San Luis Obispo International Film Festival 2019 Announces Slate

Details

Category: Entertainment News

Published on Saturday, 23 February 2019 10:37

Screening with
CAN'T STEAL OUR VIBE
Director: Graham Nash
Country: USA/South Africa, Running Time: 33 min
 
CLOSING NIGHT
AFTER EVERYTHING 
Director: Hannah Marks, Joey Power
Country: USA, Running Time: 95 min.
San Luis Obispo native 25-year-old Hannah Marks presents her directorial debut, AFTER EVERYTHING to local audiences. Premiering at SXSW in 2018, Marks was named one of the Rolling Stone's 25 under 25 Artists Changing the World. In the film, a young couple's relationship develops quickly when one of them is diagnosed with a life-changing illness.
 
SURF'S UP AT THE BAY THEATRE
THE ESSENCE
Director: Anna Moore
Country: USA, Running Time: 43 min
Considered the "father" of the surf film genre, Bud Browne captured the early years of big wave surfing while pioneering his unique cinematography. In 2008, the SLO Film Fest honored the then 95-year-old Pismo Beach resident and world famous surfers paid tribute to him. Anna Moore helped coordinate that event, and is fortunate to be able to share his incredible, archival footage in her new film, THE ESSENCE.
 
SUPER STOKED SURF MAMAS OF PLEASURE POINT                                      
Director: Elizabeth Pepin Silva
Country: USA, Running Time: 20 min
A film about women who surf - and they aren't about to be slowed down by pregnancy or child-rearing either. This inspired community of fit young women in Santa Cruz embody the spirit of friendship and shared experience while doing what they love.
 
UNSTOPPABLE: BETHANY HAMILTON
Director: Aaron Lieber
County: USA, Running Time: 38 min
A recent audience award winner at the Palm Springs Film Festival, UNSTOPPABLE: BETHANY HAMILTON is about the surfer who lost her arm to a tiger shark at age 13. However, that didn't stop her from pursuing her dream of becoming a professional surfer. It wasn't just the competition that fueled her, but her deep love for the ocean. Not only has she conquered giant waves but also the challenges of being a mother – all with one arm. She continues to inspire and seems truly "unstoppable!"

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
A STAR IS BORN (1937)
Director: William Wellman
Country: USA, Running Time: 111 min
For 86 years, "A Star Is Born" has been the gift that just keeps on giving. Few films have been re-made successfully five times, which includes the most recent multi-Oscar nominated version starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.

Based on an original story called "The Truth About Hollywood," writer/director William Wellman went on to win an Oscar (with co-writer Robert Carson) for the screen version that starred Frederic March and Janet Gaynor in 1937. The story of a young woman who comes to Hollywood with dreams of stardom, but achieves them only with the help of an alcoholic leading man whose best days are behind him, is seemingly timeless.
 
THE BIGAMIST (1953)
Director: Ida Lupino
Country: USA, Running Time: 80 min
THE BIGAMIST stars Edmond O'Brien, an ordinary salesman who through unusual circumstances finds himself in a complicated marital triangle. Joan Fontaine and Ida Lupino star as the two women in his life.
 
BOTSO (2014)
Director: Tom Walters
Countries: USA/The Republic of Georgia, Running Time: 82 min
The story of nonagenarian Wachtung "Botso" Korisheli – musician, sculptor, beloved teacher to generations – is an inspiring example of resilience. Escaping Stalinist Georgia into Nazi Poland and Germany, Botso eventually found his way to Morro Bay. Through interviews with him and many musicians and artists he has mentored, and in sequences filmed on a trip to his native Republic of Georgia, the picture of a uniquely warm, creative and gentle soul emerges.
 
THE BRAINWASHING OF MY DAD (2016)
Director: Jen Senko
Country: USA, Running Time: 90 min
In this fascinating personal story, Jen Senko examines her father's transformation from a life-long, apolitical Democrat to an angry, right-wing fanatic. Her film isn't just about one family slowly losing a loved one to ugly political extremism. It's a densely packed examination of how shrewd strategists have engineered how right-wing think tanks, advocacy groups and media outlets together achieved what the left has refused, or been unable, to do: manipulate the minds of America.
 
CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954)
Director: Jack Arnold
Country: USA, Running Time: 79 min
The last in the classic movie monster films developed by Universal, the story tells of a scientific expedition searching for fossils along the Amazon River, when they discover a prehistoric Gill-Man in the legendary Black Lagoon. The explorers capture the mysterious creature, but it breaks free, and the sexy Kay (Julie Adams) is quite worried because he's smitten!
 
EL CID (1962)
Director: Anthony Mann
Countries: USA/Italy, Running Time: 184 min
The fabled Spanish hero Rodrigo Diaz (a.k.a. El Cid) overcomes a family vendetta and court intrigue to defend Christian Spain against the Moors.
 
GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE (1933)
Director: Gregory La Cava
Country: USA, Running Time: 86 min
A political hack becomes President Judson Hammond (Walter Huston) during the height of the Great Depression, and is content to live out the next four years exercising a hands-off approach that leaves millions in need. But after a near fatal accident, he undergoes a metamorphosis into an incorruptible statesman and neither Congress, gangsters nor the nations of the world can stop him.
 
HALLELUJAH (1929)
Director: King Vidor
Country: USA, Running Time: 109 min
In a juke joint, sharecropper Zeke falls for a beautiful dancer, Chick. However, she's only setting him up for a rigged craps game. He loses $100, all of the money he got for his family's cotton crop, and his brother is mortally wounded in the shoot-out which follows. Later, he returns as a preacher with a huge following, including Chick. He has plans to marry Missy Rose, but now Chick has re-entered the picture.
 
LIVES WELL LIVED (2016)
Director: Sky Bergman
Country: USA, Running Time: 72 min
Through their intimate memories and inspiring personal histories encompassing over 3000 years of experience, forty people aged 75-100 share their secrets and insights to living a meaningful life. These men and women open the vault on their journey into old age through family histories, personal triumph and tragedies, loves and losses - seeing the best and worst of humanity along the way. Their stories will make you laugh, perhaps cry, but mostly inspire you.  
 
LOVE AND BANANAS (2018)
Director: Ashley Bell
Country: USA, Running Time: 77 min
This incredibly moving documentary follows filmmaker Ashley Bell and a team of elephant rescuers led by world-renowned Asian elephant conservationist Lek Chailert. They embark on a daring 48-hour mission across Thailand to rescue a 70-year-old captive blind Asian elephant to bring her to freedom. This is an eye-opening look at what elephants endure as pawns in the "tourist trade" in Thailand and the struggles Chailert and other conservationists go through in a country where animals have no rights. Love often prevails! Inspiring, heart-wrenching and a must-see for animal lovers everywhere.
 
MARY POPPINS (1964)
Director: Robert Stevenson
Country: USA, Running Time: 139 min
In turn of the century London, a magical nanny employs music and adventure to help two neglected children become closer to their distracted father.
 
MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS (1985)
Director: Paul Schrader
Countries Japan/USA, Running Time: 120 min
Japan's greatest author Yukio Mishima committed an act that shocked the world. This is the fictionalized account of the four chapters of the life of the celebrated writer. Three of the segments parallel events in Mishima's life with his novels (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion,Kyoko's House, and Runaway Horses) while the fourth depicts actual events of The Last Day. This sensational film, directed and written by American Paul Schrader, has never been officially released theatrically or on home video in Japan to this day because of the controversy over both Yukio Mishima's politics and the film itself.
 
