SF Festie-Besties: 5 Top Films at the International Festival

The just-concluded 58th annual San Francisco International Film Festival was a more than the usual terrific programming from around the globe and across genres, so much so I've created my own awards to honor what were the five best flicks for this queer cineaste.

The SF Festie-Besties are prizes for achievement in some aspect of cinema and works I think you should check out, whether you're looking for a humorous time or a dramatic challenge. Let's announce the winners.



1. "All of Me" ("Llevate Mis Amores"), is awarded the top honor winner of the SF Festie-Bestie Cinema Equals Life Prize. This Mexican documentary had me in tears during several key scenes when poor women and girls stand inches from a speeding train carrying hundreds of even more destitute men and boys heading to the U.S., holding plastic bags of food and water jugs on strings that the hungry migrants grab.

Humanity, stripped to a basic survival level of simple nutrition and desire for a better life, shines through as food is purchased, cooked and stuffed into large plastic bags and plastic soda bottles cleaned and filled with water, and people open up about their motivations.

Director Arturo González Villaseñor wisely lets the women of Las Patronas of Veracruz, Mexico, and the men who fall off the trains tell their life stories, without any pesky nonprofit executive or government executive giving a larger sociological analysis. Best line from one of the mothers: "God didn't create barriers. We did."

Told without the slickness and musical manipulation of an HBO style doc, it grabbed me by the throat and heart and didn't let go. "Llevate Mis Amores" hopefully will have a run at the Roxie, where it would certainly find an audience. "All of Me" captures despair and hope in ways Hollywood can only dream about.

Go out of your way to see this film. It's being distributed here by Todo Cine Latino.



2. "The Tribe" receives the SF Festie-Bestie Pure Cinema Prize. From Ukraine, this immersive story set at a state school for deaf and mute teenage thugs has not one word of dialogue, but speaks creates a taut and frightening narrative from the wildly expressive faces, hand gestures and body movements of the young cast.

Prominent display early on the Ukrainian flag and posters of the NATO and European Union flags in a classroom, adds an unmistakable political element to the story.

Just when you think there's been enough nasty fisticuffs, criminality and raw sexuality, including cock shots, and no more limits are left to break, director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy throws a new depredation in your face. Not for the squeamish, with foreboding slowly building in every long-take scene for a brutal conclusion that was repulsive and appropriate, with a smattering of blood.

An abortion-inducing scene set in a decrepit tenement bathroom, with excruciating moans from the young woman with her vagina spread wide with her legs elevated with a dirty rope as the abortifacient is indifferently inserted, was so tough and challenging I had to cover my eyes with my pad. That was followed by her boyfriend raping her in a drunken stupor.

"The Tribe" is cinema without words and outstanding camerawork and gritty production design values so real, I could smell the grime as oppressed youths oppressed other teenagers. Drafthouse Films is the American distributor.



3. "Tangerine", without question, is the recipient of the SF Festie-Bestie Queer as Fuck Prize. Director Sean Baker and writer Chris Bergoch, two forty-ish creative talents, identify as straight and deliver the goods with this film set over one Christmas Eve day and night, as a black trans sex worker hunts down her protector boyfriend after learning he cheated on her while she was in jail.

Completely shot on a few iPhones, with some sound recorded with a mic taped to a long painter's stick purchased at a hardware store, this film has a hyper-colorful saturated look and terrific camerawork especially considering the low-tech shooting conditions. This gay senior didn't relate to the music track much, but I bet young folks will love it.

At times, I missed bits of dialogue or a rapid-fire joke because my laughter was too loud or the audience was in hysterics. Signs of a honest crowd-pleaser with sass to spare. A sub-plot involving a closeted Armenian bisexual male cabbie showcases acting superstars from Armenia, adds to the outrageous entertainment.

Of all the cock shots I saw during the festival, the longest one belonged to a white skinny dude in a make-shift sex group sex space scene set at a tawdry motel.

This prize isn't so much for the transgender characters or sexual liaisons they engage in, but is given for the queer and politically incorrect approach to the production and fun as all-getout sensibility of the terrific actors in front of the iPhone cameras. Catch "Tangerine" with an audience when it hits theaters in July, thanks to Magnolia Pictures.

