How to Smell a Rose: A Visit with Ricky Leacock in Normandy (4/24)
Here’s a winning declaration of documentary principles, in which the late Les Blank and the late Richard Leacock hang out, eat well, and exemplify a wonderfully stubborn will to make films “about nothing in particular,” whose highest ideal is simply “the feeling of being there.”
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution(4/25)
Perhaps now would be a good time for close study of that earlier moment in American history when complex activism rose up in response to (among other things) lethal racist police brutality.
Mr. Holmes (4/25)
That would be Sherlock, not John, just so you know, and a welcome reunion of Ian McKellen — as the super-sleuth in his final years — with Gods and Monsters director Bill Condon. The appeal here is elementary to deduce.
World of Tomorrow (4/25)
Don Hertzfeldt’s astounding new animated short is rentable right away on line, but you should see it on a big screen, as part of SFIFF’s “Shorts 3: Animation.” It has all the Hertzfeldt hallmarks: deceptive simplicity, cosmic profundity, bittersweet hilarity.
Hill of Freedom (4/26, 4/29, 4/30)
A delicate romantic and chronological conundrum from the insouciantly ambitious South Korean director Hong Sang-soo, whose lightly worn cinephilia can be highly contagious.
Stations of the Cross (4/27)
Now to lighten things up with a formally austere German drama about a Catholic teenager finding her way — a way of sorrows. As per crucifixion, it’s told in fourteen tableaux. Salvation may or may not apply.
Two Shots Fired (4/29, 4/30)
With this tale of a teenager who impulsively decides to shoot himself (twice), Martín Rejtman, the so-called “godfather of New Argentine cinema,” dances on a tightrope between magic realism and straight-faced absurdity.
Unexpected (4/29)
A San Francisco Film Society grant winner, Kris Swanberg’s take on the social-issue movie — in which simultaneous unplanned pregnancies spur friendship between an inner-city teacher and her favorite student — promises refreshing subtlety, compassion, and trueness to life.
The Royal Road (4/29, 4/30)
As deeply researched as it is deeply felt, the new spellbinder from local cinematic essayist Jenni Olson meditates sublimely on nostalgia, the pursuit of unavailable women, and the California legacy of Spanish missionary Junípero Serra.
7 Chinese Brothers (4/30)
Bob Byington’s droll trove of satisfying intangibles kindly reminds us that there still is a place in this world for Austin slackers, and for Jason Schwartzman vehicles. (Schwartzman also is on hand in a higher-concept ensemble offering, The Overnight, 4/28.)
For tickets and more details, visit sffs.org/sfiff58
