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I’ve been able to preview two films screening at the upcoming Arab Film Festival. One of them is also playing at Mill Valley.
Captain Abu Raed, Mill Valley: Sequoia, Friday, October 10, 7:30 (rush only); Rafael, Sunday, October 12, 4:45. Arab Film Festival: Clay (San Francisco), Friday, October 17, 4:00; Camera 12 (San Jose), Saturday, [...]

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Tracking all the Bay Area’s film festivals is a full-time job. And if anyone’s willing to pay me, I’m ready and qualified.
In addition to to the big Mill Valley Film Festival, all the festivals I told you about on the 23rd, and the additional two I mentioned on the 25th, there are two other [...]

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What do jazz, marijuana, and the family problems of Asian Americans have in common? (And you thought it was going to be easy.) Excellent films on all three of those subjects open for all-too-limited runs open today. In fact, everything’s good–very good–in this week’s line-up.
Oh, yes, and the Mill Valley Film Festival opens Thursday night. [...]

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I told you there were a lot of festivals coming up. I missed two:
Dead Channels, October 3-9: In its second year, Dead Channels celebrates independent and international fantasy films, with an emphasis on horror. It’s clearly going for the same audience as Hole in the Head. Mostly at the Roxie, it moves to the Parkway [...]

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Music documentary

Directed by Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden

People don’t recognize the name Anita O’Day the way they do Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald, but as a jazz vocalist she’s arguably in their class. She possessed a beautiful voice, a unique and expressive way of making familiar lyrics her own, and a phenomenal sense of rhythm [...]

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Comedy-drama

Written and directed by Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs

Movies that start as broad comedies and turn serious seldom work. The transition is tricky, especially if you don’t layer in enough reality between the big laughs before the drama begins.
Yet first-time writers/directors Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs pull it off beautifully in Humboldt County. [...]

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Family Drama

Written by Yiyun Lee; based on her short story
Directed by Wayne Wang

Generations and cultures clash, but quietly, in Wayne Wang’s return to Chinese-American subject matter.
Things feel strained when widower Mr. Shi (Henry O) arrives in America to visit his daughter Yilan (Faye Yu). That’s understandable. They haven’t seen each other since she left [...]

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A lot of film festivals arrive in the Bay Area in the coming weeks, and not all of them are in Mill Valley. Here are some others, listed chronologically:
Berkeley Video & Film Festival, September 26-28: This three-day festival of extremely independent fare has an interesting ticket policy. A $13 ticket buys you entry for [...]

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I’ve now seen five films getting their local premiere at this year’s Mill Valley Film Festival. (Oddly enough, two of them come reasonably close to qualifying as silent films.) Here’s what I think of those five, plus one classic to be screened that I was already familiar with. I’ve listed the films from best to [...]

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Forbidden Lie$, Roxie and Shattuck, opens Friday.  I have mixed feelings about documentaries that recreate scenes with actors, but Anna Broinowski’s doc about author/con-artist Norma Khouri justified them beautifully. None of the events recreated in the film actually happened, and Broinowski reminds us of that by showing us the freshly murdered girl, covered in stage [...]

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