SFIFF and an ode to Chris Wiggum

(Ocean Beach on the evening of our going-away bonfire)

After seven rollercoaster years, Seth and I are packing up and leaving the Bay Area. As these entries are mainly film related, I'll spare you my mushy goodbyes and just talk about getting to go out with a bang, as the 50th San Francisco International Film Festival happened to coincide with the weeks of our departure.

For the past 4 years, I have had the excellent task of sitting on the Documentary Selection panel for the festival’s Golden Gate Awards. That means that I get to help sort through and choose the top picks among the piles of excellent docs that get submitted to the festival each year. It’s cool being a part of SF’s biggest and the country’s oldest festival, and also getting a sneak peek at the top docs each year. Admittedly, it can get a little mind-numbing when you are in your eighth-straight hour of movie watching, but then some gem will sparkle you out of your stupor and you’ll be so glad you are there. We had one of those films in our panel group this year, where everyone in the group immediately agreed that it should be passed on to the fest, and it was, and now it looks like it is getting a theatrical release, so you should see it: Ghosts of Cite Soleil. It’s a haunting and colorful film about two brothers involved in dangerous politics, hip hop, and gang warfare in Haiti.

Another perk of doing this duty is that I usually get invites to the fest’s big ol’ parties, and there were some doozies this year. Opening night was in City Hall, and that was pretty amazing, but it was on my last day of work at Film Arts, and we had a little post-work-going-away-thing, and by the time I arrived at the massive dome, I was already a little woo-woo and so I pretty much didn’t have much steam left. Thank goodness for my dear colleague and friend, Simone, who gave me a lift home. The highlight of the festival for me was actually the Centerpiece party, which appropriately happens smack dab in the middle of the festival. This is the second year that Bay Area Women in Film & TV has sponsored the film & party, and as an outgoing board member I got to bask in some of that glory and also get the chance to say goodbye to so many of the AMAZING women that I have met and worked with in that organization over the years (Liza! Erica! Ondine! Simone!).

(SFIFF's Thanks to BAWIFT: Alison Lohman in Delirious)

One petite bone to pick...being that a professional women's media org is giving a whole pile of cash to sponsor this shin-dig, you'd think the festival would take into consideration some of its choices. For instance, in his little thank-you-sponsors speech before the film, the male festival director stated that BAWIFT is "an organization that we are happy to get into bed with." Huh? Somehow seems like an inappropriate choice of words, sort of like the inappropriate choice of film, which was the movie Delirious, starring two men and directed by, guess who? A man! I guess they tried to have estrogen representation by having the female lead come up with the director for the post-film Q & A...too bad she played a half-dressed, ditzy pop star in the movie and could barely form an intelligible sentence on stage!

But back to the party. As mentioned earlier, I loved that I got to use this event as my own little goodbye to the Bay Area film community. I went with my friend Carlton from Disposable Film Fest and The Tribe, and aside from my BAWIFT chicks, got to see a lot of my other favorite faces from the local film world, like Scarlett, the dynamo behind SF Women's Film Festival, and Malcolm from Shooting People. Best of all, though, was my film festival staple, Chris Wiggum. Chris is the right-hand man at Karen Larsen, the Bay Area PR firm that handles everything film-related worth noting.

I met the fabulous Mr. Wiggum when I was working at Mill Valley Film Festival a few years ago, and have seen him at just about every festival I’ve been to since. He even helped Jericho’s Echo get some great press when we were in the SF Jewish Film Fest. Chris embodies what I love about the SF (as opposed to the LA) film scene: he works hard without being a stress case, he always looks great without overdoing or fake-tanning it, and he is sincerely nice without always wanting something from you. Kudos, Chris, and thanks for helping me say goodbye to SF in style.

PS, If you are going to be in SF in June, make sure to check out the youth films at Frameline…There are some real gems that were created by LGBT teens and “elders” while I was running TILT earlier this year!

12.17.06: Hardcore Hanukkah

Happy Hanukkah, Hipsters!

This looks to be one of the best Chanukahs ever...thanks to the Hardcore Hanukkah tour!

