By popular demand: BAD BOYS OF SUMMER

FILM ARTS FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES
ADDED BADS BOYS OF SUMMER SCREENING

July 11, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - Film Arts Foundation is excited to announce an encore presentation of Bad Boys Of Summer, to be held on Friday July 20, 2007 @ 7:00pm, at the Screening Room of the Ninth Street Media Consortium. In attendance for the post-screening Q&A will be Elliot Smith, the player/manager for the Oaks, San Quentin's rival baseball team. The Oaks play the San Quentin Giants on opening day every year. Also in attendance will be scorekeeper Alison Harrington, San Quentin PR Officer Eric Messick, and San Quentin Warden Robert Ayers, Jr.

Originally programmed as part of Film Art's award-winning True Stories Documentary Series at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Bad Boys Of Summer is a feature documentary that follows the charismatic coach of the San Quentin Giants through his final season with the prison baseball program, as he tries to change the lives of the men on his team. By peeling back the layers of their dark personal histories, he reveals their inner core as human beings. In the process, he gives a startling new face to our national pastime. Bad Boys Of Summer brings together inmates, guards, parolees and their families, and shows us a side of the prison system few ever could imagine, and for those that live it, they will see it anew when they see the film for the first time.

Bad Boys of Summer marks the fourth documentary collaboration between filmmakers Loren Mendell and Tiller Russell through their production company Angry Young Ranch. Founded in 2001, the company’s slate of films includes the IDA Award nominee Cockfight (PBS), Change Up (Discovery), and One Strong Arm (A&E Indie Films). This is their first feature length film. More information can be found at www.angryyoungranch.com.

WHAT: A special screening of BAD BOYS OF SUMMER, followed by Q&A
WHEN: Friday July 20, 2007 @ 7:00pm
WHERE: Ninth Street Media Consortium, Screening Room
145 Ninth Street, # 104
San Francisco, CA 94103
Tickets $8/$6 for Film Arts or YBCA members. Cash and checks only.

SPACE IS LIMITED. Please contact Reynaldi Lolong, True Stories Program Manager,
at 415-552-8760 x304, or via e-mail: reynaldi@filmarts.org if you would like to attend.

BAWIFT General Meeting, featuring Judy Irving

On July 11, Judy Irving, director of our August film 19 Arrests, No Convictions, will be a featured speaker at the upcoming general meeting for BAWIFT (Bay Area Women In Film And Television).

Veteran documentary maker Judy Irving has achieved great success with her film Wild Parrots Of Telegraph Hill and several other productions over the years, including theatrical distribution of this amazing and delightful feature length documentary. Hear her stories and tips at our July meeting.

Agenda:
7 pm - networking and light dinner
7:30 to 9 PM - Judy's presentation/discussion and clips from Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, including a Q&A.
9 to 9:30 PM - More networking.
Although our special events include both men and women, our monthly meetings, such as this one, are for women only.
Free for paid BAWIFT members, $5 for non-BAWIFT members.
$3 for non-BAWIFT member students with ID.
Location: San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking,
2565 Third Street, Suite 337, between 22nd & 23rd Sts.

Directions by Public Transit:
BART: Exit at the 16th Street/ Mission Station.Take the #22 bus from the SW corner to the last stop on the line, which is Third St. at 20th.Walk 2 blocks south.
SF MUNI: To use Muni from downtown SF or from the East Bay, take the T-THIRD MUNI line (inbound to SF) on the Embarcadero. This is the street level. Pick it up anywhere along the Embarcadero and it goes down Third Street and stops just opposite the SFSDF building, at 22nd St. For more MUNI info go to: www.sfmuni.com
Bus Lines in San Francisco to use: #22 (take it to the last stop, at Third & 20th), and #49
Driving from East Bay: West toward San Francisco Cross Bay Bridge (toll) Stay on US 101, towards San Jose Exit right onto Cesar Chavez Blvd - EAST Turn left onto 3rd St. The school is located between 22nd & 23rd Streets.
Driving from South Bay: US 101 or US 280 North toward San Francisco Exit right onto Cesar Chavez Blvd., go EAST Turn left onto 3rd Street The Administrative building is located at 20th Street. The school is located between 22nd & 23rd Streets.
Driving from North Bay: US 101 S toward San Francisco (toll) Turn right onto Van Ness Ave./US101 Turn left onto Golden Gate Ave. Turn slight right onto 6th St. Merge onto I 280 S / US280 South Take Mariposa St. exit toward 18th St. Take the 18th St. ramp Turn left onto 18th St. Turn right onto 3rd St. - Go South a few blocks. The school is located between 22nd & 23rd Streets.
Driving from San Francisco:, South of Market Area Take 3rd Street (by SBC Park). Go South to 22nd. St. The school is located between 22nd & 23rd Streets.

