Hello to the Faithful, and ye of small to medium faith as well. I’m finally starting up our next screening program. We’re getting ready to mount late summer Bay Area Openings of our nine 9 @ Night feature films and, later, PRESQUE ISLE, so I’ve decided to preview one film every other week over here at the Edwin Johnson Screening Room starting on, Thursday, March 20, 2008. Please plan to come to this preview series for a chance to be one of the select few who have seen all the films in their intended order. As usual each film will be followed by a discussion period. Many of the players and crew will also be present with stories about their experiences on these unique productions.

As you may know the 9 @ Night films interlock, interact and intertwine in unexpected and dramatic ways and, seen together, constitute a fascinating and completely unique cinematic tour de force featuring 40-50 marginalized fictional characters cast from the Tenderloin yGroup which existed in the Tenderloin area of San Francisco for 14 years (1991- 2005). I want to personally invite you to be among the first to experience the power of the full work, created by the collaboration of so many outstanding local talents.

Last night I went to see NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN which showed me once more how bankrupt American cinema has become. Another Freddy Kruger movie, a Tarantino-esque violent fantasy, a DOA genre film, which might seem doomed to fail but in the bizarre world of the Oscar, is probably a fitting embarrassment. How many of you know where the title comes from?

SAILING TO BYZANTIUM
By William Butler Yeats

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

When you see what Cormac McCarthy and the Coens did to Yeats’ transcendent impulses, you want to cry. But it gives fuel to a view I don’t waiver from. We were doing the real American cinema in the San Francisco Tenderloin with the Tenderloin yGroup, and in the Santa Cruz Mountains with the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking. And we’re still doing it. America just doesn’t know it yet.

Here is the full program:

EDIT (04.30.08): I botched up the schedule. Originally ATTITUDE was supposed to play May 5th but we showed it last week instead. So there won’t be an ATTITUDE screening May 5th. Also, I’ll be gone on May 15 when SINGING is scheduled. So the next chapter of the 9 @ Night series will be on May 29 for SINGING. After that I’ll set a new schedule for the remaining five films.

Sorry for the confusion. We’re editing IMBUED over here, finishing FRANK DEAD SOULS and working on three workshop features. Is that an excuse or an explanation? Your choice.

1. MARCH 20, 7:30 PM- NOISE, 9 @ Night #1
2. APRIL 10, 7:30- USED, 9 @ Night #2
3. APRIL 24, 7:30- ATTITUDE, 9 @ Night #3
4. MAY 29, 7:30- SINGING, 9 @ Night #4
5. To Be Announced (TBA), 7:30- STROKE, 9 @ Night #5
6. TBA, 7:30- SCHEME C6, 9 @ Night #6
7. TBA, 7:30- NEED, 9 @ Night #7
8. TBA, 7:30- PAN, 9 @ Night #8
9. TBA, 7:30- GO TOGETHER, 9 @ Night #9
10. TBA, 7:30- PRESQUE ISLE

The screenings will be held at the Edwin Johnson Screening Room, 1418 5th. St., Berkeley. Go to the Gilman Exit, turn right on Gilman, cross the tracks and take the second right on 5th. St. Go a block and a half to 1418 on the right. Come down the driveway to the back house. Donations accepted. Libations available for a modest contribution to the cause.