(Brooklyn's Golem Makin Chanukah Look Good)

The lead up to the tour was pretty good in and of itself...with the Film Arts holiday party at a pub where my team kicked arse at pub-wide trivia and won ourselves each a whopping $5! That was Wednesday night, and Thursday rocked even harder at the "Vodka Latka" party where punk-klezmer band Golem blew me away (I never knew the accordion could be so foxy!), following a set by Conspiracy of Beards (I kid you not--a men's choir that covers Leonard Cohen tunes), at the great evening put on by some of my favorite Jewish entities: Reboot, JDub Records and the Progressive Jewish Alliance.



But Jewish Subculture Junkies, Listen Up, Cuz You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet! Friday and Saturday were the first two days of the first Hardcore Hanukkah tour, seriously one of the coolest, funnest, rock-the-dreidel events ever! As part of the Workmen's Circle's Hanukkah Tour, we were lucky enough to screen Jericho's Echo clips amidst the Hebrew hijinks of Australia's Yidcore, New Orleans's Zydepunks and the Bay's very own Jewdriver.

What these bands may lack in mainstream appeal, they make up for in originality and Jew-tasticness. We all know that Jews formed the backbone of punk rock in the US (See The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's if you don't) but Jewdriver and Yidcore just come out and shout it, albeit in the silliest ways possible. Yidcore dresses up shtetl-fabulous and does fast and furious punk rock Fiddler on the Roof covers, Bette Midler tunes, traditional Jewish songs, and my personal favorite, the Arabic-Hebrew peacenik number, "Od Yavo Shalom." Jewdriver, a spin off on the neo-Nazi skinhead band Skrewdriver, does Jewish pride songs taking the piss out of their fascist counterparts. Sporting kilts, Fred Perry shirts, yarmulkes and pais, they chug Manischewitz and dodge the audience pelting bagels during their sets.

(Bram Yidcore and Ian Jewdriver Lighting the First Candle)

We had planned to have a little Chanukah party at our place after the first night's show at Balazo, but our travelers were far to weary so we ended up with only the lovely Bram, Rory and Myki from Yidcore who we were putting up for the night and somehow we managed to eat 15-persons worth of latkes between the five of us the next morning! What can I say? Growing boys and a Yiddishe Mama are a natural combination. Anyway, we didn't get too much time for sightseeing with our guests, what with their priorities being laundry and shopping for sleeping bags (someone forgot to tell them they might need those on tour--woops!) but we did spend lots of quality time. I think they are my favorites of the gajillions of bands we've hosted over the years, and not just because of those adorable accents. They really are awesome dudes who have more going on than just the band (Myki runs Vice Magazine in Australia and Bram is a law professor and book critic, for example) and I hope we can visit them down under one day.

So the second night's show was at 924 Gilman Street. This legendary place gave rise to so many bands, including most famously Green Day and Operation Ivy. (Did I mention that one of the members of Jewdriver was IN Operation Ivy?!?! Seriously.) As Bram described in his blog about the tour, "924 Gilman Street is the home of the whole independent California punk scene. It is to the West Coast what CBGB's was to the East, except Gilman is a collectively run, non-profit community centre run by kids for kids." I have witnessed a bunch of bands playing their first show at Gilman, including one of Seth's old bands, Breaker Breaker, and it is always really exciting to feel their energy in a house of legends. I guess it's sort of like a Catholic praying at the Vatican, but then, what does a Jew know of such things?

At any rate, it didn't really hit me until the projector started flickering that *I* was now having my 15 minutes to shine at this place. It was really amazing to see a bunch of punks, in the middle of a show, quiet down and gather around to watch some clips of Jericho's Echo. I think some of the guys in the movie would have been really proud...after all, this was sort of like their chance to play at Gilman! Also, I have screened the film at so many festivals in front of a "certain crowd," while the kids at Gilman are really the intended audience. I actually had one skinny little dude in a huge leather jacket come up to me and say that he saw the whole movie in Berkeley last year and has since gone to Israel and hung out with some of the guys in Dizengoff Square. Fucking awesome!!

Oy, I still have more to tell but the last candle just burned out and I seriously have to go to bed. I promise I'll finish this post eventually!!

11.30.06 Happy Birthday, Film Arts!

I promised I'd write about the Film Arts 30th Anniversary bash from the last post, but next thing you know, I was too full of turkey and stuffing to get anything down on virtual paper...

