San Francisco Cinematheque [i]Two dozen programs. One hundred films[/i] This Fall

Written by Larsen Associates Friday, 21 August 2009 19:30

San Francisco, CA -Two dozen programs. One hundred films. Please join the staff, volunteers and Board of Directors of San Francisco Cinematheque as its latest season is officially announced! Cinematheque's Fall Season runs from 20-September to 10-December at nine venues throughout San Francisco (including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts  and others). For more information, visit www.sfcinema.org . Since 1961, San Francisco Cinematheque has annually presented a diverse array of artist-made films throughout the Bay Area. 

The organization remains one of the oldest and most respected exhibitors of personal, experimental and avant-garde film in the United States. Cinematheque's unique programming ranges from recent restorations, premieres of independent short films and videos, documentaries and narrative features by established and emerging filmmakers as well as formally innovative works and performances by artists from our neighborhood and around the world.

Among the works screening (in excerpted form) at the press conference/reception:
ere erera baleibu icik subua aruaren (1968-70) dir. Jose Antonio Sistiaga with a new score composed and performed by Savage Republic presented in association with RE/Search, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, the San Francisco Bay Guardian and Cabinetic [premiering 20-September at the Victoria Theatre, 8:00PM, and repeated in Los Angeles the following week as a joint presentation between San Francisco Cinematheque, Los Angeles Filmforum and the Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theatre]

Basque abstract artist José Antonio Sistiaga painted directly onto film with homemade inks to create this silent 1970 feature. But Sistiaga's strangely titled work- is different from the films of Stan Brakhage, who didn't come to film from painting and had his own rhythm. "It's combination of color and 35-millimeter 'scope (with about half an hour in black and white) yields the kind of spectacle one associates with musicals and [science fiction] epics." -- Jonathan Rosenbaum

A hand-painted masterpiece of the 1970s; a legendary band of the 1980s. Sistiaga's rarely-screened ere erera baleibu icik subua aruaren is a work of uncompromising beauty that entirely deserves a wider appreciation. Savage Republic, one of the unrecognized godfathers of post-rock, formed roughly three decades ago in the midst of the Los Angeles punk rock scene and abruptly disbanded in 1989. In recent years, they've reformed and their unique sound (akin to a Middle Eastern surf band backed by the rhythm section from Joy Division) is as compelling and inexorable as ever. For San Francisco Cinematheque's season opener, Savage Republic -- original members Ethan Port and Thom Fuhrmann joined by Alan Waddington and Kerry Dowling -- performs a newly commissioned score to Sistiaga's prodigious work, presented in a stunning 35mm print from Paris.

A complete festival press kit, images and a list of films available on DVD will be available at the event. San Francisco Cinematheque Fall Calendar
20-SEPTEMBER to 10-DECEMBER-2009

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