Larsen Associates

See ROW HARD NO EXCUSES in Slamdance!

Larsen Associates — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 23:19:00 +0000

ROW HARD NO EXCUSES chronicles the voyage of the only American entry in a rowing race across the Atlantic Ocean. It is both an exciting sports-adventure story and an intimate portrait of the two-man crew that explores masculinity, midlife and ambition.

ROW HARD NO EXCUSES screens at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on:
Sunday, January 21 at 9:00 pm in the Treasure Mountain Inn
Tuesday, January 23 at 7:00 pm in the Treasure Mountain Inn

Hope to see you there!

At 51 and 41, John Zeigler and Tom Mailhot are among the oldest competitors to participate in the Atlantic Rowing Challenge, a three thousand mile race from the Canary Islands to Barbados. They spend three years (and personal savings) to make their dream of winning possible, but once on the water, their boat and their bodies don’t respond as they’d imagined. Drawing from their compelling video diary at sea, the film engages the audience in the emotional challenges and rewards of their arduous journey. The unique perspective of Tori Murden, the first woman to row solo across an ocean, adds context to a meditation on shattered expectations and the pursuit of happiness.

Ocean rowing, as a sport, has only been around since the inaugural event in 1997. Before then crossings were strictly Guinness Book of World Record affairs. In fact, fewer people have rowed across the Atlantic than have climbed Mount Everest. Race rules pit two-person teams against each other rowing unassisted with no food drops or navigational aid. Rowers have to contend with sleep deprivation, seasickness, isolation, boredom and cramped living conditions. Most of the competitors row naked to avoid painful chafing. Even with a steep entry fee and no prize money, the 2001 race drew thirty-six teams from fifteen nations including New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, China, and eight European countries.

Directed by first time feature director Luke Wolbach, ROW HARD NO EXCUSES, is a labor-of-love collaboration between he and his father, Bill Wolbach.

Lantern Films
224 3rd Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94118
415.876.0111

Rowers John Zeigler and Tom Mailhot and filmmakers Luke Wolbach and Bill Wolbach are available for interviews at Slamdance.

Publicist contact: Chris Wiggum/Larsen Associates 415.298.4154 (pcs), larsenassc@aol.com
Producer contact at Slamdance: Bill Wolbach 617.828.2153 (pcs), bill@lanternfilms.com
Director contact at Slamdance: Luke Wolbach 415-305-3824 (pcs); luke@lanternfilms.com

IndieFest '07 On It's Way!

Larsen Associates — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 23:17:00 +0000

9TH ANNUAL INDIEFEST
FEBRUARY 8-20, 2007
ROXIE, VICTORIA AND CASTRO IN SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA IN BERKELEY

NOW MORE FESTIVE THAN EVER, WITH ABSOLUTELY INDEPENDENT FILMS AND PARTIES GALORE

The 9th Annual San Francisco Independent Film Festival (IndieFest), featuring more than 100 absolutely independent films and videos, unspools February 8-20, 2007 at four Bay Area venues: Roxie Cinemas, 3117 16th Street; Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th Street, Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street in San Francisco and California Theater, 2113 Kittredge in Berkeley. Tickets are $10 for each screening and $25 for Opening Night (including the after-party). For tickets or more information, telephone (415) 820-3907 or click on www.sfindie.com. Tickets go on sale (and complete Festival lineup is available) beginning January 16 at sfindie.com.

Opening night – the latest from an a truly independent American master
IndieFest is proud to welcome two-time Oscar nominee David Lynch - the modern master of the surreal and the king of the independents - and his newest opus of oddity, INLAND EMPIRE. The Opening Night selection, starring Laura Dern and Justin Theroux, is an epic look at transmigration seen through the eyes of an actress cast in a cursed role. On hand to discuss the film after its showing will be Lynch’s longtime producer and spouse, Mary Sweeney. After the screening the Festival heads into the depths of the depravity for its opening night party at the Porn Palace. An adult film set by day, the Porn Palace turns into a party place at night – don’t miss the fun. The party goes till 2am and will feature DJs Adrian, Mysterious D, and DJ McSleazy (Glasgow’s mash up pioneer), short films in the screening room, complimentary food and drink and plenty of surprises. Obviously this party is 21+ only.

