SF Documentary Film Festival

Fri, May 12 - Sun, May 21
1p-9p
$10 (all proceeds benefit SF IndieFest)

DOCFEST
May 12-21, 2006
Roxie Cinema and The Women's Building Auditorium in San Francisco

A film festival that offers the truth, the whole truth or something
like the truth.


Jean Renoir once said, "Reality is always magic." The San Francisco
Independent Film Festival is offering a week and a half of reality
and magic with the fifth Documentary Film Festival, eleven days of
nonfiction films and video, May 12-21 at the Roxie Cinema, 3125 16th
Street, and The Women's Building Auditorium, 3543 18th Street in San
Francisco. Tickets are $10.00. The DocPass, good for admission to all
films at the festival, is $100.00. Also available is the 5Film Pass
for $45.00. and the 10Film pass for $80.00. For tickets or more
information please call (415) 820-3907 or go to www.sfindie.com

Opening Night: a lively look at a longtime lover of the lowbrow
THE TREASURES OF LONG GONE JOHN, Gregg Gibb's (screenwriter of SHUT
YER DIRTY LITTLE MOUTH/Audience Award winner at 2002 SF IndieFest)
directorial debut, gets the Festival off to a lively start at The
Roxie Cinema. The film chronicles the eccentric art and musical
obsessions of indie record producer Long Gone John. The product of a
troubled childhood, Long Gone John found success with his own record
label, Sympathy for the Record Industry. During the past seventeen
years, he has single-handedly released over 750 records without ever
signing a contract and has helped launch the careers of The White
Stripes, Hole, The Dwarves and Rocket from the Crypt. Along the way,
he compulsively amassed a vast collection of lowbrow art and pop
ephemera, and the scope of the film broadens to expose the expanding
popularity of lowbrow art, and its bible, Juxtapose magazine, through
a vast assortment of interviews with artists, collectors, and
musicians of this popular culture once revered as "fringe" such as
Todd Schorr, Mark Ryden, Camille Rose Garcia and Robert Williams. The
screening of THE TREASURES OF LONG GONE JOHN is co-presented by
Juxtapoz Magazine. The Opening Night party at OnSix Gallery, inside
Club 6, 66 Sixth Street in San Francisco will feature live musical
performances, as well as an exhibition of art presented by Juxtapoz.

Special Presentation: A disturbing documentary about the trajectory
of conflict
Part thriller and part mystery, Steven Silver (THE LAST JUST MAN) and
Andre Quigley's DIAMETER OF A BOMB focuses on a suicide bomb that
shook Jerusalem one summer morning in 2002. With unprecedented
access, the filmmakers take their cameras inside Israeli prisons,
commando units, Palestinian refugee camps and hospital trauma wards,
capturing countless everyday situations across Israel and Palestine
that follow the trajectory of human suffering created by this one
explosion. Also in the mix is forensic footage released for the first
time by the Israeli army, Hamas military videos, as well as the
bomber's home movie footage.

From famed hair to pizza, doc subjects span the stratosphere
San Jose is the unlikely home of the last intact lock of Beethoven's
hair, and filmmaker Larry Weinstein has tracked its wholly improbably
trajectory throughout the ages in the aptly titled BEETHOVEN'S HAIR.
Oft the subject of documentary film, people's collections provide
fascinating insights into psychology, desire, and consumerism. But
what about when the collection is of living things? Eric Metzgar's
THE CHANCES OF THE WORLD CHANGING looks at author Richard Ogust's
compulsion to collect living animals - he now shares his Manhattan
penthouse with 1200 creatures. CRACKED NOT BROKEN, by Paul Perrier,
is an unflinching look at a highly intelligent, former stockbroker,
who now prostitutes herself for crack money. Comedic crack-up, movie
star and UFO expert Dan Ackroyd sits down with filmmaker David Sereda
in DAN ACKROYD: UNPLUGGED ON UFOs to examine America's fascination
and (un?) realistic obsession with alien encounters. In DEEPER THAN
Y, filmmaker Ilona Siller interviews 7 eccentric New Yorkers taking
swimming classes at a YMCA as they revisit their lives and examine
insecurities about aging. Getting fired further blooms one's
penchant for insecurity, so Chris Bradley and Kyle Labrache hired
themselves to make FIRED, plunging into the lives of their comedian
friends for a rollicking look at what it means to be hired and fired
as an American worker in the global economy. Pinball wizards of the
world unite for Greg Maletic's THE FUTURE OF PINBALL, a look at the
attempted "Pinball 2000" revolution, a clever attempt at
resuscitating pinball that failed just at the moment a lot of people
thought it might succeed. Much as pinball is universally adored,
pizza is the object of many an eater's affection. In PIZZA! THE
MOVIE, Michael Dorian examines the World Pizza Championship as
uniquely talented and passionate pizza makers battle it out as they
attempt to go for the gold against their international counterparts.
These docs and more round out this year's eclectic DocFest program.

The DocFest information paragraphs
Now in its fifth year, the San Francisco Documentary Film Festival
presented by the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, runs May
12-21 at the Roxie Cinema and The Women's Building Auditorium in San
Francisco.

Tickets are $10. The 5film pass is $45. The 10film pass is $80.
DocPass, good for admission to all programs, is $100. Admission to
the Opening Night gala and film is $10. The Opening Night ticket
includes entrance to the after party at Club 6, 66 Sixth street in
San Francisco. For tickets and more information call (415) 820-3907
or go to www.sfindie.com.

Venue:

Roxie Cinema
3117 16th St at Valencia
SF

Additional Info:

415.820.3907
http://www.sfindie.com