The gist of it is that the event was a smashing success...and made me feel quite proud to be part of such a venerable institution that has aided so many truly independent filmmakers, in a city where Hollywood renegades come to forge their own paths. (Sorry for the melodrama--just watched Lord of the Rings.)

The theme of the evening was Past, Present, Future and the programming reflected this. Past was represented by OffOn, an experimental short from 1972 by one of the Film Arts founding members. Present gave us the "Best of Film Arts Members One-Minute Films" that I mentioned, of which my little movie "ericka" was one. The one-minute films were fantastic, and spanned genres from comedy to animation to doc to experimental. I had an ongoing battle with my friend Shane King (from the Girls Rock! movie) about whose one-minute film was going to mop the floor with whose...and I have to admit his was pretty awesome, but neither of us won the audience choice award, which was clearly fixed ;)

The Future section presented two works-in-progress. The first was clips from an upcoming documentary--Strange Culture--about the messy world of art and politics and a bizarre government conspiracy to squash artists' rights. One of the producers is the dynamic Lise Swenson, who founded TILT, the organization I am now running. The film just got into Sundance--congratulations!!!

The main feature of the evening was a rough cut screening of a new doc about the bustling Nigerian film scene (Who knew?). This isn't Hollywood, or even Bollywood...This is Nollywood, baby, and it is pure inspiration. For someone who considers herself a guerrilla filmmaker, this really put me in my place. These West Africans churn out hundreds of movies with extremely limited resources and have made themselves a massive homegrown entertainment industry. I think everyone in the audience was impressed and energized by the film. I can't wait to see the final cut!

So I didn't even *get* to the who's who of the guest list, which included such local luminaries as former Film Arts diva Gail Silva, Oscar-nominated doc director Sam Green, film publicist extraordinnaire Karen Larsen and about 800 others, but now that my Thanksgiving has digested, it's already time to grate my latke potatoes. See you on Chanukah!

11.3.06 Sacto, Film Arts and other updates

Hello, my long lost friends!
My, it *has* been a while. And Lizzie has been busy!

The foremost occupier of my time has been a fabulous new job as the Youth Coordinator at the Ninth Street Independent Film Center, home of Frameline (SF LGBT Film Festival), SF Jewish Film Festival, Center for Asian American Media (Asian American Film Festival) and the venerable Film Arts Foundation. It is at this nexus of the local independent film community that I am running a program called TILT (Teaching Intermedia Literacy Tools), which teaches media literacy through hands-on production. In other words, we do awesome, soup-to-nuts filmmaking workshops with underserved youth all over the Bay Area. Woo-hoo! Youth voice represent!

On that note, A one-minute film that I made about one of TILT's youth filmmakers is screening at the not-to-be-missed film event of the season, the FILM ARTS FOUNDATION 30th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION, next Wednesday at the incredible Castro Theatre. The evening features an eclectic mix of films for film-lovers, and the one-minute films section is an audience choice awards, so if you're in town please come and vote for my lil' movie, "ericka"! It is going to be an outstanding night, and I'll be sure to write about it here. if you can make it, tix are available at www.filmarts.org/30years

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the Sacramento screening. This blog is supposed to be chronicling Jericho's Echo adventures, after all. So there have been some incredible screenings recently, in places as varied as Prague, Mexico City and the Turks & Caicos islands. Due to the aforementioned new job, however, I have slowed down on the galavanting around the world a bit. That's one reason it was so nice to have a local-ish screening in California's capitol, Sacramento, last night. The other reason it was so nice is that it was hosted in a new Microcinema that is starting up thanks to the fine folks at Shiny Object Digital Media, who also happen to be the Video-on-Demand (VOD) distributors for Jericho's Echo.

The crowd was funny and a bit surly, but mostly appreciative. The first question was a drunkenly blurted, "Are you single?!", which I ignored, and later I got a brand new one:

Audience member: "I am pen pals with someone in the movie."
Me: "Oh, really? Who?"
Audience member: "His name is Barak."
Me: "Hmmm. I'm not sure there *is* someone named Barak in the movie."
Audience member: "Oh yeah. He's at one of the shows. He hates you."
Me: "Uhhhhhhh, ok?"

