Member News & Notes

Isabel Vega and Amanda Micheli’s La Corona—the Academy Award–nominated documentary about beauty pageant contestants in a Colombian prison—won Best Short Documentary Award at the 2008 International Documentary Association awards. Both La Corona and the Micheli-produced Cat Dancers premiered on HBO last fall.

Yun Suh’s documentary City of Borders has been accepted into the Panorama section of this year’s Berlinale. The film follows the regulars at Jerusalem’s only gay bar, a place that brings together Israelis and Palestinians who risk their lives by challenging taboos.

Adrian Belic’s feature documentary Beyond the Call (SFIFF 2006), which celebrates a trio of extreme altruists, has screened at more than 130 film festivals on five continents, winning more than 40 awards to date. Belic is preparing a two-disk collector’s edition release of the film for release this coming spring.

Paul Hill and Joan Juster’s documentary Alaska Far Away, which tells the story of Midwestern farmers relocated to Alaska during the New Deal, was completed in 2008 and is currently available on a limited edition pre-release DVD. It was featured in the Anchorage International Film Festival in December.

Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and Dawn Valadez’s documentary Going on 13 premiered last year at the Tribeca Film Festival and screened at ten festivals in the U.S. and around the world, including Silver Docs and the Los Angeles Latino Film Festival. The Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media and the Fledgling Fund awarded the producers with funds for their outreach and distribution plan, including some exciting digital plans for 2009.

Donna Kline and Wendy Slick’s documentary An American Virtuoso—the compelling story of Texas-born Olga Samaroff, who rose from obscurity to become the most successful American woman concert pianist of the early 20th century—is currently in the late postproduction stage of completion. Vivian Kleiman is the executive producer.

James Haruo Forbes’s narrative feature Eye for a Tooth—a San Francisco–based crime story that investigates violence, punishment and morality—wrapped production in late 2008.

Witch Hunt, a documentary directed by Dana Nachman and Don Hardy and executive produced and narrated by Sean Penn, had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and its U.S. premiere at AFI Fest Los Angeles in November. In advance of the U.S. premiere the film was acquired by MSNBC Films and is slated for a U.S. television premiered this year. The film follows a score of child-molestation allegations and sex-abuse cases in the California community of Bakersfield that resulted in a rash of convictions during the 1980s.

Marilyn Mulford and Quique Cruz’s documentary Archeology of Memory: Villa Grimaldi follows Bay Area Chilean exile musician Quique Cruz from the Bay Area to Chile and back as he creates a multimedia art piece to heal his wounds inflicted by the state-sponsored torture of the Pinochet regime. It screened at the 2008 Mill Valley Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for favorite documentary and also at the Vancouver International Film Festival. It is slated to be part of the PBS series Global Voices in September.

An episode from Leslie Streit and Robin McCain’s online comedy cooking show Evil Auntie Makes Aphrodisiac Chicken screened at San Francisco Tranny Fest in November. The filmmakers also presented a clip from their upcoming documentary The Elly Glass Project at the Santa Cruz Design & Innovation Center in December. The evening was focused on sustainable issues in architecture and was one of a continuing series of in-progress screenings and discussions around the film.

Christian Bruno and Natalija Vekic received a $22,500 grant from the San Francisco Foundation’s new Bay Area Documentary Fund for Strand: A Natural History of Cinema, their feature-length documentary charting the demise of San Francisco’s movie theater culture. Other grantees for 2008 include Yoav Potash for Crime After Crime, a documentary about an incarcerated survivor of brutal domestic violence and the Bay Area attorneys who work pro bono in an effort to set her free ($22,500); and Abby Ginzberg for Cruz Reynoso: A Man for All Seasons, a documentary about the first Latino to be appointed to the California Supreme court ($10,000).

Dina Ciraulo was awarded an Individual Artist Grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission to support the postproduction of Opal, a narrative feature film about self-taught naturalist and cult icon Opal Whiteley.

Noted cinematographer Frazer Bradshaw’s first narrative feature Everything Strange and New had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The film, shot in Oakland, is an exquisitely rendered, but challengingly bleak, examination of daily life.

Bay Area filmmakers Barry Jenkins and Justin Barber’s narrative feature Medicine for Melancholy has been nominated for Best First Feature at the Film Independent’s Spirit Awards. Jenkins also was nominated for the Acura Someone to Watch Award. The film is a quiet exploration of two individuals grasping at intimacy after a one-night stand.

The American Indian Film Festival honored Carlos Bolado and Stephen Most’s documentary River of Renewal by choosing it for the festival’s opening night. It also won the Best Documentary award. The film tells the story of the crisis in the Klamath Basin where competing demands for water, food and energy have pitted farmers, American Indians and commercial fishermen against each other. Accepting the award at the Palace of Fine Arts, Most announced an agreement in principle that PacifiCorp has just signed with the Secretary of the Interior and the governors of California and Oregon to remove the four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River.

Back Issues, a short film by Jonathan Parra set in a comic book store, will have its San Francisco premiere at SF IndieFest in February. Produced by Diane Karagienakos, the film will also screen at the Show Off Your Shorts Film Festival in Hollywood, where it has been nominated for the Best Film and Best Comedy awards.

Wash ’n’ Fold, a short film by San Francisco writer Christy Chan, has been selected to screen at Film Independent’s February Cinema Lounge. The film concerns a lonely young man who sorts through people’s laundry in city laundromats.

Karen Everett is happily combining her passion for documentary storytelling and 15 years’ experience teaching editing at UC Berkeley into a new business called New Doc Editing. Specializing in adapting screenwriting techniques to films about real life, she helps directors structure documentaries that are as engaging and fun to watch as narrative films. Everett went to Sundance this year to talk with directors who need help conveying their vision in a way that keeps viewers glued to the screen.

