SF Indie Fest.

San Francisco now has so many film festivals, micro and macro, that it's become a challenge just to keep track of them, yet alone attend them all. A few years ago, Jeff Ross and his companions started a micro event: the SF Indie Fest, sort of a Slamdance to the SF International's Sundance. After some growing pains, the 6th annual fest kicking off tomorrow and running through February 15 boasts 35 high-quality features and a slew of fine shorts.

As Ross told the SF Chronicle's Walter Addiego, the festival remains true to its humble grassroots origins. And this year's fete boasts a damned amazing mix. Ross said many of the films seemed to be about "issues of power and control - both personal and institutional - and the varied responses to this pressure, which include rebellion, rejection, defeat and, on occasion, slipping into madness."

Some of the most intriguing movies on the schedule:

Revengers Tragedy, a new film from Alex Cox, whose post-Repo Man and Sid & Nancy career has been spotty at best. But we're always happy to see him try again, and this one sounds totally wild - a sci-fi-horror-comedy hybrid based on Thomas Middleton's 17th century Jacobean play. Cox, writes the Seattle Weekly, "finally returns to form after nearly 20 years."

The results of the "Duel Project": Two Japanese filmmakers challenged each other to make a film in a confined setting about a duel to the death between two characters. Yukihiko Tsutsumi's 2LDK (FilmThreat: "As sick and twisted, and hilarious, as any movie in recent memory") faces off against Ryuhei Kitamura's Aragami and indie fest moviegoers are asked to declare the winner.

A new Plymptoon - and Bill P will be there, too.

Gozu, from the frenetic film factory that is Takashi Miike, was originally intended as a straight-to-video toss-off but wound up at Cannes instead.

Consumerism goes horribly, amusingly awry in Value-Added Cinema, a montage of product placement shots from 70 different movies compiled by Steve Seid, curator for the Pacific Film Archive, and Peter Conheim of Negativland.

A new Johnny To, Running on Karma, starring Andy Lau, a romantic comedy, no! detective film, no! metaphyiscal exporation;

And the biopic Bettie Page: Dark Angel.

There's also a surprising amount of horror at this year's fest, but perhaps that's a reflection of the times.

Posted by cphillips at February 4, 2004 10:13 AM