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.

Battle for Terra
With an all-star vocal cast and lush CGI animation, this family-friendly film offers sci-fi action with a social conscience. When Earthlings try to make the peaceful planet of Terra their new home, it becomes a desperate fight for survival. Recommended for ages seven and up.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 568
Website: http://www.battleforterra.com/

Bullet in the Head
Based on a true incident of an assassination of French cops by Basque terrorists, the moment-to-moment realism of Bullet in the Head will leave you stunned and gasping for breath.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 514
Website: http://www.the-match-factory.com/bulletinthehead

Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
This harrowing, breathless documentary revisits the 2007 protests by hundreds of silent monks and thousands of chanting citizens against Burma’s military dictatorship, using the stunning concealed-camcorder footage smuggled abroad by a cadre of courageous young reporters.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 625
Website: http://www.burmavj.com/

City of Borders
The Israel-Palestine conflict is seen anew through a rainbow of sexual identity in this heartfelt documentary centered on the diverse denizens of Jerusalem’s lone gay bar, a haven of unity amid the region’s seemingly eternal clash of cultures and religious strife.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 749
Website: http://www.cityofborders.com/

Conscience of Nhem En
Included in the Shorts program Voices Carry: at 16, Nhem En was forced to take pictures of several thousand Cambodians before they were murdered by the Khmer Rouge. 
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 137

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

My Neighbor, My Killer
Anne Aghion has spent over a decade documenting a small village in Rwanda where, since 1999, government trials called the Gacaca have attempted to move toward reconciliation and healing in the wake of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, where Hutus killed Tutsis on a mass scale using machetes and makeshift weapons.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 393
Website: http://www.gacacafilms.com/mnmk/

Son of a Lion
This sensitively and beautifully shot debut film follows its appealing nonprofessional cast through the harsh, lovely terrain of remote northwestern Pakistan, in a story of a boy who would rather go to school than make firearms with his father.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 655
Website: http://www.sonofalion.com/

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/

Z32
Israeli “docu-essayist” Avi Mograbi reveals the deepest longings of a nation in conflict in this genre-breaking and original work in which a young Israeli soldier participates in a revenge operation and speaks of his experiences to his girlfriend.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 271


PAST EXHIBITIONS

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

October 17, 1961
One of contemporary Europe’s darkest moments—the still-uninvestigated 1961 massacre of Algerian protestors in Paris—is meticulously reconstructed in director Alain Tasma’s docudrama...
SFFS Exhibition: 2006 SFIFF
Attendance: 530
 
Alexandra
A stunningly beautiful meditation on the banality of warfare and the familial ties that bind, personified by the unforgettable titular character, Alexandra.
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFIFF
Attendance: 834
 
Beyond the Call
Ed, Jim and Walt are not your average weekend warriors. Ordinary, inconspicuous Americans with wives, careers and hobbies, these three friends realize their deepest passion in life through self-financed humanitarian missions to war zones around the globe.
SFFS Exhibition: 2006 SFIFF
Attendance: 595
Website: www.beyondthecallthemovie.com/

The Boy Who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan
The 1,600-year-old Buddhas carved into the pale cliffs adjoining Afghanistan’s picturesque Bamiyan valley were the world’s tallest stone statues until the Taliban destroyed them in 2001.
SFFS Exhibition: 2004 SFIFF
Attendance: 509
Website: www.theboywhoplaysonthebuddhasofbamiyan.com/

Checkpoint
The West Bank and Gaza Strip have been under Israeli military authority since 1967.
SFFS Exhibition: 2004 SFIFF
Attendance: 678

Control Room
Mention Al Jazeera three years ago and you’d likely get blank stares from most Americans; now the name of the Arab world’s most popular news outlet is well known for its reporting of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan…
SFFS Exhibition: 2004 SFIFF
Attendance: 663
Website: www.noujaimfilms.com/controlroom/site/01.html

The Devil Came on Horseback
Another African crisis has unfolded, and callous officials and concerned bystanders again stand paralyzed.
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 SFIFF
Attendance: 531
Website: www.thedevilcameonhorseback.com/

Encounter Point
Abstaining from the usual media headlines of hatred and conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, Encounter Point instead focuses on their commonality: loss.
SFFS Exhibition: 2006 SFIFF
Attendance: 363
Youth Ed Attendance: 59
Website: www.encounterpoint.com/index.php

Enough!
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 Youth Ed
Attendance: 108
 
Ezra
Nigerian-born filmmaker Newton I. Aduaka, whose family suffered through the Biafran War of the late 1960s, brings a special sensitivity to this drama about the life of a child soldier.
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFIFF
Attendance: 448
Co-presenter: San Francisco Black Film Festival
 