 

4. "Winter Sleep" gets the SF Festie-Bestie Tarkovsky Visionary Prize, as writer and director Nuri Bilge Ceylan delivers a three-hour-and-twenty-minutes contemplative and sometimes mordantly funny epic with a a small number of people navigating religious and cultural traditions and contemporary life in Turkey.

A wealthy arrogant landowner, writer and former actor contends with his divorced sister moving in with him and his younger naive wife living under the same roof, while a poor Muslim tenant farmer and his family scrape money together to avoid eviction from his property.

Set in the eye-pleasing Anatolia region of Turkey, the struggles of all the characters carry tremendous weight and at the end, the landowner has been humbled and his hard edges softened, making for an emotionally rich masterpiece. Every shot of the ravishing steady camera work is worth the time it occupies on the screen. Judicious editing from start to finish.

Special thanks to the festival programmers to bringing us this 2014 Cannes Palme D'Or winner, after the distributor couldn't any local theater to show "Winter Sleep" before the DVD's release from Adopt Films. Another example of the crucial need for the San Francisco Film Society's service to movie-lovers.

Not only was it shown, but "Winter Sleep" played in the largest Sundance Kabuki auditorium with a 60-foot screen. Arthouse cinema heaven!



5. "Black Coal, Thin Ice", hails from China and I bestow the SF Festie-Bestie Global Prize upon it. A grandly satisfying, twisty neon-noir concerns a mildly corrupt cop with drinking and women problems, his wife divorces him at the start, who spends years solving a murders of men whose body parts are dumped in coal factories or sold as meat to a cafe.

The female prime suspect objects to being under his surveillance and orders him to stop following her. Too late; he's in love with her regardless of the crimes he believes she committed without remorse.

One beautifully choreographed scene stands out. After a gunfight with a suspect they believe dead, set in a garishly lighted beauty salon, the cop and his partners don't notice his feet jerking, which seem to be a flub unnoticed by the director Diao Yinan, for a few seconds before he grabs a nearby gun killing a partner before taking a bullet to the chest.

Lead actor Liao Fan creates a complex man in a superb and electrifying performance, that keeps your eyes glued to him. His dance hall scene reveals his basic decency. Kudos to the cameraman and production designers, for the fine cinematography and handsome pictorial compositions. Unfortunately, "Black Coal, Thin Ice" lacks U.S. distribution.

Congratulations to all SF Festie-Bestie winners!

Friends School on Valencia: Meeting About Traffic, Not Gentrification

When my lifemate Mike first learned the San Francisco Friends School had purchased the old Levis building across the street from us in the mid-2000s, we immediately feared it would lead to our displacement. After major disruption to the neighborhood due to extensive rehabbing, classes began and so did a parade of luxury cars in the morning and afternoon.

Parents of wealth from other sections of the City ferried their kids daily to the private school, thus sending a visual message to developers and their ilk that an anchor institution was raising the value of the previously funky-ish area. Soon, our landlord tried to sell our six-unit building but no buyer was found.

Mike and I remain deeply concerned about the loss of our friends and neighbors forced out by tech wealth, in our immediate vicinity, and that we could one day be similarly evicted and displaced from our apartment where we have lived for 19-years.

This week, the school is holding a forum about their traffic issues and frankly, it's of minuscule concern how often the Mercedes-Benzs, occasional Hummer, and BMWs have to drive around the block or idle on Valencia Street in order to pick up the kids.

While the administrators, teachers and staff, and parents and students are socially-aware folks and have pitched in over the years to help our neighbors uprooted because of fires and worked to be good neighbors, the footprint of the school has spurred development around here. I've expressed this sentiment previously to the school folks and plan to restate it at the forum.

What responsibility do the parents, who parachute in twice daily and don't understand the fears of longtime residential renters and small businesses we live with after they've driven out of the neighborhood, as they enjoy their secure housing in homes they own in Pacific Heights or Cathedral Hill, have to address our worries?

