Film

Janis Ian: Breaking Silence OUTwatch screening April 10, 7 pm Plays For One Week Janis Ian: Breaking Silence chronicles the remarkable journey of the lesbian singer-songwriter Janis Ian. She had her first successful song, “Society’s Child” in 1966 when she was only 16. In the mid-70s, she ascended to major stardom with such hits as  “At Seventeen” and “Stars.” Janis Ian came out in 1993 with the worldwide release of her album Breaking Silence. Janis Ian: Breaking Silence features interviews with Ian’s extraordinary community of friends and collaborators, including folk luminaries Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Lily Tomlin, Jean Smart, and Laurie Metcalf. “At 73, […]

Janis Ian: Breaking Silence chronicles the remarkable journey of the Jewish singer-songwriter Janis Ian, beginning with her teen years when she was a precocious member of the vibrant Greenwich Village folk scene and jammed late at night with such legends as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. In the mid-70s, she ascends to major stardom with such hits as “Stars,” about the transient nature of fame (covered by Nina Simone and Cher) and “Jesse,” the wistful lament of a lonely person waiting for their lover to return home (covered to great success by the R&B singer Roberta Flack and Folk icon […]

A sublime and smoldering tale of love in mid-air, moving pictures speak a thousand words in Veit Helmer’s whimsical dialogue-free charmer. Chauffeuring gondolas that travel between altitude-defying villages — usually transporting cows, people, or even the occasional dead body — in the remarkably picturesque Caucasus mountains of Georgia, Iva and Nino begin their courtship with one another through gentle flirtation. A chess board is set out at one of the stations. The two trade moves. Soon, a pomegranate is tossed from one cabin to the other as the two gondolas pass mid-journey. Eventually, the two women escalate the fleeting games […]

The Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival is BACK! Passes for the 2025 Festival are available now: Customize Your Festival Experience with One of These Passes! | SDFF 2025 Looking for the perfect holiday gift? Treat the art and film lovers in your life to an unforgettable experience with a pass to the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival (SDFF)! A Festival Pass is more than a ticket—it’s a gateway to thought-provoking stories, meaningful conversations, and a chance to celebrate the art of documentary filmmaking right here in Sebastopol. Why Give an SDFF Pass? Don’t miss this opportunity to share the magic of storytelling.  Give […]

Ani DiFranco crashed onto the music scene in the early ‘90s, a thundering new voice in the cultural wilderness, unapologetically bisexual, political and feminist. She toured relentlessly, thrashing out hundreds of frenzied shows that were part mosh pit, part hootenanny and part full-on tent revival, then selling cassette tapes from the trunk of her car to make it to the next gig. Ani became a worldwide phenomenon when she beat the male-dominated music industry at its own game by founding Righteous Babe Records, the first “woman-run non-corporate queer-happy” label, still going strong after nearly 35 years. The press called her […]

The Arab Film and Media Institute (AFMI) is pleased to announce the full program for the 2024 Arab Film Festival, running October 24 – November 3, 2024 with a hybrid program of in-person and virtual events. The festival offers special programming to local audiences, and unprecedented access to the diversity and range of authentic Arab experiences. It has gained an international reputation for excellence and offers its audiences access to media that reflects the lives of under-represented and provocative themes and groups on a cultural and societal level. The festival runs throughout the San Francisco Bay Area at the Palace of Fine […]

The True Story of Tamara de Lempicka & The Art of Survival will have its world premiere at the 2024 Mill Valley Film Festival on Friday, October 11 at the Sequoia Cinema in Mill Valley, with a repeat screening October 13 at the Lark Theater in Larkspur. Tamara de Lempicka & the Art of Survival traces the life and survival of the renowned painter through her powerful paintings – from her rise to international stardom in 1920s Paris, to her move to the United States fleeing fascism in 1940, to her revival in the current art market. The film follows this remarkable refugee as […]

Fun, sexy, Greek, and low-budget – those are the guidelines a foreign movie producer has given twinky actor Nikitas (who keeps losing roles for acting “too gay”) for a potential film project. So over the course of a long afternoon at a scenic gay nude beach, Nikitas and his BFF Demos, a former actor turned pencil-pushing public servant, begin to write the screenplay for what they hope will be their big cinematic break. Nikitas fancies himself the next Xavier Dolan, and Demos has dreams of a Hemsworth brother playing him. Under the beating sun on the blue Mediterranean, the besties […]

SALLY! Presented by OUTwatch and Rialto Cinemas Wednesday, July 17  7pm 94 minsDocumentary A radical lesbian feminist whose trailblazing vision and ebullient personality were the spark for movements with far-reaching impacts, the legacy of Sally Gearhart has also largely been erased from history. From the defeat of the Briggs Initiative to the founding of the first Women’s Studies program in the nation, to groundbreaking writing on lesbian separatist communities, Gearhart was a fierce-hearted San Francisco political preacher at the center of many iconic movements of the 1970s and 1980s. “Feminism has done more to save the lives of women in […]