Roxie Cinema

Saturday, November 13
@ the Roxie Cinema

Sunday, November 14
@ the Castro Theater

GIRL TROUBLE Lexi Leban & Lidia Szajko 2004, color, mini-dv, 74 min	12:00 pm Saturday, November Roxie Cinema $8/Film Arts members $10/general
	Girl Trouble is an intimate look at the compelling stories of three female teenagers entangled in San Francisco’s juvenile justice system. These girls, and many like them, aren’t just at-risk—they are in deep trouble. Trying to change their lives, they work parttime at the Center for Young Women’s Development, an organization run by young women who have faced similar challenges. As the girls confront seemingly impossible problems and pivotal decisions, the Center’s 22-year-old executive director, Lateefah Simon, is often their only support. Over the course of four years, filmmakers Lexi Leban and Lidia Szajko document the girls’ remarkable successes and heartbreaking setbacks—their daily struggles with poverty, violence, public defenders, and homelessness—and expose a system that fails to end the cycle of incarceration.

CENSORED Part of the Mother Jones agitators & instigators series Short political docs about the burning issues of our time: gay marriage, the Iraq war, consumer culture, and more.
1:45 pm Saturday, November 13 Roxie Cinema $8/Film Arts members $10/general
MUNI TO THE MARRIAGE Stuart Gaffney 2004, color, mini-dv, 5 min	February 12, 2004—the day San Francisco made marriage history. A short Muni ride to City Hall suddenly turns partners of 17 years into newlyweds. During the ride, the filmmaker reflects on the difficulties experienced by his Chinese-American mother and white father more than 50 years ago, who were only able to marry when California’s law against interracial marriage was overturned.


MY FIRST WAR Douglas Katelus & Theo Rigby 2004, color, mini-dv, 17 min	Remember when 80 percent of Americans were for the war? Hindsight is frighteningly 20/20 in My First War’s documentation of the first 44 days of Bush’s war in Iraq, which ends with W’s infamous aircraft carrier speech. This film relives those early days through a mix of mainstream media, antiand pro-war protests, and interviews both with smug soldiers and disillusioned ex-soldiers who knew what a tragedy the war would be.


TOO CLOSE TO HOME Donna Carter 2002, color, 16mm, 10 min	Too Close to Home takes on the taboo topic of childhood sexual abuse with courage and optimism. In a realm where silence reigns supreme, the film documents the confessional testimonies of three victims—a ten-year-old girl, her mother, and a San Francisco-based healer/activist for victims of incest. The film considers the reasons behind the often intergenerational continuation of this phenomenon and ways to end this cycle.


PUSH BUTTON: A HISTORY OF IDLENESS & Gibbs Chapman 2004, color, 16mm, 17 min, WORLD PREMIERE	The combined elements of human innovation and dementia have led us into a new relationship with our time and energy, one in which the quest for an immediacy or an ease of operation has created a culture of lethargy and ignorance of new proportion. Describing our journey from hunter/gatherer to sloucher/slacker, Push Button is also a call to action to crush the monstrous cancer of advertising and the salivating hyenas of consumerism.


TAIPEI 101: A TRAVELOGUE OF SYMPTOMS (SENSITIVE VERSION) James T. Hong 2004, color, dv cam, 23 min, WORLD PREMIERE	An Asian-American man encounters Americanization on a pilgrimage to Taiwan to find Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world. He discovers that globalization, capitalism, and the transnational power of white men indelibly mark the building, Taiwan’s culture, and his own consciousness. Censored remarks shield the sensitive viewer from politically incorrect offenses. However, what is imagined or presumed can be more offensive than what is hidden.


ONE WEDDING AND A REVOLUTION Debra Chasnoff 2004, color, beta sp, 19 min	A behind-the-scenes look during the frantic days at San Francisco City Hall leading up to the first same-sex wedding between longtime lesbian activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. Interviews with “I Do” Mayor Gavin Newsom and key community leaders reveal the political process and motivation behind the historic decision to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.


