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.

Good Cats
With a sharp eye and unwavering comic mastery, Ying Liang charts the social attitudes and tragic victims of the New China in the story of a man pressured by his wife and shady boss down a path of greed and corruption.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 458

Good Life
This affectionate patchwork of stories is about ordinary people—a social worker, a hairdresser, a bank loan officer, a classical musician—struggling to follow their dreams in the Chilean metropolis. Their lives are presented with such penetrating empathy that the film rises to the level of human comedy.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 689
Website:  http://www.latidofilms.com/proyectos.nuevostitulos.ficha.do?idProyecto=66&opcion_izquierda=5&opcion_superior=3/

Kabuli Kid
When a veiled woman abandons her infant son in the back of his cab, Khaled journeys through the streets of war-ravaged Kabul in an attempt to find the child’s mother in this bittersweet comic fable.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 589
Website: http://www.wildbunch.biz/homepage.cfm?section=films&filmid=249

Khamsa
Karim Dridi creates a vivid picture of Roma life in an enclave on the outskirts of Marseille. Thirteen-year-old Marco, a runaway from foster care, prefers this place of hard living and big, messy families to life on the outside.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 553
Website:   http://www.khamsa-lefilm.com/

Kimjongilia
Through a series of extraordinary interviews with North Korean refugees, N.C. Heikin’s stylistically inventive documentary presents a devastating indictment of Kim Jong-Il, one of the world’s most elusive dictators.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 522
Website: http://www.kimjongiliathemovie.com/

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

Modern Life
Raymond Depardon has been documenting the changing face of rural France in his Profils Paysans series. Modern Life combines his flair for widescreen shots and the perfect light with his patience for the kitchen interview, and always, his love for his subjects.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 477
Website: http://modernlifethefilm.com/

Mohandas
A Kafkaesque tale of identity theft becomes a searing indictment of bureacratic corruption and conspiracy as a poor but educated villager discovers that the white-collar job he was promised has been filled by someone using his name. 
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 329
Website: http://www.mohandas.in/

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/

Nomad’s Land
Gaël Métroz, inspired by the writings of the famous Swiss adventurer/philosopher Nicolas Bouvier, discovers a deep connection to nomadic peoples and the physical and spiritual beauty of their worlds. A travel film unlike any you’ve seen.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 757
Website: http://www.nomadsland-lefilm.com/en/default.html

Oblivion
Heddy Honigmann returns to her native Peru for her latest deeply humanist exploration of everyday resilience and resignation. In Lima, “the forgotten city,” in the shadow of the presidential palace, bartenders and buskers create their own reality to survive an economy in ruins.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 620
Website: http://www.heddy-honigmann.nl 

Our Beloved Month of August
Faced with the always-annoying dilemma of having no money and no cast, director Miguel Gomes decided to make his film anyway. Shot during the summer music festivals in rural Portugal, what results is a playfully challenging hybrid of fiction and documentary.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 186
Website: http://www.osomeafuria.com

The Paranoids
 In this wry comedy of errors from Argentina, an unaccomplished screenwriter who works children’s birthday parties for a living tries not to sleep with his best friend’s girlfriend, but fails at that, too.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 717
Website: http://visitfilms.com/VisitFilms/The_Paranoids.html

Sacred Places
Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Marie Téno profiles a poor but lively neighborhood in the capital of Burkina Faso, where a cine club proprietor tries to include Burkinabe films among the action and Bollywood fare.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 414
Website: http://www.jmteno.us

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/

Soul Power
The cream of African American rhythm-and-blues musicians, including B.B. King and James Brown, visit their ancestral homeland and come together with their African counterparts, including Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba, for an exhilarating, three-day 1974 music festival in Kinshasa, Zaire.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 326
Website: http://www.sonyclassics.com/soulpower/

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

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

Wild Field
In the desolate beauty of the Kazakh steppes, a Russian doctor without adequate supplies struggles to treat a surreal parade of locals with medical emergencies. Beautifully filmed and well acted, Wild Field basks in the tradition of dark, existential Russian tragicomedy.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 501
Website: http://dikoepole.ru/ru/

The Window
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


PAST EXHIBITIONS

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

All in This Tea
Tea importer David Lee Hoffman travels throughout China—sometimes on foot—in search of handcrafted premium teas.
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 SFIFF
Attendance: 937
Youth Ed Attendance: 80
Website: www.lesblank.com/more/TeaFilm.html
 
Amandla: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony
Interviews, archival footage, and filmed performances highlight the role of music in the South African struggle against apartheid.
SFFS Exhibition: 2006 Youth Ed
Attendance: 180
 
Another Man’s Garden
Sofia, a young girl in Mozambique who is studying to be a doctor, finds that her professor wants more from her than hard work.
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 Youth Ed
Attendance: 72
 
Boxers and Ballerinas
Shot in three countries over a two year period, Boxers and Ballerinas explores the US-Cuba conflict thru the eyes of four youths--a boxer and a ballerina in Havana and Santiago de Cuba and a boxer and a ballerina exiled in Miami.
SFFS Exhibition: 2005 SFIFF
Attendance: 1010
Youth Ed Attendance: 561
 
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
 
China Blue
Do you know the real cost of your jeans?
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 Youth Ed
Attendance: 241
Website: www.pbs.org/independentlens/chinablue/
 
The Class
Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 Youth Ed
Attendance: 300
Website: www.sonyclassics.com/theclass/

Delwende
A rural and seemingly idyllic village in Burkina Faso is hit with a mysterious epidemic that is killing its children. The culprit, according to the men...
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFFS Screen
Atttendance: 189

Duma
An orphaned cheetah becomes the best friend and pet of a young boy living in South Africa.
SFFS Exhibition: 2006 Youth Ed
Attendance: 271
Website: dumamovie.warnerbros.com/
 
