Human-rights documentaries, majestic buffalo and actor Harris Dickinson’s directorial debut merit top mention this week.
Terrific documentaries screen every year at the United Nations Association Film Festival, a Palo Alto-produced event offering nonfiction cinema about human rights and social justice. Its 28th edition runs Thursday through Oct. 26 at Mitchell Park Community Center in Palo Alto, the Green Library and Stanford Medical School at Stanford University, Eastside College Preparatory School in East Palo Alto and Delancey Screening Room in San Francisco. Sixty docs from around the world featuring subjects ranging from refugee crises to climate change to book burning to TikTok are on tap. Opening night’s program includes “An Ordinary Insanity,” Judith Ehrlich’s short film about history-making whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. Also on the bill are two feature-length docs: Chip Duncan’s “Stand Together As One” about the journalists who risked their lives to document the 1983-85 Ethiopian famine and “Following Harry,” Susanne Rostock’s portrait of artist-activist Harry Belafonte in his final years. Other selections include Isabella Alexander-Nathani’s “The Burning,” which reveals untold truths about Africa’s migrant crisis; “The White House Effect,” which documents how political pressure in the George H. W. Bush administration undermined global climate policy; the Oscar-nominated “Porcelain War,” about three artists in war-ravaged Ukraine; and “The Spies Among Us,” about East Germany’s notorious Stasi secret police force. Visit unaff.org for a full schedule and other information.
“Bring Them Home / Aiskotahkapiyaaya,” a marvelous documentary about a decades-long initiative by members of the Blackfoot Confederacy to bring wild buffalo (iinnii) back to the Blackfeet Reservation, comes to local theaters this week as part of the national Iinnii Tour. Directed by Ivan MacDonald, Ivy MacDonald and Daniel Glick, narrated by Lily Gladstone and featuring interviews with key American and Canadian figures in the restoration effort, the film chronicles how political issues and rancher opposition were among obstacles facing the initiative’s proponents. Underscoring the immense significance of the buffalo in Blackfeet culture and identity, the film addresses how governmental acts of genocide against Native American people also led to the near extinction of buffalo herds. The movie also shows how the return of the buffalo is helping the Blackfeet community heal. Visually splendid scenes of Montana landscapes with roaming buffalo and a few imposing closeups capture the buffalos’ majesty. The film screens at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco (on Indigenous Peoples Day) at 6 p.m. today and at 4 p.m. Thursday and Saturday. Glick appears in person after today’s screening. The film also screens at 1 and 7 p.m. Tuesday at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood in Berkeley and at 1 and 7 p.m. Wednesday at Rialto Cinemas Sebastopol with Glick attending all screenings. Visit thunderheartfilms.com.
Actor Harris Dickinson (“Beach Rats,” “Scrapper”) displays a gift for stirring, humanist storytelling in “Urchin,” his debut feature as a writer-director and a Ken Loach-style social-realist drama laced with humor and surrealism. The London-set indie centers on self-destructive addict Mike (Frank Dillane) and his everyday struggles to get by and stay clean. Viewers follow Mike as he awakens on the street, panhandles for cash, and, in a troubling passage that illustrates his desperation, assaults and robs a kind stranger who offered to buy him lunch. At other points Mike lands in jail, gets jobs he’s lousy at, finds temporary housing, listens to uninspiring self-help tapes and becomes romantically involved with a coworker who inadvertently causes him to relapse. Dickinson, who has lived around people battling addiction—which inspired “Urchin”—absorbs audiences into Mike’s chaotic, uncertain world. Dreamlike visions—a mystical-looking forest cave and a bizarre journey down a shower drain—that suggest Mike’s mental state add a psychological dimension to the movie even if they don’t quite fit with its prevailing grittiness. Dillane, raw, wired and charismatic, is a riveting protagonist who can be charming but also infuriating as he sabotages his every chance for stability. “Urchin,” an observant, engrossing movie about being trapped in addiction’s cycle from a filmmaker with a caring stamp, opens Friday at the Roxie. Not rated.
“Doppelgangers³,” an experimental documentary directed by London-based multidisciplinary artist Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stepanian on tour, screens at the Roxie at 6 p.m. Sunday. In the film—described as a psychedelic, punky mix of science, memoir and social comment—Hayoun-Stepanian and two lookalikes consider what a queer ecofeminist civilization on the moon might be like. The presentation includes pre-screening performances by drag artists Kochina Rude and KaiKai Bee Michaels and a post-screening discussion with Ben Hayoun-Stepanian and filmmaker Cheryl Dunye.
Twelve spooky movies, mostly classics from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, screen in the Balboa Theater’s Ghost Fest Saturday and Sunday in San Francisco. Saturday’s lineup features “House on Haunted Hill” (1959), “13 Ghosts” (1960), “The Haunting” (1968), “The Legend of Hell House” (1973), “San Francisco Ghost Society’s Balboa Investigation” (2016), “Ghostbusters” (1984), and “House” (1977). On Sunday: “The Changeling” (1980), “Carnival of Souls” (1962), “The Innocents” (1961), “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” (1947) and “The Amityville Horror” (1979). For showtimes, visit balboamovies.com.
Three silent comedies starring early-cinema giants Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin screen at San Francisco’s Marina Theatre at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Buster Keaton’s “The Scarecrow” (1920), Charlie Chaplin’s “The Rink” (1916) and Keaton’s “One Week” (1920) make up the triple feature. The Grand Feature Film Orchestra provides live accompaniment. Tickets are $45 general, $35 for seniors, and $15 for those under 18. Visit lntsf.com/marina-theatre.
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