Mill Valley Film Festival 2017

MVFF Marin Magazine’s Ultimate Guide to the 40th

M ILL VALLE Y FIL M FE STIVAL

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Welcome

MARIN MAGAZINE

Let the Show Begin It’s our fourth year of partnering with the California Film Institute and the Mill Valley Film Festival for our MVFF guide and we are more excited about it than ever. What makes this year so special?

The always popular event turns 40. In this issue, read how founder/executive director Mark Fishkin and director of programming Zoë Elton grew this festival into what it is today. Our regular writers Bernard Boo, David Templeton and Jan Wahl are also back, with stories on theater tech, sports films, famous Bay Area movie scenes and much more. And if you dare, check out Peter Crooks’ haunting look at horror master John Carpenter’s Marin influences.

We hope you enjoy this year’s guide as the festival celebrates its 40th year and you celebrate all things film.

— marin magazine staff editors

MVFF

ULTIMATE GUIDE TO THE 40TH MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL

PUBLISHER / EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Nikki Wood

Editorial EDITOR

Mimi Towle MANAGING EDITOR

Daniel Jewett ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Kasia Pawlowska SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

Leela Lindner COPY EDITOR

Cynthia Rubin CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Bernard Boo, Peter Crooks, Kirsten Jones Neff, David Templeton, Jan Wahl

Art ART DIRECTOR

Rachel Griffiths PRODUCTION MANAGER

With special thanks to our sponsors.

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Advertising ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

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Contents 8 CONTRIBUTORS The writers who helped make this guide a success.

18 MOVIE MAGIC A knack for picking the hits.

20 CLOSE-UP A love letter 10 BEHIND THE SCENES Zoë Elton and Mark Fishkin celebrate the fest’s 40th.

to Bay Area films.

22 PERFECT PLAY Favorite sports films.

12 SPOTLIGHT MVFF Award recipient Todd Haynes.

26 MVFF SCHEDULE It’s quite

14 COMING SOON The best

a lineup: when and where to see this year’s films.

promotional shorts.

35 LOCATION Horror master 16 HIGHLIGHTS Special

John Carpenter loves Marin.

features, programs and music.

Alex French

38 MOVIE QUIZ How many quotes do you know?

40 SHOP TALK A Sausalito documentary distributor.

Administration/Web OFFICE MANAGER

Hazel Jaramillo DIGITAL MARKETING ASSOCIATE

Max Weinberg

44 TAKE A SEAT The Smith Rafael Film Center keeps fans coming back.

48 STARGAZING Actors and filmmakers love the MVFF spotlight and red carpet.

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Contributors

Todd Haynes, Fear the Fog What is your favorite movie? Singin’ in the Rain, closely followed by This Is Spinal Tap. What standout fact did you learn while contributing to this guide? Working on a piece about John Carpenter filming The Fog in the North Bay, I was delighted to learn how the lighthouse in Point Reyes inspired the film and that, suitably, Point Reyes is the second foggiest place in the United States.

Where else has your work appeared? In Diablo, San Francisco, Santa Cruz Style, Athletics and San Francisco Giants magazines. My true crime book The Setup: A True Story of Dirty Cops, Soccer Moms and Reality TV was published in 2015 and has been optioned for a movie.

Bernard Boo Writer Big Birthday, Theater Tech What is your favorite movie? Mulholland Drive.

What standout fact did you learn while contributing to this guide? Much of the Smith Rafael Film Center — from the murals to the chandeliers — is original from 1938.

Where else has your work appeared? PopMatters.com, DenofGeek.com, WeGotThisCovered.com.

Jan Wahl Writer Oscar’s Favorite, It’s All About Place What is your favorite movie? I have many favorite films, but the one I am loving right now is Network.

What standout fact did you learn while contributing to this guide? I learned that many of my favorites were initially brought to me by the Mill Valley Film Festival, including The King’s Speech and Nebraska.

Where else has your work appeared? On TV and radio, including currently on KCBS AM/FM. I have reviewed books for the San Francisco Chronicle, interviewed celebrities for Frontiers and written lectures on film for many organizations.

8

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Peter Crooks Writer

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Behind the Scenes

Big Birthday Mill Valley Film Festival founder/executive director Mark Fishkin and director of programming Zoë Elton take a look back at the festival’s 40-year history. BY BERNARD BOO

What would you say was the festival’s watershed moment?

Zoë: One of the watershed moments would be when we showed Shine and Secrets and Lies as co–opening night films. Both of those films went on to awards honors. That was the beginning of a moment when we started working deeply with distributors whose films were on the awards track. That was when the festival began its evolution into being the California portal for the awards season, which is what it’s been ever since.

How has your relationship to the community of Marin developed over time?

Mark: We’ve been educating [about film] in a very limited geographical area and there have been generations of people who

Zoë Elton and Mark Fishkin

have influenced how their sons, daughters and grandkids look at film. If Marin became known internationally as this place where film is integrated into people’s lives, that would be a great thing.

What were some of the major challenges you faced in developing the festival over the years?

Mark: Financial challenges are always there. When we started the festival, film wasn’t considered an art ... or something that was a part of philanthropic ideals. There were programming challenges as well. Convincing studios to give you films 30, 40 years ago was a tough thing to do.

What can audiences expect from the festival this year and in the future?

Zoë: One of the bedrocks we’ve developed is our three initiatives. Active Cinema [explores global issues], Viva El Cine has been a response to the growing Latino and Hispanic communities in the Bay Area, and Mind the Gap is our women’s initiative.

Mark: It’s also about how you build audiences in this age where you have streaming, bigger screens and better sound [at home], audiences that have not been exposed to foreign language films at all. [We’re keeping] alive that goal of celebrating festival films that we’ve grown and supported for 40 years.

TOMMY LAU

What was your vision for the festival in the early years? In what ways has it grown over the past 40 years?

Mark: Initially, I was appalled at the lack of opportunities for independent films, and our focus was primarily on Bay Area filmmakers. The festival was meant to be a place where innovative ideas could be presented. The seeds were planted in the very first years for what we are now — the noncompetitive nature, films that represent a multitude of audiences. As time went on, different influences made us adapt. It’s been a progression that matures along the way, and I like that.

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Spotlight

Todd Haynes This year’s winner of the MVFF Award is one of America’s most-loved independent film directors. BY PETER CROOKS information and to interpret the drawings into the narrative. Of course, it’s my job to bring the story to the screen, so I have my own techniques for that. In this case, I went back and watched movies that I loved when I was a kid, films that had wonderful performances by children.

What films did you refer to? The Miracle Worker made a huge impact on me, and it has a lot of relevance to this film. Arthur Penn’s film of that story is an incredibly fascinating and beautifully made film.

It is also a film about language, which is relevant to Wonderstruck. I watched Sounder, Herbert Ritts’ film, which is a beautiful and moving story. Also, How Green Was My Valley and National Velvet.

Each of your films features such remarkable craft. What is the creative process like and what kinds of decisions do you make in preproduction? It is an incredibly fun and exhilarating part of the process, and I always wish for more time when I’m making a film. One of the real stages from moving off the page of the script and toward production is creating an image book, or a mood book. That’s really where I start getting my hands wet. I’ll gather paintings and photography and begin putting together a treatise about the stylistic language of the film. I also like to put a library of music and sounds together, not necessarily music that will be used in the film but that informs 12

the feel of the film. I’ll use the book in my conversations with Ed Lachmann, who has been my director of photography on the last few films that I have made.

How did the Wonderstruck project come together? I read Brian’s script, which he adapted from his book, before I read the book. All of his work is so informed by his knowledge of movies and the silent era.

His script was already showing this movement toward a truly cinematic language.

And his original book did something very, very unique, straddling text with image, which required a special engagement with the reader. The reader needs to fill in

You have visited the Mill Valley Film Festival in the past. How was your previous experience? I was there for I’m Not There, and it was just an incredibly special visit. There was this great little concert by local musicians who had some connection to Bob Dylan. The filmgoers and I had an incredible conversation about the film, which was particularly memorable.

How important are film festivals in this age of multiplexes and on-demand platforms? It seems festivals are the last remaining place that film buffs can see new and experimental works, then have a conversation about the film after the screening. I have to say that not all film festivals are like that, unfortunately.

I’ve been to a lot of them — too many get caught up in the glitz and celebrity.

However, the Mill Valley Film Festival is definitely an exception. The filmgoers are so enlightened and informed and engaged, and so passionate about the films. From my previous experience, it felt like the festival and the filmgoers were really interested in the work. I’m really looking forward to coming back for that reason.

DOREEN KENNEDY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

T

he words “a new film by Todd Haynes” are enough to draw any true movie fan to a theater. Haynes, one of independent cinema’s most fascinating filmmakers, brought back the Technicolor grandeur of Douglas Sirk’s 1950s melodramas in Far From Heaven, cast six different actors to play the different stages of Bob Dylan’s life in I’m Not There, and directed Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara to Oscar nominations in Carol, the brilliant adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel. His newest film, Wonderstruck, is an adaptation of Brian Selznick’s dazzling children’s book from 2011. Working from Selznick’s screenplay, Haynes weaves together two tales of children searching for their identity — one from the 1920s, the other from the 1970s — into a spellbinding story. Wonderstruck will have its California premiere on October 13, and Haynes will be recognized with the Mill Valley Film Festival’s MVFF Award for his career as a director and screenwriter.

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Coming Soon

Selling Shorts The Mill Valley Film Festival has to promote itself too. To that end, the festival has continually produced some of the most creative promotional “trailers” in the industry. BY DAVID TEMPLETON Over the course of its full 40 years, the Mill Valley Film Festival has become famous for more than just its parties, visiting celebrities and tendency to show movies that go on to win Oscars. The MVFF has also become known for its trailers, those imaginative, entertaining promotional shorts created each year to promote the festival in amusing, sometimes baffling, sometimes challenging ways.

“People call them trailers, those little film festival shorts,” notes Dennis Scheyer, founder of the San Francisco advertising agency that created some of the most memorable such festival promos between 1996 and 2010. “The only problem is, they’re not really trailers,” he says. “Trailers are actually built from clips of some upcoming movie. What the festival makes are short little films that promote the festival itself, not any particular movie. For what it’s worth, the Mill Valley Film Festival has had some of the best promotional shorts ever made for any film festival anywhere.”

One of the earliest shorts — still considered one of the greatest by those who remember it — was a legendary threeminute piece produced for the MVFF’s eighth outing. It was released in fall 1985.

