For Your Consideration
A Selection of Oscar® Submissions from Around the World
January 11 - 24

The Oscar® for Best Foreign Language Film became a competitive category in 1956, and since then the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited dozens of countries annually to submit what each considers its best film for consideration in that category. This year, 63 films have been accepted for competition and, for the fifth consecutive year, the Smith Rafael Film Center will be presenting a choice sampling of these inspired films. This is a rare opportunity to view some of the most distinguished works in international cinema, many of which are not yet set for American distribution.

Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Just Added!
Opens Friday, January 11

Diving Bell and the Butterfly is the remarkable true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), a successful and charismatic editor-in-chief of French Elle, who believes he is living his life to its absolute fullest when a sudden stroke leaves him in a life-altered state. While the physical challenges of Bauby's fate leave him with little hope for the future, he begins to discover how his life's passions, his rich memories and his newfound imagination can help him achieve a life without boundaries.

Persepolis
Opens Friday, January 11

Based on the popular graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis is the poignant autobiographical story of a young girl coming of age in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. As a precocious 9-year-old from a leftist family, Marjane is stymied by the fundamentalist state, but she outsmarts the “social guardians” and discovers punk, ABBA and Iron Maiden. However, the senseless execution of her uncle and the Iraqi bombs falling on Tehran during the Iran/Iraq war raise the level of daily fear, and she is sent away to school. Winner of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, this beautiful animated film charts Marjane’s development into a woman, her changing relationship with her homeland and her eventual settling in France.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

“The world is an evil place, Charlie. Some of us make money off of that, the others…get destroyed.” At age 83 the veteran director of Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico delivers one of his finest films yet: a searing, explosive drama of a family turned against itself. It’s a masterpiece, but perhaps not only for director Sidney Lumet, since the screenplay and ensemble cast all help to knock this one out of the ballpark. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Andy, an overextended New York real estate broker, who lures his younger (and financially strapped) brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) into a “surefire” scheme robbing a suburban mom-and-pop jewelry store.

Buddha's Lost Children
Ends Wednesday, January 9

In Thailand’s Golden Triangle, a rugged region known for drug smuggling and impoverished tribes, one man devotes himself to the welfare of the region’s children. Buddhist monk Phra Khru Bah Neua Chai Kositto, a former Thai boxer now known as the Tiger Monk, travels widely on horseback, fearlessly dispensing prayers, health care and tough love to the villagers. His Golden Horse Temple is an orphanage, school and clinic—a haven for the children of the region, who see him as a shaman, father figure and boxing coach.

Into the Wild
Ends Wednesday, January 9

Beautifully written and directed by Sean Penn, who adapted the non-fiction book by Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild tells the story of Christopher McCandless, a 22-year-old university graduate who sheds his identity, gives all possessions away and sets out on a two-year trek through the vast American landscape that would end in the raw Alaskan wilderness. Emile Hirsch delivers a superb and complex performance as the privileged young man, who leaves his family (William Hurt, Marcia Gay Harden, Jena Malone) and takes to the open road, bonding with some of the free spirits he encounters on the fringes of society.

Starting Out in the Evening
Ends Thursday, January 10

Frank Langella delivers a career-crowning performance as Leonard Schiller, a once-famous New York writer who is both shaken and stirred when an ambitious young graduate student (Lauren Ambrose) invades his solitude to mine his life story for a thesis on his books. Until Heather enters the picture, Leonard has entirely sheltered his concentration on his unfinished novel and his 40-year-old daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor), who is anxious about having a child herself.

National Lampoon presents: Electric Apricot: Quest for Festeroo
Thursday, January 10, 7:30
Les Claypool and Cast members in person

Les Claypool, singer and bassist with the band Primus, makes his directorial debut with this irreverent spoof of the music industry, tracking a fictional jam band called Electric Apricot along their rocky commercial and spiritual journey to achieve the glories of the Grateful Dead and Phish. Claypool plays Electric Apricot’s drummer Lapland, and along with fellow band members Adam Gates, Brian Kehoe and Jonathan Korty, we share the travails of recording the first album and follow them up that yellow-brick road to Festeroo, their ultimate gig.

The Holy Modal Rounders… Bound to Lose
Thursday, January 17, 7:00
In Person: Wavy Gravy & Filmmaker Paul Lovelace

When fiddler Peter Stampfel and guitarist Steve Weber met in New York during the “Great Folk Scare” of the early 60s, they forged a bond based on a shared fascination with American roots music and psychedelia. Dubbing themselves the Holy Modal Rounders, these eccentric outsiders have been playing their unique psychedelic folk for over four decades, barely surviving on the fringes of the music business while drawing a dedicated following. This amusing and moving documentary traces these musical outlaws from their early notoriety to an unpredictable 40th anniversary concert in Portland.

