Women Scientists Fascinated By Bats

Posted on by

A Profile of Filmmaker Kristin Tièche

By Noma Faingold.  (May 1, 2025)

Kristen Tièche walks into Le Café du Soleil, a French bistro in the Lower Haight, with unremarkable décor, clutching her little black mixed-breed dog, Zizou. She rode her bike from her Inner Richmond home. It’s mid-afternoon. As she places a glass of white wine, accompanied by a glass of water, at a window table, she mentions that her day is tighter than she realized, having already spent time at a volunteer garden, followed by a shower. “I have people coming over to my place at 5:30,” she said.

Kristen Tièche – Photo by Noma Faingold

Continue reading →

Dogs and Inmates Finding their Way Home

Posted on by

UNDERDOGS is a special film that follows minimum-security prisoners as they care for and train homeless dogs with behavioral issues that have made the dogs —- until now —- unadoptable.   Positive Reinforcement helped both dogs and inmates find their way back home. 

A Director’s Event with live music from the soundtrack and a film screening followed by a Director’s Q&A will take place on Thursday March 20, 2025 at the Sunrise Center, 645 Tamalpias Drive, Corte Madera from 6:30-8:30 pm.  Tickets and more information here. Continue reading →

Music Hath Charms

Posted on by

San Francisco’s A Day of Silents Features a Stellar Lineup of Musicians and Films on Sunday, February 2, 2025.

by Meredith Brody.                                                         (January 28,2025)

The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

You’ve all heard that silent movies really weren’t SILENT: they all had live musical accompaniment, ranging from a solitary guy at an upright piano or a mighty Wurlitzer to up-to-110-member symphonic orchestras. When Carmine Coppola was about to go on tour in 1981 to conduct his new score for his son Francis Ford Coppola’s restoration of Abel Gance’s 1927 Napoleon, he reminisced about the silent movie palaces of his youth: “”When I was really young,” Mr. Coppola recalled, ”I would go to Broadway to see a movie. I remember  The Thief of Bagdad, with Douglas Fairbanks; he always insisted on an original score. Those theaters – the Strand, the Rialto, the Rivoli, the Capitol – had 40-or 50-piece orchestras. It was so beautiful. I saw the Big Parade that way and What Price Glory and The Three Musketeers. ”

Continue reading →

The Secrets of Tamara de Łempicka

Posted on by

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

Continue reading →

SECRETS FROM THE MOVIE SET

Posted on by

An Interview with Producer Paul Zaentz

By Gary Meyer

(updated November 21, 2024)

34 Oscar nominations.

22 Wins including 3 Best Pictures.

That is only a fraction of the awards the Bay Area ‘s Saul Zaentz won for the terrific movies he brought to the international big screen.

The Berkeley FILM Foundation and the California Film Institute presented the Saul Zaentz Film Celebration, an event honoring the legacy of the legendary independent film producer, November 15-17, 2024, at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, California.

Amadeus shows at Davies Hall with the SF Symphony the score live on  music. on Nov. 29-30, 2024. Tickets and info here.

Continue reading →

Doc Stories Revisits 2015’s “Janis: Little Girl Blue”

Posted on by

The 10th edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival’s annual documentary celebration offers eleven programs of new films plus a Documentary Filmmaking & Activism Workshop for Teens and two free panel discussions.

By Noma Faingold

(October 14, 2024)

Most people have never seen Janis Joplin live. Those who have could feel her lifeforce, her pain, her palpable need to be loved, her raw bluesy delivery and her desire to be unforgettable. She died of a heroin overdose in 1970, becoming a member of the rock and roll 27 Club, along with her contemporaries Jimi Hendrix, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan,  and Jim Morrison.

 

Maybe the next best thing in experiencing the essence of Joplin and learning about all aspects of her life is by watching the 2015 documentary, “Janis: Little Girl Blue,” directed by Amy Berg, being shown during the 10th Anniversary of SFFILM’s Doc Stories (October 17-20). The free community screening will be at 4 p.m. on October 17, at San Francisco’s Vogue Theatre, with Berg as a special guest.

Continue reading →

SONGWRITER DIANE WARREN IS RELENTLESS

Posted on by

An interview with Film Director Bess Kargman

By Noma Faingold

(July 18, 2024)

Director Bess Kargman knew going in that prolific songwriter Diane Warren, the subject of her latest documentary, doesn’t fully trust anybody. “It’s not in her nature,” Kargman said. “The biggest challenge was earning her trust. I had to navigate when to push her. She would get really anxious sitting in a chair too long and being away from her work.”

Diane Warren: Relentless screens on August 3, at 3:30 p.m., at the Piedmont Theatre, (4186 Piedmont Ave., Oakland) during the 44th Annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, July 18-August 4. Complete Festival Information and tickets.

Continue reading →

Partners in Food and Film: An Interview

Posted on by

An Interview with SIFF27 Culinary Excellence Award winner, Chef Susan Feniger and filmmaker Liz Lachman.

By Geneva Anderson

(March 20, 2024)

When Los Angeles filmmaker and Emmy award winner Liz Lachman (“Pin-Up,” “Getting to Know You”) set out to make her first feature-length film about partner, Chef Susan Feniger, opening her first solo restaurant in Los Angeles in 2009, she already had lots of footage.  The idea of capturing Susan’s journey in realizing “Street,” a dining concept that would bring a variety of global street foods together under one roof and doing this without her longtime business partner and co-chef Mary Sue Milliken, had been simmering for 13 years. Continue reading →

Why December 4th is the Date To Reintroduce Yourself To… THE LOST CONTINENT OF CLASSIC FRENCH FILM NOIR

Posted on by

By Owen Field

(Including fragments of an interview with Midcentury Productions’ Don Malcolm.) (November 30, 2023)

THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT is one of the world’s best-kept open secrets, spilling out a world of film noir—or, more accurately, perhaps, a “lost continent” that has been relentlessly explored at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco since November 2014.

Lino Ventura in WITNESS IN THE CITY (UN TEMOIN DANS LA VILLE)

Continue reading →