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The 12th Annual San Francisco Indiefest will end this year’s program on Thursday February 18th, still allowing for three days of cinematic pleasure to engage in. Be sure, if you haven’t done so already, to check out the interview done with festival founder and director Jeff Ross here. He was very candid, informative, and he even dropped an event announcement on this space: The San Francisco IndieFest and The Primitive Screwheads will present live on stage: Two Gentlemen from Lebowski. This fall, Bay Area theater goers will be able to experience The Coen Brothers’ slacker masterpiece The Big Lebowski, on stage and in iambic pentameter. The Big Lebowski meets Shakespeare meets San Francisco's film to theater mash up masters The Primitive Screwheads. That will be coming sometime this fall. As for the remaining highlights of the festival, there are several films that stand out.
Cigarette Girl
Mike McCarthy’s latest effort is a dystopian vision of a future where cigarettes cost over $67 a pack and you can only get them in the smoking section of town. Cori Dials plays the titular character Cigarette Girl with strength and control that perfectly blends with the narrative McCarthy has created. Add in the beautiful cinematography of Wheat and the expertly chosen locations to create a modern Metropolis kind of look and Cigarette Girl is one of the better pieces you can see at IndieFest this year. You can read more about Cigarette Girl with a review here by this space, and an interview done with McCarthy here. It's final screening is tonight, Tuesday February 16th at 7:15.
Zooey and Adam
Stick around after Cigarette Girl and catch Zooey and Adam, a film about a couple that have been unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant for 7 months, then they end up pregnant after a rape. Unsure of the parentage of their child, they decide to have him anyway. Zooey and Adam has been getting great notices from its festival trip around Canada and it made its US Premiere earlier at the IndieFest. This film is very unique in its filmmaking approach. According the film’s website, Zooey & Adam is a one-man film. “One step beyond microcinema, this is an example of something the filmmaker calls ‘Solo Cinema’. The crew is one person, the actors have no idea what the script is, and are surprised on-camera with events, to which they react with absolute authenticity. 'Solo Cinema' explores the grey area between fiction and documentary, by crafting a series of chronological situations, putting actors in those situations, and documenting what they do.” Zooey and Adam will screen at 9:30 tonight, Tuesday February 16th.
Limbo Lounge
Limbo Lounge is a film where a charming con man Silas, played by Ronnie Marmo, is stuck in Limbo after a fatal accident causes him to attempt to earn his horns by corrupting an innocent soul on Earth. The film, written and directed by San Francisco filmmaker Tom Pankratz, has elements of comedy, fantasy, drama, and mystery interwoven throughout to create a powerful portrait that will definitely entertain audiences on Thursday night February 18th at 7:15. It is important for the community of San Francisco to support its local artists so really show up well for this film as this is how art will continue to blossom in your community.
At the Foot of a Tree
In a small English town, a father comes home beaten and bleeding. His wife is distraught as this has happened before. Alfie, their eleven-year-old son, witnesses this and decides that he must take revenge upon the perpetrators. Upon doing so, the golden haired freckled boy tries to avoid the reactions to his actions that begin to encircle him. According to the film’s website, the concept for At the Foot of a Tree sprang to the mind of writer/director/producer Ricky Shane in the winter of late December 2007. He completed the script, handing it over to his producing partner, Kelly Jo Reid who helped him to get the project off the ground and was right there with him throughout. Lacking any fear or doubt, they decided that they would try to make a truly unique film thus setting out on their first collaborative production by the new company, Mysterious Tea.
Harmony and Me: Closing Night Film
Harmony, played with great humor and wit by Justin Rice, is a charming, but offbeat slacker stuck in a funk after a breakup that shows no signs of leaving him anytime soon. The highlights of his days are the “chance” run-ins with his ex. When one such excursion leads him to an unpleasant discovery, he decides it’s time to move on, but a disastrous date with his neighbor might not be the ticket. This film has received nearly perfect reviews and has a strong endorsement behind its coming to be, having received an Annenberg Fellowship from the Sundance Institute in 2008, a grant that helps get a film off the ground. Writer/Director Bob Byington was also recently awarded the Stanley Kubrick Award for “Bold and Innovative Filmmaking” at the Traverse City Film Festival. The film will screen at 9:30 on Thursday night February 18th.
City Island
If you can’t get into the Closing Night Event, this is really a great consolation prize. Earlier in the Indiefest was the West Coast Premiere of City Island which stars Andy Garcia as a member of the Rizzo family who live on a little known island in the Bronx. The film won an audience award at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival and looks to be dark humor at its finest. This film will screen on closing night opposite Harmony and Me at 9:30.
The San Francisco IndieFest has delivered thus far for the people in the Bay Area and there are still three days of entertaining and compelling films left to screen. Check out the links below for more information on the festival schedule, the films, and other coverage of the festival.
For more info:
The 12th Annual San Francisco IndieFest
The Roxie Theater
Coverage by this space on Indiefest
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