SPECIAL EVENTS
SFFS Film Arts Forum—Thinking Outside the Doc Box
Monday, February 8, 7:30 pm
Monday, February 8, 7:30 pm
SF360 FILM+CLUB
A Sneak Preview of a Film About Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields
Sunday, February 28, 8:00 pm, doors 7:00 pm
Sunday, February 28, 8:00 pm, doors 7:00 pm
Releases
52nd San Francisco International Film Festival Presents The Lost World with Dengue Fever Live
Cambodian/American Pop Rock Band Will Premiere Original Score to 1925 Silent Film The Lost World at Castro Theatre
2/16/2009
San Francisco, CA – The 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival (April 23–May 7) announces one of the most highly anticipated special events of each year’s Festival, the annual pairing of live music with an iconic silent film. The genre-busting pop band Dengue Fever will perform the world premiere of their newly composed original score for the first cinematic adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s adventure yarn The Lost World at the historic Castro Theatre on Tuesday, May 5 at 8:00 pm.
A journal points to the existence of dinosaurs in current times. An expedition is formed to find these lost creatures. Harry Hoyt’s adaptation of The Lost World (1925), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic novel about a land where prehistoric reptiles still roam, stars Bessie Love, Lewis Stone, Wallace Beery and Lloyd Hughes. Willis O’Brien’s pioneering stop-motion special effects of prehistoric beasts encountered by the scientific expedition are a precursor to his remarkable animation achievements for 1933’s King Kong. The Lost World was entered into the National Film Registry in 1998. The George Eastman House is providing a restored print with simulated tinting.
“The Lost World is a classic exploration of mankind’s fascination with its own prehistory. It contains amazing animated sequences and inventive costumes and sets depicting a land that time forgot,” said Film Society Programmer Sean Uyehara. “Today, audiences can also read the film as a campy depiction of how we once imagined the age of dinosaurs. It is also full of anachronistic cultural stereotypes regarding science, marriage and race. Like the territory depicted in the film, Dengue Fever’s music evokes a time and place of memory. The band, which hails from Los Angeles, plays 1960s-style psychedelic Cambodian pop. Both the band and film both conjure up a nostalgia for a time and place that may never have existed.”
Dengue Fever’s repertoire isn’t simply Cambodian music or a Cambodian/American hybrid. Bollywood glitz, psychedelic rock, spaghetti Western twang, klezmer, ska, funk and Ethiopian jazz all contribute to the band’s unique sound. Keyboardist Ethan Holtzman introduced his guitarist brother Zac to the Cambodian pop music of the ’60s that he’d become enamored with while on a trip to Angkor Wat. Together they went looking for a Cambodian singer and discovered Ch’hom Nimol, who had performed regularly for the Cambodian royal family in the past, singing at a Khmer restaurant in Long Beach. Her powerful singing voice, in Khmer and more recently also English, is a luminous vibrato that adds exotic ornamentations to her vocal lines and complements the band’s driving sound.
The band, including saxophonist David Ralicke, drummer Paul Smith and bassist Senon Williams, debuted with a Khmer cover of Joni Mitchell’s "Both Sides Now" for Matt Dillon’s directorial debut City of Ghosts. Their first CD, Dengue Fever (2003) was comprised primarily of covers of Cambodian pop classics. Their second album, Escape from Dragon House, written almost entirely by the band, expanded the psychedelic, experimental sound of their repertoire. Dengue Fever’s songs have been on film and television soundtracks including Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, the romantic comedy Must Love Dogs, HBO’s True Blood and Showtime’s Weeds. Dengue Fever’s most recent release, Venus on Earth has garnered rave reviews since its release in January 2008. A film crew recorded the band’s 2005 tour of Cambodia and the DVD/CD soundtrack of the feature documentary, Sleepwalking Through the Mekong is scheduled for release in April.
Tickets for this world premiere event at the Castro Theatre are $15 San Francisco Film Society members/$20 general. For tickets and information go to www.sffs.org or call 925-866-9559.
San Francisco Film Society is a nonprofit arts and education organization dedicated to celebrating the world of film and media. SFFS year-round programs and events are concentrated in four core areas: Internationalism and Cross-Cultural Exchange; Educating and Inspiring Bay Area Youth; Showcasing Bay Area Film Culture; and Exploring New Media.
Currently the Film Society presents more than 250 days of programming each year, reaching a total audience of more than 100,000 people. The acclaimed youth education program introduces international cinema and media literacy to more than 7,000 teachers and students annually.
The 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival runs April 23–May 7, 2009 at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, the Castro Theatre and Landmark’s Clay Theatre in San Francisco; and the Pacific Film Archive Theater in Berkeley. Held each spring for 15 days, the International is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in the country’s most beautiful city, featuring 25 juried awards, 200 films and live events with upwards of 100 participating filmmakers and diverse audiences of 75,000+ people.
For tickets and information, go to www.sffs.org, call 925-866-9559
or visit the SFIFF52 Embarcadero Center Ticket Outlet at One Embarcadero Center, lobby level.