Freeway Philharmonic
Thursday, January 24, 7:00
Filmmaker Tal Skloot in person

This melodic documentary follows seven Bay Area freelance classical musicians as they perform with regional orchestras around Northen California while striving to acquire permanent positions with major symphonies. These dedicated “road warriors” perform in as many as nine orchestras concurrently, with individuals clocking as much as 300 miles a day to rehearsals and concerts. Participating subjects include Robin Bonnell (cello), Bruce Chrisp (trombone), Karla Ekholm (bassoon), Karen Shinozaki Sor (violin) and Eugene Sor (cello).

Ray Harryhausen & Friends
Wednesday, February 20, 7:15
$15 (CFI members $12)
Special Guests include: Craig Barron, Arnold Kunert, Dennis Muren & Phil Tippett

One of our favorite guests returns to the Rafael for a lively evening of film lore and movie magic. The greatness of Ray Harryhausen is measured by his pioneering work in visual effects and his artful use of stop-motion animation to breathe life into creatures of fantasy and myth for such classics as 20 Million Miles to Earth, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts. But there are also the countless artists he has influenced: directors such as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Tim Burton, as well as visual effects maestros including Dennis Muren and Phil Tippett.

SF Sketchfest Presents:
A Salute to Gene Wilder!
Wednesday, March 19 - 6:30
Co-Presented by The California Film Institute

Screening of Young Frankenstein, conversation, Q&A and book-signing of the new novel The Woman Who Wouldn’t

Gene Wilder has been acting since he was thirteen. He was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his role as Leo Bloom in The Producers, which led to Blazing Saddles and another Academy nomination, this time for writing Young Frankenstein. Wilder has appeared in 25 feature films and a number of stage productions, and his memoir Kiss Me Like a Stranger was a national bestseller. Recently turning to fiction writing, Gene Wilder is the author of the novels My French Whore and the brand-new The Woman Who Wouldn’t.

$25. Tickets on sale now! Advance tickets and info at www.sfsketchfest.com

Note: This event will take place at The Castro Theatre

Alice's House (A Casa de Alice)
Opens Friday, January 25
One Week Only!

Carla Ribas gives a glowing performance in this refreshing drama of working-class life in contemporary Brazil. In her forties and working as a manicurist in a Sao Paolo beauty salon, Alice shares a crowded apartment with her mother (Berta Zimel), her taxi-driving husband Lindomar (Zécarlos Machado) and their three teenage sons. Alice’s snooty customer Carmen (Renata Zhaneta) regales her with details of her marital adventures, while Alice’s own sex life seems to be on hold. Just as it’s becoming apparent that Lindomar is having extramarital affairs, the lonely woman encounters Carmen’s successful husband Nilson (Luciano Quirino), who just happens to be an old flame of hers.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Opens Friday, February 1

Winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival as well as Best Film and Best Director at the recent European Film Awards, this extraordinary drama confirms Romania’s place at the forefront of contemporary cinema. Set in Romania in the late 1980s, during the final days of Ceausescu’s repressive communist regime, it concerns 24 anxious hours in the lives of two university students, as one goes to painstaking extremes to help her friend receive an illegal abortion. Like other sectors of Romanian society, the school dorms are rife with a flourishing black market economy, and polytechnic student Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) takes it for granted that she go outside the law in assisting roommate Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) to terminate her unwanted pregnancy. However, the path provided by Bebe, the mysterious underground abortionist, could place Gabita’s life in danger and put Otilia’s friendship to the ultimate test.

Honeydripper
Opens Friday, February 1

The compelling new movie from legendary independent filmmaker John Sayles dramatizes the birth of rock ‘n’ roll through the intimate lens of an African-American community in rural Alabama in 1950. Danny Glover stars as Tyrone “Pinetop” Purvis, the debt-ridden proprietor of a juke joint who has one more chance to save his beloved Honeydripper Lounge. Supported by his associate Maceo (Charles S. Dutton), Tyrone books hot radio star Guitar Slim to play the club, while various interests, including the casually racist Sheriff Pugh (Stacy Keach), threaten to bring his modest establishment down before that fateful night comes.

Atonement
CFI Advance Screening
With special guests: Actor James McAvoy and Director Joe Wright
Tuesday, November 27, 2007