The SF Int'l Film Festival isn't just about great national and international movies -- they've got music events, gala events, talks about the state of cinema, an online presence through SF360.com, and -- what we stopped by to see this afternoon -- a series of panels about the state of cinema today. Today's panel was about the state of the film scene in San Francisco, and included basically every single movie-related constituency group in......

The crowd at the Kabuki Theater on Friday night had more hip-hoppers than usual, as SF Int'l Asian-American Film Fest attendees eagerly lined up three-deep for the sold-out showing of No Sleep Til Shanghai, a documentary following Chinese-American rapper Jin Au-Yeung's 2-week 8-city tour of Asia. The excitement reached a fever pitch in the pre-screening intros, with eager Asian-American MCs shouting out "Holla!" as Jin himself called in on the producer's cell phone to say hi. "There's probably a lot of Asians there, right? So TURN OFF YOUR CAMCORDERS!" Best part: everyone laughed.... but no one actually turned their camcorder off. Jin is a Queens-based rapper who stormed into battle dominance on 106th and Park with his quick rhymes and sharp racial analysis -- he's often been called the Asian Eminem, though to Jin's credit, he seems profoundly uncomfortable with that title. Jin was then signed to the Ruff Ryders label, and released his first album, "The Rest Is History" in 2004. In support of that album, he went on an 8-city 2 week tour of Asia, camera crew in tow. It was his first time in Asia (other than Hong Kong). After the jump, Jin meets some lovely Asian ladies, freestyles in Cantonese and Mandarin, and does an awful lot of interviews. Picture from No Sleep Til Shanghai...

San Francisco Japantown's seen a lot in the last 100 years -- from the influx of Japanese-American immigrants after the 1906 earthquake and the development of an ethnic community, to the forced displacement of those same immigrants to internment camps in World War II, and a controversial redevelopment scheme to welcome back San Francisco Japanese-Americans, at the expense of the African-Americans who'd moved into the area in the meantime. And now, over this backdrop of repeated economic emigration, you can get udon, a shiatsu massage, and crepes there! As J-Town's centennial celebration gets underway, a new phase of redevelopment is emerging for the 21st century -- the Osaka-based owners of the Kintetsu Mall, the centerpiece of the Japan Center complex, have announced that they've put the building on the market. They own not only the Kintetsu section of the mall (the one with Benihana in it) but also the Miyako Mall (the one with the bridge), the Radisson, and the Best Western up the street. And FYI, the Kabuki Theater is also up for sale, but in a separate transaction through AMC. The Kinokuniya building (with Sophie's Crepes and the awesome Kinokuniya stationery store is under separate ownership (by the eponymous bookstore) and is not for sale -- or at least not yet. At a community meeting last night, the local attorneys representing the Kintetsu owners pledged that they would work with Osaka HQ to ensure that any sale would be made to a buyer who would recognize the historic and cultural value of the space, and Gavin Newsom and Ross Mirkarimi promised that the city would put incentives in place to make sure that happened (because, in part, the city owns those garages underneath the mall.) However, the attorneys weren't sure how much pull they'd have, in part because the deal is almost done. Here's hoping the community can work together to make sure the sad history of redevelopments in the J-Town area don't repeat themselves this time around. ...

SFist usually experiences a frisson of excitement when we visit the Kabuki Theater, usually from the 38 that nearly hits us every time we cross Geary at Fillmore (apparently, red lights don't apply to busses). But this time our excitement wasn't the brush with death kind, it was the far more pleasant brush with celebrity type, as we were at the Kabuki to take in the red carpet arrival of several of the folks......