	Escape into the imaginative landscapes of these animated, experimental, and narrative shorts that express everything from ineffable beauty to quirky sensibilities.
3:45 pm Saturday, November 13 Roxie Cinema $8/Film Arts members $10/general
MY CROCOSM Chris Kelsey 2003, b/w, mini-dv, 2 min, WORLD PREMIERE In this stop-motion animation, a small, tattered puppet tours a large building full of filmmaking equipment that symbolizes the filmmaker’s mind. The machinery comes to life, as the puppet experiments and observes the things around him, little knowing that he himself is a creation of the filmmaker.
ONLY YOU CAN BE ME Kurt & Alexandra Nangle 2004, color, 35mm, 18 min Future scientists discover a way for people never to be lonely—everyone’s life partner is their identical twin. Except for Rebecca. She is the last “single,” an outcast whose only companion is her dog, Bernie. On her 40th birthday, her loneliness compels her to get a clone. At the hospital, she meets twin doctors, Peter and Paul. Paul meets secretly with Rebecca to learn how to be alone, and changes his and Peter’s lives forever.
OUT OF THE ETHER Kerry Laitala 2003, color, 16mm, 11 min What do we leave behind? Are institutional forces using our hysteria to reap the benefits of possible infection? Whose environment could we be affecting? What unseen forces would unscrupulous beings want to use to infiltrate our bodies and perhaps our consciousness? Who is the enemy? Out of the Ether unleashes septic musings about fear in the guise of microbial menace and mayhem.
UNTITLED AFFAIR Chi-Jang Yin 2003, color, mini-dv, 7 min This performance video captures one woman’s memories of a couple sitting next to her at the theater. Humorous and poignant, it addresses the conflict of spectatorship and the dialectic of memory, interpretation, and reality. ESCAPE EPISODE Sarah Klein 2003, color, mini-dv, 8 min, WORLD PREMIERE On a trip to visit her 91-year-old grandmother, the filmmaker finds their destinations are similar but their realities are decidedly different. A view of the hardship of the past through the lens of the menacing present. DOWN ON THE FARM Alfonso Alvarez 2003, color, 16mm, 7 min, WEST COAST PREMIERE Amid the rolling flatlands west of Toronto, there is a place called the Film Farm, an ancient Mennonite farm where filmmaking pilgrims journey every summer to make handcrafted films. Down on the Farm is the result of a week of inspired exploration.
IN THE BEGINNING Carl Nolting 2004, color, dvd, 3 min, WORLD PREMIERE The homologous structures of a cat, bat, whale, human, and others are used for entirely different things, and yet they are composed of the exact same bones. The film questions theories of evolution and aging with numerous intersecting planes of perspective that force the viewer to ask, “What exactly am I looking at?”
LOVEY Paul O’Bryan 2002, color, mini-dv, 7 min A lonely lady and a magic bean and their adventure that is downright enchanting. Ever wake up laughing out loud at a dream you just had and spend the next few waking moments astonished over the things the sleeping mind finds humor in? Taken straight from a dream, Lovey succeeds in capturing this strange, slumbering logic. PUPPET LOVE Eric Callero 2004, color, dvd, 4 min A young filmmaker falls asleep while trying to come up with an idea for his latest film. In his dream, two sock puppets fall in love at first sight. An evil man kidnaps the girl and the boy must save her, all before the filmmaker awakes. A true sock puppet love story! THOUGHTLESS Rock Ross & Michael Rosas-Walsh 2004, color, 16mm, 2 min, WORLD PREMIERE Entirely handmade, this mesmerizing, meditative, and marvelous camerafree film was originally made on 35mm leader, then cut up and woven into a wall hanging. FULFILLING ONE’S DUTY Maria Calderon 2002, color, mini-dv, 18 min Bahamondes, a Chilean bank security guard, is desperate because he is about to lose the most valuable thing in his life, his job. He will do anything, even abandon his moral principles, to keep

	5:45 pm Saturday, November 13 Roxie Cinema $8/Film Arts members $10/general
From patriotic showmanship through meditative sheep-shearing to awe-inspiring rock climbing, the whole gamut of the human condition is expressed in this funny, entertaining, and poignant program of short docs.
SPANGLED Jason Blalock 2002, color, dv cam, 21 min Spangled documents the competitive, open auditions to sing before the Portland Trailblazers basketball games—regularly attended by 15,000 spectators ready to hiss and boo at the first flat note. The film follows two competitors through the entertaining audition process, which concludes with a spontaneous act of patriotism. Spangled paints a portrait of American singers as diverse as the country itself in age, gender, ethnicity...and talent.
ALWAYS FALLING Brian Lilla 2003, b/w, mini-dv, 18 min, U.S. PREMIERE A cliff-hanging account of how mountains can save lives, Always Falling is the filmmaker’s confession of the obsession with peril that carved itself into his well-grounded lifestyle. The mountain, at first seen as a ski resort for Lilla and his cocaine-addled buddies, is transformed into a site for the sober art of climbing 90-degree rock faces and tackling problems through trusting others.
HOTEL CITY Phoebe Tooke 2004, b/w, 16mm, 16 min Single-residence hotels in San Francisco are the housing of last resort, “the first step out of homelessness and the last step to homelessness.” Hotel City poetically documents the struggles of tenants trying to live in these hellish places, and how they are empowering themselves to make them into a place they can call home.
MARTIN Bill Basquin 2004, color, 16mm, 5 min A lovely and poetic portrait of a sheepshearer and his philosophical musings on rural life. Delicately subtextual, Basquin’s film invokes meaning, desire, and identification with a sure hand and quiet exposition. SORRY I CAN’T TALK RIGHT NOW Dan Janos 2004, color, dv cam, 26 min, WORLD PREMIERE “A big pain in the ass.” “It’s a blessin’ and a cursin’.” “Ever since that day, I stuttered and vomited every day before school.” “I don’t want your pity.” Hear these comments and many more as people who stutter discuss the reality of living in a fluent world. [G]

