Although SFFILM
Festival took on this new name from the San Francisco
International Film Festival five years ago, it
continuously counts the number of years it has showcased
world cinema. If you ignore the cancellation in 2020 due
to the Covid-19 pandemic, this year marks the 65th
edition in the festival's history, which makes it the
longest running film festival in America. This is also
the first time since the pandemic that the festival is
returning to in-person screenings.
From April 21 to May 1, 2022, the 65th edition will
exhibit 130 films representing 56 countries and
regions. Among them, there are a total of 33 narrative
features, 24 documentary features, 5 mid-length
(30-60 minutes) films, and 65 shorts.
Even though the festival's duration is still unchanged,
the number of feature films at the festival has been
downsized dramatically compared to just a few years ago,
and even more compared to the 72
narrative features and 33 documentaries ten years
ago.
(You may click on each still image for the corresponding
screening or event's show time and ticket
information.)
Stay
Awake (Photo: Courtesy of SFFILM)
The 11-day festival opens on
Thursday, April 21, at the grand Castro
Theater with the director Jamie
Sisley's poignant drama "Stay
Awake" (USA 2022 | 95 min.). It follows the
journey of two teenage brothers, terrifically played
by Wyatt
Oleff and Fin Argus,
who try to save their mom from her prescription drug
addiction while they want to pursue their own dreams. The
film reveals the personal struggles that are often behind
closed doors in many families during the opioid crisis.
892
(Photo: Chris Witt)
A week later, the festival's centerpiece film is the
director Abi Damaris
Corbin's thrilling drama "892"
(USA 2022 | 103 min.). Based on a true
event, the film unfolds the story of a veteran who robs
a bank demanding $892, the amount that Veteran
Affairs has withheld from him, to make a
statement about his desperate situation. The film won
the Special Jury Award at this year's Sundance Film
Festival featuring a powerful performance
by John
Boyega as the protagonist.
Cha Cha Real Smooth
(Photo: Courtesy of SFFILM)
On Sunday, May 1, the festival closes its curtain with a
comedy "Cha Cha Real
Smooth" (USA | 107 min.) which is written,
directed, produced, and starred by Cooper
Raiff. It tells of a young man's encounter with a
mother and her daughter. The film won the
Audience Award (US Dramatic) earlier at this year's
Sundance, and it should leave festival goers on a
slightly lighter note in this grim reality of war, Covid,
and inflation.
Awards and Tributes
This year, the festival resumes its
monetary Golden
Gate Awards, as well as other special awards and
tributes.
Trinh T. Minh-ha
(Photo: Courtesy of SFFILM)
This year's recipient for the annual Persistence of
Vision Award is Trinh
T. Minh-ha, a Distinguished Professor at
University of California Berkeley and an
experimental filmmaker. The award event will
feature an on-stage conversation with Prof. Trinh
at Pacific
Film Archive in Berkeley, followed by her new
documentary "What
about China?" (China/USA 2022 | in
Chinese/English | 135 min. | Documentary).
With mostly low-resolution but arresting footage
shot about 30 years ago, the
director Trinh
T. Minh-ha poetically assembles her observation
of China when she visited decades ago. Blending the
majestic landscape with the villagers' daily lives
and mixing the traditional Chinese music with the
rhythm of nature and poetry, this film provides us
intimate snapshots of lives in China decades ago
that might have already disappeared forever. It's
both nostalgic and thought-provoking.
Linoleum
(Photo: Courtesy of SFFILM)
Partnering with the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation, the festival presents this
year's Sloan Science on Screen Award to the
director Colin
West's drama "Linoleum"
(USA 2022 | 101 min.). The film tells the story of a
dysfunctional family in suburban Ohio, where
the wife and the daughter have to deal with the
father who starts to fulfill his childhood
dream by building his own rocket ship using
satellite debris falling from the sky.
Michelle Yeoh
(Photo: Thomas Laisne/Getty Images)
The festival pays tribute
to Michelle
Yeoh, one of the most celebrated
actors working today. On Friday, April 29
at the
Castro
Theater, actress Sandra
Oh will join Michelle
Yeoh for an on-stage conversation.
In this new film, Jenny
Slate plays the voice of Marcel, an
adorable one-inch-tall shell who tries to
find connection with his long-lost family.
Narrative Features
Besides the films at big
nights and special events, the festival
selected additional 23
international
and 4
US narrative features, many of them are award
winners in the film festival circuit. Here are a few
samplers of this year's selection.
Even though the rate of serious crime such as
murder is extremely low and gun violence is
extraordinarily rare in China, stories involving
murders and guns have been a frequent
subject for many Chinese independent filmmakers,
such as Diao
Yi'nan. As Diao's mentee, the
writer-director Zhang
Ji delivers yet another crime tale involving
murders and guns in his feature directorial
debut "Fire
on the Plain," which also credits Diao
as the executive producer. It's no surprise that
the film is imprinted with Diao's influence when it comes to
style and storytelling.
