Rated: NR    Runtime: 735 mins.
Fri, Aug 29 - Thur, Sept 4

For the first time on the West Coast, Bay Area filmmaker Rob Nilsson presents the complete 9 @ Night, a series of nine feature films he produced over the last decade in collaboration with the Tenderloin yGroup, an inner-city acting and production workshop Nilsson developed in the San Francisco Tenderloin. The series continues beginning September 5 at The Rafael Film Center.

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“For 30 years, San Francisco-based Rob Nilsson has been serving as the conscience and agent-provocateur of low-budget American independent filmmaking,” writes critic and historian Ray Carney, who also observes that Nilsson “has devoted his cinematic career to presenting the sorts of sociological realities, interpersonal interactions and emotional transactions that have been screened out of big-budget, mainstream American film.”

Rob Nilsson received the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1979 for his first feature Northern Lights (co-directed with John Hanson), and also won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1988 Sundance Film Festival for Heat and Sunlight.

Pre-Opening Benefit for the Faithful Fools Street Ministry
Rob Nilsson’s 9 @ Night series Pre-Opening Night Benefit for the Faithful Fools Street Ministry takes place August 28, 6:30pm at Delancey St.
RSVP for the opening benefit

Special guest speakers:
Mark Fishkin - Executive Director of the Mill Valley Film Festival
Graham Leggat - Executive Director of the SF Film Festival
Stefanie Coyote - Executive Director of SF Film Commission

In addition, The Faithful Fools will be giving out the first Edwin Johnson Award.

The Edwin Johnson Award has been created by Citizen Cinema and the Faithful Fools Street Ministry to honor an unsung Tenderloin hero. Edwin Johnson was a “once homeless turned homeless advocate” and a founding member of the Tenderloin yGroup Player’s Ensemble. He appears in several of the 9 @ Night Films and embodies the spirit of this award. Edwin never forgot his life on the streets nor his friends there. His journey out of homelessness to advocate for the people of the Tenderloin is an example to us all. This special award recognizes an individual or group which embodies the spirit and dedication to others which is Edwin Johnson’s legacy.

“If you get the gist of the 9 @ Night movies you get the gist of the Fools. That’s where the rubber hits the road.”
Reverend Dr. Kay Jorgensen, Co-Founder – Faithful Fools Street Ministry

This event is in celebration and support of the 9 @ Night Film Series Openings, RSVP for the opening benefit today. The San Francisco Bay Area wide premiere program is listed below.

For much more info, check out www.citizencinema.net

SCHEDULE
Friday, August 29
6:45: NOISE
9:00: USED

Saturday, August 30
2:15: ATTITUDE
4:30: SINGING
6:45: STROKE
9:00: SCHEME C6

Sunday, August 31
2:15: NEED
4:30: PAN
6:45: GO TOGETHER
9:00: NOISE

Monday, September 1
6:45: USED
9:00: ATTITUDE

Tuesday, September 2
6:45: SINGING
9:00: STROKE

Wednesday, September 3
6:45: SCHEME C6
9:00: NEED

Thursday, September 4
6:45: PAN
9:00: GO TOGETHER

9@Night Films

NOISE
In the first of the 9@Night series, convicted counterfeiter Ben Malafide (Robert Viharo) gets out of prison after 20 years and ends up in the Tenderloin. Seeking the bare essentials to make ends meet, he confronts the Information Age, a barrage of images and noises that offer neither knowledge nor heart. With Paige Olson, Edwin Johnson. (US 2002) 80 minutes.
USED
Certain he’s been betrayed, Malafide (Robert Viharo) leaves his lover and hops freights to Reno to find a Cherokee healer he met in prison named People T. Joined by a black homeless man named Johnny (Edwin Johnson), they set out into the desolate beauty of the Nevada desert. (US 2007) 84 min.
ATTITUDE
Spoddy (Michael Disend) is the arrogant owner of an automotive “chop shop” who discovers he is HIV positive. Rejected by those he’s used, he finds sanctuary with the people he has always despised, the homeless. (US 2003) 109 min.
SINGING
Estranged from his longtime girlfriend, suburban accountant Perry (James Carpenter) wanders into the Tenderloin at night and is drawn into a series of dangerous and erotic encounters. With Barbara Jasperson, Domenique Lozano. (US 2000) 75 min.
STROKE
Johnny (Edwin Johnson), now working for Malafide, finds and rescues Phil (Teddy Weiler), an aging Beat poet who has had a stroke. Ray Carney writes: “In Stroke (a punning title), the touch of a woman’s hand, the kindness of a friend, or the sound of a voice can give the hopeless fleeting hope.” (US 2000) 95 min.
SCHEME C6
Bid (Cory Duval) is a self-styled rebel on a motorcycle determined to prove to his father Qually (Bruce Marovich), a 30-year veteran of the San Francisco Police Department, that he can live outside the law, without family, friends or even a place to stay. With Monica Cortes Viharo, David Fine. (US 2001) 97 min.
NEED
Jane (Marianne Heath) is a stripper, her mother Lou (Brette McCabe) an aging prostitute defying the pimps. Petite (Diane Gaidry) robs johns, and Francesca (Gabriel Maltz Larkin) manages an escort service. In a profession that thrives on fantasy and martyrdom, these four women struggle to hold on to their reasons for caring for each other. (US 2005) 97 min.
PAN
Ex-convict Pan (Kieron McCartney) tries to father a group of street people in a homeless encampment by the railroad. Into their lives comes Bobby (Nighttrain Schickele), a lonely latchkey kid who follows Pan out there. Critic David Templeton writes: “Pan makes heartrending visual poetry out of the iconic images of trains and railroad tracks…” (US 2006) 96 min.
GO TOGETHER
The culmination of the series takes self-referential and expressionistic curves, as a couple (Denny Dey and Michelle Anton Allen) struggle with the survival of both their marriage and the failing Oakland art cinema they own…ironically showing the 9 @ Night movies. Homeless gather in the alleys, and the theater itself wants to speak to them. (US 2007) 100 min.