We feel kind of bad posting this, because we really do love Cathay Pacific (comfy seats, good service, decent food, and they also sponsored the Asian-American and the SF Int'l Film Fests), but news is news: they had a plane stuck for seven hours at SFO Tuesday morning. The flight, with 400 passengers aboard, boarded around midnight, and was scheduled to take off for Hong Kong at 1:20 a.m., but ended up sitting on the......

The acclaimed French-trained Guinean contemporary circus troupe Circus Baobab makes its US debut as part of the SF Int'l Arts Festival, performing The Jumping Drum, a fable about globalization and family, complete with acrobatics, stilt-walking, and African music. 5:30 p.m., $30, Project Artaud Theater (450 Alabama, x Mariposa). They're here through Sunday, and you may find it intriguing to learn that tomorrow's performance is in French. That's them on the YouTube above. Other events:......

May's Asian-American Heritage Month, so of course there's an accompanying street fair to emphasize the fun! Stop by Howard Street between 5th and 7th any time between 11 a.m. and 6 for food, music, community awareness booths, and fun across all the Asian ethnic groups. Other events: --SF Women Against Rape present the documentary "NO!" at the Women's Building. 5-7:30 p.m., $5-$15 sliding scale, Audre Lorde Room, 3542 18th St. (x Valencia). --Bohemian Carnival --......

We're very sad that the SF Int'l Film Festival is over -- but at least we live in a city where you don't have to wait for just once a year to see some amazing foreign films! We've got free passes to the Danish movie Adam's Apples, about which the Bay Guardian has said, "If Adam's Apples isn't the best movie I see in 2007, whatever movie is will be really, really, really good."......

After having watched Key of G and Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project on the very fancy SF Int'l Film Fest screener DVD machines this afternoon, we're thinking the theme of the afternoon was family obligations. (This is as good a reminder as any to get a Mother's Day present for next week, folks!) Key of G, a local film, is a portrait of a 22-year-old Mission resident named Gannet with a very rare form......

We knew very little about the SF Int'l Film Fest's Private Fears in Public Places but were intrigued by the title. Turns out the play is based on an English play by the same name (which explains the British subtitles), and the French movie is actually called “Coeurs” or “Hearts,” which is definitely not as good of a title. The film turned out to be almost soap-operish with its sad music and shots of......

A movie about local filmmakers wrangling with local politicians? We are so there! The SF Int'l premiered the documentary Audience of One Thursday night in one of the big newly-renovated theaters in the Kabuki Sundance. Audience of One is about the Voice of Pentecost church, based in the Sunset on Ocean Avenue, and their charismatic pastor Richard Gazowsky, who saw his first movie at the age of 40 and then, in 1995, says he......

If the lines outside the Kabuki this weekend are any indication, everyone and their cousin knows that the SF Int'l Film Festival is the place to BE for the latest and greatest in national and international cinema. But did you know the SFIFF is also featuring some really cool music shows too? They've all got something to do with film, anyways: a 13-piece live orchestra will be accompanying the family dysfunction drama Brand On......

Okay, we're not going to lie. When we read the description of the Iranian movie A Few Days Later... in the SF Int'l Film Fest guide as "a gorgeous minimalist portrait of a woman crushed by indecision," it made us a little nervous. We tend to like our movies maximalist and chatty! More singing and dancing mermaids, please! But we love the stark look of Iranian films (the "gorgeous" part) and the movie was......

SFist Mihi goes Cantopop! The North American debut of Heavenly Kings for the SF Int'l Film Festival premiered at the Castro Theatre Friday night and it must have been a sweet moment for Berkeley-born, Bay Area-raised, local boy Daniel Wu who directed and stars in the movie. After graduating from the University of Oregon, Daniel stumbled into modeling and acting gigs while backpacking through Asia and became a bona fide heart-throb in China. Heavenly......

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......

We hope we've worked you into a frenzy with all these free passes to SF Int'l Film Fest movies this weekend! Here's our last set -- after this, you're on your own to catch all the fantastic films they're screening from now until May 10. (Don't forget to check back at SFist for our reviews of the movies too.) Want to check out some film this Sunday afternoon? The Unforeseen, a documentary set in one......

Jonathan Richman is the most adorable San Franciscan ever -- he sings! he dances! he votes Green! Look at that sweet face! WE LOVE YOU JONATHAN RICHMAN!!!! So -- how lucky are you, valued readers?? SFist has two tickets to give away to one lucky winner, for a screening of The Phantom Carriage, a spooky silent movie showing at the Castro for the SF Int'l Film Festival -- with none other than Mr. J. Richman......

SFist Sara S's got the jujubes! Please don’t mistake us for fans of human suffering but it’s high time a film was made to tell the uninformed public about the genocide in Rwanda. Beyond the Gates, at the Embarcadero, is a smart, engaging, often (rightly) painful view of the conflict from the view of a Catholic training college manned by John Hurt and Hugh Dancy. It’s a tearjerker but it’s really edifying to see how......