I later remembered that the person he was referring to is a disgruntled member of one of the bands who was pissed about not being interviewed (even though I never met him when I was there shooting). He approached me at the Tel Aviv screening, screaming until he was red in the face and demanding a free DVD. I even gave him one! But apparently he's still holding a grudge. Wow.

In other news, I have been writing some more film articles (Look out for my year-end music doc roundup in the winter Death + Taxes and my coverage of Good Vibrations Erotic Films Compeition in the next Release Print!) and teaching a class at FAF for filmmakers called "Building Buzz Around Your Film."

Like I said, Busy Lizzie! I promise not to wait so long til the next entry, and in the meantime, I hope to see you next Wednesday, November 8 at the Castro!!

PS The Henry Rollins article mentioned in my last post is out on the shelves in the current Oct/Nov ish of Death + Taxes!

One Way Letter Video Shoot

One Way Letter Video Shoot
Originally uploaded by lizfilm.

You have probably been keeping yourself up at night wondering what has been keeping me busy while I'm not on the road with Jericho's Echo. Well, worry yourself no longer. As I get prepared for what will probably be the final JE tour...to GERMANY, no less...I have been doing a few interesting freelance projects.

The best one is pictured here...the music video shoot for the Negative Progression band, One Way Letter. When they stopped through on their tour all the way from Georgia, we went to the creepy old industrial port area south of San Francisco and got some amazing shots of the band playing live against the gritty backdrop. It was perfect for their gritty song "The Damage."

08.05.05 SFJFF: Berkeley Screening

I wasn't quite sure how the stereotypical Berkeley, Birkenstock-sporting, post-hippie, PC intellectual would take to my film, but as soon as I saw the skinny kid with braces and a "Punk's Not Dead" t-shirt in line with his mom, I knew I was in business!

The SFJFF Berkeley screenings this year were at the Berkeley Rep Theatre. This venue is typically used for stage productions so the seats are set up in a really interesting, multi-level, multi-angle manner. It was cool, especially because I had been SO nervous before the big Castro screening that I wasn't worried about this one at all which obviously makes it much more pleasant for me and probably for everyone around me, too.

(Answering audience questions after the Berkeley screening)

The highlight of the evening was a dinner set up by the festival, with me, Seth, some festival people, and the entourage from a movie that played earlier in the evening. The movie was "Isn't This a Time," a doc about an annual folk concert at Carnegie Hall. I have to admit, my first thought was, "Oh jeez, what are me and these old hippies going to talk about?" Amazingly, it was the music that brought us together...as we created links between the folk protest music of the sixties and the punk rock protest music of today.

I had the honor of sitting across the table from Ronnie Gilbert, the spunky singer of the formerly blacklisted band, The Weavers (Pete Seeger's first band), who were featured in "Isn't This a Time." Unlike some elders of her generation, she totally got was I am trying to do with Jericho's Echo, and related her own history of performing because she felt compeeled to do so by the ills of society.

One of the SFJFF board members, filmmaker Gail Dolgin, made a lovely toast, something to the effect of "To the generation who inspired us (pointing toward Ronnie), and the generation who's working to inspire us now (pointing toward me)."

Hear, hear!

07.28.05 SFJFF: So, how did it go?

Well, it was great. All worries dropped the minute the party started. Although I do worry like a grandmother with an ulcer before a big event, I have the uncanny ability to stop worrying the minute the action gets going. Phew.

Our pre-party at the Lucky 13 Bar was fun. The bar has a rocknroll vibe and a good jukebox so that helped set the tone. This crazy old hippie-punk-activist guy called "Diamond Dave" showed up--a true Bay Area character--and he told me that the bar in its former life used to host some of the area's wildest punk shows, so I guess we were paying a homage of sorts. Our drink sponsor was He'Brew (The Chosen Beer) so that in and of itself was pretty funny. I didn't have time to drink because I was too busy being a hostess and greeting all of the AMAZING peeps that came out. We definitely had a good Jew/Punk/Jewish-Punk mix going on. There were some friends there that I hadn't seen in a couple years (Jo!) and some that I hadn't seen in about TEN years (Tal!!!) so that was a treat.

We headed over to the theatre a bit earlier than the rest of the party to set up and then, BAM! Movie time! There it was--Jericho's Echo on the huge, luminous Castro Theatre screen in front of a 400-or-so person audience. Wow.

