Every time we see an Errol Morris film, we're always astonished by his subjects' self-incrimination and displays of delusion. We had suspected that Morris is drawn to delusional people as subjects, or at least, the unusually obsessed. With Standard Operating Procedure, screened at the SFIFF on Tuesday, April 29th, Errol Morris once again attempts to answer the question that recurs in many of his movies, "What were they thinking?" In a pre-screening chat with......

What we love most about watching films at SFIFF is being able to experience something different than your own life. Take for instance, Just Like Home. How else can one know what it's like to live in a small Danish town consumed by the mystery of whom, exactly, is wandering the streets naked? That is the central premise of Just Like Home. A man is seen walking around at night nude and the repercussions this......

Paul Auster: Sure, metafictionist Auster wrote the screenplays to Smoke, Blue in the Face, and The Brooklyn Follies, but he also penned the phenomenal collection of PoMo detective-fiction tales, The New York Trilogy, his best work to date. Auster appears live with San Francisco International Film Festival Director Graham Leggat after a screening of his latest film, The Inner Life of Martin Frost. Witness him in action at 7 p.m. at the Jewish Community......

The Centerpiece film at the San Francisco International Film Festival was the satirical romantic comedy Delirious....

SFist interviews David and Edie Ichioka, makers of the documetnary "Murch" about film editor Walter Murch, now showing at the San Franicsco International Film festival ...

Tonight's the opening night for the San Francisco International Film Festival! It's two weeks of everything in the world you can think of that's related to film: new indie favorites, an old (remastered) Disney darling, foreign films, documentaries, film-related music concerts, and even panel discussions -- one of which is moderated by film fanatic and former SFist editor Eve Batey! We're totally there (with the big glitter sign that says "I Love You Sanjaya,"......

Saturday: We can't wait to see the precursor to the U.S. National Rubik's Cube Championship at the Exploratorium this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Come by any time between 11 and 4 to see some of the best cubers in the business show their stuff, which, we assume, does not involve pulling apart the damned thing. You can watch this for free, with Exploratorium admission. Sunday (technically): OK, this event takes place on Saturday at midnight,......

Thursday night the Castro Theatre looked like a giant faculty meeting of humanities professors from some crunchy liberal arts university. But what can you expect from the West Coast premiere of a Robert Altman movie based on an old timey public radio show that originates in Minnesota of all places, don't cha know? A Prairie Home Companion closed the San Francisco International Film Festival Thursday night to a sell-out crowd. Despite the fact that......

The opening night screening of a film festival is like having sex with a celebrity -- the experience itself is never that impressive, but it makes for a fun memory and it's nice to be able to say that you did it. Such was our feeling at last night's opening of the San Francisco International Film Festival, which kicked off with the North American premiere of Perhaps Love. The marathon began with San Francisco......

It would have been hard to miss the fact that the San Francisco International Film Festival kicks off tonight, as their unstoppable PR machine has been busily garnering placement in every media outlet in town. Even your still occasionally shunned (believe it!) SFist is in on the fun, as we have 5 -- count them -- 5 staffers with all-access passes to the festival, eager to provide our readers with daily coverage of the......

With January's merger between AMC and Lowes theatres, the company they became, AMC Entertainment Inc, is required by U.S. Department of Justice and the attorneys general of California to sell the Kabuki and 1000 Van Ness theatres. While the Van Ness property remains available, today the long-rumored purchase of the Kabuki by Robert Redford's Sundance Cinemas was officially announced. Expected to become "a state-of-the-art independent movie house", Sundance plans on beginning renovations to the......

We hate to admit it, but all this modern mania for Brokeback Mountain has simply passed us by. At this point, we're dreading the inevitable trip to the Embarcadero to watch the damn thing, borne solely out of our sense of obligation to stay on the cutting edge of anything related to buggery. (And even that motivation has waned, now that the movie's being advertised as a heterosexual love story.) Honestly, it's only barely......

We told you once, and we'll tell you again: you have less than two weeks to submit an entry to the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival, (which will run April 20 to May 4, 2006). The work can be documentary, narrative or experimental, animated or live action, and can be of any length. The final deadline for submissions is Friday, December 9. To make things interesting, the festival has two cash award categories......