Though Scheyer had nothing to do with that one, he says its influence on future festival promos has been enormous.

“When I first came on board to start making shorts for the festival, that’s the one everyone pointed to as the cream of the crop,” he says. “It’s the one everybody always compares all others to.”

Created by the San Francisco ad agency of Goodby, Berlin & Silverstein (the same folks behind the “Got milk?” campaign), the wry-humored “mockumentary” blended a hip surf-rock soundtrack with clips of “average” Mill 14

“The Mill Valley Film Festival has had some of the best promotional shorts ever made for any film festival anywhere.”

Valley residents — sushi chefs, trash collectors, butchers, cops and kids eating breakfast — all waxing eloquent about independent film and foreign movies, debating the differences between the French New Wave and New Zealand experimentalism, deriding their bosses for not knowing who Joseph Papp was.

The short ended with a gag featuring an auto mechanic at work — only his legs visible, sticking out from under a car — as he spiritedly relays a cinema-themed joke to his fellow grease-jockeys.

“God’s up in Heaven, right?” he says.

“God looks down at his calendar and he sees the end of the world is coming up. And he decides somebody should film it, right?

So he has Saint Peter go down and shop the property for a director. Saint Peter comes back and says he can’t find a director.

“God says, ‘Well, what about Lucas?’

“St. Peter says, ‘He won’t do it. He’ll produce it, but he won’t direct it!’

‘That’s no good,’ God says. ‘How about Spielberg?’

‘He can’t do it,’ says Saint Peter. ‘It’s something to do with his contract! How about Coppola?’

“God says, ‘Coppola? Coppola? I gotta make a profit on this thing!’ ” The little comedy classic can still be viewed on YouTube and other web video platforms.

It was a promo created 10 years later in 1995, Scheyer says, that inspired him to reach out to Mark Fishkin, founder of the festival, to offer his services.

“It has Jesus in a taxicab,” he recalls.

“It was extremely controversial and not well received. I remember seeing that and calling up the production company and saying, ‘What was that? I could make a more effective film than that!’ And they said, ‘Well, maybe you should!’ So I

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approached Mark, we talked, and I ended up making 14 or 15 of those promos over the next 14 years. More, actually, because some years, we made two or three.”

The first of those, produced for the 1996 festival, was titled “Great Moments in Mill Valley Cinema History.” Not only did it challenge the supremacy of the 1985 mockumentary, it gave the festival one of its first great taglines.

“We basically took three famous films and redid one or two scenes as if the movies took place in Mill Valley,” Scheyer says. The short begins with an aging tiedyed hippie re-creating John Travolta’s sexy-walk from the opening of Saturday Night Fever, moves on to James Bond being instructed by Q in how to operate his new mountain bike (complete with ejector seat and machine guns in the handlebars), and concludes with a spoof of Apocalypse Now in which Colonel Kurtz talks poetically about coffee. The final words in the film are, “The horror, the horror … the latte, the latte.”

“That slogan was on the T-shirts that year,” Scheyer says proudly. “All the volunteers were wearing shirts that said, “The horror, the horror … the latte, the latte.”

So began the longest single continuous string of festival promos by any one filmmaker or agency. Remarkably, no two were alike, changing up styles and approaches wildly from year to year.

In 1998, Scheyer oversaw the creation of an animated musical short titled “Welcome to Mill Valley.”

“We used a 16-piece orchestra, oldfashioned cell animation, and got Bud E. Luv to help sing the song,” he says of the film he describes as “an animated tour of Mill Valley, with an elephant. Hey, I always tried to do things that were nearly impossible to do.”

For the 2000 MVFF, Scheyer produced one of the most creative of the bunch, a trailer based on Lars von Trier’s Dogme 95 style of filmmaking.

Three filmmakers — Anton Beebe, Mark Dektor and Chris Milk — were asked to make a short piece meeting the following requirements: it must create conflict between two people talking about film; it must involve Mill Valley; there must be an accident of coincidence; someone must say, “We agree on everything, except film”; there must be goldfish.

“They were all amazing, in different ways, and we tied them together with great music,” says Scheyer.

Another highlight, directed by acclaimed documentarian George Hickenlooper, was created for the 28th MVFF in 2005. Titled “Remnants,” it re-created the true story of a janitor who accidentally swept up and threw away a high-priced “art piece” made up of a broken wineglass and a shoe. In the film, as the janitor tosses the pricey bag of trash in the Dumpster, a slogan appears: “There’s no mistaking great film.”

“I’m a slogan guy,” says Scheyer.

“We kept that one around for the next few shorts.”

From Broadway to Movies The very first movie trailer to screen in the United States, oddly enough, was not a preview of a movie. It was, in fact, a short promotional film describing the 1913 Broadway stage musical The Pleasure Seekers.

A brainchild of theater publicist Nils Granlund, the short was screened throughout the Loews theater chain in and around New York City. It was viewed at the time as a stunt, one that was phenomenally effective. Soon other Broadway shows were being advertised through the medium of short motion pictures or slideshows screened along with movies. It took less than a year for the “stunt” to make the leap from plays to movies.

Dennis Scheyer

His last shorts for the festival came in 2010, a two-parter featuring Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and actor Peter Coyote. In the films, the two take turns imagining what it would be like to have each other’s jobs, and at the end of each, one of them suggests they go see a film at the Mill Valley Film Festival.

“There’s a Danish film on about a hermaphrodite with no arms and no legs,” Ulrich says in one of the shorts.

“Cool,” says Coyote, appreciatively — and you can tell he means it.

“Peter and Lars wrote those,” Scheyer says. “They said that the only way they would play themselves is if we used their script. So we did. And then they insisted that I direct it. So I did. It was tremendous fun, shooting that. And it turned out great.

“Then again,” he adds with a smile, “I personally think all of the ‘trailers’ we made were great.”

Though there is some debate, most historians agree the firstever motion picture trailer was for the 1914 Charlie Chaplin film The Property Man and was constructed of film snippets culled from the raw footage of the movie.

More trailers followed, and a new promotional industry was born.

Today, no trip to the theater is complete without a serving of three, four, five or more trailers describing “coming attractions.”

Trailers are so named, by the way, because in those early days, they were played at the end of the main feature. When it soon became clear that audiences were departing during the trailer, the previews were moved from after the movie to in front of it.

But the name “trailer” somehow stuck.

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Highlights

Coming Soon Special features and programs not to be missed. BY KASIA PAWLOWSKA

Spotlight: Dee Rees Saturday, October 7 In Mudbound, director Dee Rees tells the story of Laura McAllan, who is trying to raise her children on her husband’s Mississippi Delta farm, a place she finds foreign and frightening. The film stars Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Clarke, Jason Mitchell and Mary J. Blige.

Sarah Jarosz at Sweetwater Music Hall Monday, October 9 From Texas bluegrass jam regular to two-time Grammy award winner for

Best Folk Album and Best American Roots Performance, singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz’s creds make her the epitome of contemporary folk, Americana and roots music.

StoryCenter and the Mill Valley Public Library Tuesday, October 10 In association with the Mill Valley Film Festival and Berkeley’s StoryCenter, the Mill Valley Public Library is hosting the premiere of California Listens: The Documentary and a screening of nine short films by Mill Valley residents.

The Manzarek Rogers Tribute Band Thursday, October 12 Roy Rogers is an eight-time Grammy nominee and award-winning producer who is recognized the world over for his virtuoso slide guitar work. His film work includes One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the Grammy-nominated soundtrack for The Hot Spot. Original members of the

Manzarek and Rogers band, including Roy, are performing at this event.

Wonderstruck Screening and Tribute to Todd Haynes Friday, October 13 Critically acclaimed director and screenwriter Todd Haynes is appearing onstage for a conversation and being presented with the MVFF Award in recognition of his exemplary career.

Haynes was last here in 2007 for MVFF30 with I’m Not There.

Not Alone: Screening and Panel Talking About Teen Suicide Saturday, October 14 Many residents are aware that the controversial Netflix original series in which a teenage girl ends her life, 13 Reasons Why, directed by Tom McCarthy (Spotlight), was filmed in and around Marin County. This panel aims to delve deeper into the issue.

Spotlight: Andrew Garfield Saturday, October 14 Directed by Andy Serkis, in the film Breathe Garfield stars as Robin Cavendish, who after contracting polio at age 28 is confined to a bed and given only months to live. With help from his family and from inventor Teddy Hall, Cavendish devotes the rest of his life to helping fellow patients and the disabled.

40th Anniversary Benefit for CFI Sunday, October 15 Huey Lewis and the News return to their roots for two special benefit shows, at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Mill Valley Film Festival. Proceeds will benefit the efforts to restore Mill Valley’s treasured CinéArts Sequoia theater.

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Tribute to Sean Penn Saturday, October 7 Five-time Academy Award nominee and two-time winner Sean Penn is being recognized for his contributions to cinema, in both the acting and directing categories. Penn is receiving an MVFF Award and will be engaging in an onstage conversation.

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Movie Magic

Oscar’s Favorite

Our hometown film festival has a knack for picking the hits. BY JAN WAHL

REVERSAL OF FORTUNE 1990 He was a wealthy socialite with the evocative name of Claus von Bulow. When he is accused of giving his wife a nearlethal overdose of insulin, the socialite hires lawyer Alan Dershowitz to defend him. Based on the book by Dershowitz; Jeremy Irons stands out as the creepy and eccentric Claus, winning the Oscar for Best Actor.

BULLETS OVER BROADWAY 1994 These days, Woody Allen comes to Mill Valley to play with his New Orleans jazz band. But his onscreen presence has consistently been at the MVFF. Bullets Over Broadway takes us to Jazz Age New York with a poetic hit man, a dramatic diva, a matinee idol and an aging ingenue. One of Allen’s best, with a Supporting Oscar win for Dianne Wiest.

also lived an openly gay life. Ian McKellen stars with an almost unrecognizable Lynn Redgrave. McKellen has since been back to the festival, giving me a fun moment of live television. He was promoting a film and had just returned from getting knighted by the Queen. Since it was live news, his PR person nervously asked me not to mention that Sir Ian is a gay man himself. As soon as I was on the air with him, I said, “Congratulations on your knighthood.” “Yes,” declared Ian, “an old queen knighted an old queen.”

