A great film festival is lost among all the hype that is Tribeca. The well established and well regarded San Francisco International Film Festival began on April 24th and runs until May 8th. The 51st SF festival opened at the wonderful Castro theatre with the Cannes Golden Palm nominated, The Last Mistress, controversial filmmaker Catherine Breillat’s new film based on the equally controversial novel by 19th century author Jules-Amédée Barbey d’Aurevilly and stars the always looking for controversy Asia Argento. Jeffrey M. Anderson has an entertaining review of the film on Cinematical.
The festival closes with GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON directed by Alex Gibney, the Oscar-wining director of Taxi to the Dark Side and Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room. This film features interviews with Johnny Depp and Jimmy Carter. This film opened at Sundance.
This festival will always have a special place in my heart. It was the first festival I ever went to, it was the first festival where I had a film play, and in my early years in the City, played a big part in my decision to leave engineering and pursue filmmaking.
Now it seems SF is playing at edgy films but premiering nothing new. It’s not unusual for festivals to rehash other’s success. However, it’s unfortunate that the oldest festival in the Americas is reduced to that as well. You see, there’s another connection between SF and Tribeca besides timing. SFIFF lost its director, Peter Scarlet to Tribeca.
Scarlet went to Paris first but he was an advisor from the very beginning to the new New York festival. And while Tribeca bookends their schedule in sponsor driven Hollywood fluff, at the heart of the festival, they still have some real gems that remind you why you to go to festivals at all.
Scarlet ran SFIFF for 19 years. The festival was always challenging and interesting and made you want to talk about it and argue. It was invigorating. Scarlet brought directors like Jane Campion, Mike Leigh and Spike Lee into the limelight. I was never interested in Sundance back then. I had more and better right in my own backyard. Plus, the food is MUCH better.
Well, Las Vegas has stolen all of the City’s great chefs and Tribeca grabbed not only Scarlet but even the last bit of cinema buzz before Cannes. I don’t know if SF will ever recover. Let’s hope for the best.
Another note, In this era of new media, SFIFF is also providing podcasts of the festival. It’s almost like being there.
