Traveling is viable again, according to the CDC, for those with the blessed vaccine (and the bucks). But voyaging abroad remains a risky venture. Two local film festivals, both with exceptionally large footprints and coincidentally marking their 18th years, step up to satisfy the craving to be footloose.
International Ocean Film Festival April 15âMay 2 Online and drive-in at Fort Mason Center
Once upon a time, the most widely seen ânatureâ films outside of PBS were Warren Millerâs ski films and Thomas Campbellâs surf films. Winged Migration and An Inconvenient Truth mainstreamed Mother Nature far beyond the extreme sports crowd, then public interest and portable, durable, hi-res digital video cameras launched environmental films into whatâs evolved into a dynamic subgenre of documentary.
Even still, the breadth and depth (pun intended) of the International Ocean Film Festival program is remarkable. Seventeen countries are represented across 11 themed categories (Our Blue World, Whales, Coastal Communities and Cultures, Coral Reefs and yes, Surfing, among them). Perhaps the pandemic hyper-focused filmmakers on their footage, turning 2020 into a busy year for editors (and composers).
The IOFF is onboard with the hallmark of the virtual film festival, namely audience participation. Join the conversation via numerous Q&As with filmmakers, environmentalists and activists, and watch for free and vote for your faves among the 10 finalists in the student film competition.
Of the dozen or so feature films, I sampled a couple of the U.S. premieres, beginning with Australian underwater cinematographer Nays Baghaiâs ruminative portrait of Dutch ice freediver Kiki Bosch. For his debut feature (66 minutes, to be precise), Descent, Baghai willfully spotlights the meditative nature of diving rather than its adrenalized appeal. Instead of daredevil exploits, Boschâs bone-chilling, cold-water ventures to Iceland and Greenland are presented as destinations on a personal journey narrated by its erstwhile heroine.
Originally, Boschâs impetus was athletics and adventure. When she was raped in her late teens/early 20s, the joy of diving disappeared. Eventually she rediscovered cold-water activities as a means of healing, and through recovery and research became a practitioner of the Wim Hof method of breathing and cold therapy.
Descent is a sobering, contemplative coming-of-age story rather than a vicarious ride-along with someone testing their limits. Bosch seeks, and Baghi honors, âthe calm under the waves.â Some viewers will embrace that vibe, while thrill seekers will have to be satisfied with gorgeous settings and jolting ice baths.
Still from ‘Ocean Souls.’ (Courtesy International Ocean Film Festival)
Bosch is the only figure in sight for most of Descent, while U.K. filmmaker Richard Hamilton fills every frame of Ocean Souls with whales and dolphins. Unabashed undersea wonder is a significant element of the film, contributing to its overriding goal of impressing us with the animalsâ unappreciated and underrated qualities: intelligence, communication and sophisticated social structures (of child-raising, especially).
A narratorâone of those slightly arrogant British voices, alasâdescribes the thinking and behavior of the graceful and often playful creatures, but Ocean Souls assuredly does not anthropomorphize whales and dolphins. (Thatâs Disneyâs domain.) The filmmaker makes another welcome decision to only include a few seconds, words and images conveying the human damage and ongoing threats (not just climate change but the volume of commercial ocean traffic) to dolphinsâ and whalesâ health and long-term prospects.
That restraint in no way lessens the implicit message of Ocean Souls, namely that these animals are immensely important and deserve protection. Thatâs the aim of the vast majority of films about the environment and the natural world, of course; their challenge is catalyzing viewers by means other than depressing, sensationalist destruction. The International Ocean Film Festival abounds with approaches that do precisely that.
Dimitris Imellos plays Nikos in ‘Tailor.’ (Courtesy San Francisco Greek Film Festival)
San Francisco Greek Film Festival Apr 16â25 Online and drive-in at Par 3 at Poplar Creek, San Mateo
In the early 1990s, on one of my trips to the enormous and now-defunct Montreal World Film Festival, the program included a sidebar on contemporary Greek films. Greece is known for many things, but its national cinema is not, shall we say, one of Europeâs most renowned. Indeed, itâs rare for a Greek film to get a U.S. release. So I squeezed a couple titles into my festival schedule, realizing this was my only chance to see movies from Greece. Unfortunately, both were lackluster works that looked and felt like TV movies.
Even a cursory peep at the San Francisco Greek Film Festival program is sufficient to render my Montreal memory mirage-like. The accomplished productions curated for your streaming pleasureâall free, incrediblyâencompass every genre from cerebral arthouse riddle (The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea) to crime-tinged black comedy (Ballad for a Pierced Heart) to food-centered mystery (Green Sea). Thereâs even a musical drama, Fantasia, playing at the Par 3 in Poplar Creek in San Mateo on Sunday, April 18.
Still from ‘Tailor.’ (Courtesy San Francisco Greek Film Festival)
I enjoyed Tailor, a tender drama with a droll veneer. The film is precise and attentive to every detail and compositionâreflecting its protagonistâyet fastidious about avoiding conventional plot turns and pat interpretations. Nikos is a middle-aged bachelor whoâs labored in the shadow of his demanding father, sewing custom suits for discerning men. But that chapter is ending: The clientele is dying off, the bank is foreclosing on the business and health issues are forcing the father to reluctantly relinquish the business.
Dimitris Imelios, who plays Nikos, looks like mid-career Robert De Niro with a hangdog expression. A whiz with his hands, he builds a portable cart and takes his wares to the streets of Athens, where he discovers that womenânotably mothers of brides in need of dressesâare a sizable potential market.
Tailor has a romantic subplot and a precocious childâa mother and daughter, as it happensâthat pan out in ways we expect and ways we donât. The film is both exquisitely made and willfully offbeat, so see it before an enterprising Hollywood producer remakes itâwith a younger De Niroâand trades its charms for sentimentality.
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