THE KING’S SPEECH 2010 Back to Geoffrey Rush, this time opposite Colin Firth in one of the best films of the last decade, The King’s Speech. It is based on the true story of King George VI, suffering since childhood with a stammer and seeking the help of an irreverent, unconventional speech therapist. Actor, director, screenplay and film all took home Oscars, but the people who viewed it at the MVFF were the true winners — they saw it before all the hype and promotion.

SPOTLIGHT 2015 From Network (a film so prescient it plays like a documentary today) to All the President’s Men to Sweet Smell of Success, movies about the media and journalists remind us of the relevance of film. Spotlight tells a story that might have just changed the world with its exposé of a church cover-up in Boston. Leave it to the MVFF to have us all buzzing about this remarkable movie after its screening but before it won Best Picture.

SHINE 1996 One can often meet talented artists at the festival, including Geoffrey Rush. He and I go back a number of years, to when I helped promote Philip Kaufman’s Quills, in which he starred.

Geoffrey and I had to explain to some people who the Marquis de Sade was. Not easy! The movie he won the Oscar for was Shine, shown at the MVFF in 1996. The story of pianist David Helfgott goes from psychiatric institutions to world stages.

Helfgott himself plays the piano for his screen counterparts.

GODS AND MONSTERS 1998 The Mill Valley Film Festival takes chances, doesn’t play it safe and ignores most of the superhero-type Hollywood movies.

When the festival premiered Gods and Monsters, it had all of us raving about James Whale, the director of Universal horror films like Bride of Frankenstein and The Invisible Man who 18

And a few more …

Be sure to also add Frida, Requiem for a Dream, The Queen, Moonlight and La La Land to your must-see list.

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The excitement pops like fireworks as film lovers gear up for a movie marvel at the Mill Valley Film Festival.

Whether you’ve been attending since its inception in 1978 or more recently, it’s always a surprise. Here are a few Oscar-winning films that premiered at the MVFF and are now available on DVD.

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Close-Up

It’s All About Place The Bay Area is made for the movies. Twisted streets, Rembrandt shadows and light, trees and eccentric characters lurking behind them — this area is always ready for its closeup. The car chases filmed here can make us gasp or laugh: Bullitt or What’s Up, Doc? Hitchcock chose Santa Rosa for his own favorite, Shadow of a Doubt, then continued the local love affair by shooting The Birds in Bodega Bay and Vertigo in San Francisco. Film buffs can imagine stopping for a drink at Spreckels Mansion, aka Chez Joey, channeling Sinatra, Novak and Hayworth, then heading to Sam Spade’s Detective Agency at 111 Sutter. Or, in Marin, go to an American Graffiti–style sock hop at Tam High or just try and avoid that gigantic octopus on the Golden Gate Bridge from It Came From Beneath the Sea. Musicals also found inspirational settings in the Bay Area. The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Flower Drum Song (1961) stars the scene-stealing Jack Soo as a fast-living Chinatown nightclub owner being coerced into an arranged marriage. Co-star Nancy Kwan swings down Grant Avenue, “the greatest street” she knows. I was blessed to be friends with the producer of this film, Ross Hunter, who was determined to cast as many Asian actors as possible and also to use Bay Area locations, including Twin Peaks and North Beach.

Moving a bit more into the future, Star Trek IV: The Journey Home (1986) used Marin and San Francisco sites to advance an unusual and timely conservation plot. The

group ends up in 1980s San Francisco, with Spock and company trying to learn the lingo of the time.

Heart and Souls (1993) stars Robert Downey Jr. as a mortal whose body is inhabited by four lost souls. Charles Grodin, Alfre Woodard and a fine supporting cast have unfinished business with him and use the streets of the city to argue for their freedom.

The cult classic Harold and Maude (1971) brought us a deadpan Bud Cort as a disillusioned young man who meets a vivacious 80-year-old (Ruth Gordon), and even Harold’s snobbish mother in Hillsborough (Vivian Pickles) can’t stop the love. The Cat Stevens music and Bay Area locations make this film timeless.

If you find yourself leaving Marin’s San Quentin, be sure to check the backseat — you might find Humphrey Bogart. Lauren Bacall and Agnes Moorehead also star in the murder mystery Dark Passage (1947). Parts of the movie were filmed on location in San Francisco, including on the Filbert Steps and on a cable car. The Streamline Moderne Malloch Building on Telegraph Hill stood in for the apartment of Irene Jansen (Bacall).

Every time I ride by the San Rafael Civic Center I think of the sci-fi film Gattaca (1997). The movie gives us a caste system of “perfect” humans, and even Gore Vidal shows up. Dark themes seem to go well with Bay Area locations, including D.O.A. (the 1950 original), Experiment in Terror (1962), The Conversation (1974), THX 1138 (1971) and Dirty Harry (1971). Other films are content to use our local backdrops just to tell great stories, including Chef (2014), High Anxiety (1977), Days of Wine and Roses (1962), Blue Jasmine (2013), The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), and Tucker: A Man and His Dream (1988).

“Today in San Francisco, film buffs can stop for a drink at Spreckels Mansion, aka Chez Joey, channeling Sinatra, Novak and Hayworth.”

20

ENTERTAINMENT PICTURES/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (MIDDLE); UNITED ARCHIVES GMBH/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (BOTTOM RIGHT); MPTVIMAGES.COM (BOTTOM LEFT)

A love letter to films set right here in the Bay Area. BY JAN WAHL

MARIN MAGAZINE 2017 MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL GUIDE

020 LocationsMarin.MVFF2017.indd 20

9/5/17 10:25 AM

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Perfect Play

October Surprise It’s the month for baseball and movies in Marin. Here are some of our favorite sports films to enjoy between screenings. BY DAVID TEMPLETON

Why? Because October is when your team, if they have done their job, move into the post-season and push toward a spot in the World Series. October is also when the Mill Valley Film Festival takes place. For an audience member, it’s a uniquely MVFF thing to have a movie end and see cellphones light up all over the theater amid many echoes of softly whispered “Who’s winning?” and “What’s the score?”

In honor of the whole baseball-meets-movie convergence that is October in Marin, here are some recommendations for films that capture the passion and excitement of competitive athletics. With any luck, there may be a sports movie or two in the film festival lineup this year, too — whether or not the S.F. Giants are still in the running to compete with it.

Let’s get the obvious one out of the way.

The Natural is, to its fans, the greatest baseball movie of all time. At least, the greatest that is actually about baseball: one could argue that Field of Dreams, except for the moment at the end where James Earl Jones lectures Kevin Costner about baseball and America, is actually a road-trip/fantasy movie with occasional baseball flourishes. Bull Durham, also with Costner, has a bit more actual ball-field action, but it’s basically a love story featuring two baseball players (Costner and Tim Robbins) and a groupie (Susan Sarandon) who likes them both; still, its baseball scenes, by

22

any measure, are amazing and are more grounded in reality than The Natural’s.

The Natural, starring former Marinite Robert Redford and directed by onetime Marin resident Barry Levinson, shows us the day-in, day-out grind of baseball in the 1930s — though with a strong Arthurian twist that plays better in Bernard Malamud’s significantly darker book.

Regardless of its faults, The Natural is a visually stunning film, and the baseballgame scenes with Redford as Roy Hobbs and his Excalibur-like bat Wonderboy are as magnificent as they are preposterous.

And there they are, the big three baseball movies.

“Those are the pantheon films,” says KNBR morning-man and author Brian Murphy, whose sports books include

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9/5/17 11:47 AM

SCREENPROD/PHOTONONSTOP/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (RIGHT); PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (LEFT)

It’s not easy being a movie fan and a baseball fan in Marin.

AF ARCHIVE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Bull Durham

SCREENPROD/PHOTONONSTOP/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (RIGHT); PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (LEFT)

AF ARCHIVE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

The Natural

Worth the Wait as well as Never. Say. Die.: The San Francisco Giants—2012 World Series Champions and The San Francisco 49ers: From Kezar to Levi Stadium. “There have been a lot of great baseball movies over the years,” he adds, “but those three films are the essentials.” Despite their flaws, which he grudgingly concedes to, Murphy believes these films capture a love for baseball that resonates with true fans.

“They are things of beauty,” he says. “They are pure and perfect. Bull Durham for realism. The Natural for the epic mythology.

And Field of Dreams standing in between them both, soaking up a little of each.”

No discussion of baseball movies should overlook A League of Their Own, however. Penny Marshall’s 1992 homage to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which kept baseball alive during the 1940s when most pro players were drafted into the war effort, is famous for the Tom Hanks line “There’s no crying in baseball.” But it’s the performances by Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Rosie O’Donnell and Madonna that anchor the film in the sheer, pure love of getting to play baseball. No other sports film so thoroughly captures the infectious joy of playing the game and playing it hard.

Bend It Like Beckham

Before I move on to other sports, there’s one more Kevin Costner film that deserves a mention for its observations about the love of the baseball.

Actually titled For Love of the Game, the 1999 film is about a big-league pitcher attempting to throw a perfect game on his final day as a player. The film cuts back and forth to his on-again off-again romance with a single mother.

“The scenes of Costner on the mound are easily some of the best baseball stuff ever put on film,” Murphy says. “His way of talking to himself, his rapport with the catcher — played by the great John C. Reilly — it’s just golden. But all of the other stuff is crap. It’s awful. If you could take that movie and edit it down to just Costner and Reilly and the ball and the mound, you’d have one of the best baseball movies of all time.”

As for films about other feats of athletic prowess, Murphy says the best are always about the underdogs. From Bend It Like Beckham, the 2002 comedy-drama about a driven English soccer player from a strict Indian family that does not approve of its women playing sports, to 2015’s Creed, the best of the Rocky movies, focused on the coming-of-age of the Italian Stallion’s

dead best friend’s angry son, there’s nothing more inspiring than watching a person struggling and succeeding when no one believes he or she actually can.

Finally, although it’s a controversial choice, some local writers (guilty as charged) have named the locally shot 1986 Bruce Dern drama On the Edge the greatest sports movie of all time.

Directed by MVFF favorite Rob Nilsson, it’s the tale of a disgraced 40-something former cross-country runner (Dern), defying odds and everyone he knows to compete in a grueling race based on the annual Dipsea race. Featuring a thrilling scene in which the other runners help keep Dern on the trail as officials wait around every corner to pull him out, as well as a climax that still draws tears for its sheer beauty and sense of surprise, On the Edge is the ultimate underdog-makesgood story. And it’s all the better for being so little known — an underdog film about an underdog athlete.

