sf indiefest

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.