The story begins in 1997 in the cold and snowy
Northeast region of China, a cop Jiang Bufan
(Yuan
Hong) is on a taxi driver's murder case. Bufan
is also a mentor to the rebellious Zhuang Shu
(Liu
Haoran) who often hangs out with mischievous
youngsters playing pranks. At home, Shu resents his
father's upstart as the leader in a factory while
most factory workers are falling behind. One of
these workers is the humble Li Shoulian
(Wang
Xuebing) who raises his daughter Li Fei
(Zhou
Dongyu) alone. Fei studies painting with Shu's
mom Fu Dongxin (Mei
Ting) and frequently visits Shu's home, and Shu
develops a crush on Fei.
One night, Bufan is also killed and the murder case
he is working on turns cold. Twelve years later,
Shu becomes a cop himself. When he revisits the
cold case Bufan left behind, the truth turns out to
be more devastating than he expected.
While the story is not all that convincing (it's an
adaptation from a novel), the ensemble
performance is top-notch. The grim atmosphere in
dark lighting reflects the mindset of these
characters. Many of them struggle to survive and
often find their hopes and dreams evaporate despite
their best efforts and hard-work.
Întregalde
(Romania 2021 | in Romanian/Romany | 104 min.)
The title of the renowned Romanian writer-director
Radu
Muntean's intelligent new
film "Întregalde"
is the name of a section of country road in
Romania. Three aid workers travel on this
section of the road to deliver goodies to villagers
for the Christmas holiday. Once their car gets
stuck in the mud, the table is turned around and they
become the ones that need help.
The director skillfully crafts the story to examine
the moral compass of these aid workers. It's a
subtle balance between the convenient good deed
they offer and the underlying apathy they may or
may not be conscious about.
Happening
(L'événement | France 2021 | in
French | 100 min.)
Adapted from Annie
Ernaux's autobiography novel, the
director Audrey
Diwan's period drama "Happening"
can't be more timely when many states in the US are
ramping up anti-abortion laws aiming to eventually
ban abortion completely.
The film captures the devastating reality
when the 23-year-old Anne
(Anamaria
Vartolomei) is unwillingly pregnant and
unable to get an abortion when it was
illegal in the '60s in France. It gives a
powerful account of the issues when women
are denied the right for what they want to
do with their own body.
The
Box (La caja | Mexico/USA 2021 | in Spanish
| 90 min.)
The Venezuelan writer-director Lorenzo
Vigas returns to the festival with his second
narrative feature, "The
Box". It follows a teenage boy
Hatzín Leyva's (Hatzín
Navarrete journey to collect his deceased
father's remains in a steel box.
His trip turns to a different direction after he
meets a local factory promoter, Mario
(Hernán
Mendoza).
Utama
(Bolivia/Uruguay/France 2022 | in Quechua/Spanish | 87
min.)
The writer-director Alejandro
Loayza Grisi's elegant, captivating, and
visually stunning directorial
debut "Utama"
is the kind of movie you want to see on the big
screen in a theater. It reveals a part of the
world that you probably have never seen before.
It's a couple of miles high in elevation up in the
mountains in Bolivia. The drought is getting worse
and worse, and most Quechua people have abandoned
the land and migrated to the city. But the elderly
couple Virginio (José
Calcina) and Sisa (Luisa
Quispe) live in their mud house and refuse to
leave behind the harsh environment they call home.
Every day, Sisa walks a far distance just to fetch
water and Virginio herds about fifty lovely llamas
wearing pink tassels. There is not a single green
vegetation in sight and it has been more than a
year without any rain. Virginio's health is also
deteriorating and his labored breaths and coughs are
getting worse.
To convince them to move to the city and improve
their living conditions, their grandson Clever
(Santos
Choque) comes to visit. But the stubborn
Virginio believes this place is where he lives and
dies.
The director Alejandro
Loayza Grisi remarkably blends this simple
story with the magnificent landscape. Each frame is
meticulously composed as if you are browsing
photographs at a museum. The striking beauties both
from the landscape and from the nonprofessional
actors are mesmerizing, and you have to see the
film on the big screen to fully grasp the effect.
It's a little puzzling what those llamas eat every
day when there seems to be nothing growing on the
bone dry ground, and how Virginio and Sisa, as well
as other Quechua people, can survive. That question
will certainly be extended when the climate change
gets worse and many other places we call home
become inhabitable.
Documentary Features
The festival's 24 feature documentaries share various
perspectives and unfold non-fictional stories, both in the
US and around the globe. Here are a few of them.
The
Exiles
(USA 2022 | in English/Mandarin | 95 min. |
Documentary)
It might have been a more interesting film if the
film is all about the
fascinating Christine
Choy. Instead, the film splits its focus
between her and the subjects from her footage
decades ago—a few dissidents exiled to the US
from China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protest was cracked
down. Christine
Choy pays visits to a few of them in her
footage and provides the opportunity for them to
retell their side of the story three decades later.
