9 movies worth catching at SFFilm
Opening and closing nights are already a hot ticket. But there’s so much more to discover at the San Francisco International Film Festival, which runs Wednesday, April 24, through Sunday, April 28, with some programs showing movies that, for Bay Area audiences, can only be experienced at this 67th edition.
The following is a list of recommendations, in chronological order, of films that still have tickets remaining:
‘Eureka’
Argentine director Lisandro Alonso tells three different stories focusing on Indigenous culture in the Americas, including one starring Viggo Mortensen as a gunslinger looking for his kidnapped daughter. Location work in this picturesque movie includes wintry South Dakota and the Amazon forest.
2:45 p.m. Thursday, April 25. Premier Theater, 1 Letterman Drive, S.F.
‘Soundtrack for a Coup d’Etat’
The festival’s annual Persistence of Vision Award, which goes to an artist whose main body of work falls outside the realm of narrative feature filmmaking each, goes to Belgium’s Johan Grimonprez. His new documentary explores how Western nations used jazz music to engineer a coup in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the mid-20th century.
6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 25. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2155 Center St., Berkeley.
‘The Teacher’
These SFFilm screenings might be the Bay Area’s only chance to see this powerful Palestinian drama about the fallout from the destruction of a home by Israeli edict and the murder of a youth by an Israeli settler, which received strong critical reviews after its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September before the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas caused potential distributors to stay away.
4 p.m. Friday, April 26, BAMPFA; 5:15 p.m. Saturday, April 27. Marina Theatre, 2149 Chestnut St., S.F.
‘Zinzindurrunkarratz’
The natural beauty of rural Spain, a personable donkey named Paolo and a Super-8 camera are the stars of this poetic, one-of-a-kind documentary about a man retracing his grandfather’s shepherding route.
5:45 p.m. Friday, April 26. Marina Theatre; 11:30 a.m. Saturday,
April 27, BAMPFA. ‘Macario’
Longtime Bay Area film personality Gary Meyer selected this rarely screened, 1960 supernatural drama that is considered one of the greatest Mexican films of all time as part of his tribute as the Mel Novikoff Award recipient. Meyer, who has decades of stories to tell, also will be in conversation with IndieWire critic and reporter Anne Thompson.
Noon. Saturday, April 27. Premier Theater.
‘Rob Peace’
Chiwetel Ejiofor, the Oscar-nominated actor of “12 Years a Slave” and the “Doctor Strange” movies whose Hollywood career began as a teenager with a role in Steven Spielberg’s “Amistad” in 1997, is forging a new career as a director. After an onstage conversation exploring his career, Ejiofor will present his second film as director, “Rob Peace,” about the tragic life of a young New Jersey science prodigy.
7 p.m. Saturday, April 27. Premier Theater.
‘On the Invention of Species’
A girl on the cusp of womanhood finds herself wandering the Galapagos Islands, processing trauma and coming to terms with her own emotional Darwinism in this Sloan Science on Screen Award winner, presented by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 27. Vogue Theatre, 3290 Sacramento St., S.F.
‘Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl’
Actress and director Joan Chen (“The Last Emperor,” “Twin Peaks”) presents a 25th anniversary screening — in 35mm — of her exquisitely made, moving portrait of a teenage girl during the upheaval of China’s Cultural Revolution. The screening will be preceded by an onstage conversation with Chen, who is also a star of the opening night film, “DiDi.”
1 p.m. Sunday, April 28. Premier Theater.
‘The Cats of Gokogu Shrine’
Who doesn’t like cats? Japanese-born filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda hangs out with the feral felines of his seaside hometown Ushimado as an entryway into a documentary that explores issues of aging and modernity and its effects on a small population.
7:15 p.m. Sunday, April 28, BAMPFA. Freelance writer Pam Grady contributed to this report.