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: 366
Website: www.sonyclassics.com/thechild/
 
Enough!
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 Youth Ed
Attendance: 108
 
Favela Rising
One night in a favela, an impoverished barrio on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, an infamous druglord shot and killed four policemen, launching what the favela residents refer to as “The Massacre.”
SFFS Exhibition: 2006 SFIFF
Attendance: 392
Youth Ed Attendance: 171
Website: www.favelarising.com/
 
Latent Argentina
When most people think of Argentina, they think of the inflation, poverty and helplessness that plagued the country in the wake of the financial crises of recent years.
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFIFF
Attendance: 600
Co-presenter: Global Exchange
 
The Miracle of Bern
To many Germans their team’s victory over the Hungarians at the 1954 World Cup in Bern, Switzerland, ranks with the fall of the Berlin Wall as one of the most important events in postwar Germany.
SFFS Exhibition: 2004 SFIFF
Attendance: 787
 
The Monkey Kid
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 Youth Ed
Attendance: 281
 
Mukhsin
Everyone has a first love story to tell.
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 SFIFF
Attendance: 364
Youth Ed Attendance: 83
 
Opal Dream
SFFS Exhibition: 2006 Youth Ed
Youth Ed Attendance: 150
 
Sepet
In her second film, Yasmin Ahmad tells a story of interracial teenage love, between Chinese Jason, a peddler of pirated videos, and Orked, a Malay schoolgirl who likes Hong Kong movies.
SFFS Exhibition: 2005 SFIFF
Attendance: 614
Youth Ed Attendance: 23
 
Sequins
Hand-woven designs and luxurious embroidery are the visual basis of this delicately observed French tale of an unlikely friendship between two women of different ages, classes and cultures.
SFFS Exhibition: 2005 SFIFF
Attendance: 556
Youth Ed Attendance: 638
 
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
 
The Sugar Curtain
Born in Chile in 1971, Camila Guzmán Urzúa was the daughter of a guerrilla filmmaker, Patricio Guzmán, who would soon become one of the most notorious figures in Latin American cinema.
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 SFIFF
Attendance: 609
Youth Ed Attendance: 87
 
Two Ladies
Kosher-cooking Muslims and Koran-reading Jews typify the surprising culture clashes that complicate and enliven the contemporary France of Philippe Faucon’s exquisitely observed drama.
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFIFF
Attendance: 629

Vanaja
When a soothsayer predicts that she will become a great dancer, and her father no longer can pay for school, Vanaja steers her way into the household of  a virtuoso of kuchipudi, a narrative dance practiced by high-caste Brahmins.
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 SFIFF
Attendance: 917
Youth Ed Attendance: 12
Website: www.vanajathefilm.com/
Co-presenter: 3rd I
 
Welcome to the Sticks
SFFS Exhibition: French Cinema Now
2008 Youth Ed:
Attendance: 261
 
Whale Rider
Whale Rider is an exceptional coming-of-age fable that never cheats its audience, allowing viewers of all ages to rediscover innocence and wisdom, free of cynicism and doubt.
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 Youth Ed
Attendance: 239
Website: www.whaleriderthemovie.com/
 
Workingman's Death
Michael Glawogger (Megacities, SFIFF 1999) wonders if, in the digital age, heavy manual labor is disappearing, or maybe just becoming invisible.
SFFS Exhibition: 2006 SFIFF
Attendance: 577
Website: www.workingmansdeath.com/
 
The World According to Sesame Street
The film follows productions in Bangladesh, Kosovo and South Africa and examines how producers from New York's Sesame Workshop take the iconic American television show and localize it with indigenous songs, puppets and curricula while facing cultural, political and production challenges.
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 Youth Ed
Attendance: 100
Website: www.pbs.org/independentlens/worldaccordingtosesamestreet/

Youssou N’Dour: Return to Gorée
One of the best-known singers in the world. He has been credited with developing a form that blends traditional African praise-singing with musical styles…
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFFS Screen
Attendance: 228

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.

Across the King's River
James Weeks

Bamako Chic: The Women Cloth Dyers of Mali
Maureen Gosling

Children of the Amazon
Denise Zmekhol

Explorations of the Shadow World: ShadowLight Legacy DVD Collection
Larry Reed

Global Conversations
Gari Leary

Her Choice -Behind and Beyond Hijab
Kyoko Yokoma

An Imagined Country
Marilyn Mulford

Never Forget- A Memoir from the Cultural Revolution
Ji Li Jiang

On the Banks of the Tigris
Marsha Emerman

Play Like A Lion
Joshua Mellars

Progressive Pupil
Robin J. Hayes

She Wants To Be A Matador (formerly Lady Bullfighter)
Gemma Cubero

Songs Along a Stony  Road
George Csicsery

Sound Tracks
Stephen Talbot

Taksu Bali - A Gamelan Journey
Helen Prince

Todos Santo
John Stoltzfus

Tongues of Heaven
Anita Chang

Two in a Billion
Leslie Hill

Vanishing or Khanty of Melting Siberia
Oxana Chumak

Way of Life
David Driver




RESOURCES

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

Active Voice

Agape Orphanage (South Africa)

AIDWorkers

Amigos de los Americas

Campaign Against Child Labor

Chico Medes Foundation

Cinterandes Hospital Project

Cross-Cultural Solutions

Defense Forum Foundation

Global Giving

Half the Sky

IJCentral

Kiva

Latin America Working Group

Miriam's Hyman Children's Eye Care

Mission Cultural Center San Francisco

Network in Solidarity with the People of
Guatemala

North Korea Freedom Coalition

Program for a Better Peru

Tents of Hope

UNICEF

World Affairs Council