sf indiefest

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.

 

“[The film’s] passionate interviews rule: Tim Robbins…Woody Allen… Maya Angelou (feeling like ‘Brer Rabbit in the brier patch’). In 70 minutes, partly filled with archival Kodachrome’s soft rosy glow, Kramer filters down an enormous history. Think of having to choose just one Washington Square protest, one NYU takeover, one drag queen, one Living Theater performer jumping up and down and screaming.” – Toni Schlesinger, Village Voice

With

Mischief at 16th and Florida

SM Alonso

USA, 2006, 30 min

www.myspace.com/mischiefat16thandflorida

By interweaving the intricacies of wild rat behavior (and their intimate knowledge of just 60 feet) with the history of an industrial street, the historic ghosts of a lonely corner in San Francisco’s Mission District come to life.