florida auto upholsterer, whose passion is falconry. His life is as constricted as the birds he seeks to tame are free. Living with his obese sister and her mentally challenged nephew, he pours his soul into his attempts to master his craft and train a magnificent red-tailed hawk. A tragic event drives him into obsessive madness. The film is carried by Giamatti’s riveting performance as a man lost in his quest to discover himself and his place in the world. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it was called “Entirely original…a beautiful and metaphorically film rich with genuine emotion and unexpected epiphanies.” With Michael Pitt, Rusty Schwimmer, Ann Wedgeworth, and Michelle Williams. (2006) 112 minutes

Roxie Cinema 2/14/2007 7PM

Victoria Theater 2/16/2007 9:30PM

World Premiere

“As a filmmaker, I believe in story. If by wonder, blood, chance, or commitment a tale moves me, I feel compelled to capture it. Great stories are not accidents; they bring aspects of the real into fierce focus. In this way they are truth.” - Director/Co-producer/Co-writer/Editor Greg Morgan

We are proud to present the World Premiere of Greg Morgan's “The Substance of Things Hoped For.” Morgan's film is an expertly acted and filmed, intelligently conceived, philosophically provocative, and deeply affecting spiritual speculative fiction—don't miss it.

California Theater-Berkeley    2/12/2007    9:30PM

Roxie Cinema    2/14/2007    9:30PM

                         2/17/2007    11:45PM

USA Premiere

“Unholy Women” is an omnibus film—three stories by three directors. Each tells the horrific tale of a woman, who for one reason or another, becomes very very scary.

“Rattle Rattle” (Kata Kata) Written and directed by Amemiya Keita.

One day, Kanako hears a rattling sound in front of the red building while walking back to her house. The moment she looks, something from above hits her very hard. She loses consciousness and wakes up dazed—but unhurt. As soon as she arrives home, she starts seeing a horribly deformed woman with supernatural powers.

Roxie Cinema 2/10/2007 4:30PM

2/18/2007 12PM

California Theater-Berkeley 2/14/2007 9:30PM

Oliver Meyrou’s Beyond Hatred is a calm and moving cinema-verite documentary about moving past anger and revenge. François Chenu, a young gay man, was beaten by three skinheads and thrown in a pond to die in Rheims, France.

Winner of the Teddy Award for Best Documentary at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival, the film bears witness to the strength and dignity of Chenu’s parents and siblings as they travel from despair to hope. Told without narration, the story portrays the families, the victim, and the accused, and details the French legal system in its examination of the aftermath of this terrible attack. Austerely composed and flawlessly directed, the film is powerful without being preachy. Beyond Hatred is shot in the classic Verite style where the crew is invisible and the characters in this real-life tragedy speak on their own, and in their own way. In one bravura sequence, Chenu’s sister recounts her memory of the evening her brother was killed as the camera calmly surveys the park two years after the attack, accompanied by an evocative and sparse score by François Eudes Chanfrault.

Roxie Cinema 2/15/2007 2:15PM

2/16/2007 9:30PM

Director Iris Cegarra, who explored the prolific electro scene of South Florida in 2001’s “Bass Frequency,” followed by the highly-acclaimed Electro Dziska DVD two years later, now brings us “Darkbeat: An Electro World Voyage.” An insider’s tour into the international electro music community, the film unfolds with astonishing visuals, fascinating interviews, archival clips, and animations while dropping rare electro tunes that trace the genre’s history.

Covering pioneers such as classical electronic composer and Stanley Kubrick-collaborator Wendy Carlos, and delving into the realm of acclaimed and upcoming musical wizards, activists, artists, DJs, party promoters, and label owners, Cegarra traces the genesis of this essential movement. Electro classics such as “Planet Rock,” “Hip Hop Bee Bop,” “Clear,” and “Numbers” continue to have an immense impact on today’s electro innovators. More than a documentary, Darkbeat is indeed the ultimate electro sound and visual experience.

