Special events celebrate film restoration, Italian cinema, Georgian cinema and Brazilian cinema this week. Also coming to theaters: John Wilson’s concrete ideas.
Re:Vision — Festival of Restoration and Rediscovery honors the work of archivists who preserve, restore and provide access to terrific cinema. At the Roxie Theater in San Francisco from Thursday through Sunday, Re:Vision, presented by the nonprofit San Francisco Film Preserve, offers 14 restored films from 18 counties, representing 11 decades of moviemaking.
Each full-length feature is accompanied by a short work. Angie Chen’s “My Name Ain’t Suzie” (Hong Kong, 1985) opens the festival. Shui-Mei, a “salt water girl” finds a way out of poverty in the Red Light district of Wan Chai, in the dramatic film. Bodil Ipsen’s classic noir “Melody of Murder” (Denmark, 1944) closes the festival. The drama involves a serial killer on the streets of Copenhagen who is targeting women named Sonja.
Other selections include “The Outcasts” (1982) featuring Irish folk horror; “Dakan” (Guinea, 1997), considered the first West African film to explore homosexuality; Lewis Milestone’s silent classic “The Garden of Eden” (1928), accompanied live by the Club Foot Orchestra; Aleksandar Petrovic’s “Tri,” an antiwar drama hailing from the golden age of New Yugoslav Film (1963-1973); and Karen Sperling’s “The Waiting Room” (1973), created by a 35-woman film crew operating in a deserted wing of a psychiatric facility. Visit roxie.com.
The Italian Film Festival of Marin County is presenting its 49th annual edition. High-quality films from Italy and an authentic Italian atmosphere are on the bill. Six films screen over six Saturdays in Angelico Concert Hall at Dominican University of California in San Rafael.
“Life Is Life” (“La vita va cost”) opens the festival on Sept. 26. A Sardinian community confronts issues of land preservation and cultural identity in this dramedy directed by Riccardo Milani. On Oct. 3, look for “Sweetheart” (“Gioia Mia”), a drama about an unlikely intergenerational family bond, directed by Margherita Spampinato. Screenings continue through Oct. 31.
The festival is the creation of Lido Cantarutti, a Marin-based teacher, cinephile and advocate for Italian culture.
For more information visit italianfilm.com.
“Georgian Cinema Now: Part 1,” opening at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive on Wednesday, is a 10-day series celebrating contemporary filmmaking from Georgia and its recent renaissance. It’s also serving as a launch to an upcoming planned retrospective. The lineup features a wide range of Georgian films, many detailing struggles Georgian artists are experiencing under a government that suppresses creative freedom.
Films include: “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry,” Elene Naveriani’s drama about a 48-year-old village woman who doesn’t conform to social expectations; “A Tunnel,” Nino Orjonikidze and Vano Arsenishvili’s documentary about a high-speed train, a Georgian valley community and the encroachment of capitalism into daily life; and Levan Akin’s “Crossing,” in which a Georgian woman searches for her estranged trans niece, who may have fled her native Georgia for Istanbul. Special programs include a Georgian Cinema Now symposium, focusing on activism in authoritarian times.
For more information, visit bampfa.org.
The San Francisco Brazilian Film Festival presents its inaugural edition Thursday through Sunday at the Vogue Theatre with 16 films from Brazil, most recent and feature-length. Presented by Cinema Brazil in celebration of Brazilian filmmaking and culture, the fest opens with a screening of “I Only Rest in the Storm,” a docudrama examining modern neo-colonialism and white privilege in a Guinea-Bissau setting, directed by Pedro Pinho.
Closing the festival is “The Blue Trail,” filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro’s drama about a retirement-age woman who takes a trip down the Amazon to fulfill a dream. Other selections include “Gugu’s World,” a coming-of-age tale directed by Allan Deberton; “The Flesh Itself,” A Brazilian horror film; and “Marighella,” a fact-inspired political thriller directed by Wagner Moura. Also look for a 4K-restored presentation of “Central Station,” Walter Salles’ 1998 drama featuring Fernanda Montenegro in her Oscar-nominated turn as a jaded retired schoolteacher who goes on the road to help an abandoned boy find his father.
For more information visit cinemabrazil.org.
In his delectably offbeat “The History of Concrete” opening Friday at the Balboa in San Francisco, filmmaker John Wilson, embarking on a new project following the finale of his “How To” HBO series, takes one of the drabbest, grayest substances on Earth and makes it captivating.
After attending a workshop on how to write a Hallmark movie, Wilson decides to use the Hallmark formula to sell a documentary about concrete, drawing inspiration from New York City streets. His methods are scientific, instructive, absurdist, surreal, and all over the map. He shares that concrete is the second most used substance (after water) on Earth and takes viewers to the Pantheon in Rome, which has the oldest unreinforced concrete dome in the world, the oldest concrete street, created in Ohio in 1891 and the World’s Best Bricklayer contest. And no, concrete is not the same thing as cement.
Other scenes feature a Las Vegas concrete convention; a man who operates Gum Busters, a chewing-gum-removal operation; patches of tattooed skin; and the question of how Wilson can fund his movie. The film loses steam in the meandering final act, during which Wilson gets too eccentric. But there is plenty to enjoy in this warm, intelligent, wildly idiosyncratic excursion into the world of concrete and beyond.
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