2022 Green Film Festival of San Francisco presented by San Francisco IndieFest will take place October 6 – 16, with 50+ independent feature and short length films from around the world that focus on green and environmental issues. The festival opens with Pasang directed by Nancy Svendsen, and Into the Weeds: Dewayne “Lee” Johnson vs. Monsanto Company directed by Jennifer Baichwal as closing night film.
The Green Film Festival of San Francisco is interested in exploring all aspects of “environmental film” whether they be compelling documentaries, adventure films, narrative fiction films, or midnight movies with environmental themes. Films have been curated into themed sections which pair projects with complimentary subject matter to create a cinematic journey for our audiences.Through this experience the festival hopes audiences can begin to engage with sustainable solutions to the problems facing the planet.
Most films stream on demand October 6 -16 and select films will play live at Roxie Theater October 6 – 13.
OPENING NIGHT
Pasang
Director Nancy Svendsen (North Bay Filmmakers, Corte Madera and San Francisco)
2022, USA/Nepal, 72 min
Plays Roxie Theater Thu Oct 5, 630pm
Transcending cultural barriers and consistently going against the grain, female Nepali climber Pasang Lhamu Sherpa attempted to summit Everest four times in the early nineties. Although she was not allowed to attend school as a child, Pasang did not let that stop her from pursuing her dreams. After founding her own trekking company in Kathmandu, she blazed a trail for Nepali women via her efforts to summit Everest.
CLOSING NIGHT
Into the Weeds: Dewayne “Lee” Johnson vs. Monsanto Company
Jennifer Baichwal (Local Subject, Vallejo)
2021, USA, 98 min
Plays Roxie Theater Thu Oct 13, 615pm
Dewayne Johnson, a Bay Area groundskeeper, suffered from rashes in 2014 and wondered if they were caused by the herbicide he’d been using. As his health deteriorated, Johnson became the face of a David-and-Goliath legal battle to hold multi-national agrochemical corporation Monsanto accountable for a product with allegedly misleading labelling.
CENTERPIECE
Pleistocene Park
Luke Griswold-Tergis (Local Filmmakers, Davis and Berkeley)
2021, USA, 101 min
Plays Roxie Theater Fri Oct 7, 615pm
The adventure film of the year takes us on a bumpy journey to the Siberian steppes, where a Russian geophysicist wants to restore the ecosystems of the Ice Age through radical rewilding.
LATE NIGHT ECO SCI-FI
Vesper
Kristina Buozyte & Bruno Samper
2020, France, 112 min
After the collapse of Earth’s ecosystem, Vesper, a 13-year-old girl struggling to survive with her paralyzed Father, meets a mysterious Woman with a secret that forces Vesper to use her wits, strength and bio-hacking abilities to fight for the possibility of a future.
FEATURE FILM SELECTIONS
Oyate
Brandon Jackson & Emil Benjamin
2021, USA, 89 min
Plays Roxie Theater Sat Oct 8, 2pm
In the wake of the Dakota Access Pipeline Protests, Indigenous People across the nation are using their newfound platform to shed light on the wide array of injustices committed against them for centuries in an effort to wake up the world and embark upon the process of decolonization.
Il Buco aka The Hole
Michelangelo Frammartino
2021, Italy, 93 min
Plays Roxie Theater Sat Oct 8, 4:15pm
Filmmaker Michelangelo Frammartino returns with his long-awaited first feature in a decade. The nearly wordless Il Buco offers a simple premise rich with visual and symbolic possibilities. Based on a true story it tells the incredible tale of a group of very young speleologists who in 1961 discovered and explored in Calabria the deepest cave in Europe. With the gentlest of strokes, Il Buco examines the unknown depths and mysteries of the universe, life and death, progress and tradition, and parallels two great voyages to the interior.
Make People Better
Cody Michael Sheehy (Local Filmmakers, North Bay and Oakland)
2022, USA, 90 min
Plays Roxie Theater Sun Oct 9, 2pm
In 2018, the Chinese scientist Dr. He Jiankui crossed the Rubicon in human evolution by altering the genetic structure of embryos to produce the world’s first genome-edited babies. This clandestine and flawed human experiment, supported by China’s government and top U.S. scientists, led to an international uproar and swift moves by Chinese authorities to disappear not just Dr. He, but the twin girls whose genes he had edited.
