San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Reel Local News:
“Shakespeare in the Shadows” is a Northern California Emmy nominee.
“Shakespeare in the Shadows,” a 2018 nominee for a Northern California Emmy in the Arts/ Entertainment-Program/Special category, airs at 9 p.m. July 11 on Bay Area public television station KRCB.
Directed by North Bay filmmaker Joshua Dylan Mellars, “Shakespeare in the Shadows” marries William Shakespeare soliloquies — speeches from “Macbeth,” “The Tempest” and “Julius Caesar,” among them — performed by actor Mark Cohen with locations spread throughout the Bay Area. A soliloquy from “Henry VIII” is set among the neo-gothic architecture of San Francisco’s St. Dominic’s Catholic Church. A jail scene from “Richard II” takes place in one of the abandoned bunkers in the Marin Headlands. Other locations include a redwood grove and San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel.
“To me, it was important to find locations that would help enhance the performance, from a visual perspective, and to help Mark get into character,” said Mellars.
“Shakespeare in the Shadows” debuted at the 2016 Tiburon Film Festival as a 10-minute short with speeches from “Macbeth,” “The Tempest” and “Julius Caesar.” The remaining soliloquies were shot in the summer of 2016.
Back in business: After a 10year layoff, San Francisco’s Allie Light has returned to filmmaking. The short “Any Wednesday,” which she co-directed with Patrick Stark, has been chosen to screen at the 16th Female Eye Film Festival, which takes place June 26-July 1 in Toronto.
Light’s first film since 2009’s “Empress Hotel” is a departure for the documentarian who, along with her late husband and partner Irving Saraf, won a best feature documentary Oscar for “In the Shadow of Stars” (1991). Written by Light, “Any Wednesday” focuses on the relationship between Agnes (Mary Black), an elderly woman in the early stages of dementia, and C’Mo (Shane Dean), a homeless veteran who has post-traumatic stress disorder.
Black Panthers legacy: “Black Panthers in ’68,” four short films shot in 1968 and 1969 that focus on the group and the times, will be shown at the Roxie in collaboration with the San Francisco State University Africana Studies department, is screening on June 28.
The films are Agnès Varda’s “Black Panthers” (1968), shot during an Oakland demonstration protesting the imprisonment of Black Panthers co-founder Huey P. Newton; “The New-Ark” (1968), a recently rediscovered film by poet and playwright Amiri Baraka about activism in Newark, N.J.; “Black Panther” (1969), shot in Oakland and charting the development of the organization, and “San Francisco State on Strike,” shot in 1968 and 1969, during the five-month, student-led strike against the university.
Special guests to be announced. 7 p.m. Roxie Theater, SF, $8/$12. www.roxie.com
“Moss Index Vol. 1,” a new, biannual series of short films about nature and the environment, curated by San Franciscobased filmmakers and artists, screens 8 p.m., June 28 at Artists Television Access (ATA). www. atasite.org
“My Son Tenzin,” a Bay Areaproduced, English-language film about Tibetans in exile, screens 4:15 p.m., June 24, at Smith Rafael Film Center. Filmmaker Tsultrim Dorjee will attend and the event will feature a performance by actor/musician Tsering Dorjee Bawa. https://rafaelfilm. cafilm.org/
“Here to Be Heard: The Story of the Slits,” a documentary about the pioneering all-women punk band formed in London in 1976, screens 3 p.m., June 24, at Oakland’s The New Parkway. www.thenewparkway.com
Pam Grady is a San Francisco freelance writer.