Next up: Bad Boys of Summer

Bad Boys of Summer

by Loren Mendell & Tiller Russell (2007, 76 min)
Wed, Jul 18, 7:30 pm
$8 regular
$6 FAF members, seniors, students & teacher
$6 YBCA Members

Every spring, 24 convicts taste the cool, crisp air of freedom—not by stepping out of prison walls, but by putting on a pair of spikes and picking up a glove. And for four months, they’re not just inmates, they’re…ballplayers. Bad Boys of Summer follows the charismatic coach of the San Quentin Giants through his final season with the prison baseball team as he tries to change the men’s lives.

-also showing-
"The Ghost in the Material" by Kelcey Edwards and solo exhibit of new work by William Noguera

From the confines of his 4x10 foot cell on Death Row at the notorious San Quentin State Prison, down on his knees, hunched over a makeshift easel erected from his steel mattress frame, William Noguera crafts painstaking canvases of chilling beauty and great emotional depth. Mr. Noguera is a completely self-taught artist; he has been imprisoned since 1983. During an enforced 27 day stay in solitary confinement, William began to draw on the walls of his cell, and has focused on this means of expression ever since to escape the confines of his difficult circumstances.


"The Ghost in the Material" is a four-minute short in 16mm black & white film which presents a haunting, outsider's look at the black-and-white world of William Noguera. An exhibit of Noguera's work will also be on display, courtesy of the Institute For Unpopular Culture.

Audience Response: Red Without Blue

The film itself was very personal and dug so deeply into the twins' lives that it felt like a gift being allowed into their world -- and they didnt tell the story like they were experts, they felt honest and real and completely unpretentious. Not only was it a trans story, but it became a universal story as it went on, in the interviews with the parents and all of the archival home movies and photos, that touched everyone.

Iit became a story everyone could relate to about growing up, the relationship between parents and children, how you choose the life you want to lead for yourself, becoming the person you want to be and are comfortable being... it transcends boundaries that people like to put up between themselves and shows that we are all in the same world together, no matter how different we are or like to think we are, there are so many comonalities that bring us together. the support to be found in those simmilarities can be universally comforting if we just open ourselves up to it.

Many thanks to audience member Liz for sending in her response to the screening!

True Stories filmmakers out and about in the world

A congratulations to the team from Red Without Blue for a fantastic, sold-out screening on Wednesday night. If you weren't able to snag a ticket, you can also catch the film as part of this year's Frameline Festival, on June 17 and June 20. And if you miss that, then tune in to the Sundance Channel on June 25 at 9pm for the television premiere.

Row Hard No Excuses continues to screen at film festivals around the country, recently showing at the Independent Film Festival of Boston. Interesting factoid from last month's Q&A: the wreckage of the American Star washed up on a distant shore, and is in the process of being recovered. I salute anyone with the guts to sail that ship in another race.

Piece By Piece director Nic Hill continues to scour the globe for the making of Truth In Numbers: The Wikipedia Story. According to their Current Shooting Schedule, the wrapped up in Cape Town last month and are onwards to Croation next month. Good times.

