MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL #45 (October of 6-16, 2022)

[Chris Knipp]

FESTIVAL COVERAGE THREAD


LINKS TO FILMLEAF REVIEWS:
Art of Eating, The: The Life of M.F.K. Fisher (Gregory Bezat 2022)
Faultline (Rob Nilsson 2022)
Finding Her Beat (Dawn Mikkelson, Keri Pickett 2022)
One Fine Morning/Un beau matin (Mia Hansen-Løve 2022)
The Passengers of the Night/Les Passagers de la Nuit (Mikhael Hers 2022)
Path of the Panther (Carlton Ward Jr. 2022)
Provo (Emma Thatcher 2022)
We Dream of Robots (Pablo Casacuberta 2022)
The Young Vote (Diane Robinson 2022)

MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL #45 (October 6-16, 2022)


OUR FATHER, THE DEVIL (ELLIE FOUMBI)

MVFF45 is based, as usual, in Marin County, California, at the CinéArts Sequoia, the Smith Rafael Film Center and the Lark Theater in Larkspur, and the event’s partnership with the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive continues. The 2022 edition adds a new venue in San Francisco’s Roxie Theater, which will host screenings Oct. 15-16.

See an intro to the festival on Datebook (San Francisco Chroniicle). Here are the titles I have an eye on with excerpts from the festival blurbs:

FaultLine (Rob Nilsson) This latest feature from celebrated Bay Area filmmaker Rob Nilsson is the third installment in his breathtaking Nomad Trilogy, in which colorful wanderers uncover deep human truths about our divided country. Set against breathtaking natural wonders, Faultline is equal parts shocking and calming, a gritty and beautiful cinematic poem. – World Premiere

Finding Her Beat (Dawn Mikkelson, Keri Pickett)Right before pandemic lockdown 2020, eighteen leading Japanese and North American women taiko drummers realize their shared dream with the groundbreaking performance, HERbeat: Taiko Women All-Stars. In this full-bodied, male-dominated artform, they weave together their own joyful rhythms and styles to thunder through the taiko world and beyond.

Home is Somewhere Else (Carlos Hagerman, Jorge Villalobos) (US, animated documentary feature. Three distinctive visual styles illuminate individual stories in this heartfelt animated documentary that measures the impact of American immigration policy, injecting empathy into a political debate long overwrought with rhetoric. In Spanish and English with Spanish subtitles.

Our Father, the Devil (Ellie Foumbi) In Cameroonian-American filmmaker Ellie Foumbi’s ravishing and provocative feature debut, an African refugee’s modest life in a sleepy French mountain town is irrevocably shattered when she recognizes a newly arrived Catholic priest as a disturbing figure from her violent past. In French with English subtitles – West Coast Premiere

Path of the Panther (Carlton Ward Jr.) A wildlife photographer, veterinarians, ranchers, conservationists, and indigenous people of the southern Everglades join forces to track and protect the endangered Florida panther.

Provo (Emma Thatcher)Thatcher plays a young woman on an impromptu road trip from Illinois to Utah for a last visit with her dying, estranged father. With whip-smart dialogue, unexpected revelations, and beautiful handheld camerawork

The Art of Eating: The Life of M.F.K. Fisher (Gregory Bezat) WORLD PREMIERE. About the famous American food writer (1908–1992), author of 27 books, including a translation of the French classic The Physiology of Taste by Brillat-Savarin. She was praised for the excellence of her prose by the poet W.H. Auden. She learned about food living in France and Switzerland and through frequent travels and wrote about it primarily while living in Northern California.

The Passengers of the Night (Mikhaël Hers, France) Charlotte Gainsbourg plays a newly single woman in 1980s Paris. Along with her children, she navigates an eventful decade of personal change in Hers‘ drama of ordinary lives that nonetheless prove distinctively engrossing. In French with English subtitles – US Premiere

The Young Vote (Diane Robinson). About the effort to get out this relatively passive part of the electorate.

Triple Trouble (US, narrative feature, dirs. Homer Flynn, The Residents) The latest issuance from long-running Bay Area avant-garde innovators The Residents is a wacky, surreal tale of paranoid panic that incorporates elements from their famously abandoned 1970s-era feature project Vileness Fats. It’s a San Francisco-set black-and-white comic nightmare whose hero is asked, “Are you taking your meds?” Of course, he’s not! This title also available via streaming – California Premiere

Tukdam - Between Worlds (Donagh Coleman) Ancient tradition and modern science collide in this extraordinary documentary about the Tibetan Buddhist practice of meditating at the deepest level of consciousness right before death. Researchers investigate how, for practitioners of “tukdam,” the cessation of the body’s functions is not necessarily life’s clear-cut end but instead a pliant threshold

We Dream of Robots (Pablo Cascuberta) (Uruguay, documentary feature ) A determined group of teenagers from the Uruguayan countryside tackle math, science, and the physics of friendship as they get set to test their skills in the first robotics competition ever held in Latin America. This inspiring doc showcases the creative spark that fuels their dedication to building a better future for all. Ages 10+ In Spanish with English subtitles; This title also available via streaming – North American Premiere

Whina (James Napier Robertson, Paula Whetu) This inspirational drama recounts the extraordinary life of New Zealand’s Dame Whina Cooper, a courageous Māori woman whose lifelong activism on behalf of her people culminated at age 79, when she led a month-long march stretching the length of the country from North to South, to protest the loss of Indigenous land. In English and Maori with English subtitles – North American Premiere.


THE ART OF EATING: THE LIFE OF M.F.K. FISHER (GREGORY BEZAT)