The San Francisco International Film Festival kicks off today and I must say I'm damned excited. As someone who's primary festival experience consists of the atrium -like atmosphere of the Telluride Film Festival, San Francisco seems the perfect mix of intimate cinema crossed with big city breadth.


It's impossible to abstain from comparisons so I'll waste no time restraining myself: the SF Fest, on paper, appears to clearly match the LA based AFI Fest with what is most likely only a fraction of the resources. With an intruiging mix of Latino/Chicano, Asian, European, Middle Eastern and First Time filmmakers, the programming staff seems to have done a great job of fulfilling the most important function of a big city festival: provide a diverse pallete of QUALITY films that festival goers are unlikely to see anywhere else, whether narrative, doc or retrospective. Having taken the smart road of focusing less on premiere showcases and instead plucking the fruit of lead-in stateside festivals Sundance and the New Films/New Directors showcase, the fest roster boasts a foreign/indie cred that creates just enough space to make SFIFF a worthy showcase unto itself (though if I had my way next year's festival would include a dedicated American Indie/New Directors sidebar).

A festival is only as good as the films you actually see. What follows is a list of the tickets I managed to block into my schedule over the next fifteen days (in sequence of screening). Some are for frivolous reasons -- huge crush on Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi -- others more noble -- as an aspiring youknowhat any film shot on video is a must see. Bashing, Taking Father Home and Play are those I'm most eager to see. Hopefully I'll get to jot something down about each....

*Capsules taken from the festival program


Regular Lovers
(Philippe Garrel)

A young poet takes to the streets during the May 1968 Paris riots but soon grows disillusioned with the revolution. He withdraws into drugs, but when he falls in love, he replaces his wilted political fervor with newfound passion.




Taking Father Home
(Ying Liang)

Teenager Xu Yun heads to the big city in search of his father, rumored to be rich. What he finds isn’t quite what he expected. New talent Ying Liang mixes social drama with pungent dark comedy to capture Chinese society’s current mood.



Illumination
(Pascale Breton)

A young fisherman living on the coast of Brittany falls for his grandmother’s nurse while negotiating his own precarious sense of reality in this invigorating, challenging and elusive debut feature.



A Perfect Couple
(Nobuhiro Suwa)

In acclaimed Japanese director Nobuhiro Suwa’s French-language feature, Marie and Nicolas are sliding toward the end of their 15-year marriage when they arrive in Paris for a friend’s wedding and begin a solemn, wrenching reflection on their loss.



The House Of Sand
(Andrucha Waddington)

Three generations of women abandoned in the stunningly beautiful deserts of northeast Brazil remind us that human existence is a struggle and that living it to the fullest is something to be celebrated. Starring Fernanda Montenegro and Fernanda Torres.



The Glamorous Life Of Sachiko Hanai
(Mitsuru Meike)

In this riotous amalgam of political satire, apocalyptic comedy and steamy erotica, an escort specializing in teacher-student scenarios acquires a mysterious cylinder that could cause nuclear havoc. A fervid example of the Japanese pinku eiga genre.



The Wayward Cloud
(Tsai Ming-liang)

A genuine masterpiece and the most audacious work to date from visionary director Tsai Ming-liang, this provocative and humorous film is about a porn actor and the woman who enters into a strange relationship with him.



Bashing
(Masahiro Kobayashi)

A controversial, fictionalized account of a young woman whose kidnapping and release in the Middle East has made her a town pariah back at home. Inspired by the experiences of several Japanese aid workers held hostage in Iraq in 2004.



Iraq in Fragments
(James Longley)

Three tales from the new Iraq, from Sunni to Shiite to Kurd. Paying as much attention to color, light and landscape as to politics, this Sundance award-winner is like nothing we have ever seen or heard about Iraq before.



News from Afar
(Ricardo Benet)

A young boy grows into manhood in the no-man’s-land of a Mexican saltpeter flat, in a tiny hamlet known only as "17." His journey to Mexico City is an odyssey at the center of a remarkably assured feature debut that is at once moving and surreal.


Half Nelson
(Ryan Fleck)

An idealistic Brooklyn junior high school teacher, battling institutional apathy and a crippling drug addiction, strikes up an unlikely relationship with one of his students in this low-key, naturalistic look at friendship and inner-city life.



Play
(Alicia Scherson)

Heartbroken Tristán and isolated Cristina, two strangers, wander the streets of Santiago looking for love. This urban fairy tale is a lively, witty, atmospheric film about the human need to connect in the postmodern world.



The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros
(Auraeus Solito)

A gay pre-teen in a Manila slum causes his family of petty criminals grief when he falls in love with the handsome cop next door. This first feature transcends its indie low budget with its humor, gritty drama and charm.