Coming up:

JUNE 20: WHEN PIGS FLY, by Eric Breitenbach & Phyllis Redman
One quadriplegic, 20 acres and 700 pigs are the setting for this film that probes the complicated relationships that emerge when fate and obsession converge upon a family. When Pigs Fly provides an unflinching look at a family coping with one member’s physical disability and increasingly eccentric behavior. Individual rights of self-determination are raised as a family walks the fine line between love and obsession, passion and madness.

JULY 18: BAD BOYS OF SUMMER, by Loren Mendell & Tiller Russell
Every spring 24 convicts taste the cool, crisp air of freedom. Not by stepping outside the prison walls, but by putting on a pair of spikes and picking up a glove. And for four months, they’re not just inmates, they’re...ballplayers. Bad Boys Of Summer follows the charismatic coach of the San Quentin Giants through his final season with the prison baseball program as he tries to change the lives of the men on his team.

AUGUST 15: 19 ARRESTS, NO CONVICTIONS, by Judy Irving
Directed by acclaimed local filmmaker Judy Irving (Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill), Nineteen Arrests, No Convictions looks at bar owner George Farnsworth, the oldest person to swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco on New Year’s Day.

Row Hard No Excuses is a sell-out!

I'm excited to report that our April True Stories screening, Row Hard No Excuses, has sold out! However, for those of you hoping to see the film, we're looking at adding a second screening. Shoot me an e-mail at reynaldi@filmarts.org, and I will keep you updated as soon as a second screening is confirmed.

Choice of Canvas

Title: Horse
Artist: Reminisce
Medium: Spray can acrylic on concrete wall

Color Me Beautiful

(From the March/April issue of Release Print, the magazine of Film Arts Foundation)

Red Without Blue and the Shifting Boundaries of Personal Documentary
by Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

It’s a sight to behold: vintage Super-8 footage of two tow-headed tykes performing an exuberant rope-skipping routine with an easy synchronicity that comes naturally only to twins. “We were just in love with each other from the day we were born,” Mark Farley says of his twin brother. “Being Alex’s twin, it was just magical.” Today, Mark no longer has a brother, but rather a sister named Clair. Red Without Blue, the astonishing 77-minute documentary that in January bagged the audience award at the Slamdance Film Festival, tells the story of how one became the other. Completed in late 2006 on a shoestring budget by co-directors Brooke Sebold, Benita Sills, and Todd Sills, the film brings a new immediacy to the personal documentary genre with its intimate portrayal of identical twin brothers from the Big Sky country of Montana who had a tougher than average time growing up. So tough, in fact, that they barely survived it.

Perhaps the most wrenching sequence in the film looks back on the night when, at the age of 14, Mark had decided that he and Alex would commit suicide. Both boys had recently come out as gay and, reeling from the traumatizing attentions of a sexual predator, were spiraling downward in a tangle of depression and drug abuse. They drove the family car to a secluded spot, attached hoses leading from the exhaust pipe to the interior, and waited. Fortunately, two hours later they were still alive, and Alex begged Mark to take him home. When their parents discovered what they had done and on the advice of a psychologist, they were sent to different boarding schools, and did not see each other for two-and-a-half years.

Explore, not exploit
When the twins were at last reunited, Alex had some stunning news: he had decided to transition from male to female—from Alex to Clair. In contemplating this transformation, the filmmakers give friends and family members the opportunity to question Clair’s decision. Many of the stories told are painful ones, but Mark, Clair, and their parents were genuinely sincere and always willing to divulge intimate, if sometimes harrowing, experiences on camera. “There was a complete absence of vanity on their part,” says co-director Brooke Sebold of the Farley family. “They took the three of us in as extended family over the two-and-a-half years that it took to finish the film, welcoming us into their house time and time again, even giving us Christmas presents.” It’s evident that they wanted the film to be made, and understood their stake in its outcome.
Ultimately, Red Without Blue tells the story of a family falling apart and putting itself back together again. As the filming progressed, the relationships evolved. “Our mistakes were in the past,” Clair says. “Reliving that tension really pushed our family apart for some time. With everyone’s different perspective of memories, we really ran into some problems. But the process of the movie gave each of us a voice. Especially for my mother and I. It helped me understand things, like how my decision had actually taken a son away from my mom.”