Ghosts of Cité Soleil
In 2004, 200 years after Haiti became the first independent black republic and 13 years after Jean-Bertrand Aristide became the country’s first democratically elected president, Haiti once again found itself in turmoil.
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 SFIFF
Attendance: 706
Website: www.ghostsofcitesoleil.com/

Heart of Fire
In this moving drama, ten-year-old Awet, played with powerful expressiveness by Letekidan Micael, is swept into the Eritrean war for independence of the early 1980s.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFFS Screen
Attendance: 175

Iraq in Fragments
A film about Iraq for those who may be growing weary of mass media coverage about Iraq, James Longley’s newest work is a powerful combination of arthouse documentary and political provocation.
SFFS Exhibition: 2006 SFIFF
Attendance: 1006
Youth Ed Attendance: 263
Website: www.iraqinfragments.com/
 
Off to War
For over 50 years the weekend warriors of the Arkansas National Guard helped out at home after floods and tornados.
SFFS Exhibition: 2005 SFIFF
Attendance: 437
Youth Ed Attendance: 103

Omagh
“I thought all this was supposed to be over,” mourns a grief-stricken man in this searing drama taken from events surrounding the bomb blast that devastated the Northern Ireland town of Omagh in August of 1998.
SFFS Exhibition: 2005 SFIFF
Attendance: 521

Operation Turquoise
This unsentimental, sometimes brutal docudrama assesses the ostensibly humanitarian role of French troops after the Rwandan genocide of 1994 by viewing it through the eyes of both naïve and seasoned soldiers.
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFIFF
Attendance: 275
Youth Ed Attendance: 72

Pilgrimage
Few films have captured the heady mix of religion and devotion in Iran and Iraq as well as Bahman Kiarostami’s Pilgrimage.
SFFS Exhibition: 2005 SFIFF
Attendance: 806
 
Private
A remarkable entry into the body of film work about the Middle East, Private takes us inside the soul of an occupation, when the West Bank home of a Palestinian professor is caught in the crossfire between the two sides.
SFFS Exhibition: 2005 SFIFF
Attendance: 632
 
The Rape of Europa
Based on Lynn H. Nicholas’ award-winning book of the same name, this fascinating documentary is an epic exploration of how failed artist Adolf Hitler looted, plundered and pillaged the great art of Europe during World War II.
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 SFIFF
Attendance: 1311
Website: www.rapeofeuropa.com/
 
Shooting Under Fire
A compelling documentary that follows the last few weeks of Reinhard Krause's four-year assignment in Israel, where he heads up a team of Israeli and Palestinian photographers all working on the front lines of the Middle East conflict.
SFFS Exhibition: 2006 SFIFF
Attendance: 300
 
Smiling in a War Zone
In the wake of September 11, when airspace was severely restricted to private aircraft, director and performance artist Simone Aaberg Kaern was determined to “reclaim the freedom of the sky.”
SFFS Exhibition: 2006 SFIFF
Attendance: 373
Youth Ed Attendance: 125
 
Sounds of Sand
Harrowing in its implications yet deeply humane in its testimony to the endurance of hope under impossible circumstances, Marion Hänsel’s beautifully observed family saga takes place beneath the unforgiving sun of East Africa, where the increasing scarcity of free-flowing water is devastating entire communities and causing civil unrest.
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 SFIFF
Attendance: 538
Youth Ed Attendance: 403
 
Standard Operating Procedure
Oscar-winning documentary The Fog of War, Errol Morris focused on the tragedies of conflicts past; in his new film, he turns his attention to the most recent, Iraq, using one moment—the Abu Ghraib prison scandal—to reflect on an entire military and...
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFIFF
Attendance: 576
Website: www.sonyclassics.com/standardoperatingprocedure/

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

The Executioner Dream of A Better Life
Amamda Pike & Adam Keker

Love Cemetery
Ben Galland, China Galland

Love Hate Love
Dana Nachman

Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming
Charles Berkowitz

A Permanent Mark: Agent Orange in Vietnam & America
Holly Million

Rabbi
Facundo Lujan, Tania Waisberg

Rocket Science
Thomas Luehrsen

The Signalman
Joseph Walling

Soldiers of Conscience
Gary Weimberg

To Save A Life
Steven Pressman

Tents: Where Does Hope Live
Francesca Roveda




RESOURCES

The following list of resources offers interested audience members more information and ways to become involved in War, Conflict & Reconciliation.

Act Now to Stop War and End Racism

AM VETS (American Veterans) Organization

Atomic Veterans

Bay Area United Against War

Direct Action to Stop War

Mosaic Voices

United Nations Association of San Francisco

US Department of Veterans Affairs

Veterans Improvement Program

The Welcome Home Project