Ever since we read SFist Mihi's review of Great Happiness Space: Tales of an Osaka Love Thief (we'll abbreviate that GHS:TOLT) from last year's DocFest, we've totally wanted to see this documentary, about brilliantly-coiffed Japanese men who are paid to socialize with women in local bars, in a reverse of the infamous "hostess bars" of Japanese fame. Lucky for us it came back to town as part of the SF Int'l Asian-Am film fest! As......

Preview for the movie Baby, which premiered last night at the SF Int'l Asian-Am Film Fest. (Movie's not rated but this clip probably should be rated R for violence.) The clip is a pretty good example of what the movie's like (though the movie is better lit). If you describe a movie as "the Asian American Boyz N The Hood," you're going to get a lot of attention. This screening of Baby was totally......

Yes, lucky readers, that's right: Jennifer Siebel's movie The Trouble With Romance is screening in San Francisco for the SF Int'l Asian-American Film Festival. And who better to review the press screener we received, than our special guest correspondent, and Chronicle Culture Blog Gavin Watcher..... Beth Spotswood!!!! The infamous SFist Rita took time away from her remote cave lair and evil blogging minions to hook me up with an advance copy of The Trouble with......

Even as we continue to enjoy the movie cavalcade that is our beloved Indiefest, we're also getting ready for the next big film festival coming to town: the SF Asian-American Film Festival! This is the 25th SF Int'l Asian-American Film Festival, and they're celebrating their silver anniversary this year with a special focus on Chinese-American film, a retrospective of the work of Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo, and a sing-along Flower Drum Song, among other special......

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...

We saw the saddest obituary last week in the Chron, for the death of Sarah Tucker, a 26-year-old Mission resident who was killed in a hit-and-run bicycle accident on Polk and Geary Street on Thursday January 12. Witnesses reported seeing a black Honda CRV run a yellow light, and heard Tucker loudly shout "Hey!" before she was struck. The driver, reported to be an African-American man in his 40s, then turned off his headlights to hinder the reading of his license plate and drove away. Tucker, who was wearing her helmet, suffered severe head injuries and died shortly afterwards. Tucker, as she was known, was returning home from the Tango, Tango dance party when she was killed. Tucker was a fundraiser for the Cal Academy of Sciences by day and a filmmaker/DJ at night, volunteering for the SF Film Society, screening movies for the SF Int'l Film Fest, and running the Pretty Young Thing dance party at the Make-Out Room, among many other activities. As the obit says, "Sarah loved pugs, soul music, dancing, acronyms, sticky buns, fashion and aesthetics." If you see a black Honda CR-V with a large dent in its side on the passenger door, call SFPD Inspector Pat Tobin of the hit-and-run division at (415) 553-1641 or the confidential tip line (415) 575-4444. There's a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Please, folks, ride and drive safely out there. You probably love pugs and sticky buns too. ...

As we settled into our seats for the world premiere of documentary It's My Country Too, there was a generalized hubbub as a tall man wearing black and carrying a guitar case strode down the aisle. We heard his escort say, "It's so weird that no one's recognizing you!" Turns out that man is Pakistani-American rock star Salman Ahmed, the narrator of the documentary It's My Country Too. Ahmed is the lead guitarist for the band Junoon, which has been called the U2 of Pakistan. We think this makes Ahmed Bono (scroll down to read Bono's letter to Ahmed), since the Edge doesn't seem to take too many positions on global politics. It's My Country Too follows Ahmed as he travels America trying to see how 9/11 politics have affected the Pakistani-American community. After the jump: Muslim comedians, Muslim lawyers, and the founders of the website Muslims for Bush (who are Salman Ahmed's aunt, uncle, and cousin). Picture of Salman Ahmed from the BBC website...

Back to our usual format, guys. We're still working on a pie chart of the weeklies, though! Last week's this week, The Guardian. Yipes, a cover of people flipping you off! Hello, community standards and decency board? Angry letter from Markos of the Daily Kos. Public power's "close relative," community-choice aggregation. We have no idea what that sentence means. Follow up on Is Badlands Bad (now called And Castro For All). Paul Reidinger goes to Jack Falstaff. Cover article: blurbmania about the SF Int'l Film Fest movies. Mary Timony: she's not all about unicorns anymore! The SF Weekly! Dog Bites tries out for Beach Blanket Babylon again. Cover article: challenges facing the SF Conservatory of Music. This Tuesday, Trannyfest is throwing its annual faux king contest (drag queens dress up like drag kings -- genius!). Blurbmania about the SF Int'l Film Fest movies. Meredith Brody goes to Jack Falstaff. And Mary Timony: not all about unicorns anymore! The East Bay Express, the Metro, and -- hey, does anyone want to go to Jack Falstaff with us?...