Releases
49th San Francisco International Film Festival Introduces Innovative Spotlight: Kinotek
Exciting New Festival Programs Highlight New Technologies, Cross-Platform Works and Interactive Elements
3/28/2006
San Francisco, CA - The 49th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 20-May 4) is thrilled to announce the inclusion of its new KinoTek track in this year's Festival. This revolutionary Spotlight: track will feature five programs: Addictive TV; Cock Byte: Masters of Machinima; International ReMix; Pocket Cinema; and Scribble, Scrapple, I.C. You. All five programs are designed to take the audience beyond standard festival-going experiences, proving that a 35mm camera is not the only way to make a film.
'The KinoTek programming stream represents an exciting new opportunity to present work that is made or exhibited in non-traditional ways,' said Sean Uyehara, programming associate of the San Francisco Film Society. 'Through KinoTek we will investigate the capabilities of new media technologies, while also continuing to celebrate aesthetic and expressive innovations. This programming addition should help us become a next generation film society.'
Kicking off KinoTek is Rooster Teeth Productions' Cock Byte: Masters of Machinima, which takes place on Sunday, April 23 at 6:30 pm at the Kabuki 8 Theatres. The Texas-based Rooster Teeth are the minds behind the madness of machinima (short for 'machine cinema' or 'machine animation'). In machinima, CGI animation is made using the 3D graphics engines from video games. Rooster Teeth are the creators of the popular online episodes Red vs Blue (based on the video game Halo) and The Strangerhood (based on The Sims 2). Rooster Teeth will appear in person to present their greatest hits as well as some new work. Cock Byte: Masters of Machinima will also be shown on Tuesday, April 25 at 9:30 pm at the Pacific Film Archive Theater in Berkeley and on Wednesday, May 1 at 6:45 pm at Landmark's Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto. (Presented in association with Gamespot.)
Pocket Cinema is next, showing on Thursday, April 27 at 6:30 pm at the Kabuki 8 Theatres. Long gone are the days of basic pagers and cell phones. With today's mobile technology, our ability to communicate has expanded far beyond a simple phone call. From color screens to text and picture messaging to shooting videos, Pocket Cinema embraces this technology and features an array of short works made by and for mobile devices. Many of the titles have been selected from commissioning and curatorial agencies, and three locally produced works made especially for the program round out Pocket Cinema. The program will feature talks by the creators who will discuss the current state of mobile media. (Presented in association with Microcinema International.)
KinoTek continues on Friday, April 28 at 7:00 pm at the Kabuki 8 Theatres with Scribble, Scrapple, I.C. You, a collection of five live cinema performances by Golan Levin, Sue Costabile and Laetitia Sonami. Levin's The Manual Input Sessions, from his TMEMA.org collaborations,combines the low tech with the high tech, as analog and digital projectors are aligned so their projections overlap, resulting in an unusual quality of hybridized, dynamic light. Levin also presents Scribble, a live color-music performance featuring tightly-coupled sounds and dynamic visuals. Sue Costabile teams up with Levin to produce Scrapple, in which objects are placed on a table and are interpreted as soundmaking marks in an 'active score.' The Scrapple system scans the table surface as if it were a kind of music notation, producing music in real time based on the objects placed there. In Mini Movies, Costabile sings and manipulates objects to produce ethereal animated shorts. Finally, Costabile works with Laetitia Sonami on I.C. You, a live cinematic thriller based on a script about an ice delivery man by poet Tom Sleigh. Costabile and Sonami use their suitcase-sized foley stage, drawings, videos, shadow theater and miniature lighting rigs to take the audience into the deliveryman's world.
Rounding out the eclectic KinoTek programming is Addictive TV, which will happen on Monday, May 1 at 9:45 pm at the Kabuki 8 Theatres. The internationally renowned VJ group Addictive TV will present their two current projects, including Optronica (a best-of compilation of short works from London's 2005 film and music festival of the same name). Following Optronica, Addictive TV will give a live performance of The Eye of the Pilot, a mashup of vibrant 8mm color film from the 1950s. The film footage was shot by Raymond Lamy, a French commercial airline pilot, and includes Vietnam, Ivory Coast, Pakistan and the U.S. at a pivotal time in France's relationship to these countries. The program originally premiered at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and skillfully uses Lamy's tourist-like footage to create a travelogue while documenting an era of dwindling colonial power. (Presented in association with Microcinema International.)