Roxie Cinema 2/15/2007 4:30PM

2/17/2007 7PM

Dionysius Zervos’ first feature is based on a true event. As recounted to him by a lifeguard, the story goes that a young mother and her child regularly came to the beach, until one day the child disappeared and the mother never saw her again.

Zervos uses this simple yet devastating narrative as the foundation for his fully realized, beautifully imagined debut. The breezy young mother of the film, Kaliope Harris (Izabelle Miko), leaves her daughter Anna with her parents for a weekend at the shore. The doting Mrs. Harris (Lesley Ann Warren) takes her grandchild to the beach, and on this sunny, innocuous day, she turns her eyes away from Anna for no more than a moment—and the child is gone.

Roxie Cinema 2/15/2007 7PM

Roxie Cinema 2/17/2007 2:15PM

Animation Amalgamation

You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll cringe.

Roxie Cinema 2/10/2007 7PM

Roxie Cinema 2/12/2007 9:30PM

California Theater-Berkeley 2/15/2007 7PM

US Premiere

To those of us familiar with Kumakiri Kazuyoshi’s controversial body-of-work (HoleHead’s “Kichiku dai Enkai” and IndieFest’s “Antenna”), his latest film comes (literally) out of left field: It’s a baseball movie. However, with one of the most provocative talents in new Japanese cinema behind the camera, it's not going to be a traditional sports film by any stretch of the imagination.

Roxie Cinema 2/12/2007 4:30PM

2/17/2007 9:30PM

California Theater-Berkeley 2/15/2007 9:30PM

This is a big true story of the long ago time and the time before that. A story within a story with spears and humor, goose eggs, wives, more wives, and perhaps too many wives. Ten men set out in canoes into the Arafura Swamp to collect goose eggs and an elder notices the youngest member of the clan is making eyes at his brother’s youngest wife. To divert him the elder tells the story of ten men setting out in canoes to collect eggs and how a young member of the clan covets his brother’s youngest wife.

Roxie Cinema     2/15/2007     9:30PM

Victoria Theater     2/17/2007     12PM

This verité documentary shows a day in the life at Levels, a bustling barbershop located in the heart of Harlem. The film shows the vital role community barbershops play as a forum for black men to discuss any topic, whether controversial or banal, sacred or profane, political or personal. And with the increasing gentrification of the area, a number of diverse clients (including a white gay man) occasionally enter the mix. Topics discussed in the film include HIV/AIDS, infidelity, gay marriage, greedy preachers, Bill Clinton, the world's sexiest actresses, and more.

Roxie Cinema 2/13/2007 9:30 PM

Roxie Cinema 2/16/2007 2:15PM

Breath, Death and Prayer

Intercontinental experimentals

Roxie Cinema 2/11/2007 7PM

Roxie Cinema 2/16/2007 4:30PM

California Theater-Berkeley 2/14/2007 7PM

Many so-called independent films nowadays are more like polished calling-cards for the makers to get their three-picture deal and Hollywood perks. Julian Goldberger’s The Hawk is Dying is a gripping and and intense exploration of grief, obsession, and madness that has a raw impact more in common with the spirit of the independent films of the early 1980s. Paul Giamatti (Sideways) stars as Geroge Gattling, a Gainesville, Florida auto upholsterer, whose passion is falconry. His life is as constricted as the birds he seeks to tame are free. Living with his obese sister and her mentally challenged nephew, he pours his soul into his attempts to master his craft and train a magnificent red-tailed hawk. A tragic event drives him into obsessive madness. The film is carried by Giamatti’s riveting performance as a man lost in his quest to discover himself and his place in the world. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it was called “Entirely original…a beautiful and metaphorically film rich with genuine emotion and unexpected epiphanies.” With Michael Pitt, Rusty Schwimmer, Ann Wedgeworth, and Michelle Williams. (2006) 112 minutes

Victoria Theater 2/10/2007 12PM

Victoria Theater 2/16/2007 4:30PM

Our relationships with our mothers is usually a charged dynamic, beginning the moment we’re born. The mother-daughter variety can be particularly complex, especially if your single mom is mentally unstable and threatens to kill when you’re 19 years old, as is the case for filmmaker Tara Wray.