And Mark was losing a brother. “Mark and Clair isn’t the same as Mark and Alex,” he reminds his sister at one point. “It was a shock to me,” he says later in an interview with the filmmakers. “I never even knew who transgender people were or what that term meant.” As the film tracks Mark’s new life as an art student in San Francisco, and follows Clair back to New York as she begins preparing for her operation, it keeps the focus on this unique and unconventional relationship between Mark and Clair as they mature into adulthood. Along the way, Red Without Blue takes numerous twists and turns, striking a compelling balance as it shifts from aching family trauma to moments of blithe comedy. As the Farleys regain their footing and gradually become comfortable with the family’s altered gender makeup, the proceedings occasionally take on a wryly funny tone. In one jubilant scene Clair—who by now is well on her way towards making the transition from male to female—attempts to shoot clay pigeons out of the sky with an old high school classmate. As she puts the shotgun to her shoulder and pulls the trigger, her exhilaration is ultimately triumphant.

A unity of vision
Co-director Brooke Sebold initially met Mark Farley when he moved into her San Francisco apartment in 2003. As they became friends, the idea for the project grew out of their closeness. “I trusted her from the beginning,” says Mark. “I knew she had grappled with gender stereotypes herself and I could tell she wanted to tell the story with respect to both of us and our family.”

It was especially important to Sebold to explore, not exploit the subject matter. Keeping Mark involved with the creative process of making the film was a natural decision for her and her co-directors. “We intentionally approached the project as if this was the film that he would have made if he were a filmmaker,” Sebold says. “We even gave him a little Sony palmcorder, with which he filmed many of the more intimate scenes himself.”

Long before graduating from Brown University in 2003 with a degree in Visual Art and Film Production, Sebold’s life was dramatically altered by a childhood illness that left her bedridden for over a year. “During that time, movies saved me. I would watch movie after movie,” Sebold reminisced. “I was deeply impressed by seeing Demi Moore do a one-handed pushup in Ridley Scott’s G.I. Jane. As I got older, movies like Capturing the Friedmans, Tarnation, and Spellbound started to have a major impact on me. And I became very interested in the personal documentary.”

Co-directors Benita and Todd Sills met one another at Northwestern. “I was ‘that guy’ who would make short films with his friends at the age of 12,” says Todd. “We did recreations of the hanging of Rebecca Nurse. I can remember a very important night for me when my mom thought she was renting International Velvet for my slumber party. It later turned out to be David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, and man was it perplexing. Of course, I watched it a few more times before returning it.”

In March of 2004, Brooke met Benita, who had moved from New York in 2002, at the San Francisco-based production house Citizen Film. As the two formed a working relationship, the initial concept for Red Without Blue was born. Neither had made a film, much less a feature-length documentary, and so when Todd moved from New York to work on the project, the love triangle of filmmakers was complete.

“It was always a group project,” says Sebold. “A lot of people have asked us if it was difficult to have three directors. The truth is, none of us would have been able to even start making the film much less finish it on our own. It was such a learning experience that we needed each other every step of the way. Benita was our secret weapon. We nicknamed her Ninja Assassin because she took it upon herself to do the dirty work. You know, saying the hard truths that no one wants to hear, like ‘this sequence just isn’t working,’ and so on. Todd, on the other hand, would find a perfect compromise in the problems that we would be having. Plus, he never played favorites with Benita (his wife).”

