Exhibition | Fiscal Sponsorship | Resources

2009 SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Highlighted film titles link to SFIFF pages that contain film synopses, credits, print sources, running times, countries of origin and ticket purchase links.

Adoration
An ancient news story takes on new viral life after a teenager transforms a simple translation exercise into a riveting narrative about his own dead parents, imagining his father as a terrorist who places a bomb in his pregnant girlfriend’s handbag.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 659
Website: http://www.sonyclassics.com/adoration/

Autumn
In this striking debut feature from a young Turkish director, Yusuf struggles to find purpose after serving ten years as a political prisoner, striking a bleak connection with a prostitute who reads Russian literature.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 443
Website: http://www.sonbaharfilm.com/

the boys: the Sherman brothers’ story
The remarkable Sherman Brothers, the two brilliant but often feuding siblings behind many Disney scores from the ’60s and ’70s, including Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book and It’s a Small World, are profiled by their sons, cousins Gregory and Jeff Sherman, in this intriguing look at creativity, genius and family ties.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 533
Website: http://www.theboysdoc.com/

Don’t Let Me Drown
A love affair set amid the ruins of post-9/11 New York powers this strong feature debut by UC Berkeley graduate Cruz Angeles, who adapts a street-level neo-realist aesthetic to capture the vibrancy (and frictions) of a community rarely portrayed realistically onscreen, the city’s Latino Caribbean population.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 572

Everything Strange and New
A carpenter who guts old houses dreams of a strange, new life without being able to envision its shape or form. Bay Area-based cinematographer/filmmaker Frazer Bradshaw’s semi-experimental narrative feature is an unflinching contemplation of spiritual inertia and downward mobility.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 523
Website:   http://www.everythingstrangeandnew.com

French Girl
“So which are you: French, African, Moroccan or Arab?” This loaded question, posed to the titular ten-year-old of Souad El-Bouhati’s wonderfully assured first feature, has no easy answer, for although young Sofia was born in France and fully embraces her Gallic origins, her North African parents prefer that their headstrong daughter retain the traits and traditions of their homeland.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 1,352
Website:   http://www.widemanagement.com/fiche.php?id=790

Gasoline
Three middle-class teenage boys, stealing gasoline to go on an all-night joyride, are headed down the highway to hell in this provocative, nuanced story of adolescent angst.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 325
Website:   http://ondamaxfilms.com/new-films.php?page=gasolina/

Heaven’s Heart
“What happens when a perfectly ordinary couple, who have based their entire lives on marriage, are afflicted by infidelity?” asks director Simon Staho on the subject of his provocative drama, which features an all-star cast dramatically interrogating themselves—and the audience—on what makes marriages work or fail.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 773

Home
Isabelle Huppert stars in this look at the gradual deterioration of a family’s peaceful existence when the long-unused stretch of highway that borders their house suddenly opens to public use.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 721

It’s Not Me, I Swear!
In a placid Montreal suburb in 1968, ten-year-old Léon is a hellion with a cause. The child of dysfunctional but au courant parents, he needs attention. Philippe Falardeau’s (Congorama) intelligent comedy is also a touching study of abandonment.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 524
Website:   http://www.cestpasmoijelejure.com/

Kisses
Children have it tough in this bitter, bright and winning film from Ireland. Young teens Dylan and his neighbor Kylie live for the day they can make a break from their abusive families and bleak suburban housing estate.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 491
Website:  http://www.kisses.ie/

Laila’s Birthday
Gaza-born director Rashid Masharawi captures the absurdity of the Palestinian situation in this comically deadpan, stop-and-start “road trip” through the land of checkpoints and barriers. A former judge who still retains his regal bearing, Abu Laila (stone-faced Mohamed Bakri, a Palestinian Buster Keaton) now drives a taxi to make ends meet.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 527

Lake Tahoe
With droll observational humor reminiscent of Jim Jarmusch, writer/director Fernando Eimbcke’s feature follows teenage Juan as he struggles to fix the family car in the aftermath of a minor accident and amid deeper emotional undercurrents.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 484

Mid-August Lunch
On the Feast of the Assumption, money troubles compel a middle-aged Roman living with his aged mother to take in three other grandmothers for a night. Their wiliness and warmth keep Gianni on his toes as friendship unexpectedly blossoms.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 966
Website:  http://www.ledejeunerdu15aout-lefilm.com/

La Mission
Peter Bratt’s powerful and moving film is an ardent love letter to the vibrancy of San Francisco’s Mission District and an urgent corrective to the violence that plays out in its streets.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 1,741

Snow
A remote Bosnian village of widows and orphans provides the atmospheric setting of Aida Begic’s magical debut feature, which earned the prestigious Grand Prix in Cannes’ Critic’s Week sidebar.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 1,064
Website:  http://www.mamafilm.ba/snijeg/

Still Walking
The arrival of a new film by Hirokazu Kore-eda is an eagerly anticipated event among cinephiles for whom this remarkably nuanced chronicler of Japanese life, loss and longing is now firmly established as a contemporary master of cinema at its most lyrical and emotionally satisfying.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 849
Website:  http://www.aruitemo.com/index.html

