San Francisco International Film Festival 2011 : 04/28 – 04/30 Round-Up

If you are looking for films from today, Wednesday, the 27th, you can see them here. Below are choice picks for the remainder of this week!

Full festival details and movie listings here.

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Asleep In The Sun

This Argentine film evokes the tag words: “metaphysical mystery,” “canine-crazed,” “soul-deep,” “Kafkaesque world,” “psuedo scientists,” “self-possessed,” and “’50s decor.” It certainly targets a very specific audience, but that audience will love it.
Directed by Alejandro Chomski – ARGENTINA

SHOWTIMES
Thu, Apr 28 @ 3:30 (Kabuki)
sat, Apr 30 @ 6:15 (New People)

At Ellen’s Age

Like Eat, Pray, Love, this film documents what happens when the comforts of the middle-class life are disrupted. Unlike Eat, Pray, Love, this film is less “mall mom” and more surreal and quirky.
Directed by Pia Marais – GERMANY

SHOWTIMES
Fri, Apr 29 @ 7:00 (PFA)

the black power mixtape

Sweden — land of the blue-eyed, blonde-haired lasses and lads! This collage-style documentary exposes recently redscovered Swedish footage from the 1967-75 Black Power Movement, with commentary by leading African American artists, activists, musicians, and scholars.
Directed by Goran Hugo Olsson – SWEDEN

SHOWTIMES
Sat, Apr 30 @ 9:00 (Kabuki)
Tue, May 3 @ 6:00 (New People)

the Cave Of Forgotten Dreams

Warner Herzog becomes the first filmmaker allowed into Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc caverns in Southern France, site of the world’s oldest prehistoric art. Listen to his soothing (?) voice narrate about centuries-old drawings, and see it all in 3-D.
Directed by Werner Herzog – USA

SHOWTIMES
Sat, Apr 30 @ 9:00 (Kabuki)
Tue, May 3 @ 6:00 (New People)

The Cinema Komunisto

Ah, the Yugoslavian film industry — perhaps as tumultuous as its political past — and just as much influenced by it, including direct intervention from President Josip Broz Tito, to create and recreate the nation’s history, in a 1982 revision of history kind of way.
Directed by Mila Turajlic – SERBIA

SHOWTIMES
Sat, Apr 30 @ 3:15 (Kabuki)
Tue, May 3 @ 6:30 (PFA)
Wed, May 4 @ 3:15 (Kabuki)

detroit wild city

Detroit is a city that evokes as much dread as it does curiosity, depending on who you ask. This documentary explores how complex Detroit’s present situation, and its future, is and can potentially be.
Directed by Florent Tillon – FRANCE/USA

SHOWTIMES
Fri, Apr 29 @ 7:00 (Kabuki)
Sun, May 1 @ 2:45 (New People)
Wed, May 4 @ 8:40 (PFA)

the dish and the spoon

When one tries to make the most out of heartbreak, beautiful things can happen. Two young, hurting souls explore how to act the part of happy lovers.
Directed by Alison Bagnall – USA

SHOWTIMES
Thu, Apr 28 @ 8:45 (PFA)
Fri, Apr 29 @ 6:30 (Kabuki)
Sun, May 1 @ 3:30 (Kabuki)

end of animal

Explore darkness with the U.S. Premiere of this South Korean, genre-hopping film in which “a pregnant teenager finds herself in a taxi with a passenger who counts down to cataclysm.”
Directed by Jo Sung-hee – SOUTH KOREA

SHOWTIMES
Thu, Apr 28 @ 9:15 (Kabuki)
Sat, Apr 30 @ 9:00 (New People)
Tue, May 3 @ 4:15 (Kabuki)

the journals of musan

When refugees escape to new lands, transitions are different on even basic human needs. With The Journals Of Musan, N. Korean defector Seung-chul discovers the difficulties of assimilation, even with a shared language.
Directed by Park Jung-bum – SOUTH KOREA

SHOWTIMES
Fri, Apr 29 @ 9:15 (Kabuki)
Sun, May 1 @ 8:30 (New People)
Mon, May 2 @ 1:00 (Kabuki)

My Joy

Simply sold by this quote from Time Out, London: “There are hints of Tarkovsky in the poetic exploration of place and memory… the sense of a Dantean journey and a vision of utter hell are powerfully conveyed.”
Directed by Sergei Loznitsa – UKRAINE

SHOWTIMES
Sat, Apr 30 @ 5:45 (Kabuki)
Tue, May 3 @ 9:00 (Kabuki)

Nostalgia For The Light

This film captures parallels between natural surroundings, memory, and the mysterious by digging through Chilean history and events occuring in the universe.
Directed by Patricio Guzmán – CHILE

SHOWTIMES
Thu, Apr 28 @ 6:15 (PFA)

pink saris

Documentary filmmaker Kim Longinotto captures the life and works of Sampat Pal Devi, founder of India’s Gulabi Gang, which defends the rights of untouchable women and fights for other social needs of repressed women.
Directed by Kim Longinotto – ENGLAND/INDIA

SHOWTIMES
Thu, Apr 28 @ 6:15 (Kabuki)

sound of noise

“The sound-and-image anarchists behind the 2001 cult short Music For One Apartment And Six Drummers concoct a delightful comic cocktail mixing modern urban symphony, police procedural and love story. The up-tempo feature debut boasts the most complex and wacky musical numbers since Caro and Jeunet’s Delicatessen.”
Directed by Ola Simonsson, Johannes Stjarne Nilsson

SHOWTIMES
Thu, Apr 28 @ 3:45 (Kabuki)
Fri, Apr 29 @ 9:00 (Kabuki)

a useful life

“A man who has spent his entire adult life working in a film archive faces a new beginning with the threatened closure of the institution in this loving black-and-white ode to a life lived among the reels, a deadpan comedy of cinema and obsolescence from the director of Acne.”
Directed by Federico Veiroj – URAGUAY

SHOWTIMES
Sat, Apr 30 @ 3:45 (Kabuki)

ulysses

Director Oscar Godoy explores loneliness and isolation, and the idea that money cannot bring happiness or love.
Directed by Oscar Godoy – ARGENTINA/CHILE

SHOWTIMES
Sat, Apr 30 @ 3:45 (Kabuki)