“Every good sports story is the story of an underdog,” Murphy says. “It’s about an underdog achieving greatness against all odds, or at least getting close enough to smell it and falling short. That’s drama, man. That’s sports.”

MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL GUIDE 2017 MARIN MAGAZINE

022-023 SportsFilms_MVFF2017.indd 23

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9/5/17 12:16 PM

The Foundation Of Your Home Starts With Us

INTERIOR DESIGN BY ROBERT FEDERIGHI

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JOURNEY BACK 200 MILLION YEARS...

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Fossilized forever, but only here for a limited time.

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8/30/17 5:36 PM 8/31/17 12:46 PM

Master Plan

THURSDAY OCTOBER 5

Festival Schedule: October 5–8 SEQUOIA

RAFAEL 2

1

7:00 PM DARKEST HOUR

7:00 PM DARKEST HOUR

7:00 PM LOVING VINCENT

1

2

1

RAFAEL 2

3

12:00 PM HUMAN FLOW

2:00 PM EARTH WISDOM FOR A WORLD IN CRISIS

10:00 AM OWLS & MICE

2:30 PM AN ACT OF DEFIANCE

3:00 PM WESTERN

3:30 PM THE VENERABLE W

6:15 PM LAW OF THE LAND

6:00 PM FACES, PLACES

6:30 PM TRIBUTE: KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS DARKEST HOUR

9:00 PM CIAO, CIAO 83 min

8:30 PM DIRTBAG: THE LEGEND OF FRED BECKEY

12:00 PM HAPPENING: A CLEAN ENERGY REVOLUTION

11:30 AM ALPHAGO

12:45 PM PORCUPINE LAKE

2:15 PM FÉLICITÉ

3:45 PM SONG OF GRANITE

5:30 PM THE DIVINE ORDER

6:30 PM AN ACT OF DEFIANCE

8:30 PM A RIVER BELOW

9:30 PM 5@5 ALL THE MADMEN

114 min

114 min

FRIDAY OCTOBER 6

140 min

3:30 PM THE INLAND ROAD 79 min

6:15 PM MAD HANNANS 85 min

9:00 PM IN SYRIA

82 min

4:45 PM 5@5 GOLDEN YEARS 60 min

6:45 PM THE LEISURE SEEKER 112 min

86 min

9:30 PM THE HI DE HO SHOW

12:00 PM REVOLTING RHYMES

10:30 AM OWLS & MICE

3:00 PM 5@5 A BETTER FUTURE

1:00 PM KIM SWIMS

6:30 PM SPOTLIGHT: DEE REES MUDBOUND

3:45 PM THE DESERT BRIDE

76 min 77 min

134 min

10:00 PM FOURTH MOVEMENT 115 min

2 7:00 PM OPENING NIGHT FILM TBA

94 min

SEQUOIA

SATURDAY OCTOBER 7

CINEMA

1

80 min

115 min

114 min

123 min 90 min

119 min 89 min

96 min

100 min

80 min 76 min 78 min

6:15 PM FILM STARS DON’T DIE...

105 min

9:15 PM THE DEEP SKY

75 min

3:00 PM TRIBUTE: SEAN PENN 90 min

6:00 PM THE PARTY 71 min

8:45 PM UNDER THE RADAR: 70 YEARS OF POLISH ANIMATION

90 min

124 min 96 min

117 min

85 min

104 min 123 min 70 min

90 min

86 min

12:30 PM METAMORPHOSIS: JUNIOR YEAR

11:45 AM THE COUSIN

12:00 PM SPOOR

11:45 AM THE RELATIONTRIP

12:15 PM 5@5 TUMBLE AND TWIRL

3:00 PM THE LAST ANIMALS

2:30 PM LET THE SUNSHINE IN

3:15 PM THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

2:45 PM THE SANDGLASS

2:30 PM THE INSULT

6:00 PM MARY JANES: THE WOMEN OF WEED

5:30 PM A FANTASTIC WOMAN

6:00 PM CITY OF JOY

5:30 PM ARRANGIARSI (PIZZA... & THE ART OF LIVING)

SUNDAY OCTOBER 8

75 min 92 min

85 min

8:45 PM THE SQUARE 142 min

26

93 min 95 min

103 min

8:15 PM BPM (BEATS PER MINUTE) 143 min

128 min

115 min

6:30 PM TRIBUTE: HOLLY HUNTER 90 min

9:00 PM TORCH 100 min

89 min

124 min 75 min

8:45 PM BILL FRISELL, A PORTRAIT 115 min

68 min

113 min

96 min

8:30 PM WESTERN 119 min

MARIN MAGAZINE 2017 MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL GUIDE

026-031 Schedule.1017_v2.indd 26

9/5/17 10:04 AM

KEY

US CINEMA WORLD CINEMA

VALLEY OF THE DOCS filmHOOD

5@5 SHORTS MUSIC

SPECIAL BEHIND THE SCREENS

M

LARK

93 min

SWEETWATER

7:00 PM THE BALLAD OF LEFTY BROWN 111 min

8:45 PM PORCUPINE LAKE

---- OLD MILL PARK ----

85 min

7:00 PM MOANA 107 min

OF

MVFF MUSIC: MAD HANNANS Doors: 8:00 PM Show: 9:00 PM

6:00 PM THE LONG SHADOW 87 min

6:00 PM WOODSTOCK 220 min

---- OUTDOOR ART CLUB ----

72 min

10:00 AM – 6:00 PM MIND THE GAP SUMMIT

FROM CALIFORNIA TO HAITI: SCREENING & CONCERT FILM Doors: 6:30 PM Show: 7:00 PM MUSIC Doors: 8:30 PM Show: 9:00 PM

11:00 AM REVOLTING RHYMES

1:00 PM MEMBER SCREENING: DEALT

1:15 PM THE MYSTERY OF GREEN HILL

5:30 PM THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES

76 min 81 min

3:30 PM THE PARTY 71 min

6:00 PM THE DIVINE ORDER 96 min

8:45 PM LAW OF THE LAND 90 min

3:00 PM CANNABIS CULTURE & THE NEW ENTREPRENEUR

85 min

110 min

---- OUTDOOR ART CLUB ----

90 min

2:30 PM METAMORPHOSIS: A SCREENWRITING IMMERSIVE FOR TEENS 150 min

MVFF MUSIC: WAILING SOULS Doors: 7:00 PM Show: 8:00 PM

MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL GUIDE 2017 MARIN MAGAZINE

026-031 Schedule.1017_v2.indd 27

SUNDAY OCTOBER 8

HE ART

SATURDAY OCTOBER 7

8:45 PM THE CORRIDOR

N

RL

FRIDAY OCTOBER 6

6:00 PM THE COUSIN

CINEMA

27

9/5/17 10:04 AM

Master Plan

Festival Schedule: October 9­–12

MONDAY OCTOBER 9

SEQUOIA 1

2

1

2

3

12:30 PM THE RELATIONTRIP

1:15 PM HAPPENING: A CLEAN ENERGY REVOLUTION

10:00 AM 5@5 A BETTER FUTURE

2:30 PM MARY JANES: THE WOMEN OF WEED

3:15 PM MAD HANNANS

89 min

3:15 PM BILL FRISELL, A PORTRAIT 115 min

6:15 PM THE SHAPE OF WATER 119 min

TUESDAY OCTOBER 10 WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 11

4:15 PM 5@5 ALL THE MADMEN 70 min

6:45 PM ANDRE: THE VOICE OF WINE 98 min

77 min

1:30 PM IN SYRIA 86 min

4:00 PM I STILL HIDE TO SMOKE 90 min

6:00 PM CIAO, CIAO 83 min

8:45 PM THE LIGHT OF THE MOON 90 min

85 min

6:30 PM THE DESERT BRIDE 78 min

9:15 PM 5@5 LIFE ON MARS? 70 min

11:15 AM I STILL HIDE TO SMOKE

12:30 PM CITY OF JOY

3:00 PM A FANTASTIC WOMAN

3:30 PM WORST CASE WE GET MARRIED

4:00 PM THE RELATIONTRIP

3:30 PM MANKILLER

3:00 PM LET THE SUNSHINE IN

6:00 PM JANE

6:15 PM NO MAN’S LAND

6:45 PM THE LAST ANIMALS

6:00 PM HORN FROM THE HEART: THE PAUL BUTTERFIELD STORY

5:30 PM 5@5 LIFE ON MARS?

8:15 PM THE FLORIDA PROJECT

9:00 PM YEVA

9:30 PM 5@5 STATION TO STATION

10:00 AM JANE

11:15 AM THE LONG SHADOW

2:00 PM FÉLICITÉ

3:00 PM HAROLD AND MAUDE

2:30 PM MANKILLER

6:30 PM WORST CASE WE GET MARRIED

6:00 PM MOLLY’S GAME

5:30 PM ESTEBAN

9:15 PM 5@5 IT’S NO GAME

90 min 74 min

104 min

9:00 PM TIP OF MY TONGUE

12:00 PM ALPHAGO 90 min

3:00 PM A SIBLING MYSTERY 80 min

6:00 PM THE FLORIDA PROJECT 115 min

9:30 PM SNOWY BING BONGS ACROSS THE NORTH STAR COMBAT ZONE

7:00 PM TBA

85 min

9:15 PM NOTHINGWOOD

90 min

THURSDAY OCTOBER 12

75 min

9:00 PM UNDER THE RADAR: 70 YEARS OF POLISH ANIMATION 90 min

85 min

75 min 95 min 70 min

103 min 90 min

115 min

11:30 AM ARRANGIARSI (PIZZA... & THE ART OF LIVING) 96 min

2:30 PM 5@5 IT’S NO GAME 70 min

5:30 PM THIRD MIND BLUES 58 min

8:00 PM THE LAST PIG

91 min 81 min 94 min

89 min 92 min 62 min

8:00 PM LIFE & NOTHING MORE 95 min

12:45 PM TBA 4:00 PM 5@5 TUMBLE AND TWIRL 68 min

6:30 PM THE LEISURE SEEKER 112 min

9:15 PM NO MAN’S LAND

90 min 91 min

140 min

87 min 74 min 90 min

124 min 91 min 70 min

8:30 PM MY HAPPY FAMILY

81 min

131 min

60 min

85 min

28

RAFAEL

12:15 PM HOLY AIR

10:00 AM THE CORRIDOR

12:30 PM JAHA’S PROMISE

12:00 PM THE INVISIBLES

3:00 PM JUST ONE DROP

1:00 PM THE INLAND ROAD

3:00 PM HORN FROM THE HEART: THE PAUL BUTTERFIELD STORY

4:00 PM SNOWY BING BONGS ACROSS THE NORTH STAR COMBAT ZONE

6:30 PM MR. ROOSEVELT

3:45 PM BPM (BEATS PER MINUTE) 143 min

6:00 PM ONE OF US

6:30 PM EL AMPARO

9:00 PM CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

7:00 PM CENTERPIECE: LAST FLAG FLYING

9:00 PM A SIBLING MYSTERY

9:30 PM 5@5 GOLDEN YEARS

81 min 92 min 91 min

132 min

72 min 79 min

119 min

81 min

104 min 95 min 80 min

110 min

60 min 99 min 60 min

MARIN MAGAZINE 2017 MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL GUIDE

