A debate on water, movies & inspiration
By Ari Gold. (October 21, 2025)
Where does inspiration come from? My answer can sound like I read books: Francis Coppola’s “Live Cinema”, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Psychomagic,” Werner Herzog’s “Conquest of the Useless.” But let’s be honest, my lifelong hunt for mentorship can feel like distraction. Continue reading
The United Nations Association Film Festival returns to the Bay Area with another urgent, globally expansive lineup. Running from October 16–26, the 28th edition of UNAFF brings 60 documentary films to venues across Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Stanford University. More than just a film festival, UNAFF is a civic forum—a space for dialogue, reflection, and action.
By Noma Faingold (Updated September 10, 2025)
Artist Rose B. Simpson is more than a little preoccupied with vessels. She views pottery, cars, her figurative sculptures, the womb and clay, a material she most often uses in her creations, as vessels.
Courtesy of Rose B. Simpson
“I think in clay. Clay was the earth that grew our food, was the house we lived in, was the pottery we ate out of and prayed with,” Simpson told a de Young Museum audience at a very personal lecture she delivered earlier this year. “My relationship to clay is ancestral and it has a deep genetic memory. It’s like a family member for us.” Continue reading
By Noma Faingold (August 1, 2025)
“I never wanted to be a poet. It chose me. I didn’t choose it. One becomes a poet almost against one’s will, certainly against one’s better judgement. I wanted to be a painter, but from the age of 10, these damn poems kept coming. Perhaps one of these days they will leave me alone and I can get back to painting.”
– Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet laureate, publisher, activist, playwright, novelist and painter
The poet and artist Lawrence Ferlinghetti in his San Francisco studio. (Photo courtesy of Brian Flaherty for The New York Times)
Calling someone an “icon” is annoyingly overused these days. However, when it comes to the late multi-hyphenate Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021), the moniker is appropriate, especially in San Francisco, where he thrived artistically and socially since his arrival in 1951. Continue reading
By Noma Faingold (April 16, 2025)
Watching the 28-minute, 10-screen film/art installation, “Lessons of the Hour,” by British artist/filmmaker Sir Isaac Julien, isn’t as overwhelming as one might think. In fact, the flood of images, sounds and words, dedicated to the life of writer, orator, philosopher, and social justice activist Fredrick Douglass (1818-1895), a former slave, allows the viewer to absorb and interpret the immersive experience in their own way.
“CAKE PICNIC™ was born out of a simple desire to eat a lot of cake. And be surrounded by friends,” writes founder Elisa Sunga. “It is a gathering for the love of cake. It celebrates cake in all of its forms — chiffon cakes, upside down cakes, Princess cakes, Russian honey cakes, meringue cakes, jello cakes, trifles, multi-tiered cakes, sponge cakes, butter cakes, and more. Continue reading
By Farwa Ali (January 30, 2025)
Graceful veined hands turn the seashell over a few times in reverent contemplation. A few moments later artist Ann Arnold tosses the seashell back into the rippling cerulean waves lapping against the shore of San Francisco’s Baker Beach. It has completed its journey, traveling from the ocean into Arnold’s life; where she has acknowledged its value, captured its luminous existence in her painting, and respectfully returned it to the ocean from whence it emerged. Wrestling The Angel – an Artist’s Passage, does more than capture Arnold’s artistic journey.
An Interview with Director Julie Rubio
by Geneva Anderson
Tamara de Łempicka, the Russian-born 20th century painter known for her cosmopolitan Art Deco portraits and arresting nudes, is front and center in the Bay Area with two major Bay Area venues showcasing her: the Mill Valley Film Festival and the de Young Museum.
Orinda filmmaker Julie Rubio’s years-in-the-making documentary, “The True Story of Tamara de Łempicka & The Art of Survival,” had its world premiere at the 47th MVFF with two sold out screenings and more to come. Simultaneously the de Young Museum opened “Tamara de Łempicka,” the first major museum retrospective of the artist in the U.S. It runs through February 9, 2025. (Details at the end of the article.)
Director Julie Rubio and Tamara de Łempicka
By Noma Faingold
“Each of my paintings is a self-portrait.”
Tamara de Łempicka, artist
Group of Four Nudes (1925). © 2023 Tamara de Łempicka Estate, LLC
By Jenny Hammerton
Join me on Instagram (@silverscreensuppers) on Friday the 19th of July 2024 for an online cocktail party to celebrate the launch of my new thing! 7pm BST is 2pm EST/ 11am PDT.
It is a gorgeous limited edition reprint of a rare 1933 booklet containing recipes submitted for a celebrity cocktail competition!
By C.J. Hirschfield
(March 10, 2023)
The documentary feature All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is actually three movies in one. Directed by 2015 Academy Award winner Laura Poitras (Citizenfour), the film explores the art, life, and political activism of internationally renowned artist Nan Goldin, whose story could not be more compelling. Through her photos, slideshows, interviews and video footage, we get a real sense of what inspired both her art and her activism.
eatdrinkfilms.com 