Midwives
(Canada/Germany/Myanmar 2021 | in Burmese
| 91 min. | Documentary)
For most people, Myanmar has been known for its
turbulent political climate and its long-lasting
ethnic and religious clash between the Buddhists
and Muslims. We rarely see how they actually live
in such a chaotic and violent environment. The
director Snow
Hnin Ei Hlaing's eye-opening documentary
"Midwives"
shares her incredibly candid observations of the
two midwives' lives in Rakhine State.
The two midwives are Hla, a Buddhist, and her young
apprentice Nyo Nyo, a Muslim. Despite the conflicts
in the community between the two religious
communities, they work together and provide care to
pregnant women of both religions in their makeshift
clinic that is equipped with the minimum level of
medical supplies.
Even though Hla has a big heart and her humanity
trumps prejudice and discrimination toward the
Muslim minority, she isn't a saint either. She
sometimes uses racial slur toward Nyo Nyo which Nyo
Nyo doesn't appreciate. The film is completely
honest without sugar coating over any unpleasant
moments.
Meanwhile, it's heartbreaking to see Nyo Nyo dreams
about moving away from the region to start a new
life, but then she has to face the reality and deal
with the disappointment.
This remarkable film allows us to witness the
devastation the country and its people are
enduring, and it also offers us hope to see that two
women from different religions can come together
and serve the community.
Fire
of Love (Canada/USA 2022 | in
English/French | 93 min. | Documentary)
The story of two extraordinary French
volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft are
beautifully told in the director Sara
Dosa's new documentary "Fire of
Love" with stunning images of the
eruption of volcanoes the couple left to us.
After they met in 1966, they fell in love and then
became married to each other as well as to the
passion they shared. The adventurous couple
explored the volcanoes around the globe and
recorded incredible footage until their deaths,
while pursuing what they love.
Their unforgettable story is like the powerful
volcanoes they are chased, full of energy, magic,
and beauty. The film gives us a chance to
appreciate their work, which was done at the cost
of their lives, and to marvel at their love story.
Mid-length and Shorts
Beside feature films, the festival also offers 5
mid-length (30-60 minutes) films and 65 shorts.
My
Dear (亲爱的人 |
Portugal 2022 | in
Chinese/English/Hungarian | 59 min. | Documentary)
My Dear
(Photo: Courtesy of SFFILM)
It has been more than a decade since Academy
Award-winning director Ruby
Yang's documentary "Tongzhi
in Love"
(彼岸浮生 | China 2008 | in
Mandarin | 30 min.) told the stories about the
double lives of gay people in China and won the
Golden Gate Award for Short Documentary at
this
festival in 2009.
In a way, Aragon
Yao's autobiographical directorial debut
"My
Dear" is an update to Yang's film. Even
though many LGBTQ people are beginning to come out
to their parents and extended families in China,
their lives are not any easier than a decade
ago. They still face the pressure of producing an
heir for their parents, and the political
atmosphere toward sexual minorities might have
turned even worse in China.
Studying in Budapest and being apart from his
Iranian boyfriend back in Shanghai, Aragon enjoys
his freedom of being gay and explores his sexuality
by learning drag performance at gay
nightclubs. This provides a moment where he can
escape his parents' nagging for him to get married
with a woman and have children.
Will migration to a foreign country be the only
solution left to his and many other Chinese gays'
dilemma? Or perhaps doing drag will help?
Live-streaming has become a new money-making
enterprise in China, as portrayed in
Wu
Hao's fascinating
documentary "People's
Republic of Desire" (China 2018). Many
people are glued to their screens watching streaming
contents for entertainment, illusion,
companionship, and pornography.
That's the backdrop of the story in
writer-director Baggio
Jiang's short film "Live,"
being screened in the festival's Shorts
5 program.
The film starts with a cab driver live-streaming
his ride. In its merely 22 minutes running time,
the filmmaker constantly twists and turns the
story, with new development in almost every scene,
and terrifically pulls together the chain of events
revolving around the live-streaming.
This short film will challenge the axiom of "seeing is
believing" in this digital age.
The film's title comes from a Chinese
proverb "Crows everywhere are equally
black"
(天下乌鸦一般黑),
which metaphorical implies that bad people are
bad all the same. In 18-year-old school girl
Shengnan's (Chen
Xuanyu) eyes, the crows are those greasy
middle-aged men sitting around a banquet table
that her cousin invited her to as a needed
virgin for a fortune-blessing ceremony. But one
bald, unassuming, and overweight man named
Jianguo (Xue
Baohe) seems to be different. As the night
goes deeper, the couple embarks on a different
direction from the rest of the womanizing crowd.
The film not only quickly establishes these
colorful and humorous characters, but it also
incorporates music, songs, set designs to add
more comical effect. It stays focused and never
steps away from what the title suggests,
especially when the film cuts into its last
frame.
