SFFILM’s Doc Stories 2023: #MeToo, Soccer, and More

Want to groove to the music of Little Richard and Jon Batiste?  How about pumping your fist in the air as the predecessors of Brandi Chastain and Megan Rapinoe score goals?  Or why not get your mind blown by the art of Germany’s greatest living contemporary artist?  All these experiences and more will be available at SFFILM’s upcoming 9th annual Doc Stories event.

Running at San Francisco’s Premier and Vogue Theatres from November 2-5, 2023 plus some online repeats on November 6 & 7, 2023,  this long cinematic weekend offers 10 feature films, two shorts programs, and a memorial tribute to a venerable deceased filmmaker.  SFFILM Director of Programming Jessie Fairbanks calls Doc Stories a showcase for Bay Area premieres of notable documentaries that have played at such relatively recent film festivals as Venice, Toronto, and Telluride.  But it’s also a chance to give further exposure to worthy but overlooked films that appeared earlier in the year.

Oasis

The Doc Stories newbie shouldn’t think the format of these films involves interesting facts getting shoehorned into fitting a tight beginning-middle-end format.  Fairbanks feels the films selected for Doc Stories successfully convey to viewers the filmmaker’s passion for their subject and sweeps them along in seeing where the filmmaker’s curiosity leads.   She hopes that these individual interpretations of real life stories can eventually lead to viewers leaving the narrative/non-narrative binary behind.  

Fairbanks describes the overall themes tying together the selections in this year’s showcase as “the powerful effects of institutional erasure” and “the unlimited possibilities of human determination.”  How those themes play out in the films listed below can be decided by the reader.

Little Richard: I Am Everything – 3:00 PM on November 2nd

Broke-ass readers may want to chase down available tickets for the community screening of “Little Richard: I Am Everything” (3:00 PM on November 2, 2023).  It’s a free event, but seating is limited.  Lisa Cortes’ film recounts the life and career of musician Richard Wayne Penniman, better known to the world as Little Richard.  The music industry has whitewashed or buried over the years Little Richard’s contributions to the world of popular music.  But after watching Cortes’ film, a viewer will agree Little Richard originated what we still call rock and roll.  

American Symphony – 6:30 PM & 9:00 PM on November 2nd

Fairbanks adds to the praise for Doc Stories’ Opening Night Film, Matthew Heineman’s new documentary “American Symphony” (6:30 PM & 9:00 PM on November 2, 2023).  It’s a biographical portrait of Oscar-winning polyglot musician Jon Batiste, who’s working on a new symphony for a Carnegie Hall premiere.  It’s intended to deconstruct the American musical canon before reintegrating the sounds and artists left out of the process of constructing the canon.  But just as the symphony finally starts coming together, Batiste’s partner, writer and musician Suleika Jaouad, needs leukemia treatment again as her life-threatening disease has returned.  Despite these challenges, Batiste and Jaouad continue to create and share reflective moments together.

Richland – 3:30 PM on November 3rd

In “Richland” (3:30 PM on November 3, 2023 and online November 6 & 7, 2023), Irene Lusztig takes viewers to two small southeast Washington State towns where the atomic arms race became part of the towns’ culture.  Hanford nuclear plant in Washington State used to generate weapons-grade plutonium until the plant was decommissioned and subjected to environmental cleanup.  For the inhabitants of the towns, they’ve gone from working at Hanford to dealing with the fallout from their old line of work.  An old couple, for example, love living in Richland but would never catch fish in the local waters.  And maybe it’s time for the local high school to change its old school mascot: a mushroom cloud.

Shorts Block: New York Times Op Docs – 6 PM on November 3rd

This year’s edition of the popular “Shorts Block: New York Times Op Docs” (6:00 PM on November 3, 2023 and online November 6 & 7, 2023) returns with five curated shorts from the New York Times’ series of short form documentaries made by independent filmmakers.  Among the shorts are “Oasis” (the relationship between twin brothers gets complicated by one brother developing a cognitive disability) and “Neighbour Abdi” (meet a Somalian immigrant who’s come up with an innovative way of addressing his past traumas) .

The Mission – 8:30 PM on November 3rd

Young Christian fundamentalist John Chau wanted to bring Christianity to the Sentinelese, a small Andaman Islands tribe whose territory is off limits to outside visitors.  He grew up on survival and adventure stories and felt converting the Sentinelese fulfilled the adventure God had planned for him.  What actually happened to Chau is the subject of Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’ film “The Mission” (8:30 PM on November 3, 2023).  Fairbanks highly praises this film.  McBaine and Moss get viewers interested in the fate of someone they would normally disagree with.  Through that personal story, questions of ethics, colonialism, and cultural erasure are skillfully woven in.  What’s clear is that whatever honorable intentions motivates the people who do missionary work, the results of their actions are questionable at best.

Four Daughters will be part of Doc Stories 2023

Sorry/Not Sorry – 3:00 PM on November 4th

Showtime may have bailed on showing a documentary about famed comedian Louis C.K. and the “Me Too” accusations against him.  But Doc Stories picked up the slack and is screening Caroline Suh’s “Sorry/Not Sorry” at 12:30 PM on November 4, 2023 and online on November 6 & 7, 2023.  When Louis C.K. publicly admitted to sexually harassing women, it seemed as if he was going to change his behavior and be a better man.  Instead, his routine nine months later was filled with jokes celebrating the bad behavior he’d admitted to.  This would be a bitter development for the three women profiled by Suh.  They had tried to hold the comedian accountable but suffered backlash for their trouble.