With the interactive International ReMix, visitors to the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival Web site (www.sffs.org) will have the opportunity to reedit, repurpose, remix and mash up a selection of clips from selected Festival films. Remixes will then be posted on the site for others to view and enjoy. Developed in collaboration with Yahoo! Research Berkeley and the Institute for Next Generation Internet at San Francisco State, International ReMix is an opportunity for filmgoers and filmmakers alike to go crazy with creativity. A selection of the best remixes will be shown at the Edinburgh Castle (950 Geary Street in San Francisco) on Monday, April 24 at 10:00 pm. (Presented in association with MOD Films.)
Addictive TV will officially bring KinoTek to a close as they rock the house with Addictive TV Eats San Francisco, a party happening at Mighty (119 Utah Street in San Francisco) on Wednesday, May 3 at 9:00 pm. Opening the night will be VJon / Lightrhythm Visuals, who will be followed by Rawkshow before Addictive TV ultimately takes the stage.
The KinoTek ticket package, which includes admission to all five KinoTek programs as well as the Addictive TV party at Mighty, is $40 for San Francisco Film Society members and $50 for the general public. Tickets for individual KinoTek programs are $9 for SFFS members and $11 for the public. Admission for the Addictive TV party is also $9 for members and $11 for the public.
KinoTek is sponsored by RES Media Group.
Founded in 1957, the vanguard San Francisco International Film Festival is the longest-running film festival in the Americas. Held each spring for two weeks, the International is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in the country's most beautiful city, featuring some 200 films and live events with more than 100 filmmakers in attendance, presenting some 22 awards and attracting a diverse audience of nearly 80,000 people.
The 49th International runs April 20-May 4, 2006 at the Kabuki 8 Theatres, the Castro Theatre and the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco; the Pacific Film Archive Theater in Berkeley; and Landmark's Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto, as well as several smaller venues. To purchase tickets and for ticket information log on to www.sffs.org, call 925.866.9559 or visit the Main Ticket Outlet at the Kabuki 8 Theatres (1881 Post Street) or the Satellite Ticket Outlet at Virgin Megastore (2 Stockton Street). For additional information log on to www.sffs.org or call 415.561.5000.
San Francisco Film Society, presenter of the flagship SFIFF, is a nonprofit arts and educational organization dedicated to celebrating the world of film and media in all its glorious forms. In early 2006 the Film Society unveiled SF360, a broad-spectrum series of initiatives designed to showcase the extraordinary vitality, variety and innovation of the San Francisco Bay Area film and media scene, including www.sf360.org, SF360 San Francisco Movie Night, SF360 InSchool Cinemas and the SF360 Festival of Festivals.
The Film Society will present the first annual San Francisco International Animation Festival from October 11-15, 2006 and a new SF International Youth Media Festival in 2007.
First to 50: SFIFF will hold its landmark 50th anniversary in April 2007.
'The KinoTek programming stream represents an exciting new opportunity to present work that is made or exhibited in non-traditional ways,' said Sean Uyehara, programming associate of the San Francisco Film Society. 'Through KinoTek we will investigate the capabilities of new media technologies, while also continuing to celebrate aesthetic and expressive innovations. This programming addition should help us become a next generation film society.'
Kicking off KinoTek is Rooster Teeth Productions' Cock Byte: Masters of Machinima, which takes place on Sunday, April 23 at 6:30 pm at the Kabuki 8 Theatres. The Texas-based Rooster Teeth are the minds behind the madness of machinima (short for 'machine cinema' or 'machine animation'). In machinima, CGI animation is made using the 3D graphics engines from video games. Rooster Teeth are the creators of the popular online episodes Red vs Blue (based on the video game Halo) and The Strangerhood (based on The Sims 2). Rooster Teeth will appear in person to present their greatest hits as well as some new work. Cock Byte: Masters of Machinima will also be shown on Tuesday, April 25 at 9:30 pm at the Pacific Film Archive Theater in Berkeley and on Wednesday, May 1 at 6:45 pm at Landmark's Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto. (Presented in association with Gamespot.)
Pocket Cinema is next, showing on Thursday, April 27 at 6:30 pm at the Kabuki 8 Theatres. Long gone are the days of basic pagers and cell phones. With today's mobile technology, our ability to communicate has expanded far beyond a simple phone call. From color screens to text and picture messaging to shooting videos, Pocket Cinema embraces this technology and features an array of short works made by and for mobile devices. Many of the titles have been selected from commissioning and curatorial agencies, and three locally produced works made especially for the program round out Pocket Cinema. The program will feature talks by the creators who will discuss the current state of mobile media. (Presented in association with Microcinema International.)
