Films

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PAST SCREENINGS:

BAY AREA DOUBLE FEATURE!!!

TAKE MY PICTURE and CHATTERBOX

TAKE MY PICTURE (2008)

DIRECTOR & PRODUCER: LINDSEY R. WATERS

PHOTOGRAPHED & EDITED BY: JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ

SCREENING: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2009 8PM $6

Documentary “Take My Picture” chronicles a year in the life of  Bay Area punk scene photographer Larry Wolfley.

An ex-university professor turned carpenter turned photographer, the 69-year-old Larry Wolfley has become a fixture in the California Punk and Hardcore music scene.  His pictures have graced the pages of multiple publications, album covers and inserts, and the pages of the renowned Maximum Rock and Roll Magazine since the early 1990s.

The film follows Larry through a divorce and documents how his choice of artistic expression has affected his relationships with his teenage son and ex-wife.   Shot poetically in black and white, and juxtaposed next to Larry’s photographs, the film studies the parallels and inconsistencies of an artist from intention to result.  How does an older man fit into the context, and find his calling, in the often harsh and violent punk and hardcore scene?

CHATTERBOX: BIOGRAPHY OF A BAR- SAN FRANCISCO 1986-1990 (2008)

RUNNING TIME: 107 MIN

DIRECTOR: ALFIE KULZICK

SCREENING: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2009 8:30PM $6

SYNOPSIS:

Chatterbox is the story of a small neighborhood bar that was located in the Mission district of San Francisco from April 1986 to November 1990. Most of the clientèle were in their 20′s and 30′s. Most had blue collar jobs. Little did they know they were living in the last decade…

*where a 40 hour work week was optional

*where musicians could live cheap, eat cheap, drink cheap, rehearse cheap and play live all around the city

*when no one “made friends” on a computer box, they went down to the box, THE CHATTERBOX.

30+ INTERVIEWS (2005-2007)
20+ LIVE BAND FOOTAGE (1986-1990)

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FILTHY GORGEOUS: THE TRANNYSHACK STORY (2005)

RUNNING TIME: 84 MIN
DIRECTOR: SEAN MULLENS
PRODUCER: DEENA DAVENPORT
SCREENING: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2009 AT 8PM $6
DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, AND HEKLINA IN ATTENDANCE!

SYNOPSIS:

A group of punk rock / performance art drag queens and kings explode the boundaries of gender through lip-sync performances at a small cabaret, every Tuesday at midnight, known as Trannyshack. Interviews with the performers Suppositori Spelling, Heklina, Rusty Hips, Glamamore and The Steve Lady allow a look into a world that is creative, dark and outrageous. Intimate portraits of the performers’ lives are punctuated by fantastic and raw lip-sync performances to music from Bauhaus, Kiss, David Bowie, Patti Smith, Joan Jett and The Black Hearts to name a few.

“I’m not a female impersonator. I’m a gender delusionist.”
-Suppositori Spelling

Cast:

Heklina
Suppositori Spelling
The Steve Lady
Rusty Hips
Glamamore
Nikki Starr
Renttecca
Peaches Christ
Squeaky Blonde
Precious Moments

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RIP: A REMIX MANIFESTO (2009)

RUNNING TIME: 80 MIN
DIRECTOR: BRETT GAYLOR
PRODUCERS: MILA AUNG-THWIN, KAT BAULU, GERMAINE YING GEE WONG
SCREENING: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2009 AT 8PM

SYNOPSIS:
In RiP: A remix manifesto, Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers.

The film’s central protagonist is Girl Talk, a mash-up musician topping the charts with his sample-based songs. But is Girl Talk a paragon of people power or the Pied Piper of piracy? Creative Commons founder, Lawrence Lessig, Brazil’s Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil and pop culture critic Cory Doctorow are also along for the ride.

A participatory media experiment, from day one, Brett shares his raw footage at opensourcecinema.org, for anyone to remix. This movie-as-mash-up method allows these remixes to become an integral part of the film. With RiP: A remix manifesto, Gaylor and Girl Talk sound an urgent alarm and draw the lines of battle.

Which side of the ideas war are you on?

