SFIFF52: Next Frame Picks for 4/29

[Above: Our Beloved Month of August]

Today’s slate of films include five that I’ve heard especially good things about, though I haven’t seen any of them (yet). All of these are screening at the Kabuki, and all of them feature Q&As afterwards with the directors.

Our Beloved Month of August, at 3:00, is described as a “playfully challenging hybrid of fiction and documentary” about the summer music festivals in rural Portugal. There will be one more screening on Friday night at 8:45.

Empress Hotel, at 6:15, a documentary about the Tenderloin facility for the recently homeless, has been extremely popular with festival-goers so far. As of this writing, the tix for both this screening and the added screening on Thursday the 7th are already at rush status, but word is, it’s worth taking a chance. Hopefully this one will have a run at the Roxie or somewhere else around town.

But if you can’t get into that one, you might consider Crude at 6:30, a doc about the class-action lawsuit that 30,000 Ecuadorians brought against Exxon Valdez for contaminating their rainforest and waterways with — according to Exxon Valdez’s own estimates — more than twice the amount of oil the company spilled off the coast of Alaska in 1989. There’s an additional screening of this one at PFA on May 2.

Son of a Lion at 9:30 is a fiction film about the plight of an eleven-year old Pashtun kid who dreams of going to school, studying music, and getting away from the local industry of making and servicing firearms. Tonight’s screening is the last one, and it’s said to be a really nice film, with beautiful visuals and an appealing nonprofessional cast.

Check back tomorrow morning to read my picks for 4/30 and Friday, May 1st!

posted: 09 April 29
under: The Next Frame