The 2025 SF Independent Film Fest is Here!

It’s February, and that means it’s time for the new edition (Number 27) of the San Francisco Independent Film Festival (hereafter “S.F. IndieFest”).  Running from February 6 to 18, 2025, most theatrical screenings take place at the Roxie Theater.  The only exceptions will be a couple of co-presented screenings happening at the Vogue Theater.  Once again, S.F. IndieFest also offers online screenings from February 6 to 18, 2025 for much of its programming.  Whichever way you choose to catch S.F. IndieFest films, rest assured this local treasure continues to reward the adventurous viewer.   

This year, S.F. IndieFest brings 80 new feature-length and short films with an independent bent.  This year’s lineup features films on such subjects as a modernized retelling of the story that inspired the Kubrick classic “Eyes Wide Shut,” a man whose life work involved the collecting of Bob Dylan memorabilia, and a documentary about poppy farmers exposed to the law of unintended consequences.

  Win Tix to IndieFest’s Closing Night Right Here

The S.F. IndieFest fun kicks off this year with a new film from festival alumnus Alex Ross Perry.  Viewers familiar with Perry’s filmography will know that “Her Smell” showed he could take a very un-MTV look at the world of rock.  But how would Perry direct a documentary that could do justice to Pavement, the legendary 1990s indie rock band fronted by Stephen Malkmus?  In “Pavements (6:00 PM on February 6, 2025),” Perry’s answer is to go nonlinear and absurdist in presenting both central subject and material.  So viewers will be getting a blend of: performance footage from back in the day and Pavement’s 2022 comeback tour; a behind-the-scenes look at auditions for the Pavement jukebox musical “Slanted & Enchanted”; a Pavement museum with exhibits both real and fake; and scenes from an alleged Hollywood biopic about Pavement starring Jason Schwartzman, Tim Heidecker, and Joe Keery.

Bizarre in a far different way is the new film from Miguel Llanso.  The man who helmed  the prior S.F. IndieFest offering “Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway” may sound as if he’s taking a mundane tack with his new work “Infinite Summer (8:30 PM on February 7, 2025 and online).”  A trio of young women from different countries take a week-long summer vacation together.  But who is the mysterious Dr. Mindfulness who repeatedly shows up on their dating app?  And why is their cell phone app secretly screwing around with their body chemistry?

Phone technology also plays an unexpected role in Vito Trabucco’s Western comedy “Britney Lost Her Phone (8:30 PM on February 10, 2025 and online).”  It’s the 1800s, and the Youngman family are among the people hoping to beat long odds to successfully cross the desert and establish a new life near the Pacific Coast.  Grief, hunger, and desperation suggest the Youngmans will be the newest failures in this gamble.  But their luck changes when they find…a mysteriously working smartphone with the name Britney on its back.  

A far different sort of relationship between people and technology happens to be the subject of director Javier Horcajada Fontecha’s disturbing documentary “From My Cold Dead Hands (12:15 PM on February 8, 2025 and online).”  All Fontecha needed to do to capture that relationship was to sift through thousands of hours of YouTube videos to cull footage of the wildest and craziest American gun lovers out there. 

A different sort of mental trauma affects 40-ish Alter, the protagonist of Aurelia Mengin’s surreal “Scarlet Blue (8:30 PM on February 12, 2025 and online).”  It’s something that led her to try committing suicide.  In search of answers, she goes to therapist and hypnosis specialist Leandro Lecreuix.  With the therapist’s help, Alter goes further and further back into her past.  But whether it’s the dream world or the real world, it seems as if everything looks vibrant and disorienting.  Based on the real-life experiences of a friend of the director’s.

Falling into the vibrant but definitely not disorienting category is Jerry Hsiao and Anna Sophie Loewenberg’s documentary short “Meet Me In Chinatown (12:00 PM on February 8, 2025).”  It uses the recollections and experiences of cabaret dancer Cynthia Yee to tell the story of San Francisco Chinatown’s nightclub era.

Local documentary makers Wade Shields, Jasmine Wang, and Danny Monico helm “KCSM 91.1 The Bay Area’s Jazz Station To The World (6:45 PM on February 8, 2025 and online),” a look at the local public radio station that regularly broadcasts jazz music to the public.

Why is Scott Tarde building a replica of a 1950s Main Street?  It’s not for his personal benefit.  As Josh Izenberg’s documentary short “Town Square (6:45 PM on February 8, 2025 and online)” shows, the project’s for the benefit of its users, folks suffering from Alzheimer’s.  By seeing such things as vintage Thunderbirds and a soda fountain, this replica will feel like home to them.