Victoria Theater 2/16/2007 7PM

2/18/2007 2:15PM

World Premiere

It's off-season in a small resort town where virginal 22 year-old Sam works nights at an empty hotel. Already completely alienated from his Bible-thumping minister father and his drug-addicted friends, he is alone and starved for companionship. Sam is further marginalized by an epileptic sleep paralysis that plagues him with terrible half-waking nightmares. However his fear of sleep makes him a perfect candidate for the graveyard shift – and his crystal meth habit keeps him awake all night anyway.

California Theater-Berkeley 2/13/2007 9:30PM

Roxie Cinema 2/14/2007 4:30PM

2/16/2007 7PM

“You Cannot Walk Straight When the Road Bends” - Romani Proverb.

The Rom people know music. And travel. So it’s not surprising that their music comes from every part of the globe. In Jasmine Dellal’s amazing “Gypsy Caravan,” five Gypsy bands from four countries on a North American concert tour astound audiences with styles ranging from flamenco to brass band, Romanian violin to Indian folk. And with humor and soul in their voices, they celebrate the best in Gypsy culture and the diversity of the Romani people in an explosion of song and dance.

Roxie Cinema 2/14/2007 7PM

Victoria Theater 2/16/2007 9:30PM

World Premiere

“As a filmmaker, I believe in story. If by wonder, blood, chance, or commitment a tale moves me, I feel compelled to capture it. Great stories are not accidents; they bring aspects of the real into fierce focus. In this way they are truth.” - Director/Co-producer/Co-writer/Editor Greg Morgan

Roxie Cinema 2/15/2007 2:15PM

Roxie  2/16/2007 9:30PM

Director Iris Cegarra, who explored the prolific electro scene of South Florida in 2001’s “Bass Frequency,” followed by the highly-acclaimed Electro Dziska DVD two years later, now brings us “Darkbeat: An Electro World Voyage.” An insider’s tour into the international electro music community, the film unfolds with astonishing visuals, fascinating interviews, archival clips, and animations while dropping rare electro tunes that trace the genre’s history.

Primitive Screwheads and Tossing Alice

Victoria Theater

2/9/2007 11:45PM

2/10/2007 11:45PM

2/16/2007 11:45PM

2/17/2007 11:45PM

The Primitive Screwheads, along with their friends Tossing Alice, present “The Crazy Go Nuts Show;” a late night comedy/horror variety program that harkens back to the glory days of The Donnie and Marie Show and Creature Features.

The Show features a variety of outrageous sketches, music, improv, and the Stand-up Comedy Contest: Driest Comic Standing, in which local comedians perform their routines and audiences get a chance to throw water balloons at the contestant they dislike. Think Gong Show…only with water balloons.

Victoria Theater 2/10/2007 9:30PM

Roxie Cinema 2/16/2007 11:45PM

US Premiere

“I hope this independent film has both Irish and Canadians identifying with this dysfunctional but loving Irish family as they take on the biggest fight of their lives - all the while being entertained by the perverse humor.” - Director Mike Scullion

Roxie Cinema 2/11/2007 4:30PM

Rozie Cinema  2/17/2007 12PM

This ground-breaking documentary reveals the struggles and victories of South Africa's women from the perspectives of three major performers in South Africa’s hip-hop scene.

Roxie Cinema 2/15/2007 9:30PM

Victoria Theater 2/17/2007 12PM

This verité documentary shows a day in the life at Levels, a bustling barbershop located in the heart of Harlem. The film shows the vital role community barbershops play as a forum for black men to discuss any topic, whether controversial or banal, sacred or profane, political or personal. And with the increasing gentrification of the area, a number of diverse clients (including a white gay man) occasionally enter the mix. Topics discussed in the film include HIV/AIDS, infidelity, gay marriage, greedy preachers, Bill Clinton, the world's sexiest actresses, and more.

