presented in association with Canyon Cinema Foundation, Center for New Music, Oddball Film + Video and Shapeshifters Cinema
sponsored by LUNA, MUBI, Ninkasi Brewing and Vimeo
technical sponsor San Francisco Film Society
Full Festival Pass: [$70 general/$40 Cinematheque members] available here.
Admission: [$10 general/$5 Cinematheque members]. Advance tickets available here.
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Films on drift, and motion through the world. And also films of stillness. Friends and loved ones pass. Their absence is lamented. Snow falls, seasons also pass. Fate conspires and the world turns. (Steve Polta)
SCREENING:
Friday Mosque (2014) by Azadeh Navai; 16mm, b&w, silent, 8 minutes, from the maker bay area premiere
Friday Mosque is a silent meditation on the Islamic prayer ritual, Namaaz, through motion—water is the core, but light is the cause. Shot on high-contrast black-and-white 16mm film, Azadeh Navai hand-processes the negative and painstakingly contact-prints numerous foot-long strips of celluloid. The resulting image quivers and pulses. Enlarged film grain nearly obliterates the already abstracted image. There exists both a tension and serenity in the flickering frame. Every element is preparing for and anticipating the faithful soul that is summoned to the everyday practice. The silent tune of the calling, Azan, has overtaken. (Azadeh Navai)
That Which Moves The Sun And Stars (2013) by Takahiro Suzuki; digital video, color, sound, 9 minutes, from the maker bay area premiere
That Which Moves The Sun And Stars contemplates the existence of and utility of the idea of fate. The piece progresses using quotes from The Divine Comedy to help navigate its path. (Takahiro Suzuki)
Diary—January 8th, 2015 (2015) by Jason Halprin; digital video, color, sound, 3 minutes, from the maker world premiere
Chicago, IL USA: With the first real snowfall of the season, winter is settling in. (Jason Halprin)
On the Evening (2014) by Olivia Ciummo; digital video, color, sound, 7 minutes, from the maker bay area premiere
On the Evening portrays boundaries between the visible and invisible. Sounds and images describe an anxious landscape of historical borders. The sky and sea are riddled with clues and a text conversation reveals a foggy future through an altered state of consciousness. (Olivia Ciummo)
Summer's Eve (2015) by Robert Todd; digital video, color, sound, 6 minutes, from the maker bay area premiere
At the start of summer, a curtain rises and falls. Beads of sweat bloom inside the city’s heart. (Robert Todd)
Journey to the Sea (2015) by Josh Gibson; digital video, color, sound, 14 minutes, from the maker U.S. premiere
In Journey to the Sea, an elderly woman floats down a river of elusive memories and fragmented artifacts from cinema‘s history, straining to recall the places that she has been. Passing through childhood creeks and riverside views of great cities, she also struggles to remember the impulse of travel itself. Her fading and fluid memories of touristic desire merge into an unreliable account of a great river teeming with duck-billed platypuses, disappearing Native Americans, fellow tourists and intimate hair washes. (Josh Gibson)
a mystery inside of a fact (2016) by Jonathan Schwartz; 16mm, color, sound, 17 minutes, from the maker bay area premiere
It arrives, in a fog, with songs, through dance or majestic animals or faces (gliding on the street), in shapes of light, maybe on a large bird of prey’s flight—gesture skyward.
Some origins can be difficult to pinpoint, others blink back—infinitely. (Jonathan Schwartz)
newritual (2015) by Susan DeLeo; digital video, color, silent, 3 minutes, from the maker world premiere
A filmic exploration of a dream-like state of surrendering, floating and merging with elements of the natural world. (Susan DeLeo)
Gulls at Gibraltar (2015) by Stephen Broomer; 16mm, b&w, silent, 4 minutes, from the maker bay area premiere
Seagulls hover and dip on the rocky coastline of Gibraltar Point. Tilting and multiple horizons camouflage the birds, splintering and gathering the lone gull to the flock. (Stephen Broomer)
winter beyond winter (2016) by Jonathan Schwartz; 16mm, color, sound, 11 minutes, from the maker world premiere
apologies towards the inevitable. (Jonathan Schwartz)
Above still taken from Summer's Eve by Robert Todd
CROSSROADS 2016 receives generous support from: Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Zellerbach Family Foundation, The Owsley Brown III Philanthropic Foundation and The Willow Foundation.