026-031 Schedule.1017_v2.indd 28

9/5/17 10:04 AM

US CINEMA WORLD CINEMA

KEY

VALLEY OF THE DOCS filmHOOD

LARKSPUR LANDING

SPECIAL BEHIND THE SCREENS

LARK

1

2

6:15 PM YEVA

6:45 PM SPOOR

6:00 PM VAZANTE

8:45 PM JAHA’S PROMISE

9:15 PM EL AMPARO

8:45 PM THE DEEP SKY

81 min

128 min 99 min

OUTDOOR ART CLUB

SWEETWATER

116 min

MONDAY OCTOBER 9

94 min

86 min

MVFF MUSIC: SARAH JAROSZ

Doors: 7:00 PM Show: 8:00 PM

6:30 PM A SIBLING MYSTERY

10:00 AM THE LONG SHADOW

9:15 PM MR. ROOSEVELT

9:00 PM THE INSULT

12:15 PM 5@5 FUTURE LEGEND

127 min 91 min

80 min

113 min

87 min 87 min

6:00 PM SONG OF GRANITE 104 min

MVFF MUSIC: HONORING PAUL BUTTERFIELD A BLUES CELEBRATION

8:30 PM DIRTBAG: THE LEGEND OF FRED BECKEY

Doors: 8:00 PM Show: 9:00 PM

96 min

6:15 PM THE VENERABLE W

6:00 PM THE LIGHT OF THE MOON

9:00 PM TIP OF MY TONGUE

8:45 PM A RIVER BELOW

90 min

90 min

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 11

115 min

117 min

MVFF MUSIC: B AND THE HIVE Doors: 7:00 PM Show: 8:00 PM

140 min

ROSS ZONE

6:00 PM THELMA

6:15 PM ESTEBAN

9:00 PM MARY JANES: THE WOMEN OF WEED

9:00 PM FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL

116 min

85 min

90 min

105 min

7:00 PM JOHN SANBORN: AN INTROSPECTIVE RETROSPECTIVE 90 min

THURSDAY OCTOBER 12

7:15 PM HUMAN FLOW

MVFF MUSIC: MANZAREK ROGERS TRIBUTE BAND Doors: 7:30 PM Show: 8:30 PM

MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL GUIDE 2017 MARIN MAGAZINE

026-031 Schedule.1017_v2.indd 29

TUESDAY OCTOBER 10

6:00 PM LOVELESS

ON

RRIED

5@5 SHORTS MUSIC

29

9/5/17 10:04 AM

Master Plan

Festival Schedule: October 13–15

FRIDAY OCTOBER 13

SEQUOIA

RAFAEL

1

2

1

2

3

12:00 PM TBA

12:30 PM THE SQUARE

10:00 AM KIM SWIMS

12:00 PM THE LAST PIG

3:30 PM WHITE SUN

3:45 PM 5@5 CYGNET COMMITTEE

1:00 PM ANDRE: THE VOICE OF WINE

2:45 PM THELMA

6:30 PM HOLY AIR

6:00 PM ON THE SLY: IN SEARCH OF THE FAMILY STONE

4:00 PM TBA

6:00 PM THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE

9:00 PM 5@5 STATION TO STATION

7:00 PM TRIBUTE: TODD HAYNES WONDERSTRUCK

8:30 PM RADIANCE

3:00 PM LOVELESS 127 min

6:30 PM THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH 96 min

9:30 PM AFTER THE WAR 92 min

142 min 63 min

83 min

8:45 PM SUMMER 1993

SATURDAY OCTOBER 14

96 min

76 min 98 min

115 min

12:00 PM ONE OF US

11:30 AM RADIANCE

12:00 PM LIYANA

3:00 PM VITCH

2:30 PM JUST ONE DROP

3:45 PM GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN

5:30 PM THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE

5:45 PM IN THE FADE

9:00 PM TBA

8:45 PM TBA

95 min 78 min

100 min

101 min 92 min

106 min

85 min

116 min 100 min

SUNDAY OCTOBER 15

81 min 62 min

101 min

11:00 AM NOT ALONE: SCREENING & PANEL TALKING ABOUT TEEN SUICIDE

11:00 AM STATE OF THE INDUSTRY | FROM ACQUISITION TO EXHIBITION

107 min

2:00 PM WENDY

3:00 PM ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE

7:00 PM SPOTLIGHT: ANDREW GARFIELD BREATHE

5:30 PM STRANGE BIRDS

6:15 PM 5@5 CYGNET COMMITTEE

9:00 PM THE HI DE HO SHOW

8:45 PM FOURTH MOVEMENT

89 min

117 min

90 min 91 min 70 min

100 min

30

87 min

90 min

101 min 63 min

115 min

11:00 AM FACES, PLACES

11:30 AM WENDY

11:00 AM THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH

11:45 AM A CIAMBRA

11:15 AM THE INVISIBLES

1:45 PM TBA

2:15 PM LOS PERROS

1:45 PM GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN

2:45 PM THE MYSTERY OF GREEN HILL

2:15 PM QUEST

5:00 PM THE CURRENT WAR

5:00 PM LADY BIRD

5:00 PM LADY BIRD

5:00 PM LADY BIRD

8:15 PM TBA

8:00 PM THE SHAPE OF WATER

8:30 PM SUMMER 1993

89 min

5:00 PM THE CURRENT WAR 105 min

91 min 94 min

105 min

96 min

107 min

93 min

118 min 81 min

93 min

119 min

110 min 85 min

93 min 96 min

MARIN MAGAZINE 2017 MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL GUIDE

026-031 Schedule.1017_v2.indd 30

9/5/17 10:05 AM

LONE

EE

LARKSPUR LANDING

5@5 SHORTS MUSIC

SPECIAL BEHIND THE SCREENS

LARK

1

2

12:30 PM THE LAST ANIMALS 92 min

12:00 PM DIRTBAG: THE LEGEND OF FRED BECKEY

3:15 PM ARRANGIARSI (PIZZA... & THE ART OF LIVING)

96 min

12:45 PM TBA

3:00 PM MY HAPPY FAMILY

3:45 PM NOTHINGWOOD

6:30 PM LOS PERROS

6:00 PM A CIAMBRA

9:00 PM ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE

9:00 PM THIRD MIND BLUES

12:00 PM MANKILLER

12:45 PM THE INVISIBLES

4:00 PM BEYOND THE SUPERNOVA

3:00 PM CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

3:45 PM QUEST

6:15 PM ANDRE: THE VOICE OF WINE

6:15 PM AFTER THE WAR

6:30 PM LIFE AND NOTHING MORE

9:15 PM TBA

96 min

6:15 PM EARTH WISDOM FOR A WORLD IN CRISIS 82 min

9:15 PM VAZANTE 116 min

74 min

132 min 92 min

131 min 94 min

101 min

110 min 85 min 95 min

89 min

85 min

60 min 98 min

11:00 AM STRANGE BIRDS

11:00 AM 5@5 FUTURE LEGEND

2:00 PM TBA

1:30 PM METAMORPHOSIS: JUNIOR YEAR

8:00 PM TBA

106 min

8:15 PM 5@5 FESTIVAL FAVES 100 min

Doors: 8:00 PM Show: 9:00 PM

10:00 AM – 4:00 PM VR EXPERIENCE: TREE 2:00 PM VR AT THE CROSSROADS 2:00 PM - VR EXPERIENCE 2:45 PM - VR PANEL 135 min

2:45 PM - VR PANEL 4:15 PM - VR EXPERIENCE 135 min

TENNESSEE VALLEY 10:00 AM ACTIVE CINEMA HIKE

MVFF MUSIC: BEYOND THE SUPERNOVA JOE SATRIANI VIP Meet & Greet: 7:30 PM Doors: 8:00 PM Show: 9:00 PM

87 min 75 min

10:00 AM – 2:00 PM

4:00 PM 5@5 A BETTER FUTURE

VR EXPERIENCE: TREE

77 min

6:45 PM WHITE SUN 87 min

SUNDAY OCTOBER 15

115 min

5:45 PM IN THE FADE

MVFF MUSIC: THE FAMILY STONE

2:45 PM VR AT THE CROSSROADS

11:30 AM TBA 78 min

VR EXPERIENCE: TREE

58 min

83 min

5:15 PM THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

118 min

9:15 PM TBA

70 min

SWEETWATER

10:00 AM LIYANA

9:00 PM ON THE SLY: IN SEARCH OF THE FAMILY STONE

2:30 PM VITCH

OUTDOOR ART CLUB

MVFF MUSIC: HUEY LEWIS & THE NEWS SHOW 1 Doors: 6:00 PM Show: 7:00 PM SHOW 2 Doors: 8:30 PM Show: 9:00 PM

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SATURDAY OCTOBER 14

FROM ION

VALLEY OF THE DOCS filmHOOD

FRIDAY OCTOBER 13

ON

US CINEMA WORLD CINEMA

KEY

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P R O M OT I O N

the DISH EAT, DRINK AND BE ENTERTAINED

Visit the Seafood Peddler for the freshest seafood Marin has to offer, shipped in daily from the east coast to West! Enjoy the view indoors or enjoy our beautiful flower lined patio. Come enjoy our daily Happy Hour (including weekends) from 4:00 to 7:00PM. SEAFOOD PEDDLER

Come enjoy local, organic, non-gmo Italian cuisine and handcrafted libations from the full bar in our family-owned restaurant open since 1995.

We also feature an extensive wine list, a robust happy hour and two private dining areas as well as patio dining. Located just off Highway 101.