(The Castro crowd gets ready to watch Jericho's Echo!)


I wish I could say that NONE of my fears were confirmed, but unfortunately my concerns about the lateness of the hour were pretty spot-on. Not only was the film programmed at 10:30 PM on a Wednesday night, but they played a 20 minute short beforehand so Jericho's Echo didn't even start until 11! That meant that people did have to get up and leave to catch public transportation before my film was over. That was definitely a bummer, as was the notion that had the film played a couple hours earlier, there probably would have been a much bigger crowd.

That being said, it really was awesome to screen there and the people who did come were very enthusiastic. Nancy Fishman, the programming director for the festival, introduced my film and called me a "filmmaker to watch." Oooooh, I like the sound of that! I got some questions during the Q & A (my favorite part!) that I hadn't been asked before, so that always makes it more interesting. Someone talked about the association between punk rock and certain drugs, like heroin in NY, and if there was a particularly Middle Eastern drug associated with Israeli punk. I was glad about that one because it gave me one more chance to bust stereotypes. I could honestly answer that aside from the massive amounts of beer and vodka consumption I witnessed during my shoots, I never saw one illegal drug being used the entire time I was in Israel.

All in all, the best part about the screening was feeling so supported by my community, like I really have a place here. There were so many excellent people in attendance from all over the Bay Area and from all different parts of my life...my favorite waitress Mary, Steve from the Landmark Theatres, my college pal Ryan, my high school pal Hannah's parents, my in-laws, Floyd from Fat Wreck Chords, Jericho's Echo's editor Joseph and motion graphics designer Phil, some of the middle-school teachers to whom I have given media workshops, Rachel and Carlton from the Mission Minyan, lots of friends...the list goes on. It's pretty amazing to think I have only been here 5 years and I have somehow touched so many lives.

To me, the term INDEPENDENT FILMMAKER isn't really accurate, because really we are dependent on that kind of support from our communities at large. Thanks, San Francisco, from the bottom of my heart.

07.27.05 SFJFF: Heartburn

It's about 5:33 AM on the morning of my big Castro screening. Did I say big? I mean BIG. At least that is how I am feeling right now. By all rights, I should be sleeping. The screening doesn't even start til 10:30 PM and there's a short playing beforehand. That means that I have to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for a Q & A about 19 hours from now. But what am I doing? I'm sitting at my computer with heartburn writing to you folks and worrying about everything that could possibly go wrong tonight. I wonder if because it's a Jewish film festival there is an extra amount of neuroses in the air?!

Since I'm hoping this blog will be a resource for other filmmakers who are doing the festival circuit (and to make myself feel better), I'm going to let you in on some of the things that I am concerned about at this bleary-eyed moment so that you know you are not alone if you ever feel this way before a BIG screening.

First of all, let me share some advice: don't go out and eat a bunch of junkfood before bed on the night before your screening. I know, should be a no-brainer. But you see, my in-laws are in town alll the way from Florida for this event. (I know--that's love!) and my brother-in-law and his gal came up from LA to meet us all last night (More love!). They didn't get in 'til late and Seth and I joined everybody for a late-nite "snack". Of course, all we could find by the time we settled down to eat was a greasy spoon in the backwaters of Milbrae and, well, let's just say that I'm sure my menu choices contributed to my current discomfort.

Movie side-note: This was after, by the way, I got to see 4 films by directors who are all here at the festival and who I have had the pleasure of meeting. One of them was the lovely film Poumy. If you are a faithful reader of this blog (That's you, Mom and Dad), you may remember that I stayed next door to Marian, the producer of Poumy, at the Toronto Jewish Film Fest. Well, the director of said film is Sam Ball, whose work I have long admired. We finally met during this fest when we were guests together on the whacky cable access "Movie Close-Up" show and I must say he is an absolute gem. I hope we get to see more of each other. The other films were The Nuclear Physicist Gives His Son a Haircut, a sweetly self-reflective animation by the sweet New Yorker Hanan Harchol, Professional Revolutionary: The Life of Saul Wellman by Judy Montell and Commune by Jonathan Berman.

OK, drum roll, please....time for brutal honesty....