Pablo Tapia Pla’s dramatic short “The Sun Is In My Eyes (online)” concerns a young queer man exploring his memories of a past romance in a poetic and impressionistic manner.

A different sort of remembering takes place in Nick Canfield and Paul Lovelace’s documentary portrait of Mitch Blank, “My Back Pages (online).”  Despite living in a tiny New York City apartment, Blank has managed to become the world’s foremost collector of Bob Dylan memorabilia and recordings.  Now he’s preparing to donate his life’s work to Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Bob Dylan Center.  

On the other hand, the woman at the heart of David Tappan’s psychological horror/science fiction short “Universe 25 (online)” has no memorabilia to leave behind given her circumstances.  She’s trapped in an inescapable prison known simply as The Room.  Every 30 days, she’s given a new person to relate to, for better or worse.  After that period passes, the person disappears.  How can she develop meaningful connections in this sometimes absurd situation?

A far different sort of relationship problem is at the heart of Florian Frerichs’ “Traumnovelle (9:00 PM on February 8, 2025 and online).”  Fans of Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” or the Arthur Schnitzler novella it’s based on will recognize Schnitzler’s tale despite this film’s move to modern day Berlin.  Amelia and Jacob appear to be an ordinary married couple.  But when the wife ‘fesses up to indulging in sexual fantasies with other men, the husband wants to try out his own erotic adventures.  In the night, their facades of social propriety crumble to reveal they possess sexual desires that definitely aren’t “proper.”

Weirdness lovers who desire something more lighthearted might want to check out Noah W. Weber’s Bay Area comedy short “Pigs Fly (And Gods Cry) (4:45 PM on February 8, 2025 and online).  Is it possible that at 10:30 AM on January 14th a pig actually flew through the Berkeley, California skies?  A documentarian’s determination to find out involves acquiring capital and learning a passage from Hesiod.

Bay Area director Sahra Bhimji’s surreal short film “Fair Trade (8:30 PM on February 7, 2025 and online)” concerns Chris, a door-to-door salesman who’s in a prolonged sales slump.  His evil landlady offers to get the homeless salesman a new luxury apartment…if he can sell the last chocolate bar on Earth.  But what will Chris do when his clientele don’t even know what chocolate is?

A more down to earth film about employment problems can be found in Andalusia K. Soloff’s documentary short “Poppy Crash (online).”  America’s growing demand for heroin during the opioid epidemic led Mexican farmers to stop growing corn and start growing poppies to create opium paste.  The resulting economic windfall did everything for the farmers from putting food on the table to paying for constructing homes.  Then fentanyl’s popularity crashes both the drug market and these farmers’ ability to earn a living.

A different tale of drugs and employment can be found in Anthony Lucero (“East Side Sushi”)’s Centerpiece Film “The Paper Bag Plan (6:00 PM on February 7, 2025 and online).”  Oscar is both a high-functioning alcoholic and a devoted father to his disabled son Billy.  But when the father learns he has colon cancer, he’s determined to use his remaining time on Earth to help his son develop the skills needed to get his first job as a grocery store bagger…and start on the road to independence.

In Clarissa Jacobson and Shayna Weber’s documentary short “Butts (12:15 PM on February 8, 2025 and online),” central subject Kent is a 3’11” man navigating the able-bodied surroundings he moves through.  Yet constantly overcoming these human-made obstacles hasn’t made Kent bitter or angry.

A different approach to overcoming adversity can be found in Josephine Rose’s science fiction film “Touchdown (7:00 PM on February 8, 2025, and online).”  Using ground and aerial footage shot in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, India, and the US (specifically Los Angeles), it tells the story of five friends in different countries around the world.  When a mysterious meteor shower brings a new lifeform to Earth, the world’s governments band together to eliminate the “monster” by increasing security controls.  The friends don’t know if they should cower in place or try to reconnect.  But it certainly looks like the global elite is using this emergency as an excuse to transfer power and wealth to themselves.

A different sort of power transfer takes place in Irene von Alberti’s satirical comedy “The Protected Men (8:30 PM on February 11, 2025 and online).”  When a mysterious disease affects only men, the German government gets taken over by the new women’s party FEM led by Sarah Bedford.  But what begins as a movement founded on ecology, equality, and sustainability soon turns dark when Bedford sabotages efforts to develop a vaccine to the disease just so she can continue to stay in power.

Another example of carving a place in a space dominated by straight white males can be found in Nesrine Majzoub’s documentary short “Wipeouts (12:00 PM on February 8, 2025 and online).”  It shows how a group of BIPOC girls, women, and gender-expressive people build community as they create a space where they can learn to practice and get better at surfing.