Summer Hours
Olivier Assayas’s richly meditative new film opens with a burst of activity in bright summer sunlight as the pinging energy of a French family gathering fills the spacious country estate of Hélène (Edith Scob) on the occasion of her 75th birthday.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 721
Website: http://www.ifcfilms.com/viewFilm.htm?filmId=1537

35 Shots of Rum
Claire Denis has created a sensual and contemplative body of films over the years, but nothing in her work prepares us for this deeply emotional yet light-of-touch story set among a small circle of Parisians and their friends.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 999
Website: http://www.wildbunch-distribution.com/site/35rhums/

Troubled Water
Released from prison after serving an eight-year sentence for the murder of a young child, Thomas returns to Oslo to arrange the scattered pieces of his life and pursue a quiet redemption.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 721

Window, The
Bedridden, 80-year-old Antonio prepares a perfect homecoming for his estranged son. Though confined to his room, he takes one last stroll through the beautiful Patagonian landscape in this elegant, lyrical and humanistic film.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 418
Website: http://www.wandavision.com

Woman Under the Influence, A
This newly restored print of one of the most influential films by the patron saint of American indie filmmakers features a career-defining performance by Gena Rowlands, in a penetrating portrait of a woman beset by mental illness.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 779


PAST EXHIBITIONS

Highlighted film titles link to SFIFF pages that contain film synopses, credits, print sources, running times and countries of origin.

Bad Faith
Clara and Ishmael are gorgeous, happy, in love and in Paris. How nice is that? Like many cosmopolitan Parisian couples, the fact that she is Jewish and he is Muslim barely crosses the minds of these oh-so-secular lovebirds...until Clara announces that she's pregnant.
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 Youth Ed
Attendance: 456
 
Ballast
A man, a woman and a child battle each other and themselves in the aftermath of a tragic death.
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFIFF
Attendance: 620
Website: ballastfilm.com/
 
The Bridge
The Bridge, a documentary exploration of the mythic beauty of the Golden Gate Bridge, the most popular suicide destination in the world, and the unfortunate souls drawn by its siren call.
SFFS Exhibition: 2006 SFIFF
Attendance: 1194
Website: www.thebridge-themovie.com/new/index.html
 
Calavera Highway
When Armando and Carlos Peña hit the road to return their mother Rose’s ashes to Texas, they embark on a profound journey, confronting a past haunted by her estrangement from her family as well as the specter of their missing father.
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFIFF
Attendance: 509
Website: www.calaverahighway.org/Home.html
 
Children of the Sun
Not everyone’s home movies chart the rise and fall of a bona fide social movement, but not everyone grew up on a kibbutz.
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFIFF
Attendance: 583
 
L’ Enfant
Bruno and Sonia, a young couple living off her benefit and the thefts committed by his gang, have a new source of money: their newborn son.
SFFS Exhibition: 2006 Youth Ed
Attendance: 157
Website:www.sonyclassics.com/thechild/
 
Home of the Brave
The price of social commitment, not just to oneself but to the generations that follow, is compassionately explored in Paola di Florio’s Home of the Brave.
SFFS Exhibition: 2004 SFIFF
Attendance: 389
 
The Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela
In this tribute to his late stepfather, B. Pule Leinaeng (“Lee”), filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris weaves a riveting exploration of family, exile and home.
SFFS Exhibition: 2006 SFIFF
Attendance: 435
Youth Ed Attendance: 21
Website: www.pbs.org/pov/pov2006/twelvedisciples/

Under the Bombs
In July 2006, Southern Lebanon was caught up in a war between Hezbollah paramilitary forces and the Israeli military. Lebanese director Aractingi took his camera...
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFFS Screen
Atttendance: 169
Website: www.underthebombs.com/

FISCAL SPONSORSHIP

HIghlighted film titles link to sffs.org "Current Projects" pages, alphabetically listing SFFS fiscally sponsored films, containing synopses and website links where available. Below each title is the filmmaker's name.

Bachelorette 34
Kara Herold
 
Blind Spot
Ahree Lee
 
Down in a Hole
Nathan Friedkin

Earth Camp One
Jennie Livingston
 
For Sale By Owner
Janice K Pearson
 
Moms Living Clean
Sheila Ganz

Mothersbane
Jason Jakaitis
 
October Country
Michael  Palmieri
 
Opshiy Yizik (Common Tongue)
Stanislav Basovich

Prodigal Daughter
Mabel Valdiviezo
 
Read Me Differently
Sarah Entine
 
Renouncing Angelica
Temi Ojo

The Signalman
Joseph Walling

Surviving Amina
Barbara Celis
 
Strings
Crystal Us
 
Totemist
Tamara  Perkins


RESOURCES

The following list of resources offers interested audience members more information and ways to become involved in Family Issues.

The Casey Family Programs National Center for Resource Family Support

Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere

Families with Children from China

Out of Home Youth Advocacy Council

Parents, Friends, and Family of Lesbian and Gays