TOP 5 THINGS I'M WORRIED ABOUT FOR TONIGHT
5. Expectations are so high because of all the amazing press we've been getting that people leave saying what I usually say after a movie...something to the effect of "I don't see what all the hoopla was about!"

4. People get up and leave before the movie is over because it is programmed SO LATE that if the opening ceremonies go long, folks will miss the last public transportation if they don't split early.

3. I thought that the Castro had 800 seats. I just found out it has 1400. WHAT?! I was worried about filling 800!!

2. I pass out on stage because I'm up at 5-freakin-thirty AM or I trip on the stairs on the way up to the stage for the introduction or I just get under the bright lights and look like a heroin junkie from lack of sleep.

1. The scariest thing--the Beta-SP dub made for this festival has never been tested all the way through. What if all other fears are allayed and the theatre is full and IT DOESN'T WORK?? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

OK, I feel better now. Do you?

07.25.05 SFJFF: Inspiration

"I believe it is the role of the Jews to be on the side of the oppressed."
-Walter Bernstein, former blacklisted writer and
SFJFF Freedom of Expression award recipient

I have found the festival programming this year to be extremely thoughtful and thought-provoking, particularly on the topic of Jewish morality.

More soon--gotta run for now. xx

07.24.05 SFJFF: Erik Van Loon

What is a towering, blonde, aryan-as-anything man in a cowboy hat and a tight blue woman's sweater vest doing at the SF Jewish Film Festival? This should have a great punchline but it doesn't--it just has an answer. He is Erik Van Loon. He is here all the way from Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and he is my official partner-in-crime for the festival. As one of the local filmmakers here, I feel I owe it to all the folks who have been so kind to me in other cities, to make our visiting filmmakers feel welcome...and really, it's selfish, because meeting these extraordinary people from all over the world is the one of the highlights of "festival life" for me. Check out what Erik has contributed to the fest:

We expand our festival's scope this year with renowned Dutch artist Erik van Loon's ineffably haunting 11-hour film installation A Victim's Perspective... ...This past January marked the 60th anniversary of the Death March from Auschwitz: as the Russians advanced on the German lines, the 60,000 remaining prisoners at Auschwitz were forced to walk 40 miles in the bitter Polish winter under the most brutal circumstances to an evacuation station, where they would be transported to German camps away from the front. Some 20,000 are thought to have perished along this path. On the anniversary in 2005, van Loon, with a camera mounted to his body, walked this same route.

WOW.

07.23.05 SFJFF: Opening Night and Shabbat Shalom

I'm getting to that point of almost euphoric anticipation that happens before a big screening. (This precedes the all night tossing and turning, worrying about everything that could go wrong). The excited feeling comes from the opening events that have taken place over the past couple of days. They're getting me all ramped up for the adventures to come.

The big opening event at any festival is, of course, opening night. The Castro Theatre was decked out in its finest, for the always overcrowded but high-spirited pre-party up in the theatre's mezzanine. Maybe it's just because it's the Jewish film festival, but this party always has the feeling of a Bar-Mitzvah to me....what with all the kisses, finger foods, and older women putting mini-brownies from the dessert tray into their purses "for later." Of course, I am right in there among the masses, fighting for bits of delicious foodstuffs--the carmelized brie was the winner for me this year.

The opening night film was "Go For Zucker!", a German-Jewish comedy by the adorable German director Dani Levy. I enjoyed the film--it was refreshing to see a comedy for once, when my typical fare consists of uber-serious documentaries or big-budget sci-fi special effects blowouts. I won't spend too much time on a synopsis, but basically it is about two German brothers who haven't spoken for 40 years. When their mother dies, her stiupulation for them to get her inheritance is that they must sit shiva together for 7 days and make up. Pretty basic stuff, except that one brother is a gambling, but somehow loveable, hedonist, and the other is an Orthodox Jew.

The most interesting part was hearing Dani Levy speak after the film. First of all, he was just fun to watch--he seemed to have the goofy neurosis of Woody Allen mixed with the energy and abandon of Roberto Benini. He said that he was shocked how well it had done in Germany (It won all sorts of German film awards, including Best Director). He said that Germans were starving for portraits of modern Jews, unassociated with the Shoah. I was surprised to hear that it is likely that residents in much of rural Germany don't even KNOW any Jewish people. I guess this shouldn't surprise me, but I just hadn't thought about it. I suppose in much of the rural U.S. the same could be true, but for very different reasons. At any rate, Dani talked about how the urban German comic sensibility was shaped by Jews in the entertainment business in the early 20's, much like in New York City. He theorized that that is one of the reasons why so many German gentiles can relate to his movie. I have really mixed feelings about the phenomenon--it's kind of uplifting and yet so fucked up at the same time.

