Peter Sellars Makes Whirlwind Tour Of 50th San Francisco International Film Festival

Visionary Dramaturge to Deliver Annual State of Cinema Address and
Speak at Screenings of Daratt, Opera Jawa and Wonders Are Many

April 3, 2007

San Francisco, Ca — The San Francisco Film Society announced today that maverick theater and opera director Peter Sellars will touch down for a whirlwind tour of the 50th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 26–May 10) on the weekend of April 28 and 29, delivering SFIFF’s fifth annual State of Cinema Address, joining director Jon Else and composer John Adams for a Q&A following a Festival screening of Wonders Are Many,which chronicles Sellars and Adams’s making of Dr. Atomic for San Francisco Opera, and introducing two films—Opera Jawa and Daratt—that he commissioned for the recent New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna, which celebrated the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth.

“Peter Sellars is a protean creative force so it’s fitting that his visit to the Festival be something like a twister touching down,” said Graham Leggat, SFFS executive director. “We are very excited to be able to present a range of Festival offerings that showcase his dynamic talents.”

Each year since 2003, the Film Society has presented its innovative State of Cinema Address, in which a leading cultural figure addresses issues in film and society today. Sellars will deliver the 2007 address at 4:00 pm on Sunday, April 29 at the Sundance Cinemas Kabuki. Previous State of Cinema speakers have been Michel Ciment (2003), longtime editor of the influential French film magazine Positif; B. Ruby Rich (2004), renowned film critic, curator and cultural commentator; Brad Bird (2005), Oscar-winning director/writer of The Incredibles; and Tilda Swinton (2006), the provocative and eloquent actor. Swinton’s 2006 address, which received a standing ovation, is available in transcript online at www.sffs.org.

The Festival will show Jon Else’s Wonders Are Many in which Sellars is featured. Else revisits the subject of his 1981 documentary The Day After Trinity—J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb—but fashions a completely different film with a fascinating look at the making of San Francisco Opera’s 2005 world premiere of Doctor Atomic. Else tracks the collaborative process undertaken by the opera’s composer, Bay Area treasure John Adams, and Sellars, its theater director. Having previously worked together on The Death of Klinghoffer and Nixon in China, Adams and Sellars make a perfect artistic match. They search for their story in Oppenheimer’s correspondence and poetry, eventually deciding to focus on the 48 hours leading up to the first atomic test in 1945. Sellars and Adams will join Else on stage for a Q&A following the screening at the Castro Theatre at 9:00 pm on Saturday, April 28.

SFIFF will also present Garin Nugroho’s Opera Jawa and Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Daratt,two of the seven films Sellars commissioned as artistic director for the New Crowned Hope Festival. Sellars will introduce Opera Jawa at the Castro Theatre on Sunday, April 29 at 12:30 pm and Daratt at SFMOMA the same day at 2:45 pm.

Opera Jawa, agorgeous postmodern musical, that updates an ancient Sanskrit epic with gamelan melodies and Indonesian dancing and Daratt, a fable-like gem of a young man seeking to avenge his father’s murder, resonate with themes the great Austrian composer explored in his late works.Praising Mozart for his prescient thematic instincts and commitment to the transformational properties of pleasure, Sellars concluded his opening New Crowned Hope remarks with this astute coda: “Where Mozart ended is where we begin.” Indeed, it is iconoclasts like Sellars who continue in the masterful, multifaceted, modernist path of Mozart.

Sellars’ work is motivated by, and encourages, a passionate commitment to globally relevant images and ideas that prompt social and moral action in an increasingly interdependent world. His endlessly inventive stage designs and productions—now more than 100—and his work with some of the world’s most adventurous creative forces put him in the first rank of contemporary American artists. Having received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1983 at age 26, Sellars was appointed director and manager of the American National Theater in Washington, D.C. While working with the Boston Shakespeare Company, he collaborated with Emmanuel Music and its artistic director Craig Smith on a series of unconventional Mozart operas including Così Fan Tutte (set in a Cape Cod diner), The Marriage of Figaro (set in a luxury Trump Tower suite in New York City) and Don Giovanni (set in Spanish Harlem).

No stranger to the world of film and filmmaking, Sellars cowrote and costarred (as William Shaksper Junior the Fifth) in Jean-Luc Godard’s reimagining of King Lear (1986) before making his directorial debut with The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez (1991), a silent color film starring Joan Cusack and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Sellars has served as artistic director of the Los Angeles Festival, the Adelaide Festival of Arts, the Venice Biennale and the American National Theatre. Seemingly fueled by ever-enthusiastic creativity and inspiration, Sellars also has adapted Antonin Artaud’s radio play For an End to the Judgment of God/Kissing God Goodbye, coupling it with the poetry of June Jordan and staging it as a press conference on the war in Afghanistan; adapted Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde in collaboration with video artist Bill Viola; and staged a multimedia version of the classic Chinese opera Peony Pavilion at venues throughout Europe and in Berkeley. He continues to be a passionate proponent of eclectic cultural expression as professor of world arts and culture at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Tickets for the State of Cinema Address and the films are available for $12/general and $9/SFFFS members at www.sffs.org or 925.866.9559.

Founded in 1957, the vanguard San Francisco International Film Festival is the longest-running film festival in the Americas. Held each spring for 15 days, the International is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in the country’s most beautiful city, featuring 25 juried awards and more than 200 films and live events with upwards of 100 participating filmmakers and diverse audiences of 80,000+ people.

The landmark 50th International runs April 26 – May 10, 2007 at the Sundance Cinemas Kabuki, the Castro Theatre, SFMOMA, Landmark’s Clay Theatre and the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco; the Pacific Film Archive Theater in Berkeley; and Landmark’s Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto, as well as several smaller satellite venues.

For tickets and information go to www.sffs.org, call 925.866.9559 or visit the Main Ticket Outlet at the Sundance Cinemas Kabuki (1881 Post Street). For additional information log on to www.sffs.org or call 415.561.5000.

San Francisco Film Society, presenter of the flagship SFIFF, is a nonprofit arts and educational organization dedicated to celebrating the world of film and media in all its glorious forms. The Film Society’s year-round programs and events are concentrated in four core areas: Internationalism and Cross-Cultural Exchange; Educating and Inspiring Bay Area Youth; Showcasing Bay Area Film Culture; and Exploring New Digital Media.

 In early 2006 the Film Society unveiled SF360, a broad-spectrum series of initiatives designed to showcase the extraordinary vitality and variety of the Bay Area film and media scene, including www.SF360.org, SF360 San Francisco Movie Night, SF360 Film+Club and the television show SF360 Movie Scene.

The Film Society runs its acclaimed Education Program that each year introduces international cinema and media literacy to several thousand teachers and students (ages 8 – 18). The Film Society will present the second annual San Francisco International Animation Festival in October 2007, the 11th annual New Italian Cinema festival in November 2007 and a new SF International Youth Media Festival in early 2008.