Daring to be different and not afraid to throw punches, this collection of thought-provoking animated, experimental, and narrative gems will leave you wanting to change the world or make a film—or both. 8:00 pm Saturday, November 13 Roxie Cinema $8/Film Arts members $10/general MAUSOLEUM Chris Kelsey 2004, color, mini-dv, 5 min, WORLD PREMIERE Delving deep into the dark and twisted mind of the filmmaker, a creature stumbles upon several prototypical beings like himself. At the end of his journey, he witnesses his own possible evolution as a demonic monster of mythic proportions. Reminiscent of the best of The Brothers Quay and Jan Svankmajer! THE BAKERY Rosanne Ma 2004, color, dvd, 5 min, SF PREMIERE A Chinese-American woman is forced to question her preconceived notions regarding race and appearance when a stranger comes to her aid one day in a Chinatown bakery. FABRICATION Rosario Sotelo 2003, color, dvd, 5 min Cultural patterns are explored through the metaphor of dressmaking as a young Mexican-American girl struggles with tradition and expectations to discover her own voice. [G] DRIVE THRU Jed Bell 2004, color, 35mm, 4 min Willie’s Drive Thru serves up surgery, hormones, and social/sexual bafflement in this cheerfully animated, bitterly true-to-life satire of the female-tomale (FTM) transgender experience. ISLAND OF LAWS Michael Rudnick 2003, color, 16mm, 4 min “...a box of fire.” SELF PORTRAIT POST MORTEM Louise Bourque 2003, color, 35mm, 2 min An unearthed time capsule buried in the backyard consists of footage of the filmmaker’s youthful self—an “exquisite corpse” with nature as collaborator. ALUMINUM Tyrone Davies 2004, color, mini-dv, 3 min Created as a music video for the Chicago No-Wave-Indie-Afro-Funk outfit Mahjongg, Aluminum is a tongue-in-cheek look at global warfare and product placement. Found footage from newsreels, television shows, and even terrorist training videos blend together to create a frenzied satire of the marketing of war.
10:15 pm Saturday, November 13 Roxie Cinema $8/Film Arts members $10/general RACE IS THE PLACE Rick Tejada-Flores and Ray Telles 2004, color, beta sp, 90 min, WORK-IN-PROGRESS Race is the Place is a performance documentary on America’s most explosive social issue. Poets, actors, comedians, and performance artists explore racism, its endless permutations, and continued survival. The film offers perspectives from Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Arab Americans, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders on the unspoken issues that separate Americans. Performances are set against a stunning mix of visual art and an archival record of America’s prejudices.
AERIAL ELEGY Michael Wilson 2003, color, mini-dv, 3 min A visual parable about the rush and risks of taking to the skies, aerial elegy commemorates those who live perpetually in the dream of flight. THE KEEP Amy Harrison 2004, color, mini-dv, 4 min, SF PREMIERE Part Tarkovsky’s Stalker, part campfire ghost story, The Keep imagines a time when the only wilderness that remains is where the contamination keeps people away. One woman takes a chance, swims in a forbidden lake, and learns about those who have gone before her. [G] THE LISTENER Mahri Holt 2004, color, 16mm, 20 min Norah is Listener #684448 in an oppressive regime where thought and emotion are regulated by “protocol.” She dutifully records the secrets and suppressed longings of the collective psyche, until a Talker reveals a plot of environmental subterfuge. Norah must betray the Resistance or join them.... HYPOCRISY Le Sheng Liu 2003, color, mini-dv, 2 min, SF PREMIERE The U.S. government dedicates billions annually to fight illegal drugs even as legal drugs are abused by far more Americans. Using statistics and satire, Hypocrisy conveys the counterproductive nature of U.S. drug policy. CULPABILITY Kit Fox 2004, color, mini-dv, 7 min, WORLD PREMIERE What begins as a leisurely discussion between three college students quickly evolves into a heated exploration of casual racism. CROSSWALK Robert O’Geen 2003, color, mini-dv, 8 min, WEST COAST PREMIERE In this parody of the modern bombastic actionthriller, a yuppie couple enters a crosswalk after a luxurious day of shopping, assuming nothing could ever happen to them. They are, of course, wrong. FORSAKEN James Sansing 2004, b/w, 16mm, 7 min, WORLD PREMIERE VERSES James Sansing 2004, color, 16mm, 3 min, WORLD PREMIERE Forsaken is an exploration of an abandoned juvenile hall; the animated Verses reveals the artifacts left behind. Shot over several years, both experimental films are haunting reminders of the psychological impact this institution had on its inhabitants. FLOW Ken Paul Rosenthal 2004, color, dv cam, 6 min, WORLD PREMIERE A pregnant woman imagines the loss of her unborn child, then embarks on an obsessive quest to reconnect with his elusive, fleeting spectre. Beautifully photographed using ray-o-gramming, processing in seawater and urine, chemical toning and reticulation, and mulching film in sand and seawater.

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