San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
7 Bay Area films to see at Mill Valley festival
While the hot-ticket awards contenders and celebrity redcarpet appearances might capture the most media attention during the Mill Valley Film Festival, the 45th annual festival — running Thursday, Oct. 6, through Oct. 16 — also boasts an impressive, deeply satisfying range of films with Bay Area ties.
Here are seven of the not-tobe-missed local highlights in this year’s lineup (tickets are available at mvff.com).
‘The Grab’
This gripping investigative documentary plays like a thriller, following an intrepid team of journalists at Emeryville’s Center for Investigative Reporting, led by Nate Halverson, as they tease out the secret, increasingly aggressive methods used by the world’s wealthiest nations to protect their food security by seizing huge parcels of the globe’s remaining arable land. Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite (“Blackfish”) and Bay Area producers Blye Faust and Amanda Pike are scheduled to attend the U.S. premiere screenings at the festival.
1 p.m. Monday, Oct. 10. CinéArts Sequoia, 25 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley.
‘Town Destroyer’
The question of how to handle public art that depicts ugly historical truths, and that no longer reflects current social values, couldn’t be more timely. Berkeley filmmakers Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow dive into the recent conflict over Works Progress Administration-era murals at San Francisco’s George Washington High School, and calls for the murals to be erased or destroyed. Would doing so be a historical redaction or a buffer against the traumatization of young minds?
1:15 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14. Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael; 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15. Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St., S.F.
‘The Art of Eating: The Life of M.F.K. Fisher’
San Francisco director Gregory Bezat explores the exuberant, insatiably curious life of legendary Northern California food writer M.F.K. Fisher. Her artful personal essays — about food, dining, entertaining and hunger itself as a cultural metaphor — established a new genre of culinary writing over the course of her 60-plus year career. Chefs Alice Waters and John Ash both appear in this rich docu-portrait.
7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 11. Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael; 3 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 13. CinéArts Sequoia, 25 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley.
‘Tukdam — Between Worlds’
The Tibetan Buddhist tradition of tukdam refers to the practice of meditating at the deepest level of consciousness as one approaches death. It has been shown to delay some physical signs of medical death (rigor mortis, a drop in body temperature) for days, even weeks. Through interviews with Western scientists, Tibetan medical professionals and the Dalai Lama, San Francisco filmmaker Donagh Coleman attempts to unravel the mysteries inherent in the threshold between life and death.
Co-presented with Oakland’s Buddhist Film Foundation.
6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 12 and 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14. Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael.
‘Sophia’
Co-directors Jon Kasbe and Crystal Moselle probe what it means to be and feel human in this unsettling doc about the world’s most expressive, lifelike humanoid robot. Hong Kongbased inventor David Hanson has devoted his career to perfecting “Sophia” as a compassionate, socially useful AI companion. It’s left to audiences to decide if the path to “machine consciousness” is a hopeful one, or something more sinister.
2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14 and 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15. Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael.
‘Elemental’
As our world grows hotter, drier and more combustible, learning to live with the inevitability of fire has become crucial. Partially shot in fire-ravaged Healdsburg and Santa Rosa, Trip Jennings’ “Elemental,” narrated by David Oyelowo, explores Indigenous fire prevention practices and the history of wildfire in the West. The film includes the voices of climate experts and fire survivors, who know firsthand the need to reinvent our relationship with wildfires.
7:15 p.m. Oct. 14. Lark Theater, 549 Magnolia Ave., Larkspur; 2 p.m. Oct. 15. CinéArts Sequoia, 25 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley. (The Oct. 15 screening will be followed by a filmmaker Talk Back at the Outdoor Art Club across the street from the theater at 4 p.m.)
‘Fantastic Negrito: Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?’
Oakland’s own wildly inventive, multi-Grammy Awardwinning bluesman Fantastic Negrito (Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz) began life as a lonely Black Muslim kid in rural Massachusetts, long before reinventing himself and achieving global stardom in the Bay Area. This locally made doc brims with energy, as we see Fantastic Negrito face his own traumatic demons as a survivor of domestic abuse, drug violence and racism, while creating his most personal album to date.
7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15. BAMPFA, 2155 Center St., Berkeley; 3 p.m. Oct. 16. Lark Theater, 549 Magnolia Ave., Larkspur.