The Film Society publishes a daily online magazine, SF360.org, with broad-ranging news and features on Bay Area film and media; provides crucial support to the Bay Area filmmaking community through SFFS filmmaker services including FilmHouse Residencies, Fiscal Sponsorship, the SFFS/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grants, SFFS Film Arts Forums, SFFS Filmmakers Advisory Board and professional-level filmmaker classes; and showcases the vitality and variety of the Bay Area film and media scene at SF360 Film+Club.
SFFS shows the best of world cinema year-round on its SFFS Screen at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas and presents the San Francisco International Animation Festival, New Italian Cinema and French Cinema Now annually in the fall.
A journal points to the existence of dinosaurs in current times. An expedition is formed to find these lost creatures. Harry Hoyt’s adaptation of The Lost World (1925), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic novel about a land where prehistoric reptiles still roam, stars Bessie Love, Lewis Stone, Wallace Beery and Lloyd Hughes. Willis O’Brien’s pioneering stop-motion special effects of prehistoric beasts encountered by the scientific expedition are a precursor to his remarkable animation achievements for 1933’s King Kong. The Lost World was entered into the National Film Registry in 1998. The George Eastman House is providing a restored print with simulated tinting.
“The Lost World is a classic exploration of mankind’s fascination with its own prehistory. It contains amazing animated sequences and inventive costumes and sets depicting a land that time forgot,” said Film Society Programmer Sean Uyehara. “Today, audiences can also read the film as a campy depiction of how we once imagined the age of dinosaurs. It is also full of anachronistic cultural stereotypes regarding science, marriage and race. Like the territory depicted in the film, Dengue Fever’s music evokes a time and place of memory. The band, which hails from Los Angeles, plays 1960s-style psychedelic Cambodian pop. Both the band and film both conjure up a nostalgia for a time and place that may never have existed.”
Dengue Fever’s repertoire isn’t simply Cambodian music or a Cambodian/American hybrid. Bollywood glitz, psychedelic rock, spaghetti Western twang, klezmer, ska, funk and Ethiopian jazz all contribute to the band’s unique sound. Keyboardist Ethan Holtzman introduced his guitarist brother Zac to the Cambodian pop music of the ’60s that he’d become enamored with while on a trip to Angkor Wat. Together they went looking for a Cambodian singer and discovered Ch’hom Nimol, who had performed regularly for the Cambodian royal family in the past, singing at a Khmer restaurant in Long Beach. Her powerful singing voice, in Khmer and more recently also English, is a luminous vibrato that adds exotic ornamentations to her vocal lines and complements the band’s driving sound.
The band, including saxophonist David Ralicke, drummer Paul Smith and bassist Senon Williams, debuted with a Khmer cover of Joni Mitchell’s "Both Sides Now" for Matt Dillon’s directorial debut City of Ghosts. Their first CD, Dengue Fever (2003) was comprised primarily of covers of Cambodian pop classics. Their second album, Escape from Dragon House, written almost entirely by the band, expanded the psychedelic, experimental sound of their repertoire. Dengue Fever’s songs have been on film and television soundtracks including Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, the romantic comedy Must Love Dogs, HBO’s True Blood and Showtime’s Weeds. Dengue Fever’s most recent release, Venus on Earth has garnered rave reviews since its release in January 2008. A film crew recorded the band’s 2005 tour of Cambodia and the DVD/CD soundtrack of the feature documentary, Sleepwalking Through the Mekong is scheduled for release in April.
Tickets for this world premiere event at the Castro Theatre are $15 San Francisco Film Society members/$20 general. For tickets and information go to www.sffs.org or call 925-866-9559.
San Francisco Film Society is a nonprofit arts and education organization dedicated to celebrating the world of film and media. SFFS year-round programs and events are concentrated in four core areas: Internationalism and Cross-Cultural Exchange; Educating and Inspiring Bay Area Youth; Showcasing Bay Area Film Culture; and Exploring New Media.
Currently the Film Society presents more than 250 days of programming each year, reaching a total audience of more than 100,000 people. The acclaimed youth education program introduces international cinema and media literacy to more than 7,000 teachers and students annually.
The 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival runs April 23–May 7, 2009 at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, the Castro Theatre and Landmark’s Clay Theatre in San Francisco; and the Pacific Film Archive Theater in Berkeley. Held each spring for 15 days, the International is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in the country’s most beautiful city, featuring 25 juried awards, 200 films and live events with upwards of 100 participating filmmakers and diverse audiences of 75,000+ people.
For tickets and information, go to www.sffs.org, call 925-866-9559
or visit the SFIFF52 Embarcadero Center Ticket Outlet at One Embarcadero Center, lobby level.
The Film Society publishes a daily online magazine, SF360.org, with broad-ranging news and features on Bay Area film and media; provides crucial support to the Bay Area filmmaking community through SFFS filmmaker services including FilmHouse Residencies, Fiscal Sponsorship, the SFFS/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grants, SFFS Film Arts Forums, SFFS Filmmakers Advisory Board and professional-level filmmaker classes; and showcases the vitality and variety of the Bay Area film and media scene at SF360 Film+Club.
SFFS shows the best of world cinema year-round on its SFFS Screen at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas and presents the San Francisco International Animation Festival, New Italian Cinema and French Cinema Now annually in the fall.