PICK OF THE LITTER (2018)
Directors: Don Hardy Jr., Dana Nachman
Country: USA, Running Time: 81 min
PICK OF THE LITTER follows a litter of puppies from the moment they're born and begin their quest to become Guide Dogs for the Blind, the ultimate canine career. Cameras follow the adorable pups through a two-year odyssey as they train to become dogs whose ultimate responsibility is to protect their blind partners from harm. Along the way, the dogs meet a community of dedicated individuals who train them to do amazing, life-changing things in service of their human. The stakes are high and not every dog can make the cut. Only the best of the best – the pick of the litter!
 
PLAGUES AND PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA (2004)
Director: Chris Metzler
Country: USA, Running Time: 86 min
In the middle of a harsh desert valley in California's southeast corner lies a glimmering blue jewel called the Salton Sea. Along its desolate shores stand boarded-up motels, dusty rural towns, half-flooded vacation homes and miles of sun-crisped fish carcasses. Amid this surreal and apocalyptic landscape survives a most unusual and unexpected group of eccentrics, who have carved out their own slice of paradise on the shores of this ecological disaster.
 
THE QUIET MAN
Director: John Ford
Country: USA, Running Time: 129 min
Sean Thorton (John Wayne) is an American who swears off boxing after accidentally killing an opponent. Returning to the Irish town of his birth, he finds happiness when he falls in love with the fiery Mary Kate (Maureen O'Hara.) Though he's sorely tempted to pick up the gloves against her brother, the town bully, Sean is determined not to use his fists. But when push comes to shove, he decides to take matters into his own hands; the resulting fist fight erupts into the longest brawl ever filmed!
 
THE SHOT FELT AROUND THE WORLD (2012)
Directors: Laura Davis, Tjardus Greidanus
Country: USA, Running Time: 67 min
A mysterious disease strikes its young victims without warning each summer. Parents no longer allow their children to go to public pools or movie theatres for fear they might contract the potentially fatal disease. But Dr. Jonas Salk, an unknown 33-year-old scientist, would soon become a true American hero as he tirelessly led his brilliant team of scientists in a race against the clock, to develop a vaccine that would conquer the dreaded disease threatening the lives of millions.
 
TRYING TO GET GOOD: THE JAZZ ODYSSEY OF JACK SHELDON (2008)
Directors: Penny Peyser and Doug McIntrye
Country: USA, Running Time:
You may remember Jack Sheldon as Merv Griffin's comedic trumpet-wielding sidekick, or the indelible voice on School House Rock, but musicians remember him as a jazz giant. Unlike his close friend and collaborator, Chet Baker, Sheldon survived the demons of drugs, alcohol and unspeakable personal tragedy. His signature sound continues to paint the landscape of American music. As friend Bill Crystal puts it, Sheldon is the "last cat standing" from the bebop generation. Featuring historic footage with Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton and other legends, and never before seen performances with the Jack Sheldon Orchestra, this in-depth documentary exposes the artist who's just "trying to get good" on the trumpet, and at life as well.
 
WEINER TAKES ALL (2009)
Director: Shane McDougall
Country: USA/Canada, Running Time: 69 min
Welcome to the surprisingly cutthroat world of competitive wiener dogs, a world that boasts healthy dachshunds and rabid owners. Get the inside scoop on what drives these champion dogs and their colorful owners to compete, including an investigation into allegations of animal exploitation, cheating, doping and race rigging. With dachshund races, field trials, and candid interviews with the world's top show dog personalities, this film offers a crash course in wiener dog politics – and a glimpse into the divisive controversies that have long dogged the dachshund community.
 
WILD BILL: HOLLYWOOD MAVERICK (1996)
Director: William Wellman Jr.
Country: USA, Running Time: 95 min
William "Wild Bill" Wellman forged a directing career spanning 35 years and 76 films, winning many nominations and awards including the Best Picture Oscar for WINGS in 1927. A daring fighter pilot seriously wounded in WWI, Wellman was not easily intimidated by the challenges of working in Hollywood and he built a reputation for his fiery, take-no-prisoners style. He worked with many of Hollywood's legendary actors. Narrated by Alec Baldwin, there are interviews with many of the greats, including James Cagney, Clint Eastwood and Robert Mitchum.