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!