An evening of movie-related storytelling benefiting neighborhood theaters, Latino and environmental film festivals, and an eye-opening documentary are happening this week.
Cinema and storytelling come together in an evening hosted by CinemaSF — which operates the Vogue, 4-Star and Balboa theaters, in San Francisco and the soon-to-reopen Park Theater in Lafayette — at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Vogue. Presented by the entertaining Porchlight storytelling series, the program features comedian Scott Capurro, Runaway Films founder Amanda Micheli, actor and writer Susan Mohun, director and playwright Jonathan Moscone, actor and tour guide Reed Kirk Rahlmann and filmmaker Keelan Williams telling true stories on the theme “Lights, Camera, Traction! Perilous Tales of Movie Making.” Porchlight’s Beth Lisick and Arline Klatte host. Proceeds go to CinemaSF’s new nonprofit CinemaSFBay, which is dedicated to keeping neighborhood theaters showcasing independent cinema and providing community filmgoing spaces. Tickets are $25. Visit voguemovies.com for details.
The 17th San Francisco Latino Film Festival opens Thursday, presenting 15 days of cinema from Latin America, the United States and the diaspora at the Roxie Theater, Apple Cinemas, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SPARK Social, Artists’ Television Access and Ninth Street Independent Film Center. Presented by Cine+Mas SF, the festival shows narrative and documentary films featuring genuine Latine experiences and debunking stereotypes and inaccuracies perpetuated by the media and government. “ASCO: Without Permission,” opens the festival at the Roxie. Travis Gutierrez Senger’s documentary profiles Asco, the 1970s Chicano art and activist group whose avant-garde projects, often in Los Angeles streets, challenged representation in the worlds of art, entertainment and news media. Additional features include “American Agitators,” Bay Area director Raymond Telles’ documentary about grassroots organizer Fred Ross Sr.; “A House With Two Dogs,” a 2001-set Argentinean drama about a struggling family and a troubled country; “Own Hand,” a Bolivian thriller about a mob-driven lynching; and “The Most Beautiful Deaths in the World,” a doc about five artists in Washington D.C., whose work explores the trauma of the Salvadoran Civil War. Short-film programs include “Love and Belonging,” “Resilient Women-Short Documentaries,” “Queer Shorts,” “Laughter Is Medicine-Comedy Shorts,” and “Local! Shorts.” Some featured filmmakers will attend. For tickets and a full schedule, visit CineMasSF.org.
Opening Friday is the 2025 Green Festival of San Francisco, an SF IndieFest presentation of cinema with environmental themes, at the 4-Star and online. The weeklong lineup contains narrative and documentary films ranging from investigative documentaries to wilderness-set dramas. Most are paired with short films with compatible subjects. “Transamazonia,” directed by Pia Marais, is the opening night feature. Set in the Amazon rainforest, the drama involves a missionary’s daughter with a reputation as a miracle healer, indigenous identity and illegal loggers. “Train Dreams,” a high-profile drama directed by Clint Bentley, is the closing night attraction. Joel Edgerton plays an unassuming logger struggling to understand his place in a changing world. Documentaries include “The Snake and the Whale,” John Carlos Frey’s investigative film about the fight to remove four Snake River dams that have devastated fish and orca populations. The film is paired with “Behind the View,” about pollution in San Francisco’s Bayview District. Visit greenfest2025.eventive.org for more information.
Also from SF IndieFest, and opening Friday, is the weeklong 20th San Francisco Short Film Festival with 87 high-quality short films from around the world. Themed programs include “Environmental Shorts,” “True Stories,” “An Animated World,” “Funny Ha Ha” and “Halloween Special.” Screenings are at the 4-Star and online at sfshorts2025.eventive.org.
Berkeley-based filmmaker Yoav Potash (“Crime After Crime”) traveled to the Polish town of Gniewoszow in 2014 to document the rededication of a Jewish cemetery. There, he learned terrible secrets about the postwar history of the town, which now has no Jewish residents. The murder of Jews in Gniewoszow did not end when the war was over, Potash states in “Among Neighbors,” his new documentary. His two primary interviewees provide enlightening and shocking testimonies about friendship, betrayal and the Polish response to Nazi atrocities. Yaacov Goldstein, Gniewoszow’s last living Holocaust survivor, describes harrowing wartime experiences, including escaping from a death-camp-bound wagon. He also notes that before the war, Jews and Catholic Poles lived side by side and, during the war, some Poles helped Jewish neighbors. Polish townswoman Pelagia Radecka recalls how, at age 15, she witnessed the murder of a Jewish family — committed by Polish neighbors — after the war and was forced to remain silent about it. She has never stopped wondering what happened to the family’s little boy. Animated sequences featuring magical realism — Goldstein’s mother appears as an angel with protective wings — illustrate the stories. Imaginative visuals can be risky when depicting horrific historical material, but Potash generally pulls it off. The film also examines the persistence of antisemitism and denial on the official front, citing a 2018 law banning accusations of Polish complicity in the Holocaust. “Among Neighbors,” a memorable documentary that combines affecting personal stories with history that demands to be known, opens at the Vogue Theater on Friday and also screens Oct. 29-30, at Lark Theater in Larkspur; and Saturday at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Mountain View. Filmmaker Q&As follow most screenings.
The post Movies: Porchlight-CinemaSF benefit, Latino, Green and Short festivals in SF, ‘Among Neighbors’ appeared first on Local News Matters.