Wish I had an answer to that, and will urge the administrators and parents to at least consider a community meeting about ways in which the can curb the rampant market rate condos or protect longtime residents, perhaps spur development of deeply affordable housing, or otherwise address the changing neighborhood. Here's the info:

Greetings neighbors, you're invited to a Community Meeting at SF Friends School. Details below. Please encourage other neighbors on Brosnan and Clinton Park to attend.

Topic: Friends School and Traffic on Valencia Street

Where: S.F. Friends School – 250 Valencia Street  (near Duboce)

When: Thursday, May 14, 2015 at 6:00 PM

The school is looking for your feedback and to hear your concerns relating to traffic conditions on Valencia during the school’s afternoon dismissal period. The school will share the results and recommendations of a recent traffic study it commissioned. Your input is desired and valuable.

Cost of 30 SFPD Cops On-Duty at SF Giants Opening Day?

Last I heard, the owners of our dynastic World Series-winning local baseball team have millions in various banks and can afford expensive players of the game, so why can't they provide their own security guards at home games? I'd be happy if they reimbursed us taxpayers for using our police force as their public safety control agents, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We don't know what the cost was for at least thirty, perhaps more, SFPD officers and such for last month's big first game of the season. Let's follow my email trail with the department:

"The San Francisco Police Department (“SFPD”) received your Public Records Act request on April 17, 2015. On April 27, 2015, SFPD invoked an extension of time.

"You requested 'Records related to the SFPD’s involvement at the San Francisco Giant’s opening day on April 13, 2015.' In response to your request, SFPD's response is below.

"1. Your requested 'Names of all officers or personnel, their divisions or bureaus, assigned to the ball park and their duties that day.' Please find attached a responsive spreadsheet, including names of officers, their divisions and duties. The Department is still in the process of reviewing additional responsive documents, to include total number of officers and costs.

"We will endeavor to produce records, for requests numbered 1 and 2, cost of total police time and expenses for SFPD coverage at the game, on an incremental or rolling basis, once the information becomes available. 

"3. You requested 'Copies of all videos recorded and duplicates of all photos snapped. For the last item, I wish to receive those materials in their native format.' Two (2) CDs which include photos and video of the San Francisco Giants opening day, on April 13, 2015, will be provided."

Let's see how much longer it takes for the department to determine total number of officers at the game and the tab to taxpayers. Stay tuned.

ACT UP/NY + WHAM! Reading & ACT UP/SF's Reunion

The still alive and kicking ACT UP/Petrelis chapter is happy to share info on two important networking and sharing opportunities for activists of all ages, backgrounds and all their diverse contemporary concerns.

A girlfriend from Brooklyn, the feisty and fabulous Elizabeth Meixell, sent these deets my way this week:

"Examining three interconnected case studies, "Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty, and Feminist Activism" by Tamar Carroll, powerfully demonstrates the ability of grassroots community activism to bridge racial and cultural differences and effect social change. There are two readings:

"May 13, at 7 pm at Bluestockings Bookstore, 172 Allen Street, between Stanton and Rivington, Manhattan (with queer activist Kenyon Farrow, focused on AIDS activism).

"May 14, at 6 pm at Tamiment Library, 10th floor of Bobst Library, NYU, 70 Washington Square South, east of LaGuardia, Manhattan.

"Carroll traces the partnership between the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!), showing how gay men and feminists collaborated to create a supportive community for those affected by the AIDS epidemic, to improve health care, and to oppose homophobia and misogyny during the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s. Drawing on a rich array of oral histories, archival records, newspapers, films, and photographs from post-World War II New York City, Carroll shows how poor people transformed the antipoverty organization Mobilization for Youth and shaped the subsequent War on Poverty."

My dear friend Peter Cashman, of the ACT UP/Los Angeles chapter, passed along this info that's happening in my own backyard. Pleased as pansy punch that he may journey up to San Francisco for these events. More info at the FB page:

"This June marks the 25th anniversary of the 6th International Conference on AIDS held at Moscone Center in San Francisco, and a group of San Francisco ACT UP alums is organizing a set of events here. We've been letting people know on Facebook we wanted to make sure you knew, and to ask you to let other folks know about it. Here's what we've planned so far, with a few more things in the works:

"June 20 -- panel discussion -- what we did and why it mattered, moderated by Deb Gould, panel including Mike Shriver, Jorge Cortinas, Eric Ciasullo, and me, plus others.

