By Lincoln Spector. (April 4, 2024)
What’s Screening: April 5 – 11
For reasons that I prefer not to discuss, I’ve lost the Bayflicks blog…hopefully only for a while. Thankfully, Gary Meyer of Eat Drink Film has given me space for my newsletter. Continue reading
By C.J. Hirschfield
(Updated January 9, 2023)
A monument to circus showman P.T. Barnum stands in Reid Davenport’s hometown of Bethel, Connecticut. “He got a pedestal,” says the director of I DIDN’T SEE YOU THERE, the new documentary that premiered at the 65th SFFILM Festival, while the disabled filmmaker’s perspective is from the sidewalk. The film, a meditative and personal feature that invites the viewer to see the world through his eyes—and at his level– often refers to the corrosive legacy of Barnum’s freak shows and how society relates to those who are different.
Part One: Not Feeling Festive
By Meredith Brody
May 3, 2022
The pandemic disrupted virtually (pun unintended, but hiya, Dr. Freud!) every aspect of my life, but none more thoroughly or dismayingly than the one that contributed most of its bliss, excitement, and travel (not to mention remuneration, once I’d written about them): attending film festivals.
By C.J. Hirschfield
March 14, 2022
Cinema junkies forgive iconic documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman for the length of some of his works that venture deep into American institutions; his most recent City Hall covering the government of Boston clocked in at four and a half hours. We absolve him because he is so good at taking us inside worlds that we don’t know, as his camera disappears and we learn so much by listening and observing, happy to have made the journey.
Comparisons to Wiseman’s work are inevitable as we describe the numerous joys of Maria Speth’s new documentary, Mr. Bachmann and his Class, the closing night film at Berlin & Beyond 2022, at the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive. It is now streaming on MUBI. Continue reading
FELLINI 100 is a feast of Fellini Films playing at the Berkeley Art Museum/ Pacific Film Archive through May 14, 2022.
We present recipes from Bay Area chefs that honor Federico Fellini along with music and Fellini’s own thoughts on food. The restaurants are C’era Una Volta and Poesia.
by Gary Meyer
“Why don’t you make films in color?” Federico Fellini was asked shortly after his 1963 black and white hit 8 ½. He explained that it was not his right to determine for the audience the exact color of, say, a blade of grass or the blue in the sky. I was a teenager with a passionate interest in all kinds of movies, especially the exotic foreign films playing at theaters like Mel Novikoff’s Surf Theatre, Pauline Kael and Ed Landsburg’s Studio & Guild Cinemas and at the San Francisco International Film Festival— this intriguing answer that made sense to me until his next feature came out where he more than broke his rule. Juliet of the Spirits was so overwhelming in its use of color one might have thought it was soon to be banned and he needed to splash every tint and tone across the screen while he could. I loved it in 1965 and can’t wait to see it again on the big screen as part of the Fellini 100 celebration through May 14, 2022 at BAMPFA.
We love Fellini and we love trailers that tease us to want to see the full features.
In March 2020 the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive was starting an extensive Fellini 100 series when Covid shut the Museum down. But the Fellini Celebration is back, playing through May 14, 2022.
We are pleased to present a collection of trailers, interviews and appreciations of Federico Fellini in honor of his belated 100th birthday.
A candid conversation with the film programmers at the Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA).
by C.J. Hirschfield
At age 79, and after 60 years of activism, John Lewis is still organizing; still mobilizing; still legislating. Oh yes, and he’s definitely still dancing.
In the illuminating and luminous new documentary, John Lewis: Good Trouble, acclaimed Bay Area director Dawn Porter (Trapped, Gideon’s Army) creatively and conscientiously chronicles the life and career of the legendary civil rights activist and Democratic Congressman from Georgia.
by Gary Meyer
Of the many film festivals I enjoy each year, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival is certainly one of my favorites. I love the fact that the Festival Directors, Anita Monga and Stacey Wisnia, curate my experience. There is only one film playing at a time and all are at the mighty Castro Theatre accompanied by wonderful live music.
You come in the morning for a 10am show and stay until after the sun goes down…most likely around 11pm. A community develops where you run into friends you haven’t seen in years and make lots of new friends waiting in line (to get in, to buy food or use the rest rooms) or while sitting in the theater before the show starts. As the festival progresses through its five days you realize that this is the closest thing to a movie summer camp.
Bring family and friends, especially those who have never seen a silent film on the big screen with live music and a lively audience. They will become converts.
by Meredith Brody
On my first sweep through the SF Film catalogue, even trying to be slightly discriminating and not greedily inclusive, I came up with 54 different films and events that I wanted to see. Fat chance! I knew there’d be overlaps in screening times as well as distances between venues that would cut down that list, as well as life intervening in a festival that occurs tantalizingly in your hometown.
eatdrinkfilms.com 