From here to eternity
With their first feature-length documentary under their belts, the filmmakers overcame the grueling process of applying to film festivals and were rewarded almost immediately. “When we found out that the film had been accepted into Slamdance, we were completely elated. But then we quickly realized that a whole new chapter lay ahead of us,” says Sebold.
December 2006 was a month filled with acquiring a publicist, writing press releases, designing postcards, posters, and other advertising materials, and purchasing winter clothing for the snowy mountains of Park City. Benita lost her voice just in time for the first screening. Todd’s rental car slid off the road and into a snow bank, losing its bumper. Brooke came down with the flu. And so when Red Without Blue won the Audience Award for Best Documentary, the filmmakers were caught so off guard that there was an extraordinary moment of silence before any of them made their way to the stage. “We were so happy that both screenings sold out and that the Q&As had gone well that we honestly didn’t even consider the prospect of winning anything,” recalls Sebold. “This is such a wonderful award to win. And it means mainstream audiences can relate to the film as well.”

For Clair, the process of making the film was a monumental moment in her life. “I realized a long time ago that by the time this film would be completed, I would have had my operation. It’s been a spiritual experience for me and now, I’m not sure where it will take me. And in fact, I just realized something: I’m not as ‘open-book’ as I thought I was. And ironically, it took a documentary to figure that out.”

For each member of the Farley family, the making of Red Without Blue became an integral part of one family’s healing and catharsis. Both parents, in their own ways, had the opportunity to “show up” for their children. For Mark, the film represents just one moment in the trajectory of his life. “It’s surreal to see yourself from a few years ago and think, ‘That person is me!’” he says. “The film is like a time capsule. And just because it ends for audiences, it doesn’t mean my life is completed!”
As the filmmakers prepare to solicit a distributor and ponder which steps to take next, they are determined to get Red Without Blue into a theater near you. “The film is about family, and how the members of your family may or may not become the people you expected them to,” says Sebold. “I hope it will help shed light on LGBT issues, as well as strike a chord in families who are going through their own transitions.”

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks teaches film history at the Academy of Art Univesity, and programs and hosts the MiDNiTES FOR MANiACS series at the Castro Movie Palace.

Coming in June: When Pigs Fly

Film Arts Foundation is excited to announce our June True Stories. Join us on Wednesday June 20 when we will be screening When Pigs Fly, by Phyllis Redman and Eric Breitenbach.

One quadriplegic, 20 acres and 700 pigs are the setting for this film that probes the complicated relationships that emerge when fate and obsession converge upon a family. When Pigs Fly provides an unflinching look at a family coping with one member's physical disability and increasingly eccentric behavior. Individual rights of self-determination are raised as the Yazurlo family walks the fine line between love and obsession, passion and madness. Three years in the making, When Pigs Fly is alternately heartwarming and heart wrenching, and in the words of one reviewer "absolutely contradictory and maddening."

On to his next true story...

Chalk up another for the small-world factor of working in the arts. Film Arts Foundation recently welcomed Michael Ferris Gibson (24 Hours On Craigslist) on to our Board of Directors. A general inquiry of "So what's your next project" revealed that he is producing Truth in Numbers: The Wikipedia Story, directed by Piece by Piece director Nic Hill.

Make sure you join us next Wednesday for the screening and Q&A - tickets available now through the YBCA website.

Capsule Review: Red Without Blue

By Jesse Hawthorne Flicks, taken from the Film Arts at Sundance blog.

How about the last time you've been to a movie where the audience responds with a standing ovation?! This was what happened at the world premiere of RED WITHOUT BLUE which screened at Slamdance this week. The film follows Mark & Claire (twin brothers at birth) and their family, as they all adapt to Claire's decision to make the transition from male to female. The film starts off a bit swirled, but once the story kicks in, there's no turning your head from the screen. (Not even to check your Blackberry for messages or the time.) The San Francisco based filmmaker Brooke Sebold and now Paris-based filmmakers Benita & Todd Sills all co-directed this heartbreaking moment in time when one person's decision creates a ripple effect among their own family. What's most interesting is how the film, by interviewing extensively each member of the family over three years, ultimately brings the family closer together. As I keep going back over the film in my head, the universality of family's confronting the changes and growths in each family member (if it be a new job, new relationship, new outlook on life, etc.), RED WITHOUT BLUE punctuates what a great documentary can do: Present a certain moment in one person(s) history. And that history grows and changes everyday. The film conluded filming last year and I already want to know how they are all doing. I better go call my own parents instead.