Laurence N. Kaldor’s directorial debut Redirecting Eddie, a comedy about love, family and all that can go wrong for a first time director, is now available on DVD. All proceeds will go to the Children’s Craniofacial Association and Stumps ’R’ Us.

Valerie Soe’s short film Snapshot: Six Months of the Korean American Male screened at the Association of Asian American Studies National Conference in Chicago, Dallas Video Festival, D.C. Asian Pacific Film, Vancouver Asian Film Fest, Austin Asian American Film Festival and APAture Arts Festival in San Francisco. It examines a period during which several Korean American men figured prominently in America’s pop culture and looks at the ways in which their representations reflect or refute long-held stereotypes of Korean and Asian American men.

Margot Smith served as D.P. for Listen to Iran’s People: A Call for Peace during a visit to Iran in 2007, a volatile political time when President Bush was threatening to bomb Iran. The 30-minute video includes footage of a meeting with the vice president of Iran, imams, students and professors. The film was shown on FreeSpeechTV and PBS and at several film festivals including the Berkeley Film Festival, Davis Film Festival, the Twin Rivers Media Festival and the New York Peace Film Festival.

Kusama: Princess of Polka Dots, a documentary about Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, is being produced by members Karen Johnson and Heather Lenz, with Lenz also directing. Kusama was an important figure in the New York avant-garde art scene of the 1960s, but little was heard of her in America after she entered a Tokyo mental hospital, where she has lived for the last 30-plus years.

Don Bernier’s short documentary Shelf Life (SFIFF 2008), about a San Francisco bone collector, has continued to play the festival circuit. Most recently, the film screened at the Brooklyn Independent Cinema Series in New York and was selected to screen at the 2009 San Francisco Independent Film Festival in February. It also was featured in KQED’s Truly CA Shorts series. Bernier is currently in production on a documentary TV series about urban wildlife conflict entitled The Concrete Jungle.

Michael Anderson and Ned Miller are in final postproduction on their independent dramatic feature film Tenderloin. The film was shot on the streets using a blend of SAG-contracted actors and actual Tenderloin residents. It strives to capture the spirit of the city’s roughest neighborhood while exploring previously little-known facets of this prime destination city.

Leo Maselli’s film A Lovely Adult Beverage, about a Chilean hedonist at his favorite bar and his intervention in a blind date gone wrong, won the CineSource Caligari Narrative Short Script Competition, judged by scriptwriting teacher Denise Bostrum, writer James Dalessandro, film teacher Toney Merritt and director Rob Nilsson. Principal photography is set for March.          

Pam Walton’s documentary Raging Grannies: The Action League will premiere at Cinequest 2009. The film explains the motives and tactics of a group of older women who protest all over the Bay Area with a sense of outrage, a sense of humor and a commitment to nonviolence.

Gabriele Hoff’s films Powerplay in Relationships and Serving Madame Gine continue to screen internationally, recently in Germany. The films give personal and compelling voices to the art of power play, service and submission, as witnessed first-hand in authentic relationships.

Karil Daniel’s documentary Voices of Dissent: Activism and American Democracy was broadcast in December on KTEH, public television of San Jose, as part of the Video I series. The film celebrates Americans acting to defend and protect their civil liberties during a time of war.

Choreographers and filmmakers Melinda Darlington-Bach and Cynthia Pepper screened three short films at the Mill Valley Film Festival. Their film company Xanadu Entertainment continues to provide services to the Sesame Street program on public television. Pepper also was awarded a finishing funds grant from the Dance Films Association for her most recent project Cube, a short that explores the relationships found in a true menage a trois.

Kara Herold’s short film Bachelorette, 34—one woman’s examination of the ubiquitous belief that marriage equals happiness—will play at the Museum of Modern Art in New York during the 2009 Documentary Fortnight, the annual showcase of nonfiction film and video.

After a 13-year gestation, Harrod Blank is finally releasing his feature-length documentary Automorphosis, which continues his career-long inquiry into the obsession and craft of art car artists. The film will screen at the upcoming San Francisco Independent Film Festival, Montana International Film Festival and Santa Cruz Film Festival. Blank is also the subject of David Silberberg’s newly released film Oh My God, It’s Harrod Blank!, which screened at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival. The film traces the development of Blank’s art car career and includes a cameo appearance by his filmmaking father Les Blank.

David Weissman has begun work on a new documentary, Heartbreak and Heroism: San Francisco and the AIDS Epidemic. The project recently received a grant from The San Francisco Foundation as part of its new Bay Area Documentary Fund. Weissman will once again be working with his collaborators from The Cockettes, editor Bill Weber and D.P. Marsha Kahm.

In October, director and producer Holly Million spent 18 days shooting in Vietnam for her documentary film A Permanent Mark: Agent Orange in America and Vietnam. She was accompanied by D.P. Chris Million, camerawoman Soumyaa Kapil and American veterans affected by Agent Orange.

David Munro was awarded one of ten inaugural Film Society FilmHouse residencies to write his graphic novel The Inferiors, about a fascist high school bent on eliminating the imperfect and weak. The project follows Munro’s debut feature Full Grown Men, which won the 2007 Sundance Channel Undiscovered Gems Award and was released theatrically by Emerging Pictures last summer. Munro is currently directing commercials and branded entertainment for the San Francisco–based production company Kontent Films.

Producer/director Kate Schermerhorn is currently in postproduction on After Happily Ever After, a film about the dynamic and evolving institution of marriage. The film makes a subtle yet convincing argument for letting love dictate the future of marriage, rather than simply gender. Laurie Schmidt is editing the one-hour documentary. They are part of the San Francisco FilmHouse residency program.