Closing Night – a Canadian comedy about the walking dead
Ten days later, IndieFest winds down with Andrew Currie’s clever romantic comedy FIDO. Years ago, the earth passed through a cloud of space dust, causing the dead to rise with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Terror spread across the land, until science invented a collar to make zombies docile, even useful. Thanks to the collars, the zombies became gardeners, milkmen, and servants, even pets. Timmy is an awkward loner who spends much time in his room. So when Mom (Carrie-Anne Moss) buys a titular zombie (Billy Connolly) to help around the house, Timmy is surprised, and even curious, when the beast wants to play catch. When the zombie saves him from the local bullies, a true friendship is born. Director Currie will be on hand to discuss the ways of the undead after the screening. After the show, head over to 12 Galaxies as IndieFest goes retro! Catch live performances by The Copper Tones (surf), The Struts (60’s garage) and The Chop Tops (rockabilly). On the wheels of steel will be Church of Elvis DJ Bishop. Stick around for cheap beer and the IndieFest Audience Award Ceremony. Admission to the Closing Night party is free with any IndieFest ticket stub.

In between IndieFest offers many parties over here
IndieFest loves films, and they also love a good party! In addition to the Opening and Closing night shindigs, IndieFest has events going every night of the Festival, so you can party outta bounds.

Pack up your skates, fire up the time machine and get loaded at the Roller Disco After Party for (the February 9 screening of) VIVA at Cell Space. Anna Biller’s VIVA - equal parts period piece and sexploitation film – also looks at folks navigating the world of budding sexuality but through the burnished lens of the 1970s. Saturated to the hilt with vibrant color, and exquisitely detailed in its depiction of the era, VIVA is the tale of a bored housewife who gets unwittingly sucked into the sexual revolution. Abandoned by her husband, Barbi (Anna Biller) is introduced to the finer points of bohemia by her progressive girlfriend (Bridget Brno). There will be rentable skates at Cell Space and tunes provided by Black Rock Roller Disco as the crazy freaked-out scenes of nudist camps, hippies, orgies, bisexuality, sadism, drugs and skin continue to whirl around in your mind.

Now in it’s fourth year, the Big Lebowski Party takes a load off on Feb. 15 at Balazo. Come dressed as your favorite Lebowski character. Enjoy some white Russians, bowl in the Fest’s mini bowling alley, follow in Maud’s footsteps down the zip line, and watch this 1998 Coen Brothers’ film projected on the wall. But remember the Dude abides.

Always an exciting cross promotion is the IndieFest’s tie in with The Primitive Screwheads show. Last year was the gory nonsense of The Chainsaw Massacres and Evil Dead: Live. This year, at the Vic Victoria Theater on February 9, 10, 16 and 17, will be The Go Nuts Show, a program of riotous sketch comedy - something of which we could all use a little more.

Plus, every other night of the Festival IndieFest filmmakers and fellow film lovers will gather at Kilowatt to discuss recent celluloid events and pound down a few at the official IndieFest watering hole.

World premieres of six films
Life cannot always be a party, and so IndieFest is proud to offer the world premieres of Cyrus Amini’s 25-CENT PREVIEW, Aron Cho’s A RIPPLE IN THE WORLD, Leah Walker’s THE THIRD EYE, Greg Morgan's THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR, Billy Samoa Saleebey's ROLLING, and Pamela Valente’s ROCK N TOKYO.

Cyrus Amini's stunning 25-CENT PREVIEW, a gritty cinema-verite style drama, is a sympathetic, yet unflinching portrait of two young guys working San Francisco’s lower Polk. Marcus, a white, jagged-edge pretty-boy, is the protégé of a more seasoned black street hustler, DotCom. They join forces to self-medicate, turn tricks, and deal with the random violence. Also with a local angle is Aron Cho’s stylish and emotionally wrenching tale A RIPPLE IN THE WORLD, Cho studied film at the San Francisco Art Institute under Caveh Zahedi. It's off-season in a small resort town where virginal 22 year-old Sam works nights at an empty hotel. Already completely alienated from his Bible-thumping minister father and his drug-addicted friends, he is alone and starved for companionship. His life passes with monotonous simplicity until he becomes obsessed with a beautiful call girl.

Leah Walker's THE THIRD EYE, a truly weird, psychological thriller unspools the tale of hipster photojournalist Nika Printz, as she desperately searches to uncover the true circumstances surrounding the mysterious and tragic death of her younger brother at an underground club, The Rabbit Hole. As she pieces together the shattered truth, Nika’s suspicions rise and she begins to question the actions of those she believed to be closest to her. Greg Morgan's THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR is an expertly acted and filmed, intelligently conceived, character driven piece. After the death of her closest two friends, young Daphne suffers a loss of faith, then a lapse in memory. Confronted with a diagnosis of a rare form of schizophrenia and a pregnancy she neither planned nor is able to explain, Daphne must find the father she has never known (the always great Ray Wise from TWIN PEAKS).