"June 20 evening -- party at Cafe Flore, ACT UP alums and our friends. June 21 afternoon -- memorial to honor those we've lost, at the Women's Building, followed by a march to the Castro.

"We're asking people to send in photos or other materials, especially if they can't come themselves, and we'll record, if not livestream the events. Please spread the word to people who may want to come to San Francisco for that weekend."

All events promise to be worthwhile, so check them out!

4 White SF Cops Pat Down Black Homeless Man: Video

Here's one suggestion for better community policing for the San Francisco Police Department. Don't always assume the worst in dealing with any civilian. When a fly-swatter is needed, use it, but refrain from sending in a SWAT crew.

On May 4, around 10 pm, after I came out of the Sundance Kabuki theater where I'd seen two movies at the San Francisco International Film Festival, I saw four SFPD officer questioning and patting down a black homeless man up in years. Why, I do not know but I turned on the camera and began filming the situation in front of the Burger King at Fillmore and Post Streets.

I'd seen the homeless man a lot of times with cohorts at the nearby Geary and Fillmore bus stops over the course of the festival and wondered what reason could have caused him to be searched and questioned by the police.

It's so reflective of me to now just start filming whenever I see members of the SFPD force in such scenes around the City, and I'm thankful, as is the homeless man I'm sure, that he wasn't harmed or mistreated or arrested by the cops.

In my view, this was an instance where fewer cops could have done the job and provided community policing without an excess number of officers. Here is my video:


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MTT & SF Symphony: Bernstein + Mahler This Weekend

These concerts of Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the world-class San Francisco Symphony performing Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 2 and Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 4 are going to be special musical treats for classic music lovers.

Starting tonight at 8 pm, through Saturday's evening concert and the final one on Sunday at 2 pm, you'll have the chance to experience our symphony players at the height of their beautiful powers to delight the ears and stir the emotions.

Mike and I have never heard any of Bernstein's classical symphonic works performed live and he created much incredible music for classical orchestras, that simply and unfortunately isn't played as often as his works for Broadway.

We're hoping to catch one of the concerts this weekend and spending time in Davies Symphony Hall with hundreds of other Bernstein and Mahler fans, not to mention fans of MTT!

For more info on the concerts and ticket info, click here.

(Tilson Thomas and his mentor Bernstein in the 1970s.)

Which Films Will Win an SF Festie-Bestie Crown?

Today is the final day of the San Francisco International Film Festival's 58th edition and this year's programming has been exceptionally satisfying to this cineaste. I've walked out on just a single film.

The crew of publicists have been a dream team to work with, the programmers made excellent selections, staff up and down at the Sundance Kabuki and Clay Theater - from the box office to house managers, gracious volunteers guiding movie-mad crowds to auditoriums, engaging filmmakers holding Q & A's and fellow cineastes all receive a warm thank you from me for making the festival a genuine community and pleasure to participate in.

I've only tweeted about a few of the movies seen and my main coverage, on each of the films I saw, will appear in the next few days on my blog and FB page.

This year, I've created the SF Festie-Besties, only five prizes will be awarded to works from any genre or category, to honor a handful of films that stood out. More difficult to winnow down the prize winners, as the days have progressed and more films watched on the big screen.

What is my token? SF Festie-Besties will receive a Crown for cinematic achievement and pleasures of one sort or another.

I'll bestow the Pure Cinema, the Queer Sensibility, the Tarkovsky Visionary, one other yet to be named category, and the top prize, the Film = Life Crowns and give social media awareness to films I believe are worth seeking out. One hope is that these winners will find theatrical showings, because my belief is that cinema equals communal watching.

After just over two-weeks of indulging at the cinematic smorgasbord, the joys of mingling with hundreds of other film lovers and seeing movies on screens, discussing their merits or deficits, strengthening the San Francisco and Bay Area cinematic communities, and so many other pleasures, I'm sorry to see the festival conclude and also glad I can assess everything I saw.

Check out my video showing a quiet time at the Sundance Kabuki when only one film, Nuri Bilge Ceylan's "Winter Sleep", was about to unspool and I took my place on line to see it.

