ON THE BIG SCREEN
Sausalito filmmaker's film featured in San Francisco Film Fest
Even a venerable event like the San Francisco Film Festival is facing challenges these days. Like many festivals around the nation, SFFILM has to deal first and foremost with a drop in places to screen films. Since the pandemic, the Bay Area has been hit hard by the shuttering of key, numerous venues, either temporarily or forever.
As a result, the 67th annual SFFILM is leaner in 2024 — with a program that runs five days not 11 as in the past.
But regardless, the festival remains as special as always. It runs through Sunday, with an encore program May 2 to 4 at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco.
The event opens with East Bay native Sean Wang's Sundance Film Festival awardwinner “Dìdi,” about a charismatic 13-yearold Taiwanese American who's just about to enter high school. (It also screens May 2 at the Roxie.) The festival closes Sunday with Josh Margolin's charmer “Thelma,” which stars 94-year-old June Squibb as a senior citizen going all Ethan Hunt on the jerk who scammed her.
Sandwiched in between this are a stellar batch of offerings including searing dramas, thought-provoking documentaries and even a romantic dramedy with two impossibly beautiful people snuggling up to each other.
There's not a bad film in the bunch, and many works have Bay Area ties.
For SFFILM's opening pick, programmers have again selected a work from an East Bay filmmaker. Last year, it was Oakland's Peter Nicks who brought his “Stephen Curry: Underrated” to Oakland's Grand Lake Theatre. This year, it's Wang's turn to shine with “Dìdi,” a film many fell in love with at its Sundance Film Festival premiere. It's easy to see why.
The Oscar nominee's coming-of-age dramedy was filmed in Fremont and is set
during the summer of 2008, a pivotal time in the life of 13-year-old Taiwanese American skateboarder Chris Wang (Izaac Wang, in a career-making performance). “Dìdi” touches on all-too relatable, growing-pain moments, such as awkward attempts at trying to impress someone you're crushing hard on and hanging out with your bros and getting into trouble. Its best sequences, though, pertain to the brittle, tension-filled relationship of Chris and his exhausted mom (Joan Chen, who is also being honored April 25 with SFFILM's Persistence of Vision award). They're frequently at each other's throats, but learn to better understand and appreciate each other over time.
“Dìdi” gets its encore screening 8:30 p.m. May 4 at the Roxie in San Francisco ($20; roxie.com). The film opens July 26 in area theaters.
Some of the best selections this year are in the documentary category. Here are some of our favorites. More information at sffilm. org.
“COUNTED OUT” >> Sausalito's Vicki Abeles addresses the nation's deep-seated reluctance, even fear, of math, then shows why its applications can lead to better lives for everyone. Her eye-opening documentary travels from Alameda to New York and other locales to show math doesn't need to be a daunting subject. “Counted Out” checks in with Wall Street Journal award-winning reporter Julia Angwin, who talks about why newsrooms, not only students, need to better grasp the numbers game so they can keep public and private entities more accountable. Abeles' documentary talks to a swath of innovators and educators — including late civil rights activist Bob Moses — about formulating a better understanding of math, particularly those of us who have been told we just don't have the head for numbers. As “Counted Out” suggests, everyone can prove those critics wrong, and then have the math to back them up on that statement.