We’re all fond of saying that living in the Bay Area isn’t like living anywhere else in the country. It’s true most days, but we’re regularly reminded that all American cities share certain problems, and all suburbs are similar in some ephemeral way. That paradoxical coexistence of uniqueness and universality that is our usual condition comprises the unofficial, underlying theme of this year’s Cinema By the Bay festival, presented by the San Francisco Film Society at the Roxie Theater, November 22-24, 2013.
The weekend-compressed lineup of 10 programs includes narrative features, documentaries and shorts that span the Bay Area from a golden Sonoma County hillside to a rainy-day crowd in the Castro. The common denominator, to the degree I can identify one, is a freshness, diversity and quirkiness to the central relationships that feels specific to the region that claims San Francisco and Oakland as its hubs.
Opting to launch the series with nail-biting entertainment rather than consciousness-raising drama, Cinema By the Bay starts with a spooky visit to a God-fearing Appalachian clan. Butcher Brother Mitchell Altieri’s Holy Ghost People (Friday, Nov. 22, 7pm) follows a young woman and a hard-drinking vet as they insinuate their way into a snake-handling cult, all in hopes of rescuing a vanished relative. After a night of soothing dreams, Banker White and Anna Fitch’s personal documentary, The Genius of Marian (Saturday, Nov. 23, noon), effectively sets the tone for the day with a gutsy, moody foray into self-examination.
Redemption Trail
Britta Sjogren’s Redemption Trail (Saturday, Nov. 23 at 2:15pm), a kind of contemporary feminist Western, imagines two traumatized women of vastly different backgrounds who land in the same safe space. Tess (Lisa Gay Hamilton) manages a hilly, isolated Sonoma vineyard; her contact with other people, by design, is minimal and cursory. She’s always in control, taking care to wall off the childhood memory of cops shooting her Black Panther dad to death in his home. By contrast, Anna (Lily Rabe) is a self-assured gynecologist who thrives on people and lives with her husband (Hamish Linklater) and young daughter in affluent, organic bliss in the Oakland hills. When a tragedy pulls the trap-door on Anna’s life, human contact is the last thing she wants.