Isaac Hirotsu Woofter’s thriller “Bound (2:30 PM on February 8, 2025 and online)” concerns an introverted young woman who, with her pet flying squirrel, flees to NYC to escape her drug-dealing stepfather.  The good news is a found family helps the young woman reinvent herself.  The bad news is that she won’t be completely free until she confronts her dark past.

When young barista Simon dons a magical pink wig, he’s instantly transformed into fabulous drag queen super-shero Maxxie LaWow.  In Anthony Hand’s animated feature film (co-produced by D’Arcy Drollinger) “Maxxie LaWow: Drag Super-shero (9:00 PM on February 8, 2025 and online),” our heroine and her best friend Jae must foil the villainous Dyna Bolical’s plot to steal the magical anti-aging tears from her drag competitors.  It’ll take an exciting aerial lip sync showdown for Maxxie to save the day.

Chavo’s dramatic short “Bara (online)” is set in a Japanese rural town’s gay adult cinema used as a gathering place by the local LGBTQ+ community.  Here at the cinema, two people meet: a small cabaret’s drag queen and a man who’s deeply closeted.  What sort of relationship can they have in a country where LGBTQ+s are acknowledged to exist but marriage equality is not acknowledged?

Max Olson’s surreal short “Nico (online)” follows the title character’s efforts over one night to be seen as himself and to connect with another human.  Yet this recently transitioned trans man doesn’t achieve any success until grieving elderly neighbor Helen mistakes Nico for her recently dead husband.   But when Helen suddenly appears in Nico’s apartment and he  becomes Helen’s husband, he’s forced to honestly examine his expectations regarding both gender and perception.

For those who don’t think treating the unhoused as pariahs is a good way to live, Andrew Purchin’s Bay Area documentary short “You And I Are A Work Of Art (12:00 PM on February 8, 2025 and online)” will show a more healing alternative.  It documents the relationships among three people and a singing dog: Amy (hairdresser and artist), Thomas (unhoused artist who’s Amy’s friend and collaborator), Oswald (Thomas’ singing dog), and Beth (housed person who’s run out of patience with her unhoused neighbors).

Regarding Closing NIght Films, this year’s SF Indie Fest outdoes itself by presenting not just one but four such films at two different theaters.  Things kick off at the Roxie Theater with the Nigerian drama  “The Legend Of The Vagabond Queen Of Lagos (6:00 PM on February 13, 2025 and online).  The Agbajowo Collective’s debut film, which is based on a real story, follows single mother and swallow seller Jawu.  Given how little she earns at the market, her dream of buying a house with her son Daniel and moving far away from their poor waterfront community remains little more than a pipe dream.  But when Jawu accidentally learns of a huge stash of dirty money hidden by a prominent politician, it looks like she can escape before the community gets demolished.  Yet this financial windfall has some very large and fateful strings attached to it.

The other Roxie Closing Night Film is Ash Avildsen’s historical drama “The Queen Of The Ring (8:15 PM on February 13, 2025 and online).”  Mildred Burke (Emily Bett Rickards, “Arrow”) is the titular queen, a small town single mother whose path along the then-illegal sport of female pro-wrestling led her to become both the world’s first million-dollar female athlete and the longest reigning female wrestling champion.  Yet Burke’s path to success in the 1940s and 1950s also meant dealing with the death of her protege and her thorny relationship with her manager and ex-husband Billy Wolfe.  Based on a true story.

The first of the Closing Night Films shown at the Vogue Theater does double duty as the Jewish Film Institute’s Winterfest Opening Night Film.  Yoav Potash produced and directed  “Among Neighbors (6:00 PM on February 18, 2025 and online),” a historical mystery which relies in part on hand-drawn animation.  Jews and gentiles used to live in peace in the rural Polish village of Gniewoszow until World War II broke out.  After the war, only one Jewish person from the village survived the Holocaust.  What happens when an aging eyewitness breaks decades of silence to say Poles were murdering Jews in the village six months after the war’s end?

The last of S.F. Indie Fest’s Closing Night Films is co-presented with the Mostly British Film Festival.  Alice Lowe’s romantic science fiction comedy “Timestalker (8:30 PM on February 18, 2025 and online)” concerns Agnes, a woman who has good reason for giving the “follow your heart” bromide the side eye.  Every time she meets and falls in love with a mysterious man, she violently dies before getting reincarnated sometime later.   On one hand, going through the death & rebirth cycle has become tiresome for Agnes.  On the other hand, she just can’t give up being a romantic person.  Nerdy comics fans who bring up the relationship of comics characters Hawkman and Hawkgirl will be promptly shown the door.