SFFS Film Arts Forum
Stories about Werner Herzog staving off madness (and Klaus Kinski) in the jungle on the set of Fitzcarraldo, and tales of desperation and determination that marked the production of Apocalypse Now are the stuff of lore. Filmmakers love to exchange stories about the triumphs and tribulations of completing a project, and when a production is based in a faraway locale the stories are so much the better. For every filmmaker that has based a production on distant shores, there are plenty of stories of how luck—both good and bad—shaped the project. For the latest edition of the popular SFFS Film Arts Forum, five well-traveled, seasoned filmmakers reveal their hard-earned wisdom about negotiating the byways of international filmmaking, knowing where you're going and what you're getting into, the importance of hiring a fixer (and avoiding jail time) and how to break the ice with the locals. Moderated by noted Bay Area film writer Michael Fox, the evening will be a compelling mixture of clips, short presentations and a panel discussion.

PRESENTERS
Academy Award–nominated filmmaker Eugene Corr has broad experience in fiction and nonfiction filmmaking. He wrote and directed the documentary Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter’s Journey (1991) and the dramatic feature Desert Bloom (Selection Officielle, Cannes Film Festival, 1986). Corr has worked as second unit director on major motion pictures, cowritten dramatic features and television movies and has directed episodic television. Before embarking on his filmmaking career as a member of Cine Manifest, a radical San Francisco film group in the 1970s, Corr was a factory worker, warehouseman, forklift driver, crane operator and an auto, steel and cannery worker. In July 2007, he commenced shooting on From Ghost Town to Havana, a documentary following the lives of young baseball players living in poor neighborhoods in Havana, Cuba and West Oakland, California. He has just returned from Cuba, where he was shooting the culminating event of the film.

For more than 20 years, Emmy winners Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller have created critically acclaimed multicharacter documentary narratives braiding personal stories into larger portraits of human experience. Ballets Russes (2005) was honored by both the National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review. Their work includes Now and Then: From Frosh to Seniors (1999), Kids of Survival: The Art and Life of Tim Rollins + K.O.S. (1996) and Isadora Duncan: Movement from the Soul (1989). Goldfine and Geller are currently in postproduction on Satan Came to Eden: The Galápagos Affair. Darwin meets Hitchcock in this feature-length documentary, a gripping tale of idealistic dreams gone awry set in the brutal yet alluring landscape of the Galápagos Islands in the 1930s.

Director Laura Lukitsch’s multicultural background infuses a deep sense of cultural inquiry into her work. Her experience studying language and culture in Japan and economics in India has deeply influenced her life and work. Over the past ten years, she has worked as a filmmaker with artworld, public television and corporate clients from Silicon Valley to Johannesburg and beyond, producing, directing and editing more than 40 projects. Lukitsch’s first feature length-film, Beard Club, a documentary about the social politics of facial hair, is currently in the final stages of postproduction. For the film Lukitsch traveled to five countries and talked to men from the four major beard-wearing religions.

Marc Smolowitz is an Academy Award–nominated film, television and new-media producer (The Weather Underground, 2003; Trembling Before G-d, 2001) with 20 years of experience across all aspects of the entertainment business. His forthcoming films include The Power of Two, a feature-length, character-driven documentary with international implications about the importance of organ donation and transplants. Told through the unique perspectives of identical twins who’ve endured a lifelong battle with the fatal genetic disease Cystic Fibrosis and received life saving double lung transplants, the film will offer a comprehensive portrait of the challenges that come with chronic illness and the miracle and complexity of organ transplantation in both the United States and Japan. A global and bilingual storytelling arc will place the twins in all kinds of extraordinary settings—as patients, as public health advocates and as spokeswomen on the front lines of social change.

Following the discussion, filmmakers in the audience are invited to participate in a special Laptop Shop curated by the FilmHouse residents. The Laptop Shop is a professional show-and-tell during which attendees screen clips from their current or recent projects on their laptops and solicit feedback from peers. It’s a lively exchange and a unique opportunity to see what’s brewing in the Bay Area film world. Filmmakers wishing to screen their work should bring a short clip, headphones and a well-charged laptop. Participants are particularly encouraged to share projects produced in far-flung locales.

ABOUT SFFS FILM ARTS FORUM
SFFS Film Arts Forum is the Film Society’s bimonthly information-sharing, discussion, networking, professional development jamboree. It’s an opportunity for local filmmakers and cineastes to meet one another and talk about their craft. SFFS gets the conversation started with dynamic presentations, topical panels, works-in-progress screenings and trade secrets. Past events have of offered a behind-the-scenes look at the Sundance Film Festival, a debate about online distribution and excerpts from two local documentaries. It’s an entire conference in the span of a few hours.



Tickets $5 year-round SFFS members; $8 generaL. Must be 21+ to attend.