FRANTOIO RISTORANTE

303 Johnson Street, Sausalito, CA 415.332.1492 seafoodpeddler.com

152 Shoreline Highway, Mill Valley, CA 415.289.5777 frantoio.com

bar and grill

RangeCafe Bar and Grill, located on the course at Peacock Gap Golf Club, offers a delicious array of dining options. Enjoy weekend brunch and seasonal specials or stop in for Happy Hour drinks and appetizers. All our dishes are prepared fresh and sourced from local ingredients.

RANGECAFE

333 Biscayne Drive, San Rafael, CA 415.454.6450 rangecafe.net

Grilly’s serves up fresh, healthy and fast Mexican food to Marin. Everything is made from scratch daily-from the marinated and grilled meats, the fire roasted salsas, our world famous chicken taco salad to the housemade agua frescas. A great line up of vegan and gluten free items.

Consistently rated “Best of Marin,” Comforts offers fine city and homestyle food. Our menus change regularly to reflect what is fresh, local and in season. We offer breakfast, lunch and weekend brunch, in addition to takeout and catering services. Thanksgiving is around the corner - let Comforts provide you with an easy and delicious holiday feast!

COMFORTS

335 San Anselmo Ave, San Anselmo, CA 415.454.9840 comfortscafe.com

Located in the heart of Mill Valley, Prabh Indian Kitchen is a cultural experience offering authentic Indian food in a traditional way. This casual yet stylish Indian restaurant is a cut above the rest, with an enclosed sunny porch for year-round dining with a view. Come enjoy a well-spiced lamb rogan josh or sizzling kebabs with us soon.

GRILLY’S

493 Miller Ave, Mill Valley, CA 415.381.3278 One Bolinas Ave, Fairfax, CA 415.457.6171

PRABH INDIAN KITCHEN

24 Sunnyside Avenue, Mill Valley, CA 415.384.8241 prabhindiankitchen.com

Spend only $35 for a $50 dining certificate from participating restaurants with this icon.

Go to marinmagazine.com/dineout and save 30% on meals.

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P R O M OT I O N

the DISH EAT, DRINK AND BE ENTERTAINED

In Japanese, Robata means “by the fireside” and refers to the grill-style cooking of northern Japanese fishermen. Our menu offers traditional as well as contemporary fare. Over 25 premium sakes. Come see why we’ve been Marin’s favorite Japanese restaurant for over 30 years.

Sitting atop the Bay with unobstructed views, Scoma’s delights with incredibly fresh, creative food and warm, personal service. We offer steaming whole crabs, hearty chowders, clams, perfectly grilled fish and specialties. Seasonal offerings and perennial favorites keep the menu as lively as the daily catch.

ROBATA GRILL & SUSHI

SCOMA’S SAUSALITO

591 Redwood Hwy, Mill Valley, CA 415.381.8400 robatagrill.com

588 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA 415.332.9551 scomassausalito.com

PMS 5815C/139C 90% 70%

A block away from the Rafael, Vin Antico for pre movie oysters, or small bites after the movie. Our chef’s counter is specifically designed for dinner and a show. San Rafael’s only Farm to Table restaurant. Lunch and dinner. Happy Hour Mon-Fri, full bar, private dining space.

Speakeasy will reopen Fall of 2017.

HARMONY RESTAURANT

Strawberry Village, Mill Valley, CA 415.381.5300 harmonyrestaurantgroup.com

VIN ANTICO

881 4th Street, San Rafael, CA 415.721.0600 vinantico.com

Try Tomatina for our modern and fresh interpretations of traditional Italian recipes. Our made-from-scratch sauces and housemade pizzas are customer favorites but we are best known for our signature piadine—fresh, hot flatbread topped with cool salads, ready to fold and eat.

TOMATINA

5800 Northgate Mall, San Rafael, CA 415.479.3200 tomatina.com

5A

Enjoy wonderful dim sum delicacies, hand crafted each day using the freshest seasonal selections of local ingredients, paired with premium sakes, imported Asian beers, and superb California wines. Join us in our dining room or visit our takehome store for quick meals or full menu to go. Catering available.

Pizza Antica combines the centuries-old traditions of Italian cooking with California’s freshest and finest ingredients, creating a unique style of pizzeria in a class of its own.

PIZZA ANTICA

800 Redwood Hwy, Mill Valley, CA 415.383.0600 pizzaantica.com

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Wine and Cheese Pairings in the barrel aging caves ~ by appointment

602 Bonneau Road, Sonoma, www.schugwinery.com

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AVCO EMBASSY PICTURES/EDI/RONALD GRANT ARCHIVE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Location

Fear the Fog Horror master John Carpenter set his Halloween follow-up in West Marin. BY PETER CROOKS John Carpenter’s 1980 supernatural thriller The Fog begins with a

scene shot on a Los Angeles soundstage. The late, great actor John Houseman is telling a campfire story to a group of children on what appears to be a beach in the fictional town of Antonio Bay. The story involves an old ship, damned to the sea, with a haunted crew that will one day find revenge on the townspeople who conspired to cause the crew’s watery demise.

“When the fog returns to Antonio Bay, the men at the bottom of the sea … will rise up,” Houseman’s character says, sending chills down the spines of his young audience.

It’s a wonderfully effective way to kick off the film — especially when the camera pans up, and, thanks to some editing magic, the audience sees a wide-screen image of the Point Reyes shoreline at night.

The shot is both beautiful and eerie, setting the mood for what might be the most underrated film in Carpenter’s career. The Fog is the director’s follow-up to the 1978 slasher film Halloween, which was produced for $300,000 before becoming the

then-most successful independent film of all time.

While Halloween terrified audiences by bringing back the kind of violence and terror of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, The Fog was a different kind of thriller. It’s a film that relies more on atmosphere than jump scares. The Fog builds suspense as secrets are revealed about a centuryold curse that brings the undead back to Antonio Bay, and Point Reyes’ seaside location serves the story perfectly.

“The idea we had was to tell a classic ghost story,” Carpenter says in The Fog’s DVD director commentary. His co-writer and producer Debra Hill adds that the point of inspiration came when the former

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Location

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“The Fog builds suspense as secrets are revealed about a century-old curse that brings the undead back to Antonio Bay, and Point Reyes’ seaside location serves the story perfectly.”

“This is one of the most beautiful areas in the entire world — Point Reyes, California, and Inverness,” says Carpenter. “I fell in love with the place, so much so that I bought a house.”

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

One reason to revisit The Fog — or to watch it for the first time — is the spectacular cinematography covering western Marin and Sonoma counties.

On the DVD commentary for the film, Carpenter and Hill clearly enjoy reminiscing about their experience making The Fog in the North Bay. Here are some of the locations to look for in the film: Bodega Bay Carpenter and Hill ventured north to shoot in locations that the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, used decades before in one of his classic thrillers. “We used the wharf in front of the restaurant where everyone was trapped in The Birds,” Carpenter says, referring to Hitchcock’s 1963 film that used Bodega Bay to spectacular effect (see sidebar).

Drakes Beach “It’s a very, very beautiful location,” Carpenter says. “As legend has it, Sir Francis Drake landed on this location with his ships to trade with the [Native Americans]. It’s just an incredible location.”

Great Beach/North Beach Star Adrienne Barbeau takes a daytime drive in a

UNITED ARCHIVES GMBH/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

couple took a trip to England’s Stonehenge monuments and noticed a fog creeping across the lowlands. “[Carpenter] said to me, ‘What if there is something in that fog? Wouldn’t that be scary?’ ” “The story came from an actual event in California history,” Carpenter says. “It happened off the coast of Santa Barbara.

A ship was sunk that was carrying lots of gold and it was pirated and so forth. We just added the ghostly aspect.”

With the idea in mind, the production team needed to find a location.

“We took a trip up the coastline, up Route One, and we stopped at all these different lighthouses along the way,” Hill says on the DVD. “And when we stopped at this particular lighthouse [in Point Reyes], we noticed that it was perched out on this cliff.

It was very scary, very beautiful, and very moody. And we knew it was the perfect place to film this movie. And, it turns out, it’s the second foggiest place in America, the first being Nantucket island.”

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convertible Jeep along the highway adjacent to this spectacular shoreline.

Cinematographer Dean Cundey makes impressive use of the wide-screen Panavision format to capture the stunning scenery.

Gulf of the Farallones The Point Reyes lighthouse is a major location, also portrayed in the film as the site of a radio station. Adrienne Barbeau, who plays a jazz DJ, is seen descending the nearly 300 steps to the lighthouse, on her way to her night gig spinning records, and noticing that a strange, thick fogbank is making its way to the shore. “We romanticized the idea of a radio station by putting it in a lighthouse,” Carpenter recalls. “I thought it was a great idea.”

As beautiful as the lighthouse was as a location, the weather wasn’t always cooperative in the production. “[The lighthouse] is very untypical; it’s not a tall tower,” Hill says on the DVD. “It is built way out on a point. It was very, very windy at the lighthouse. It caused considerable problems trying to shoot it — we ended up having to shoot a number of plates of the lighthouse and then marrying the fog to it later.”

While the production used exterior shots of the Point Reyes lighthouse throughout the film, all the interior scenes of Barbeau broadcasting are filmed on a set in Southern California.

The spiral staircase used in the interior set was originally used in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

“It was very scary, very beautiful, and very moody.

And we knew it was the perfect place to film this movie.”

Inverness Barbeau’s character lives in a beautiful house along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. The house, a private residence on the waterline, is still there. Not far away along the same boulevard is the road leading up to a church that is pivotal in the story, although the church that appears in the film is not actually in the North Bay. The large cross at the side of the road is.

Olema “We shot at a restaurant called Jerry’s Farmhouse (now Farm House restaurant and bar at the Lodge Point Reyes),” says Carpenter. “It’s still a delightful place to go and eat.”

Point Reyes Station Look for Bear Valley Road as the place Jamie Lee Curtis is picked up hitchhiking early in the film.

The town of Point Reyes Station is used throughout The Fog, especially in the film’s climax as the titular fog (usually dry ice blown into the camera shot) creeps in from the coast to wreak havoc.

FROM BOX OFFICE SLEEPER TO CULT CLASSIC

The Fog was no Halloween at the box office, but it still fared well in its initial

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MORE THRILLS IN THE NORTH BAY THE BIRDS Tourists still flock to Bodega Bay to visit locations featured in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 horror film, based on the story by Daphne du Maurier. More than five decades after its release The Birds holds up beautifully both as a horror film and a showcase of the Sonoma coast.