The Strait Guys
Rick Minnich
2022, Germany, 99 min
Plays Roxie Theater Sun Oct 9, 415pm
The Strait Guys follows Czech-born mining engineer, George, and his fast-talking protégé, Scott, along the proposed route of the InterContinental Railway through Alaska, to the Bering Strait and onward to Russia. The “Strait Guys” endeavor to convince international governments, corporations, and indigenous tribes to green-light their $100 billion railway project—with the promise to become the Panama Canal of the 21st century.
The Yin & Yang of Gerry Lopez
Stacy Peralta
2022, USA, 100 min
Plays Roxie Theater Sun Oct 9, 630pm
Gerry Lopez, Mr. Pipeline, is one of surfing’s most enigmatic heroes—a Zen Buddhist on land who built his early career on aggressive surfing. The Yin & Yang of Gerry Lopez—directed by award-winning filmmaker Stacy Peralta—follows one of the most influential surfers and surfboard shapers of all time as he brings surfing to new frontiers while pursuing stillness of body and mind.
Geographies of Solitude
Jacquelyn Mills
2022, Canada, 103 min
Plays Roxie Theater Tue Oct 11, 615pm
An immersion into the rich landscapes of Sable Island and the life of Zoe Lucas, a naturalist and environmentalist who has lived over 40 years on this remote strip of sand.
Scrap
Director Stacey Tenenbaum (East Bay Filmmaker, Oakland)
2022, Canada, 73 min
Plays Roxie Theater Wed Oct 12, 615pm
Discover the vast and strangely beautiful places where things go to die and meet the people who collect, restore, and recycle the world’s scrap. SCRAP scratches beneath the flaking paint and rusting metal to expose our deep attachment to the things we use while revealing the beauty and pathos in the ugliness we leave behind.
LOCAL SHORT FILM SELECTIONS
How Not To Be A Climate Activist
Gabriel Diamond, 2022, USA, 5 min (East Bay Filmmaker, Berkeley)
Climate collapse is imminent. Perhaps you are wondering what to do. Here’s what not to do.
Southern Range: Salmon in the Santa Cruz Mountains
Kyle Baker, 2022, USA, 30 min (South Bay Filmmaker, Santa Cruz)
“Southern Range” explores the deep and entangled relationships between salmon, fire, human beings, and our shared environment.
The Long Game: How Robert Doyle Changed the East Bay
Joan Hamilton, 2022, USA, 36 min (East Bay Filmmaker, Berkeley)
Robert Doyle grew up in Concord, California. As a kid, he liked hiking and gardening. In his teens and early twenties, he helped found and run a scrappy conservation organization called Save Mount Diablo.
The Grid
Kiki Goshay, 2022, USA, 30 min (North Bay Filmmaker, Kentfield)
Thousands of California fires have been started by the grid including the deadliest in California history, the Camp Fire. To prevent more fires, the power is preemptively shut off when the conditions are hot, dry, and windy. With climate change, these conditions are more frequent.
Crossing the Divide
Ralph King, 2022, USA, 23 min (South Bay Filmmaker, Portola Valley)
A reactionary Iowa farmer has a change of heart when climate activists march into his tiny town.
Hasta la utlima gota
Ben Derico, 2022, USA/Chile, 17 min (SF Filmmaker, Potrero Hill)
In 1980, the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet replaced Chile’s constitution with a new charter employing the principals of famed American Free-Market economist Milton Friedman. 40 years later the dictatorship is gone, but the constitution, and a key provision called the National Water Code that privatized Chile’s vast natural water supply, is still in effect.
For the Bees
Chloë Fitzmaurice, 2022, USA, 16 min (East Bay Filmmaker, Oakland)
Khaled came from war-torn Yemen to Oakland, CA to pursue beekeeping and a better life. But with an increasing amount of uncertainties, life’s not always as sweet as honey.