To live in the Bay Area is (frequently) to be able to count more than one aspiring filmmaker in one's circle of acquaintance. The next time you're at some dinner party/Zeitgeist get-together/orgy at the Power Exchange and someone starts blabbing on about their unfulfilled creative vision, remind them of the opportunities available to them to get said vision out there to the masses. For example, the 2006 San Francisco Women's Film Festival is presently......

Hello, Mr. Fancy Pants! The San Francisco International Film Festival has chosen Graham Leggat to be their new Executive Director (replacing Roxanne Messina Captor). We just want to burn our resume after looking at his, which includes the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the New York Film Festival, and Film Comment magazine. It'll be interesting to see what he brings to the 49th Festival (April 2006 - May 4, 2006), given the mixed response......

Wow, we almost fell like real film writers when we realize that we've actually seen some of the movies we're recommending this week. First, there's Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, which opens at the Balboa tonight. SFist Krissy reviewed this "creative non fiction" film which attempt to answer the question "Why does so much music and writing come out of the south?" She dug it and we think you will too. If you come......

If the last few weekends have been movie famine, this weekend is movie feast. So many richly diverse options this weekend that you have no real reason to go out in the horrible sunlight until Monday morning. We're so happy that Crónicas is finally opening in the Bay Area, at the Lumiere. We saw this Ecuadorian thriller when it premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and were bowled over by its dark......

We're not going to insult your intelligence by implying that you might not have heard that Revenge of the Sith opened this weekend, or that you aren't already going to see something at the final weekend of The San Francisco Documentary Film Festival. So, with those "givens" out of the way, what else is out there? In one of those blue moon type events, we agree with Mick LaSalle that Layer Cake is an......

Wow. After the splendor that was the San Francisco International Film Festival, we're just bushed. Still, we'll forge ahead and force ourselves to see some movies this weekend, we guess. The things we do! The Sex Worker Arts Festival winds down this weekend with several film screenings at The Roxie Saturday and Sunday. Support your local sex workers and check out some of this provocative (both intellectually and erotically) cinema.......

Back on April 13, Gothamist published this great interview with director Todd Solondz. At the time, we wondered if he'd be screening his new film, Palindromes, at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Sure enough, he did, and SFist BFF Steve Portigal made the misttake of mentioning he was going to see it. As Palindromes opens in the Bay Area this weekend, (see locations and times here), we hit Steve up for his thoughts......

So far SFist has been covering the San Francisco International Film Festival as a spectator, but SFist Paolo has graciously agreed to offer his perspective as a festival participant. His short, "Elements" appears as part of the Youth Vocies and Visions program of shorts, which had its first screening on Saturday and will be shown again at the Kaubki at 12 PM this Thursday. Read the words of a real, live San Francisco International......

If this review were an Edgar G. Ulmer movie, it would be covered in fog, have a sweeping orchestral score (public domain of course), and SFist would be a nihilistic outsider desperate for acceptance. One-out-of-three ain't bad. Edgar G. Ulmer, the Poverty Row director responsible for such ultra-low budget classics as Detour, The Man From Planet X, and The Black Cat, has gained a cult following amongst film geeks and independent filmmakers because he......

In tech news, stoned graphic designers were stunned when they realized that they had no idea that Adobe was going to swallow Macromedia whole. South Park laughs to keep from crying. After singlehandedly sparking off a department-wide investigation into drinking on the job after showing up to work drunk, Fireman Steve Gritsch manages to get a DUI! We're thinking it's a quiet protest against the Muni fare increase In the California Gubenatorial " ">Where......

Y'all know that the first thing on your movie plate this weekend should be the San Francisco International Film Festival -- that's pretty much all we got going on. So many great movies this weekend and beyond, do youself a favor and break out of your usual routine and hit some of these fantastic shows and events. OK, you're just not in an International Film Festival mood, we can accept that. So, what to......

One of the many perks of SFist, (besides the private jet, sumptious office spaces, and Gavin calling round-the-clock "just to say 'hi'"), is that we are forced to get out of the house and go do awesomely cool stuff in the name of Web Journalism. The latest entry in this big-fun anti-hermit campaign is the San Francisco International Film Festival, which opens tonight and runs through Thursday May 5. You can see the entire......

SFist made a startling discovery this week. The Bay Area is a fame whore! How else can you explain there being eight (at least!) weekly TV shows named after our fair neck of the woods? How can one small area of this vast Golden State warrant that much coverage? How much TV time does the Bay Area really need? Do we really want to be seen as the Paris Hilton of Northern California? Well,......