Four Daughters – 3:00 PM on November 4th

Kaouther Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters” (3:00 PM on November 4, 2023 and online on November 6 & 7, 2023) may begin with the familiar template of its central young adult subjects reminiscing about their tortured relationship with their horrifically strict mother.  But Fairbanks thinks highly of this film.  The young women are fascinating, resilient, and hold their space in society in challenging ways.  Aside from “exhuming private moments to explore universal themes,” Hania’s film puts a human face on how historical erasure works.  Perhaps the film’s complex and nuanced approach explained why it became a co-winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Golden Eye award for Best Documentary.

Copa 71- 6:00 PM on November 4th

Venus and Serena Williams are two of the executive producers who helped make the Doc Stories Centerpiece Film happen.  Rachel Ramsay and James Erskine’s “Copa 71” (6:00 PM on November 4, 2023) tells the forgotten story of the 1971 women’s World Cup soccer series that took place in Mexico.  Six nations (Argentina, Denmark, England, France, Italy, and Mexico) participated in the series.  Fairbanks feels seeing thrilling actual footage from the matches themselves and hearing recollections from representatives of each of the teams involved will soon have viewers punching their fists in the air.  That viewer excitement will compensate for their learning FIFA and short-sighted legislators tried to keep the games from happening.  But when that effort failed, these sexist officials succeeded in expunging records of this women’s World Cup from history,..until now.

Stamped From The Beginning: 8:30 PM on November 4th

A film that embodies Fairbanks’ theme of institutional erasure is Roger Ross Williams’ (“Cassandro”) new documentary “Stamped From The Beginning” (8:30 PM on November 4, 2023).  If the title sounds familiar, that’s because it’s also the name of the National Book Award-winning tome by Ibram X. Kendi that Williams is adapting.  For those who haven’t read Kendi’s book, it’s a history of American racist imagery.  Williams adds to the mix archival footage, animation, and even re-enactments.  This film shows how such offensive imagery helped create cultural norms where non-whites were treated as second-class citizens.  But as the director eventually shows, this negative cultural cycle need not be permanent.   

Apayauq – part of Doc Stories 2023

Story & Pictures By – November 5th

Wonder why right-wingers are trying to censor children’s picture books nowadays?    Joanna Rudnick’s “Story & Pictures By” (10:00 AM on November 5, 2023 and online on November 6 & 7, 2023) shows such books help young minds envision a broader and more welcoming world than the narrow and constricted world favored by modern censors.  Also, in recounting both the history of children’s picture books and meeting such modern creators as Christian Robinson and Mac Barnett, Rudnick shows how today’s picture books embrace right-wing censors’ banes of greater diversity and broader representation in stories and protagonists.

Short Block: Ideology vs. Identity – November 5th

The second program of short films “Shorts Block: Ideology vs. Identity” (1:30 PM on November 5, 2023 and online November 6 & 7, 2023) offers five films examining the gaps between personality and politics on both the personal and the national level.  Included in the mix are such shorts as “Denial” (a Maricopa County Supervisor sees what election denialism does to American democracy) and “Apayauq” (meet Apayauq Reitan, an Iditarod sled dog race competitor who wants to be the first out trans woman in the sport).

A Tribute To Julia Reichert: A Woman’s Work – 4:00 PM on November 5th

Another DocStories free community program is “A Tribute To Julia Reichert: A Woman’s Work” (4:00 PM on November 5, 2023).  Beloved documentary filmmaker Julia Reichert passed away this past December.  Not only did she serve as a spiritual mentor to those who used the documentary form for social ends, but she has helmed such well-known documentaries as “Seeing Red: Stories Of American Communists,” “A Lion In The House,” and “American Factory.”  This program will feature both tributes to Reichert as well as excerpts from a work-in-progress film on Reichert’s life made by her life partner Steven Bognar.

Anselm – 7:30 PM on November 5th

Closing Night Film honors go to Wim Wenders’ amazing biographical film “Anselm” (7:30 PM on November 5, 2023).  Fairbanks is spectacularly enthusiastic about this cinematic pairing of Anselm Kiefer, Germany’s greatest living contemporary artist, and Wenders, one of Germany’s greatest film directors.  This film is an inquiry into the motivations behind Kiefer’s work (e.g. Germany’s World War II legacy).  Thanks to Wenders’ use of 3D, the film’s also a celebration of Kiefer’s art.  Most people will never be fortunate enough to spend time with Kiefer in his amazing atelier.  But, says Fairbanks, the film director has provided the next best thing.

Anselm will be at Doc Stories 2023

Here’s hoping these Doc Stories 2023 selections show viewers that gripping stories can also be the province of a well-made documentary.

(All screenings other than the November 3 screenings take place at the Vogue Theatre (3290 Sacramento Street, SF).  All November 3 screenings take place at the Premier Theatre (1 Letterman Dr. #B, SF).  

People interested in catching “Anselm” or the 6:30 PM screening of “American Symphony” should get prepared to brave the Rush line. For further information on these films, and to order advance tickets, go to https://sffilm.org/year-round-programming/doc-stories/ .).