Roxie Cinema 2/15/2007 7PM

2/17/2007 2:15PM

Animation Amalgamation

You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll cringe.

The Waif of Persephone

Nick Cross

Canada, 2006, 13 min

www.pyatyletka.blogspot.com

Windows, Masks, Doors

Sarah Orenstein

USA, 2006, 5 min

Kuro Kumo

Jesse Norton

Japan/ USA, 2006, 6 min

Cry From the Past

Susan Stamp

Australia, 2006, 6 min

Ara's Flight

Hagop Kaneboughazian

Roxie Theater 2/11/2007 9:30PM

Victoria Theater 2/17/2007 2:15PM

Roxie Cinema 2/19/2007 9:30 PM

Nothing makes the IndieFest crew happier than discovering new artists, and presenting the world premiere of a local filmmaker's debut feature film is a particular pleasure. Cyrus Amini's stunning 25-Cent Preview is a gritty cinema-verite-style drama that journeys headlong into San Francisco's dark underbelly.

Director/editor Amini's balanced, brutally honest film is a sympathetic yet unflinching portrait of two young guys cruising lower Polk—and the brutal reality of their hard-drug & sex-for-pay lifestyle. Marcus (Merlin Gaspers), a white, jagged-edge pretty-boy, is the protégé of a more seasoned black street hustler “DotCom” (Dorian Brockington). They join forces to self-medicate, turn tricks, deal with the power-plays and random violence that come with the lifestyle, and to find basic solutions to their common problems of daily survival.

Victoria Theater 2/11/2007 7PM

2/17/2007 4:30PM

“Dear San Francisco Independent Film Festival Programmer:

‘Rolling’ is a film that explores a subject that other films only touch upon. (The use of) MDMA (Ecstasy) is, without question, one of the most significant drug phenomena in human history. Despite this, there has yet to be a fictional film that focuses on the drug or, more specifically, the users’ experiences with the drug. It is our belief that audiences are long overdue for a film that fully explores Ecstasy. …Thank you, in advance, for your consideration, The Rolling Team.”

Roxie Cinema    2/14/2007    12PM

                          2/17/2007    4:30PM

“[Nick Peterson] is one of the best young filmmakers I have come across in a long time. His unity of vision is rare and gives me hope for the next generation of American filmmakers.” - Gus Van Sant

“Yellow,” an indie-musical-romanti-drama, marks the debut feature of award-winning filmmaker Nick Peterson. Interweaving rich-yet-realistic artistic direction, delicately balanced cinematography, and notably earnest acting is a feat in itself. “Yellow,” however, goes one step beyond, with Eric Schopmeyer’s lyrical compositions periodically highlighting the humor, self-awareness and thorny honesty found throughout this tale of sexual-wows and woes.

Victoria Theater 2/10/2007 2:15PM

2/17/2007 7PM

Thrill to the strange adventures of Tex Kennedy after the great nation formerly known as the United States collapses completely. By the year 2097, history has begun to unfold again in New America. The survivors are re-emerging from the ashes to take (by any means necessary) their rightful places as the founding fathers of a brutal and bizarre new nation.

Kennedy, driven by his passionate (and more than a little delusional) objective to sew together the tattered remnants of the old world with principles of liberty and freedom, journeys to the deadly future capital of New America, notoriously known as the Threshold of Hell. Standing by Tex’s side are his two robot companions and the legendary 'Cannibal Sue'. As Tex’s epic journey progresses, we learn how a young appointed king, his murderously jealous cousin, a giant sea snake, the great, great, great grandson of Fidel Castro, a powerful communication radio tower, and the spawn of Satan himself, all hold a vital presence in the New American mythology.

Roxie Cinema 2/15/2007 4:30PM

Roxie Cinema 2/17/2007 7PM

Dionysius Zervos’ first feature is based on a true event. As recounted to him by a lifeguard, the story goes that a young mother and her child regularly came to the beach, until one day the child disappeared and the mother never saw her again.