Billy Samoa Saleebey's feature length directorial debut, ROLLING, is an ensemble piece that looks at one night in the life of a bunch of ecstasy users. Utilizing a variety of film and video formats and a broad stylistic palette, Saleebey conducts documentary-style interviews with a number of characters -- a medical student, a teenage runaway, a lawyer, a drag queen, a high-school basketball player, a drug dealer, and a young teacher – whose paths may have crossed while using MDMA. Following four bands, Pamela Valente’s ROCK N TOKYO, offers a glimpse of this amazing city through the subwoofer of rock. Guitar Wolf, is three good looking guys enveloped in black leather and dark sunglasses now with a contract with a big record company; The 5678’s, rockabilly queens who were seen in Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL; the Jet Boys, lead by a very extreme, off the wall, exhibitionist singer/guitar player; and Nine, ambitious young guys who dream of success.

Two revival screenings, an apocalyptic classic and an erotic masterpiece
As well as keeping an eye on the now, IndieFest likes to take an occasional gander at the past. This year’s revival screenings include two rarely seen films from the international dustbin of history - Shan Hua’s INFRA MAN and Jean Genet’s UN CHANT D’AMOUR.

INFRA-MAN, the 1975 rarely seen monster movie by the Shaw Brothers (the Hong Kong kings of kung fu), sports a giant flying lizard attacking a school bus, a cracked open Earth, Hong Kong being destroyed by flames, mountains disintegrating to reveal forms of reptilian monsters with blinking yellow eyes, a professor announcing that a 20-million-year-old woman is unleashing hibernating monsters upon civilization, and the Earth being shaken by a second surface-cracking quake. And that, of course, is only the first four minutes of this cult-classic.

Originally made for Parisian gay porn collectors in 1950, Jean Genet’s directorial debut UN CHANT D’AMOUR was banned in France upon its release, and only available in the US in censored form. Set in a North African prison, soldiers sweat their days away in the solitary cells of a military jail in the desert, and dream of frolicking with each other in the grass and flowers of home. When desire and/or boredom overcome them, they rub themselves erotically against their concrete cell walls, blow cigarette smoke to each other through glory holes, or dance. A guard watches them through peepholes, simultaneously aroused and terrified by their brazenly sexual behavior. Though it was his only foray into filmmaking, Genet later denounced the movie.

A docket of documentaries focusing on family and community
IndieFest has slated two documentaries about communities and a pair of docs about families. Karen Kramer’s hopeful, lovingly made THE BALLAD OF GREENWICH VILLAGE shines a new light on the Manhattan mecca. With passionate interviews from Tim Robbins, Woody Allen, and Maya Angelou and filled with soft-focus archival Kodachrome footage, Kramer offers an enormous social history. CUTTING EDGE, from Bill McCullough, offers a spirited, funny and fast-paced look at that quintessential element of the African American community, the barbershop. The film shows a day in the life of a successful barbershop on Harlem's 125th Street, where any topic, whether controversial or banal, is up for grab - AIDS, infidelity, gay marriage, greedy preachers, Bill Clinton, and the world's sexiest actresses.

The relationship with one’s mother is usually a charged dynamic beginning the moment a person is born. The mother-daughter variety can be particularly complex, especially if your single mom is mentally unstable and threatens to kill you when you are a teen, as was the case for filmmaker Tara Wray. After years of estrangement, with MANHATTAN, KANSAS, the filmmaker charts her return, as she struggles to understand who her mother is and was, and to consider the possibility of reconnecting with her anew. French filmmaker Oliver Meyrou’s BEYOND HATRED is a moving look at one family’s ability to move past anger and revenge. François Chino, a young gay man, was beaten by three skinheads and thrown in a pond to die in Reams, France. Told without narration, the story portrays the families, the victim and the accused, and details the French legal system in its examination of the aftermath of this terrible attack.

Many musical moments to be found
In addition to the world premiere of Pamela Valentine’s ROCK N TOKYO IndieFest offers a slew of magical musical moments. In Jasmine Della’s amazing GYPSY CARAVAN, five Gypsy bands from four countries are on a North American concert tour -- astounding audiences with styles ranging from flamenco to brass band, Romanian violin to Indian folk. With humor and soul in their voices, they celebrate the best in Gypsy culture and the diversity of the Romany people in an explosion of song and dance. Director Della developed her filmmaking chops in the Bay Area as a student of Marlon Riggs and continues her explorations of Gypsy culture begun in her first feature AMERICAN GYPSY. Shot by the legendary Albert Measles (Game Shelter, Gray Gardens), the film pulsates with fantastic live performances and even features a guest appearance by gypsy music fan Johnny Depp.