CAST:

Girl Talk
Negativland
Lawrence Lessig
Gilberto Gil
Cory Doctorow
Dan O’Neil

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LET THEM KNOW: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records (2009)

RUNNING TIME: 89 MINS
DIRECTOR: JEFF ALULIS
PRODUCED by: RYAN HARLIN & JEFF ALULIS
SCREENING: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28 &29, 2009 AT 8PM

SYNOPSIS:

A lasting tribute and testament to over 25 years of BYO, Youth Brigade and the DIY spirit that has inspired and continues to inspire so many to change the world… Told through interviews and rare footage of the explosive LA punk rock scene from the 80′s until now, Let Them Know: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records is a full length documentary feature film that looks at the last 25 years of the infulential LA Punk band Youth Brigade and BYO Records. This movie documents the early LA punk and DIY scene. Riots, harrassment from the law, amazing bands, crazy stories, and best of all, The Sterns Family’s earnest desire to change the world through punk rock are captured in this moving documentary.

Founded by brothers, Shawn and Mark Stern from the band Youth Brigade, the BYO was part political movement, part business venture that began as a way to organize punks to take positve action to help sustain their scene and their way of life. The ideals upon which BYO was founded helped countless bands put on shows, release records, and othewise get their music out to the world. It allowed for the making of the landmark punk documentary Another State of Mind and it spawned BYO Records, which stands today as one of the oldest surviving independent punk rock labels in the world. BYO, Youth Brigade, and the Stern family are three intertwined entities that comprise one of the too-often-overlooked chapters in the history of punk.

Cast:
Ian MacKaye
Fat Mike
Steve Soto
Matt Skiba
Gary Tovar
Brendan Mullen
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EDGE: PERSPECTIVES ON DRUG FREE CULTURE (2009)

RUNNING TIME: 82 MIN
DIRECTOR: MARC PIERSCHEL & MICHAEL KIRCHNER
PRODUCER: COMPASSION MEDIA
SCREENING: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2009 AT 8PM
DIRECTORS IN ATTENDANCE!

SYNOPSIS:

28 years after the band Minor Threat released the song ‘Straight Edge’, the counterculture known as Straight Edge has become a worldwide phenomenon that unites individuals rejecting all forms of intoxication.

The most widely associated perception of Straight Edge involves abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, other drugs and promiscuous sex. Since it’s origin in the early 1980’s these beliefs have spread all over the world, connected through the Punk and Hardcore music scenes.

Through interviews with musicians that directly shaped the idea of Straight Edge from its inception until today, EDGE – perspectives on drug free culture reveals that the abstinence from drugs was established as a youth counter culture rejecting a society dominated by substance abuse and hegemony. Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi), Ray Cappo (Youth of Today, Shelter) and Karl Buechner (Earth Crisis, Freya) give witness to their perception of the history of Straight Edge, why it was so important to them and what it changed in their personal and professional careers.

But they also address problems like violence, sexism and intolerance that emerged within Straight Edge, and how it changed the ’scene’ as well as its public image. Furthermore, EDGE explores the lives of 9 individuals, that identify as Straight Edge. Their reasons range from negative experiences with drugs to maintaining a healthy lifestyle to political reasons. Through a very close and personal look into their daily lives, we see how their decision to live ‘poison free’ has changed the world for them.

But how do people discover Straight Edge? How do women experience Straight Edge subculture? What social backgrounds are shared by people new to the scene and what makes someone turn Straight Edge? How does mainstream culture perceive this movement?

EDGE is looking for answers to these questions on a roadtrip behind and beyond the scenes of the Straight Edge subculture.

CAST:

Ian MacKaye
Kent McClard
Pat Flynn
Ray Cappo
Peter Young
Karl Buechner
Priyesh Patel
Dr. Ross Haenfler
Eva ‘Genie’ Hall
Bull Gervasi
Russ Rankin
Taylor Clements

IMPOLEX (2009)

RUNNING TIME: 75 MIN
DIRECTOR: ALEX ROSS PERRY
SCREENING: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2009 8PM $6

SYNOPSIS:
Impolex tells the story of Tyrone S., a United States soldier in Operation Paperclip, the mission to locate and retrieve German rockets and rocket science after the end of World War II. Tyrone is tasked with finding what he believes are the last V-2’s. Lost in the woods of an undefined European country, people from Tyrone’s past begin to appear in unusual ways, bearing strange tidings. A loved one he abandoned for the war is especially prominent in Tyrone’s journey, as is a fellow soldier and a mysterious man with tidings of the present and the future that are not yet known to Tyrone.

Impolex is an unjustifiable blend of the bare bones realism of John Ford’s WWII documentaries and the glorious stupidity of Abbot and Costello.

CAST:
RILEY O’BRYAN
KATE LYN SHEIL
BEN SHAPIRO
BRUNO MEYRICK JONES

ROY BERKELEY

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Heap us ‘Round our Ruins

http://www.round-our-ruins.com/

Screening Tuesday, November 17 8PM

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