Roxie Cinema 2/9/2007 11:45PM

Victoria Theater 2/17/2007 9:30PM

“...Plunges its audience into a violent abyss of extremities so potent that a person fainted during its World Premiere.” - FantAsia film festival program note

Roxie Cinema 2/12/2007 4:30PM

Roxie Cinema 2/17/2007 9:30PM

California Theater-Berkeley 2/15/2007 9:30PM

This is a big true story of the long ago time and the time before that. A story within a story with spears and humor, goose eggs, wives, more wives, and perhaps too many wives. Ten men set out in canoes into the Arafura Swamp to collect goose eggs and an elder notices the youngest member of the clan is making eyes at his brother’s youngest wife. To divert him the elder tells the story of ten men setting out in canoes to collect eggs and how a young member of the clan covets his brother’s youngest wife.

Primitive Screwheads and Tossing Alice

Victoria Theater

2/9/2007 11:45PM

2/10/2007 11:45PM

2/16/2007 11:45PM

2/17/2007 11:45PM

The Primitive Screwheads, along with their friends Tossing Alice, present “The Crazy Go Nuts Show;” a late night comedy/horror variety program that harkens back to the glory days of The Donnie and Marie Show and Creature Features.

California Theater-Berkeley 2/12/2007 9:30PM

Roxie Cinema 2/14/2007 9:30PM

Roxie Cinema 2/17/2007 11:45PM

USA Premiere

“Unholy Women” is an omnibus film—three stories by three directors. Each tells the horrific tale of a woman, who for one reason or another, becomes very very scary.

Victoria Theater 2/10/2007 7PM

Victoria Theater 2/18/2007 12PM

“Mojave Phone Booth is a rebellion against the Hollywood philosophy and all the bloat it stands for. I believe that a compelling story can be told without it costing an arm and leg.” - Director John Putch

Roxie Cinema 2/10/2007 4:30PM

Roxie Cinema 2/18/2007 12PM

California Theater-Berkeley 2/14/2007 9:30PM

Oliver Meyrou’s Beyond Hatred is a calm and moving cinema-verite documentary about moving past anger and revenge. François Chenu, a young gay man, was beaten by three skinheads and thrown in a pond to die in Rheims, France.

Roxie Cinema 2/10/2007 2.15PM

2/18/2007 2:15PM

All The Lonely People

Where don’t they all come from?

Happiness

Sophie Barthes

USA, 2006, 11 min

A woman working in a condom factory tries to buy happiness.

My Name is Wallace

Bob Pondillo

USA, 2006, 18 min

A lonely man falls in love with a sex-line operator.

Dissolution

Nilesh Bell-Gorsia

UK, 2006, 15 min

Confrontig common perceptions of Islam daily.

Night Becomes Day

Victoria Theater 2/16/2007 7PM

2/18/2007 2:15PM

World Premiere

It's off-season in a small resort town where virginal 22 year-old Sam works nights at an empty hotel. Already completely alienated from his Bible-thumping minister father and his drug-addicted friends, he is alone and starved for companionship. Sam is further marginalized by an epileptic sleep paralysis that plagues him with terrible half-waking nightmares. However his fear of sleep makes him a perfect candidate for the graveyard shift – and his crystal meth habit keeps him awake all night anyway.

California Theater 2/12/2007 7PM

Roxie Cinema 2/13/2007 7PM

Roxie Cinema 2/18/2007 4:30PM

Millions of people believe in him. Thousands claim to have seen him. But only one man, Dr. Lloyd Darrow, self-proclaimed 'Santa-ologist', is actively attempting to prove his existence. Acclaimed actor/singer/author William Shatner discovered Dr. Darrow's research on the internet and asked to provide the narration for this important overview of his ground-breaking work.

Victoria Theater 2/13/2007 4:30PM

Victoria Theater 2/18/2007 4:30PM

Bring an extra pair of underpants.