The most EXCITING part was feeling the opening night energy in the Castro and realizing that, indeed, my dream of screening in the amazing place will be realized next week!

The following night (last night), I was lucky enough to attend the Filmmakers' Shabbat Dinner. It further excited me about the rest of the festival ahead because of the genuinely warm feelings all over the place. It was held at the gorgeous studios for PhiloTV, a post-production firm, but they managed to make it feel homey by having everyone in the entire joint introduce themselves and give their affiliations to the festival. More than one person called the festival their "favorite Jewish holiday". One woman, a festival board member, said that her father passed away one week ago and she was attending the festival as her memorial to him. Wow. There were a LOT of people in the room who had been involved with the festival for all--or at least most--of its 25 years. I felt really proud to chant the Shabbat blessings over the bread and wine with such an incredible crowd of filmmakers, former blacklistees, festival board/staff, and just plain film lovers.

07.20.05: SF Jewish FIlm Fest is Here!

(Inside the amazing Castro Theatre)

I am SO excited. I have dreamed about this festival, and screening at the gorgeous old movie palace, the Castro Theatre, for years. Here's what I wrote in a recent article for Film/Tape World on the topic:

“I could totally do that,” I thought to myself, as the filmmaker smoothly answered questions on the stage of the Castro Theatre before a sea of newly won-over fans. “Totally.” I was at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival about five years ago, shortly after having moved to the Bay Area from Boston. I saw so many diverse films there and witnessed so many enthusiastic filmmakers gliding gracefully up to the stage following their screenings, that I became inspired. After all, I had a professional background in education, technology and graphic design, so documentary filmmaking seemed like a natural leap. And the prospect of having my very own post-film Q & A session was icing on the cake. Some filmmakers shy away from this opportunity, but not me. I was ready to answer questions before I had ever even come up with an idea for a film! The following year at the Jewish Film Festival, I went right up to its longtime director, the venerable Janis Plotkin, and said, “Hello. My name is Liz Nord. I am going to have a film in your festival one day.” “What chutzpah this girl has!”, Ms. Plotkin must have thought. And she would have been right—I still had yet to take a film class, let alone write a proposal or begin production on a piece. But she smiled politely and wished me luck. I have worked at, volunteered, and attended hundreds of film festivals since then and this year, my dream has finally come true. My first feature-length documentary will be screening at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival this summer.

Last night, I attended the festival's 25th Anniversary Gala, to get the party started right! (The festival's offical opening night is tomorrow). I even managed to drag my man along (Looking quite dapper I might add), and was so glad he came. The wonderful folks at the festival have seen me hanging around the office quite a bit lately, so it was nice for them to get a little more context of my life.

(me and Seth at the gala)



I have worked and volunteered at so many festivlas in this town. I can't tell you how fun it is to be on the other side...to be one of the guests that those overworked and underpaid festival workers are working so hard to please! The best part about it is that I've SO been there, so hopefully I know how to throw much love back at them. I know you can sometimes feel underappreciated as a festival employee. My buddy and local indie film luminary Molli Amara Simon is working for the fest this year, along with some other sweet and kind folks who I am looking forward to spending more time with as the festival progresses...like Dafna, Ian, Betsy, Leo, and Chris from Larsen Associates.

Speaking of Larsen Associates (the publicisit for the fest), today is my day to be a big fish in a small pond...glub, glub. Yes, today is the day that Liz Nord takes over the Bay Area media on three fronts and the Jewish Media Conspiracy is once again proven to be true. Ha ha. But seriously, today the SF Bay Guardian weekly newspaper comes out with a feature on yours truly. This afternoon, I will be interviewed on KALW by Sandip Roy (yayyyy! I LOVE public radio!!!), and this evening I will appear on Movie Talk TV Program. Bam! Bam! Bam! And what am I doing? Sitting on my couch, writing to y'all. Now, don't you feel special?