San Francisco Chronicle: Social City
By Catherine Bigelow, San Francisco Chronicle, Wednesday, March 31, 2010
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Big screen: On Wednesday, gallerist Claudia Altman-Siegel hosted a kickoff for the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival at her 49 Geary St. gallery with the fine folks of the S.F. Film Society.
Rich Silverstein and his wife, SFFS board member Carla Emil, serve as co-chairs of the April 29 Film Society Awards Gala, which honors the work of director Walter Salles, actor Robert Duvall and screenwriter James Schamus.
Newly appointed SFFS Director of Programming Rachel Rosen, who is returned to the Film Society following eight years of programming stints in Los Angeles, said that under the leadership of Film Society Executive Director Graham Leggat, the Film Society has developed into a year-round celebration of film and education programs.
“Much in our programming is not as ‘new’ or ‘different’ as people might imagine,” said Rosen. “Our goal is to screen films which inspire film lovers to say, ‘You had to be there, because you’ll never see it happen like that again.’ ”
The festival’s closing night on May 6 features comedian, red-carpet heckler and plastic surgery aficionado Joan Rivers and her documentary, “A Piece of Work.”
“Some people were surprised by that choice,” Rosen says. “But that’s exactly what our festival does best: This film will expand on what you think of Rivers and what you think you know about her.”
Big screen P.S.: SFFS board members are also getting into the act this year with festival world premieres at the Kabuki of their own projects.
Producer Todd Traina hosts a screening on April 26 of his latest, “Morning,” which stars Jeanne Tripplehorn and Laura Linney.
On May 3, filmmaker, newspaperman, financier and longtime SFFS supporter William Hearst III premieres “The Practice of the Wild,” a documentary featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder and a lifelong conversation about the arts he’s shared with his friend and fellow poet-novelist Jim Harrison.
The film, co-produced by Hearst and Harrison, captures the friends ruminating on such topics as Google and Zen koans as they ramble around the pristine Central Coast wilderness that encompasses that little Hearst family ranch known as San Simeon.
Read this article on SFGate.com …