KinoTek continues on Friday, April 28 at 7:00 pm at the Kabuki 8 Theatres with Scribble, Scrapple, I.C. You, a collection of five live cinema performances by Golan Levin, Sue Costabile and Laetitia Sonami. Levin's The Manual Input Sessions, from his TMEMA.org collaborations,combines the low tech with the high tech, as analog and digital projectors are aligned so their projections overlap, resulting in an unusual quality of hybridized, dynamic light. Levin also presents Scribble, a live color-music performance featuring tightly-coupled sounds and dynamic visuals. Sue Costabile teams up with Levin to produce Scrapple, in which objects are placed on a table and are interpreted as soundmaking marks in an 'active score.' The Scrapple system scans the table surface as if it were a kind of music notation, producing music in real time based on the objects placed there. In Mini Movies, Costabile sings and manipulates objects to produce ethereal animated shorts. Finally, Costabile works with Laetitia Sonami on I.C. You, a live cinematic thriller based on a script about an ice delivery man by poet Tom Sleigh. Costabile and Sonami use their suitcase-sized foley stage, drawings, videos, shadow theater and miniature lighting rigs to take the audience into the deliveryman's world.
Rounding out the eclectic KinoTek programming is Addictive TV, which will happen on Monday, May 1 at 9:45 pm at the Kabuki 8 Theatres. The internationally renowned VJ group Addictive TV will present their two current projects, including Optronica (a best-of compilation of short works from London's 2005 film and music festival of the same name). Following Optronica, Addictive TV will give a live performance of The Eye of the Pilot, a mashup of vibrant 8mm color film from the 1950s. The film footage was shot by Raymond Lamy, a French commercial airline pilot, and includes Vietnam, Ivory Coast, Pakistan and the U.S. at a pivotal time in France's relationship to these countries. The program originally premiered at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and skillfully uses Lamy's tourist-like footage to create a travelogue while documenting an era of dwindling colonial power. (Presented in association with Microcinema International.)
With the interactive International ReMix, visitors to the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival Web site (www.sffs.org) will have the opportunity to reedit, repurpose, remix and mash up a selection of clips from selected Festival films. Remixes will then be posted on the site for others to view and enjoy. Developed in collaboration with Yahoo! Research Berkeley and the Institute for Next Generation Internet at San Francisco State, International ReMix is an opportunity for filmgoers and filmmakers alike to go crazy with creativity. A selection of the best remixes will be shown at the Edinburgh Castle (950 Geary Street in San Francisco) on Monday, April 24 at 10:00 pm. (Presented in association with MOD Films.)
Addictive TV will officially bring KinoTek to a close as they rock the house with Addictive TV Eats San Francisco, a party happening at Mighty (119 Utah Street in San Francisco) on Wednesday, May 3 at 9:00 pm. Opening the night will be VJon / Lightrhythm Visuals, who will be followed by Rawkshow before Addictive TV ultimately takes the stage.
The KinoTek ticket package, which includes admission to all five KinoTek programs as well as the Addictive TV party at Mighty, is $40 for San Francisco Film Society members and $50 for the general public. Tickets for individual KinoTek programs are $9 for SFFS members and $11 for the public. Admission for the Addictive TV party is also $9 for members and $11 for the public.
KinoTek is sponsored by RES Media Group.
Founded in 1957, the vanguard San Francisco International Film Festival is the longest-running film festival in the Americas. Held each spring for two weeks, the International is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in the country's most beautiful city, featuring some 200 films and live events with more than 100 filmmakers in attendance, presenting some 22 awards and attracting a diverse audience of nearly 80,000 people.
The 49th International runs April 20-May 4, 2006 at the Kabuki 8 Theatres, the Castro Theatre and the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco; the Pacific Film Archive Theater in Berkeley; and Landmark's Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto, as well as several smaller venues. To purchase tickets and for ticket information log on to www.sffs.org, call 925.866.9559 or visit the Main Ticket Outlet at the Kabuki 8 Theatres (1881 Post Street) or the Satellite Ticket Outlet at Virgin Megastore (2 Stockton Street). For additional information log on to www.sffs.org or call 415.561.5000.
San Francisco Film Society, presenter of the flagship SFIFF, is a nonprofit arts and educational organization dedicated to celebrating the world of film and media in all its glorious forms. In early 2006 the Film Society unveiled SF360, a broad-spectrum series of initiatives designed to showcase the extraordinary vitality, variety and innovation of the San Francisco Bay Area film and media scene, including www.sf360.org, SF360 San Francisco Movie Night, SF360 InSchool Cinemas and the SF360 Festival of Festivals.
The Film Society will present the first annual San Francisco International Animation Festival from October 11-15, 2006 and a new SF International Youth Media Festival in 2007.
First to 50: SFIFF will hold its landmark 50th anniversary in April 2007.