Marina Times: Fire SFPD's Suhr, Mission Immigrant Killing Cited

I was between screenings at the San Francisco International Film Festival at the Clay Theater in Pacific Heights, which I how I came to find a print copy of the Marina Times with the front-page above-the-fold editorial calling for the firing of police chief Greg Suhr.

That alone was surprising as I believe this is the only news outlet in the City to demand Suhr be replaced as the top-cop and it was a paper far from the Mission, one I wrongly assumed would be pro-SFPD all the way, but it was one key factor in the call for his firing that really captured my attention.

Editor Susan Dyer Reynolds cites the killing by officers of the SFPD of a Mission immigrant from Central America, Amilcar Pérez-López, and Chief Suhr's outrageous mishandling of the death, as one reason why he has to go. Let's thank Dyer Reynolds for her voice of accountability and the diverse reasons behind her call for Suhr to lose his job. Excerpts from her essay in the Marina Times:

In 2003, Suhr was charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice in the “Fajitagate” scandal, where three off-duty officers were accused of beating up two men in the Marina District over a bag of Mexican food. Suhr was later cleared in that incident, but in 2005 then-Chief Heather Fong stripped Suhr of his Head of Patrol title after an officer was badly beaten and suffered a fractured skull responding to a protest. [...]

On a Friday night in 2009, then-Deputy Chief Suhr received a call from a female friend who said her boyfriend was beating and strangling her. The woman’s collarbone was broken, yet Suhr didn’t arrest the suspect and he waited until Sunday to file a report. [...] In March 2015, a judge refused to dismiss the lawsuit [stemming from the incident], saying a jury could conclude that Suhr retaliated against her illegally. He also ordered Suhr to testify. On April 24, just before jury selection began, the city settled the case for $725,000. [...]

[An aattorney for the family of 20-year-old Guatemalan immigrant Amilcar Pérez-López, who was killed by police in the Mission last February, announced the filing of a federal civil rights lawsuit that claims three eyewitnesses, post-shooting photographs, and an independent autopsy directly contradict Suhr’s account. The autopsy determined that all six bullets entered Pérez-López from behind, including one to the back of the head, while his arms were at his side. [...] Suhr told the community that Pérez-López was charging the officers with a knife held over his head, corroborating the report by his two plainclothes officers who said they shot a lunging, knife-wielding Pérez-López “in fear for their lives.” [...]

On March 13 2015, racist, homophobic and threatening text messages recovered from [a former officer convicted in a separate corruption trial] cell phone were revealed in a court filing by federal prosecutors [...] The texts implicated as many as 14 SFPD officers. [Ex-cop] Furminger repeatedly calls another officer a “fag,” and makes racist comments about African Americans, Mexicans, and Filipinos. [...] 

Despite all the disgraceful conduct under his watch, I have yet to hear a single official or rank-and-file officer call for Suhr’s resignation. This is in stark contrast to what happened to Fire Department Chief Joanne Hayes-White in October 2014, when firefighters voted that they had no confidence in her leadership and the fire commission met to discuss whether she should keep her job.

600 at LGBT Rainbow May Day in St. Petersburg: Defying Putin! 

Our friend Ruslan Porshnev's fantastic news portal Queer Russia site this weekend is sharing photos and facts about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Russians defying President Vladimir Putin's laws and rhetoric demonizing gay people, and taking the streets to express pride and demand liberation.

Much praise and love to our brave brothers and sisters in Russia who marched, and who every day show courage and happiness as LGBT people! Here's Ruslan's report:

On May 1, Rainbow May Day march was held in St. Petersburg for the fifth year in a row, drawing hundreds of participants and guarded by the local police. The rainbow column was a part of a bigger Democratic March bringing together a number of trade unions, political and social movements to celebrate the International Workers’ Day.

The march was held in the centre of St. Petersburg, on Nevsky Prospect. Media report the total number of participants over 90,000 with LGBT column itself consisting of around 600 people.

Slogans and plackards of the LGBT column included such statements as “No to discrimination on gender and sexual orientation”, “Dump homophobia”, “I love, not war”, “Milonov, thanks for promotion”, “Milonov go to Uganda for homopropaganda”, “Sexism is so last century”.

