Throughout the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILMFestival), I’ll be linking more festival coverage to this page, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.
FEATURE COVERAGE
SFFILMFestival Stream of the Week: NUTS! – the rise and fall of a testicular empire (From the 2016 festival)
SFFILMFestival Stream of the Week: THE STOPOVER – dealing with PTSD takes more than an umbrella drink (from the 2017 festival)
SELECTED SFFILM FILMS
LEAVE NO TRACE is Debra Granik’s first narrative feature since her 2010 Winter’s Bone (which I had rated as the best film of that year). Leave No Trace is a brilliant coming of age film that stars Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie as a dad-daughter team who challenge conventional thinking about homelessness and healthy parenting. Winter’s Bone launched the career of Jennifer Lawrence, and Leave No Trace might do the same for newcomer McKenzie.
GODARD, MON AMOUR is, at the same time, a tribute to the genius of Jean-Luc Godard’s early cinema and a satire on the insufferable tedium of the political dilettantism that squandered the rest of Godard’s filmmaking career. This is a very inventive film, written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist). The more Godard films that you’ve seen, the more you will enjoy the wit of Godard, Mon Amour.
CLAIRE’S CAMERA is the latest nugget from writer-director Hong Sang-soo, that great observer of awkward situations and hard-drinking. Claire’s Camera is set at the Cannes Film Festival, and the great Isabelle Huppert drops into the story. There’s an especially fine performance by Min-hee Kim (The Handmaiden). It’s not as surreal as last year’s Hong Sang-soo entry, Yourself and Yours, but just as observational and droll. Hong Sang-soo has a cult following at SFFILM, so there is certain to be an appreciative audience.
TRE MAISON DASAN: This unwavering and emotionally powerful doc is my top pick from the World Premieres at SFFILM. In her feature debut as writer-director, Denali Tiller follows three kids with incarcerated parents. Unfettered by talking heads, Tre Maison Dasan invites us along with these kids as they interact with their families – both on the outside and the inside. Tiller will attend all screenings.
PAST SFFILM COVERAGE
SFFILMFestival 2017 coverage
SFIFF 2016 coverage