Trailer: Piece By Piece

Check out this trailer for Piece by Piece by Nic Hill, which opens our True Stories season on March 21.

Capsule Review: Row Hard No Excuses

By Release Print Editor Michael Read, taken from the Film Arts Sundance Blog.

Tom Mailhot and John Zeigler are a couple of middle-aged masochists with a penchant for competition and a taste for adventure, so no one was surprised when they announced that they were going to enter a rowing race across the Atlantic Ocean. Row Hard, No Excuses, San Francisco-based filmmaker Luke Wolbach's directorial debut, documents their harrowing 2001 voyage across the ocean. The resulting film is about much more than sleep deprivation, seasickness, isolation, and boredom: it is a meditation on the outer limits of human endurance, the commitments we make to our friends and to ourselves, and what it means to be a winner.

If this sounds like an Iron John-style rumination on manhood, you may be relieved to hear that Row Hard is also imbued with a good deal of humor and beauty. Many of the other teams that competed made their personal videos available to the filmmaker, and the inclusion of this footage brings a great deal of scope and context to the proceedings. Of particular interest is the story of a team that started out as a husband and wife, but finished the journey as a woman rowing 3,000 miles alone.

At the Slamdance screening on Jan 21, filmmaker Luke Wolbach was joined by his father Bill, who took on the role of producer. It was heartening to see how their strong, loving relationship was the engine driving the completion of the film. Also on hand were the rowers themselves, who were greeted like the movie stars they have suddenly become as they took the stage for the Q+A.

San Francisco doc makers are making an remarkably strong showing in Park City this year.

Welcome to True Stories 2007!

The Official Welcome:

"The Film Arts Foundation's once-a-month True Stories screening series has established itself as the place to see the cool new indie documetaries first."
(Voted Best Place To See New Documentaries, SF Bay Guardian, 2005)

Welcome to the Film Arts Foundation's blog for our True Stories Documentary Series! Join us the third Wednesday of every month (March - September) at the screening room at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for exciting sneak previews and new, topical documentaries. Tickets are $8/$6 for Film Arts & YBCA members, available at www.ycba.org or by calling 415-978-2787.

THAT SAID!

My name is Reynaldi Lolong, I'm the Program Manager for True Stories, and I am tickled (insert color of choice) to be kicking off this blog and telling you about our upcoming season. I'm also hoping I can fill it with all kinds of fun tidbits leading up to each screening: background information on the subjects, peripheral anecdotes of interest, and maybe I'll even be able to snag a filmmaker or two to give some insight into their work.

Our season, thus far:
March 12: Piece By Piece by Nic Hill. This ground-breaking film documents San Francisco's highly controversial graffiti art movement, and offers an intimate journey into the most intriguing and misunderstood artistic movement of modern youth culture - a candid and accurate story behind the writing on the wall in Northern California.
April 18: Row Hard, No Excuses by Luke Wolbach. A noble quest, or an ill-fated nightmare? Row Hard No excuses chronicles the voyage of the only American entry in a rowing race across the Atlantic Ocean, and is both an exciting sports-adventure story as well as an intimate portrait of the two-man crew that explores masculinity, midlife, and ambition. An Official Selection of the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival.
May 16: Red Without Blue by Brooke Sebold, Benita Sills & Todd Sills. In 1983, Mark and Alexander Farley were born just minutes apart as identical twin boys. Twenty-three years later, Mark is apartment hunting with his boyfriend in San Francisco, and Alex is living as a woman named Clair. A heartbreaking but optimistic look at the tribulations of growing up gay and transgender in rural Montana and maintaining strong family bonds in the face of adversity. Voted Audience Favorite at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival.

So there you have it. Keep checking back, and I hope to catch you at one of our screenings!