sf indiefest

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.