4U
Ehren Koepf
USA, 2006, 4 min
www.shortfilm4u.com
A man in a secluded cabin has a long list of people he's been wanting to knock off.

Victoria Theater 2/10/2007 4:30PM

2/18/2007 7PM

"LOL is a witty mini-satire of post-collegiates trying to connect romantically and erotically… in a tangle of up-to-the-minute technology." - Gerald Peary, The Boston Phoenix

Roxie Cinema 2/18/2007 7PM

“I wanted to explore melodrama, social satire, comedy, boy-and-his-dog films, and the zombie film—all within a 1950s-style Technicolor world.” - Director Andrew Currie

Our Closing Night event is a great zombie film: it delivers absolutely everything you want from a walking dead flick: action, scares, comedy, mad scientists—and it's a very clever satirical romantic comedy.

Roxie Cinema 2/9/2007 7PM

Roxie Cinema 2/18/2007 9:30PM

California Theater-Berkeley 2/13/2007 7PM

USA Premiere

“I am reworking old sexploitation movies from the 60s and early 70s from a woman's point of view. Vintage sexploitation films interest me because they revolve around fantasies of a woman's power over the male, her beauty, her desirability, her sex appeal.” - Writer/Director/Star Anna Biller

Roxie Cinema 2/10/2007 11:45PM

Victoria Theater 2/18/2007 9:30PM

“Why would anybody watch a scum show like Videodrome?” - Barry Convex

Do you want to watch S&MAN?

Roxie Cinema 2/19/2007 7PM

 

John Brown's Bunny

A brilliant documentary shows how animal-rights activists may be killing free speech.

BY AARON MESH | amesh at wweek dot com

 

[December 6th, 2006] It seems congratulations are in order to In Defense of Animals: Nearly a year of picketing, spitting and paint-throwing outside Schumacher Furs has achieved results (for more on this story, see page 15). The store, which had allegedly battled back with signs and threats of its own, is finally hightailing it out of downtown. No longer will Southwest 10th Avenue be tarnished by the peddling of animal skins. Of course, some other location will now be tarnished by the peddling of animal skins. So downtown Portland loses a merchant, and Schumacher gets a parking lot. No price is too high for such progress.

Roxie Theater 2/11/2007 9:30PM

Victoria Theater 2/17/2007 2:15PM

Roxie Cinema 2/19/2007 9:30 PM

Nothing makes the IndieFest crew happier than discovering new artists, and presenting the world premiere of a local filmmaker's debut feature film is a particular pleasure. Cyrus Amini's stunning 25-Cent Preview is a gritty cinema-verite-style drama that journeys headlong into San Francisco's dark underbelly.

Director/editor Amini's balanced, brutally honest film is a sympathetic yet unflinching portrait of two young guys cruising lower Polk—and the brutal reality of their hard-drug & sex-for-pay lifestyle. Marcus (Merlin Gaspers), a white, jagged-edge pretty-boy, is the protégé of a more seasoned black street hustler “DotCom” (Dorian Brockington). They join forces to self-medicate, turn tricks, deal with the power-plays and random violence that come with the lifestyle, and to find basic solutions to their common problems of daily survival.

Roxie Cinema 2/20/2007 7PM

Forgiving the Franklins is the sometimes hilarious, sometimes tragic story of a repressed God-fearing southern family who undergo a radical spiritual change, putting them at odds with the conservative values of their community. The Franklins are a stereotypical North Carolina family: Frank is a lawyer, Betty is a homemaker, and the high school-age kids Caroline and Brian are a cheerleader and a football star, respectively. An auto accident turns their world upside down—in a state somewhere between life and death, Frank, Betty and Brian meet Jesus who, for reasons known only to himself, removes them from the burden of Original Sin. Left out of the equation is Caroline who, in the throes of adolescence and pain from her injuries, must figure out why her family has suddenly embraced their repressed sexuality.

Victoria Theater 2/9/2007 7PM

Victoria Theater 2/11/2007 12PM

Roxie Cinema 2/20/2007 9:30PM