DESPERATE MEASURES This 1998 thriller from director Barbet Schroeder (Reversal of Fortune, Barfly) features Michael Keaton playing a psychopathic killer, with scenes filmed along the Point Reyes National Seashore.

SCREAM Wes Craven’s 1996 thriller owes much to Carpenter’s Halloween, and it resurrected the slasher genre at the box office. The film is shot all over the North Bay, featuring locations in Glen Ellen, Healdsburg, Sonoma and Tomales.

release. Produced for a budget of $1.1 million, the film grossed a respectable $21 million in 1980. (The top-grossing horror film that year was The Shining, with $44 million.) The Fog’s reputation has grown considerably in the nearly 40 years since its initial release. One reason is the cast, which is packed with well-known actors including Houseman and Hal Holbrook. In a bit of horror film serendipity, Jamie Lee Curtis, whose breakthrough role was in Carpenter’s Halloween two years earlier, gets to share a scene with her mom, Janet Leigh, who starred in Hitchcock’s Psycho.

But the main reason The Fog holds up so well is its creepy atmosphere, thanks to Carpenter’s sure-handed direction (he also composed the score, as he has done for most of his movies). The film’s wide-screen photography of recognizable coastal locations calls out to be seen on the biggest screen possible, preferably on the recently released Blu-ray special edition.

CARPENTER RETURNS TO THE COAST

In 1995, Carpenter returned to the North Bay to film a remake of the 1960 British cult chiller Village of the Damned. The movie was not a financial success, and while it is not as effective a thriller as The Fog, it is still interesting for a number of reasons.

Village of the Damned is the last project the late Christopher Reeve filmed before having a horseback riding accident that left him paralyzed. The movie also features Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars films) in a wild performance as an unhinged priest.

Once again, Carpenter and his director of photography, Gary Kibbe, shot the North Bay locations effectively.

Inverness, Nicasio and Point Reyes Station all look beautiful but also isolated — which serves the science-fiction plot involving a gang of alien children intent on crushing the peaceful Marin County community with their glowing eyes and telekinetic powers.

As the second half of a DVD double feature, Village of the Damned pairs perfectly with The Fog.

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Movie Quiz

Know the Quote

Over its 40 years of existence, the Mill Valley Film Festival has screened thousands of acclaimed and highly quotable movies. How many of these can you identify from chosen lines alone? Clues are given; answers are provided below. BY DAVID TEMPLETON

1 “YOU ARE THE MOST OBEDIENT MAN I’VE

EVER MET IN MY LIFE. LOOK AT ME! AREN’T YOU?” Shirley Knight to James Caan, in this early film by Francis Ford Coppola. The movie, originally released in 1969, was screened during MVFF’s inaugural year, 1977, at a tribute to Coppola and George Lucas.

6 “ALBANIA’S HARD TO RHYME.” Willie

Nelson, playing a drunken songwriter hired to write a fake song about a fake war, in the 1997 film by Barry Levinson.

7 “WELL, WE’RE SAFE FOR NOW. THANK GOODNESS WE’RE IN A BOWLING ALLEY.” J.T. Walsh to a panicked group of 1950s-era men whose wives all failed to make them dinner that night, in Gary Ross’s 1998 fable about changing American morality.

2 “IT’S NOT THAT THEY’RE STUPID. IT’S JUST THAT THEY DON’T KNOW ANYTHING.” Edward James Olmos, as real-life teacher Jaime Escalante, in describing his math students in this inspirational 1988 drama co-written and directed by Ramón Menendez.

8

3 “GO ON, CHRISTY. GO ON,

MAKE YOUR MARK.” Brenda Fricker to young Hugh O’Conor, in this 1989 Jim Sheridan film that went on to give Daniel Day Lewis his first Academy Award for Best Actor.

4 “HMMM … HEADS. HEADS. HEADS.

HEADS. HEADS. HEADS. HEADS. HEADS. HEADS. HEADS.” Gary Oldman to Tim Roth, in the opening moments of this 1990 movie, directed by Tom Stoppard, and adapted from his own 1966 play.

5 “I’M LOUD, DARLING,

“YOU KEEP ON ROWIN’, AND I’LL KEEP ON SMILIN’.” Sally Hawkins to Alexis Zegerman, while in an actual rowboat at the end of Mike Leigh’s 2008 crowd-pleaser about a stubbornly optimistic English schoolteacher.

9 “IT’S NO SLURPEE.” James Franco, to his camera, describing a queasy attempt at drinking his own urine in Danny Boyle’s 2010 drama about a true-life rock-climbing accident in the desert.

10 “DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT. IT’S JUST THE FIRST 100 YEARS THAT ARE TOUGH.” Shahab Hosseini, translated from the original Iranian, in this Oscar-nominated 2016 drama that became a focus of the Trump administration’s travel ban when the director, Asghar Farhadi, elected not to attend the Academy Awards in protest.

BUT NEVER CHEAP.” Jaye Davidson to Stephen Rea, in Neil Jordan’s 1992 thriller with one of the biggest twists in cinematic history.

1. The Rain People. 2. Stand and Deliver. 3. My Left Foot. 4. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. 5. The Crying Game.

6. Wag the Dog. 7. Pleasantville. 8. Happy-Go-Lucky. 9. 127 Hours. 10. The Salesman (Forushande).

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100 ARTISTS

MARin’S PReMieR

art market

11am - 6pm. Free admission, parking; wheelchair accessible, food trucks Winter OPen Studios: December 1,2,3

icbartists.com 480 Gate 5 Rd. Sausalito, CA

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Fabricating and Installing Custom Wood Floors for Thirty Years 305 Cutting Blvd, Richmond, CA • 510 558 2030 • www.tulipfloors.com

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Shop Talk

Annie Roney The next great documentary you see is very likely being distributed by this Sausalito company. BY KIRSTEN JONES NEFF

Annie Roney, founder and CEO of Sausalito’s ro*co films, has defied the odds.

She did this by establishing a financially successful independent film distribution company while representing only documentaries, an often undervalued genre in the film world. And she did it again as she managed to stay put and raise her family here in Marin County, rather than packing up for Hollywood or New York as she grew the company. And despite all these unconventional choices, Roney is one of the most respected independent film distributors in the business, a go-to resource for documentarians worldwide who place a priority on story over glossy curb appeal.

The 16-year-old ro*co now represents over 200 documentaries, popular films such as Born Into Brothels, Hoop Dreams, The Future of Food, Inequality for All, The Weather Underground, Jesus Camp, Race to Nowhere, Miss Representation, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, Life Animated, An Inconvenient Sequel and dozens of other award-winning works. In other words, the company represents a large portion of the small handful of documentaries we’ve heard of, films with extensive international and domestic distribution. “We understand that the reason we get to represent these films is because of the way we think about filmmakers — they are at the heart of what we do every day,” Roney says.

The world of filmmaking is cutthroat and, for some distributors, filmmakers and their stories are secondary; the primary focus is on markets. But Roney, who has garnered not only respect but significant accolades, including a Career Achievement Award from the Women’s International Film Festival and an Inspiration Award at the renowned Sheffield Documentary Festival in England, says she was drawn to this career because of an abiding respect for human stories. She has spent twoand-a-half decades navigating the ever-changing landscape of documentary film distribution, never taking her gaze off the prize: maximum exposure for the films, in venues ranging from megaplexes 40

to the back rooms of local libraries. Being the playmaker, representing our best journalists and storytellers and ensuring that critical stories make it to the public eye — this, she says, is what fuels her.

“My mom was a journalist in Salt Lake City. She did radio documentaries and had a weekly call-in talk show about social issues,” Roney says. “I loved going to the newsroom with her; I loved the energy of the newsroom.” When the red “On Air” sign was lit and she couldn’t be with her mother, she stood next to the dot

matrix printer and watched Associated Press stories come through. “I thought that was the most amazing thing, to see these stories coming in, and to be knowledgeable about what was happening around the world.” Interested in human behavior, she studied psychology in college, but wasn’t clear about where to go with her career. She had a few internships and post-college jobs she describes as “soul-sucking.” When she took a break to recalibrate, she knew she wanted to work in the media.

“I don’t know if it still exists in San Francisco but I joined an organization called Media Alliance to access their job bank,” she recalls. “I paid a membership fee and went into a room full of binders — this was pre-internet — and found my dream job in one of those binders.” She applied and went to work for CS Associates in Mill Valley, a company managing international distribution for the respected documentaries of the time — Ken Burns films, PBS’s Frontline and Nova films, independent films like Dark Circle and The Day After Trinity. “I had nine years riding on the coattails of this company,” she says.

Starting at the entry level with zero experience, she came out having established working relationships with commissioning editors around the world.

Then came the next big leap of faith.

In 2000, as a mother of young children, Roney struggled to balance the demands of home and workplace and recognized that it would be ideal to be her own boss. “I realized that I could take all the tools and start my own company. I had the know-how and I had the contacts.” The only thing missing was a film to represent. After screening a documentary called Regret to Inform, a powerful film about the Vietnam War from the perspective of a U.S. war widow, she contacted well-known Bay Area executive producer Janet Cole. “I credit her with

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STINSON BEACH Sometimes, life is like a movie. Film yours at the beach. Stinson Beach.

Seadrift AT STINSON

415.868.1791 www.seadrift.com

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Discover

SAN DOMENICO’S

Film and Digital Arts Program Open Houses October 21 High School

December 3 High School

November 4 January 6 Kindergarten

K-8th Grade

SAN DOMENICO SCHOOL Independent K-12, Day and Boarding 415.258.1905 | sandomenico.org

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Shop Talk giving me my start,” she says now. “The film had already won awards at Sundance and was already nominated for an Oscar, and here comes this new person out of nowhere saying ‘I’m going to start a company’ and she decided to trust me.”

Roney took the film to Cannes and met with “every international buyer of documentary film out there.” Lo and behold, every single buyer acquired the film. It was then, with this auspicious launch, that she truly understood the magic formula for her fledgling company: it was never going to be about quantity. She would only take on films that she cared about at what she calls the “heart level.”

In the coming years Roney added seven employees, who all happen to be women — a happy accident, in her words. Those employees have worked out so well that the company hasn’t had an opportunity to hire men full time. Roney emphatically uses “we” rather than “I” when describing ro*co accomplishments, and she repeatedly credits the team with providing the infrastructure to support representation of so many quality films.

