By Meredith Brody

There are, of course, a number of ways to attack film festivals. (In fact, there are a number of ways to write that sentence. The verb could also be “approach.” Or “enjoy.” Or “parse.”)

“I hope,” my editor said, “that you write about more small movies in your second piece on the Mill Valley Film Festival.” I knew what he meant. I’d written about looking forward to seeing the movies I’d missed in Telluride and Toronto, and most of them were movies that would be showing up at multiplexes within days or weeks – certainly by the end of the year, if they harbored Oscar hopes.

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by Arlin Golden

In 2016, Jacqui “Jax” Griffin was dismayed to learn that the Bradford International Film Festival was to be no more.

“I moved to Bradford in England’s West Yorkshire because it was the City of Film and, to me, a large part of that heritage was the annual film festival.” says Griffin. “I thought the City of Film should have at least one festival celebrating the newest most interesting films being made around the world.” A lifelong cinephile and PhD student in film, she was not going to let her town go without some sort of series of screenings, but where to show them? At the time there were only 2 movie theaters in Bradford, and they would require venue fees and ticket revenues, but there are many more pubs, which are free to enter. So she put 2 and 2 together and the Drunken Film Fest was born.

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We have posted trailers for all the films discussed in Meredith Brody’s overview of the 41st Mill Valley Film Festival playing October 4-14 in Marin County.

The full schedule can be seen here.

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By Meredith Brody

I have a mantra that’s meant to soothe myself as I surf the roiling waves of the fall film festivals I’m lucky enough to attend:

In Telluride, the bucolic, intimate, user-friendly festival held in a one-horse town, I repeat “If I miss it here, I’ll see it in Toronto.”

In Toronto, a well-oiled huge, baggy, and increasingly corporate festival, where I mostly am relegated to the shadow and less festive festival of press-and-industry screenings, I say “If I miss it here, I’ll see it in Mill Valley.”

And the  41st Mill Valley Film Festival, whose far-flung screenings are held in three one-horse towns, is hard upon us.

Mill Valley benefits from its timing in the festival year, and its location: it can cherry-pick from every festival held earlier in the year, and its proximity to Los Angeles (and the Bay Area’s high number of Academy members, i.e. Oscar voters) means that a number of directors and stars will appear on its stages.

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Niles then and now. Find out more about the making of Chaplin’s THE CHAMPION at Silent Locations.

As is often the case, film lovers in the San Francisco area have tough choices to make the weekend of July 20-22, 2018 as Charlie Chaplin Days celebrate its second weekend in Niles, California.

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by Frako Loden

Photo courtesy of Festival de San Sebastian

This past week has been an exhilarating and deeply moving experience for me as I’ve explored the films of French director Jacques Becker for the first time. For my teacher I have another French writer/filmmaker, Bertrand Tavernier (Coup de Torchon, Life and Nothing But, The Princess of Montpensier), whose 2017 documentary My Journey Through French Cinema has been an absolute gift.

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By Deborah Kaufman

(As the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 38 approaches, Founder Deborah Kaufman remembers Aleksander Askoldov.)

It was the time of glasnost and perestroika, the last chapter of Soviet history. Of over 140 films banned by authorities under the Communists, the 1967 film COMMISSAR, directed by Aleksandr Askoldov, was the last film waiting to be rehabilitated. At the 1987 Moscow Film Festival, in a public confrontation with authorities, filmmakers and delegates from the San Francisco International Film Festival demanded to free the film “from prison” after its 20 years on the shelf. Under pressure the officials relented and the film was finally screened to a standing ovation, hailed as a masterpiece, and went on to worldwide distribution and international acclaim.

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