June 26, 2008

Frameline, week 2.

Glitterbox Frameline32 has a few more days to go before wrapping on Sunday. Further dispatches and notes will be gathered here. For an overview of the fest so far, turn to Dennis Harvey at SF360 - where Max Goldberg reviews Derek (site), "a documentary tribute which does not seek to enlarge or complicate the filmmaker’s legacy so much as succor its loss."

"You'd never know it, but there was a time when British filmmakers, emboldened by punk culture, fueled by hatred for Thatcherite conservatism, and funded by the BFI and the new Channel Four, made outrageous, experimental, high culture vs. low culture collision movies, doped on structuralism and gender-bending and period-picture mockery," writes Michael Atkinson, reviewing the newly released Glitterbox for IFC. "[Derek] Jarman was the moment's jester prince; he never made a film you'd mistake for the work of another, or a film that doesn't manifest on the screen as an unpredictably impish riff on serious matters, Art-making and Sex and Death. Not to mention, Jarman's was a not-so-distant day when thanks to a small number of artists, but largely to Jarman, gay cinema had a chance to be regarded as pioneering art, and not just politics."

Updated through 6/30.

Monica Peck follows up on her first and second dispatches:

San Francisco filmmaker Brynn Gelbard introduced Ruby Blue [site] last night in lieu of the film's writer/director Jan Dunn, who couldn't make the screening due to work on another film. Gelbard, who worked as an assistant to the director and producer for Ruby Blue, recalled first meeting Dunn when Gypo screened at Frameline two years ago.

Ruby Blue

"After the screening I met up with them at the Lexington and they were talking about the next film they wanted to make and that was Ruby Blue," Gelbard explained. "So there I was getting to go to Roundsgate in Kent, England.... It was amazing to get to work with Bob Hoskins. I told him that Mermaids changed my life, that when I saw that movie, Winona Ryder made me realize I'm a lesbian. He said, 'Me, too.'"

The film was screened in partnership with this year's Tranny March. Three organizers took the stage to invite "any and all genders" to join them for the show and march tomorrow: San Francisco's Dolores Park at 3 pm.

The film played to a packed house. Dunn's flawless pacing and comedic timing, combined with the energetic Frameline viewing audience, created a unique atmosphere of genuine participation in the unfolding of this timeless story.

With Eleven Minutes (site), "[Michael] Selditch and [Rob] Tate have constructed a brisk and coherent fashion-industry procedural that expertly switches out the cultivated tension of Project Runway for its real-world counterpart," blogs Jason Shamai at Pixel Vision. "The film is an equally adept portrait of a designer who gracefully channels his fear of squandered momentum into the dry charm the filmmakers were probably banking on."

Updates, 6/27: Since the dominating presence of this entry so far is Derek Jarman's, this seems the right place to point to Sam Adams's assessment for Moving Image Source, where two upcoming series are also noted: Derek Jarman, at the Seoul Cinematheque from today through July 10, and Of Angels and Apocalypse: The Cinema of Derek Jarman, at the Northwest Film Center from July 11 through 31. Sam Adams: "Poet, prophet, and provocateur, Jarman made films that were polemical by their very existence, yet intensely, and occasionally inscrutably, personal in substance. Frankly homoerotic, they queered the history of Shakespeare, Caravaggio and Wittgenstein/a>, to say nothing of Saint Sebastian and Jesus Christ. As AIDS hysteria and homophobia mounted in the 1980s, Jarman sharpened his knives and strengthened his stance."

At the SpoutBlog, Lauren Wissot suggests five "Top Hot Pride Pics."

Update, 6/29: Once again, Monica Peck...

A Horse Is Not a Metaphor "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" veteran experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer told last night's Frameline32 audience at the Roxie Theater before the premier of her latest film A Horse Is Not a Metaphor. "Thank you! People are the most important thing - that's what I've learned!"

"I also want to thank my wife, Florrie Burke, who shot some of the cinematography for the film," Hammer announced. "We just got married yesterday!" Shouts of congratulations and resounding cheers filled the intimate venue.

Friday night's screening began with two of Hammer's earlier films, Vital Signs and Sanctus, both breathtakingly beautiful explorations of the body and death.

"My body is a performative structure, as well as sexual... as well as a person in skin with touch," Hammer explained. "The body is the mind as well; we mustn't forget that."

Hammer's recent battle with ovarian cancer provided the subject for A Horse Is Not A Metaphor. A deeply personal poetic map of the cancer experience, the film also aims to educate viewers about the symptoms and available treatments for ovarian cancer.

"Ovarian cancer has been called the 'silent killer,' so now we want to yell about it and make it not silent anymore," Hammer explained during the Q&A after the screening. "You literally are the first people to see this film. Only three others have ever seen this before, but now I want to write a distribution program so the film can go around to hospitals and clinics and get the message out there about ovarian cancer. Perhaps with a new Democratic president in office we can finally get the stem cell research to find that tumor marker so that the chemo can focus on the tumor, rather than having to flood the entire body cavity."

Beautifully constructed from a variety of visual media, including Hammer's own archival footage of the first All-Women Rodeo in 1962, as well as Florrie Burke's videos of chemotherapy treatments, the film also reflects Hammer's recent acquisition of Final Cut Pro and digital video within her process.

"This is the first film where I worked from the beginning to the end without stopping," she explained. "I'd heard of painters doing that with a large canvas, just starting at one corner and not stopping until it's finished - that's what making this film was like."

-Monica Peck

Updates, 6/30: XXY (site) has won the Frameline32 Audience Award for Best Feature.

And again, Monica Peck...

"I saw the gayest thing on my walk to the Castro Theater today," Michael Lumpkin spoke warmly to the Frameline 32 audience as a few giggles emanated from the crowd. "It was a pink plushy bear with a veil... That pretty much says it all for today," he laughed, referencing the hundreds of wedding celebrations happening on nearly every scenic stoop of San Francisco this month.

Derek Jarman Lumpkin introduced Julie Blankenship from the non-profit Visual Aid, co-presenters of the afternoon's screening of Derek, a tribute to Derek Jarman. Visual Aid provides grants and materials to professional artists diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, such as HIV/AIDS.

The film, although a bit of a dud, will hopefully serve to foster greater interest in Jarman's films. Lumpkin said he wanted to screen some of Jarman's films at this year's festival, but no 35 mm prints were available.

This year's Frameline closed with the film Breakfast With Scot (site), from Canadian director Laurie Lynd, before attendees headed over to 1015 Folsom for the closing party celebration.

-Monica Peck

Michael Guillén at Twitch on The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela (site): "Billed as a transsexual Cinderella story, this Berlinale Teddy winner is amazingly engaging for its heady blend of gritty vérité and whimsical fairy tale."



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Posted by dwhudson at June 26, 2008 8:46 AM