Raising her children as she grew the company, Roney sometimes screened films at home with her toddlers by her side. They could not comprehend the content, she recalls, but when they were mesmerized by beautiful cinematography she duly noted it. She continued to rely on the heart- level approach, which has worked out well; in ro*co’s 16-year history the company has represented an Oscar-nominated film (or two) all but one of those years.

Describing the history of her company — the evolution from international-distribution-only to distribution in limited U.S. markets and the establishment of ro*co Educational, ro*co Production, ro*co Digital and EVOD (educational video on demand), a subscription platform for educational and community institutions — Roney comes off like a chess player recounting strategic decisions. And yet she makes it sound easy.

One big decision was to bring together an international coalition of buyers at Sundance two years ago: “We wanted to help foreign broadcasters be competitive 42

with global deals inked at Sundance,” she says. “Broadcasters such as the BBC were missing out on some films they used to be able to get because global digital companies such as Netflix and Amazon were investing in documentaries and buying world rights. So we formed a coalition of multiple broadcasters across the globe who, through us, have been able to act as one single buyer.”

Another recent triumph: last year, a group of French filmmakers were working to complete a documentary called Becoming Cary Grant, but they needed finishing funds. “The filmmakers couldn’t get any traction in the U.S. so they leaned on us to be their U.S. reps,” Roney says,

“We understand that the reason we get to represent these films is because of the way we think about filmmakers — they are at the heart of what we do every day.” adding casually, “We were able to secure a Showtime deal so they could finish the film. It premiered at Cannes in May and aired on Showtime in June.”

As complex as distribution has become with the rise of subscription video on demand (SVOD), large digital companies competing for international distribution rights, and Hollywood concerns reaching for pieces of the pie, it is a very exciting time in documentary land. “It’s shifting.

It’s never the same day twice,” Roney says.

“But there is a lot of money being thrown at documentaries right now. I don’t know if that will stay, as I’ve seen trends come and go, but docs seem to be celebrating a sunny day, around the world.”

She salutes Netflix algorithms for getting people into the genre and offering viewers a positive experience. “We are a direct content provider for Netflix, and iTunes, and Amazon and Google Play, so we have a perspective on how these new platforms are working.”

Roney’s perspective on both the big-picture and the nuanced aspects of the digital age is invaluable for documentarians who may not be sure of their opportunities. That’s particularly true when it comes to international distribution rights, which often get bundled into domestic deals, curtailing significant opportunities abroad. “The stakes for these films have never been higher,” Roney wrote in a recent IDA (International Documentary Association) online op-ed.

“Documentaries are playing a bigger role than they ever have in our global media, as the genre continues to grow in popularity, and as many documentary filmmakers have taken on much of today’s investigative journalism.

Considering the kind of impact a documentary can make, it is critical that the full spectrum of international rights is thoughtfully strategized.”

As always in Annie Roney’s business, an evolving landscape means an evolving strategy. Recently, because “now everyone in L.A. also has a documentary they are working on,” the ro*co team set up an office in Los Angeles. This office, the first ro*co satellite, is described in Roney’s signature “no big deal” fashion.

Making documentary films is notoriously difficult, and making a living making documentary films is even more difficult, but testimonies from filmmakers make it clear they feel they have a friend in the business. Peter Bratt, director of Dolores, the recently released and highly acclaimed film about farmworker rights activist Dolores Huerta, secured U.S. distribution with the newly formed PBS Theatrical through ro*co.

“In this increasingly cynical world,” he writes, “it’s hard to find a true believer — someone who still holds that your word is your bond, that your actions matter; someone who pays attention to all the little details and tries to make things better every day.”

Roney’s response to the praise? “We are humbled,” she says, shaking her head. “Every time a filmmaker reaches out to us, we are humbled.”

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THE ULTIMATE IN CALIFORNIA CHIC

CELEBRATING MVFF 40!

Anne et Valentin Iyoko Inyake + LaLoop L.A. Eyeworks + GRO Essedue + Mykita + more!

Visit us online @ RIMSandGOGGLES for info or to RSVP

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Take a Seat

Modern Movie Palace Transformed from dollar house to state-of-the-art house, the Smith Rafael Film Center keeps fans coming back. BY BERNARD BOO When the infamous Loma Prieta earthquake rattled the Bay Area to its core in 1989, San Rafael’s Smith Rafael Film Center — at the time a poorly maintained dollar-house theater — suffered significant structural damage and shut down indefinitely. Four years later, the California Film Institute and the now-dissolved San Rafael Redevelopment Agency rallied to revive the theater with the goal of creating a state-of-the-art cinema space that would act as the Mill Valley Film Festival’s year-round home. On April 16, 1999, the theater reopened as an art-deco movie palace, designed and engineered under the direction of Bay Area architect Mark Cavagnero to provide the most technologically advanced moviegoing experience possible.

To this day, the Smith Rafael Film Center (“the Rafael” for short) is touted for impeccable audiovisual presentation in all three of its theater rooms, each offering a unique cinematic experience. From the big-night-out feel of Theater One to the intimate vintage vibe of Theater Two to the sleek technological powerhouse that is Theater Three, here’s an inside look at the details and special touches that distinguish the Mill Valley Film Festival’s primary showplace.

Theater One

Walk underneath the Rafael’s neon-lit marquee, through the shiny front doors, through the beautifully restored lobby (complete with an original mural and chandelier from the 1930s), down the hallway on the left and through the big doors on the right, and you’ll step into the wide-open, elegant embrace of Theater One, the Rafael’s original movie room. Almost every structure and adornment in the theater is original from 1938, from the mural and columns that frame the screen to the ceiling painting and white and cobalt chandeliers.

What has seen a modern update are the theater’s seats, specifically engineered to be comfortable as well as enhance acoustics and meet THX standards. Typically, when a movie theater is full, each audience member absorbs a certain amount of sound coming from the speakers, but when a seat is empty, the metal seat bottom reflects sound, which negatively affects the overall audio. The seat bottoms in the Rafael, however, are perforated to absorb sound rather than reflect it.

Similarly, the main screen is also perforated with tiny holes to allow sound coming from the subwoofers and the left, center and right channel speakers sitting behind the screen to pass through more easily.

Normally, the holes in a perforated movie screen get clogged up over time by popcorn oil that permeates the air in the theater, resulting in muffled sound as well as that oh-sofamiliar popcorn smell. While the Rafael does serve popcorn,

The THX Factor

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“Almost every structure and adornment in the theater is original from 1938, from the mural and columns that frame the screen to the ceiling painting and white and cobalt chandeliers.” the nostalgic buttery aroma is conspicuously absent when you enter the lobby because the popcorn machine is outfitted with a special exhaust that pipes those traces of oil out of the building, ensuring all screens stay perforated and unblocked for the most pristine sound possible.

Extra steps were also taken to guarantee a top-notch image quality. Each screening room has digital projectors to meet modern standards and 35mm projectors to screen preserved

DREW ALTIZER PHOTOGRAPHY

Above all else, the key to the Rafael’s stellar audiovisual presentation is the fact that each room is THX certified. Since 1983, the George Lucas–founded THX has been certifying theaters around the world, meticulously testing and calibrating each piece of equipment to ensure every room meets industry standards. “It’s the size of the screen to the room, your angle to the screen, the luminosity of the projected image,” Rafael technical director Dan Zastrow explains. “When you meet these expectations, you’re considered THX certified.”

Meeting THX standards was easier said than done, especially for a building like the Rafael, originally a one-screen theater and later remodeled to include the two additional screens on the second floor. Each of the three spaces posed unique technical and architectural challenges that Cavagnero and his team had to creatively overcome before earning the coveted THX-certified distinction.

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Theater One

prints on special occasions. Theater One seats 340 guests, a significant reduction from the original seat count. In addition to providing extra legroom, the reduced number helps ensure there literally isn’t a bad seat in the house. Every chair is situated at a THX-certified angle and distance relative to the screen, and rows are spaced so that all sight lines are optimal.

DREW ALTIZER PHOTOGRAPHY

Theater Two

Up the shiny, curved staircase in the lobby and to the left is Theater Two, designed by Cavagnero and his team to be a window to the past. The 129-seat room is a close approximation of what the very first incarnation of the theater (then called the Orpheus) looked like in 1920, from the stenciled accents to the columns that line the walls.

According to Zastrow, of the three rooms, Theater Two was the most difficult to construct in accordance with THX height, width and length specifications, since the room was previously the main theater’s balcony section. To meet THX requirements, a coffered ceiling was installed, a visually pleasing accent that, much like every other nook and cranny of the building, was designed with audiovisual presentation in mind. The retro decor and personal feel of Theater Two make it highly conducive to audience participation and interaction in the festival’s filmmaker panel discussions and Q&As.

Theater Three

Across the landing from Theater Two, this theater occupies a space that once was a bookstore next door. Unlike One and Two, Theater Three bears no tributes to history, aiming its sights squarely at modern aesthetics. “If Theater Two is the cinema of the past and Theater One is the theater of the present, Theater Three is the cinema of the future,” Zastrow says.

Walking into the 80-seat auditorium is almost startling for the silence that prevails once the door swings shut.

Despite being the smallest of the three, this theater is also the most immersive, with walls, seats, speakers and screen engineered precisely to THX specifications. In fact, THX had a hand in designing Theater Three and modeled it after the famous Stag Theater at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, a viewing space widely considered one of the best in the world.

“When THX did their final testing on the room, it passed in five minutes,” Zastrow says.

Also unique to Theater Three is its screen, designed to present CinemaScope images. Almost twice as wide as the typical academy aspect ratio, CinemaScope is completely enveloping, and combined with the THX-certified sound it provides a breathtakingly absorbing experience that minimizes distractions and enhances each film’s transportive qualities.

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Stargazing

Golden Nights

In 2016, Brie Larson’s performance in the thriller Room nabbed her the Oscar for Best Actress. Emma Stone took home the coveted golden statue in 2017, but director Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight stole the show with eight nominations and three wins including Best Picture. Which stars will rise to the occasion in 2018? Only time will tell, but if the past is any indication, they’ll be lighting up the red carpet at the Mill Valley Film Festival first. —LEELA LINDNER

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The star-studded Mill Valley Film Festival is about to light up Marin.

Clockwise from top left: Emma Stone; Ewan McGregor; Amy Adams; Aaron Eckhart; and Barry Jenkins.

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Stargazing

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