There was also supposed to be a big bright foam plastic pink tank with flowers inside its trunk to be carried along the procession, but police did not allow activists to do so due to technical problems in proper inspection.

Vocal opponent of LGBT equality, local Legislative Assembly MP Vitaliy Milonov, United Russia party member, along with his very few supporters tried to disrupt the march shouting out offensive and rude remarks at participants.

For example, Milonov asked police to give him permission to “tear head off” of one of the participants. He shouted: “Arrest them! Go away! Pedophiles! Prostitutes! Faggots! I am Russian! We will liquidate you! They should be squashed with tanks and tractors!” and so on. Milonov unsuccessfully tried to convince policemen that rainbow flags violate the “gay propganda ban law” because he brought his children along with him and they saw the flags that in his opinion promoted homosexuality to them.

Nevertheless, policemen boldly refused to take any action on that claim and prevented Milonov’s disruptions. Rainbow march was organized by Vmeste Coalition for Civil Equality. Photos from Vmeste Coalition Vkontakte page.

SF Homeless Czar: 110,000 Shelter Bed Requests to 311 System

Over the years, I've learned that Mayor Ed Lee's homeless czar Bevan Dufty's word cannot be taken at face value. Lemme explain. In February, I asked Dufty to back my proposal to open taxpayer-funded bathrooms and showers at San Francisco firehouses during restricted hours to the homeless. The health menace to the homeless folks and general population due to lack of enough public toilets needs to be a priority, in my view as a person with a very compromised immune system.

Here's Dufty's February reply asking him to address this public health hazard, all the poop and pee on the streets: "When I was District 8 Supervisor, I know that facilities were available at Fire Station 26 that is adjacent to Walter Haas playground. I am copying your message to Fire Chief Hayes-White [...] You have asked a good question and I will work to get good answers. City government is closed for Monday's holiday so we will follow up Tuesday."

When I didn't hear back from him, two months later, in early April, I asked for action from Department of Public Health chief Barbara Garcia, to address the poop problem and push for opening City-owned buildings for toilet-access. She replied:

"I’m working with Bevan to pick up the ball, spoke to him yesterday about this and I need to work on this with him for a minute. So you are stuck with me for the meanwhile. Most likely our environmental health dept will take lead once we know what we are going to do."

It's now three months since I first contacted Dufty, ever closer to Election Day, and still no response from him about the stinking (bad pun intended) need for public toilets. Both the SFFD and DPH, as am I, are waiting for Dufty to communicate on the need for more places to poop. But I digress from my central point about shelter bed access.

At the March 2 meeting of the City's Local Homeless Coordinating Board, which is sorta under the supervision of Dufty and very few taxpayers know about and which I requested in September 2012 move their meetings to City Hall and air on SFGovTV to provide us with transparency and Dufty promised to look into these concerns, this is what Dufty reported about shelter bed access and reservations:

"Dufty: I would like to mention that there has been some discussion about 311 and shelter access. Roughly, we received over 110,000 calls to 311. Obviously that is a tremendous volume of calls, and the costs of those calls add up. When I was a supervisor, we realized those calls were costing almost $2 each. We want to make sure that the calls are necessary and important calls.

"Board Member Del Seymour: How long does it take to get a shelter bed?

"Dufty: I thought it was 3 weeks for a woman and 4 weeks for a man.

"Seymour: I admire the system. I think it’s working.

"Dufty: Also the 311 staff loves providing the service. There were questions about the reservation system. There is a lot of property at First Friendship. Perhaps longer term there could be an effort to make a better facility. I think it’s understandable that Hamilton Family Center raises the question about whether or not to keep doing a one night model.

"Member of the Public: I want to ask about ADA beds. What are you doing about that?

"Dufty: I am aware that there are complications about lower bunks for people with disabilities. I just want to say again that H.S.A. has been really spectacular."

The next meeting of the Local Homeless Coordinating Board is this Monday, May 4th at 11AM at the Human Resources Agency's auditorium at 150 Otis Street, near Duboce. I'll be there and hope other taxpayers will also be present.