Having explored the prolific electronic music scene of south Florida in BASS FREQUENCY (2001) filmmaker Iris Cegarra now tracks down the international producers and makers of Electrobeat. From classical electronic composers such as Wendy Carlos, whose work has been featured in films by StanleyKubrick, to today’s top names like Egyptian Lover and Aux 88, DARKBEAT: AN ELECTRO WORLD VOYAGE travels through space and time making stops in England, Spain, Holland, Japan, NYC, Paris, North Carolina, and Detroit.

With COUNTING HEADZ: SOUTH AFRIKA'S SISTAZ IN HIP HOP, Erin Offer and Thabiso Mohapeloa proffer the first look at a growing movement. This groundbreaking documentary offers portraits of three major female players in the South African hip hop scene - MC Chi, Dj Sistamatic, and graffiti artist Smirk

A very brief history of IndieFest, in case you are wondering
In 1998 Jeff Ross realized there was no avenue available for his friend Rand Alexander to show his film, CAGED, even though it had played the prestigious Slamdance Film Festival that same year. Jeff took to the streets and put on a four-day event financed, like many of the films presented, with his personal credit cards. The event was welcomed with an audience of over 3,000 people. The following year IndieFest grew to a nine-day event with over 4,200 in attendance. Eight years later, IndieFest draws crowds of 10,000 and continues to support and celebrate maverick filmmakers and their work.

The lowdown on tickets and passes – pricing and purchasing
The IndiePass, good for admission to all films and events at the Festival is $195 (less than $5 per program!). IndiePass holders go to the front of the line. There is also 5 and 10 film DiscountPasses: 5Film Pass is $45, and 10Film pass is $80. 5Film and 10Film passes not valid for the Opening Night Film or the Go Nuts Shows at the Victoria.

Advance tickets and passes are available online at sfindie.com. There is a .25/ticket, $1/DiscountPass and $5/IndiePass service charge for online sales. Online orders are available for pick up at the Will Call table the day of the show. Advance tickets are also available with no service charge at Borderlands Books, 866 Valencia at 19th Streets. Same day tickets are only available at the theaters. The theater box office opens 30 minutes before the first show of the day.

If the advance sales box office has sold out their allotment of tickets for a particular show, it does not mean the show is sold out. There will very likely be tickets available at the door. These tickets will go on sale 20 minutes before showtime on a first come first served basis. Tickets are not refundable and not exchangeable. Refunds are available only if the program is canceled.

That standard paragraph with all the pertinent information
The 9th Annual San Francisco Independent Film Festival (IndieFest), a worldwide blend of more than 100 independent films and videos, unspools February 8-20, 2007 at four Bay Area venues: Roxie Cinemas, 3117 16th Street; Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th Street, Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street in San Francisco and California Theater, 2113 Kittredge in Berkeley. Tickets are $10 for each screening and $25 for Opening Night (including the after-party). For tickets or more information, telephone (415) 820-3907 or click on www.sfindie.com. Tickets go on sale (and complete Festival lineup is available) beginning January 16 at sfindie.com.

The Art of Gaman at SF MoCFA

Larsen Associates — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 18:03:00 +0000

The Museum of Craft and Folk Art presents The Art of Gaman, an exhibition that demonstrates the human urge to create beautiful objects in even the direst of situations. Based on a book by local author Delphine Hirasuna published in 2005, The Art of Gaman showcases art and craft objects created by Japanese-Americans who were detained in internment camps during World War II, many of which were located in California. Approximately fifty of these objects are on display in The Art of Gaman at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art and runs through February 25, 2007.

For more information call (415) 227-4888 or visit www.mocfa.org.

The Japanese word gaman means enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity. During World War II, Americans of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated in ten concentration camps across the United States. Among the 120,000 people sent to these desolate and remote locations, were established and emerging artists who were able to create works of beauty despite their harsh conditions. Imprisoned in remote camps surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by soldiers with machine guns, many Japanese American internees sought courage and solace in art. Using found materials at first and later what they could order by catalog, they whittled and carved, painted and etched, stitched and crocheted. What they created is a celebration of the nobility of the human spirit under adversity.

The Art of Gaman at SF MoCFA

Larsen Associates — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 23:29:00 +0000

The Art of Gaman at SF MoCFA

Larsen Associates — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 16:29:00 +0000