Mill Valley Film Festival - Premieres

50 Watt Fuse

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 18:09:11 -0500

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50 Watt Fuse presents the musical life of quintessential sideman, musicologist and guitarist G.E. Smith, front man for Saturday Night Live's house band for 10 years and guitarist for Hall & Oates, Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger, among others.

PRECEDED BY: Darryl Henriques Is in Show Business

Discussion and mini-set by G.E. Smith and Simon Kirke follows the October 6 screening. G.E. Smith & Friends perform a live concert at 142 Throckmorton Theatre on October 7. Click here for more details.

Astronaut Farmer

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 14:51:59 -0500

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Charlie Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton) is a Texas rancher with a giant dream. Once an astronaut-in-training, he's built his own rocket in his barn and is determined to launch it into space, with the US government working just as hard to see him fail.

August Days

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 19:46:42 -0500

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Taking a break from his research into the life of his old friend, the late journalist Ramon Barnils, Marc and his twin brother, David, embark on a tour of Catalonia.

Bonkers

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 17:18:43 -0500

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Little Bonnie confronts loss, her “bonkers” mother, and a world into which she doesn't fit using instinct and resiliency, traits she shares with the elephants she adores, as well as her legacy of love.

Breaking and Entering

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 20:03:03 -0500

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Reality and metaphor crash loudly and with muted intensity throughout this brilliant, multilayered drama by the talented Anthony Minghella. Starring Robin Wright Penn, Juliette Binoche and Jude Law as a landscape architect reevaluating love and life after his office is burglarized.

Café Setareh

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 19:55:08 -0500

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Three Iranian women navigate the lively living rooms, quiet back streets and private apartments of their tight-knit community in modern Tehran, in this intriguing film that speaks to the universal experiences of love, loss, honor and duty that transcend time and place.

Cine Manifest

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 18:15:25 -0500

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This poignant, hilarious and fascinating film charts the giddy highs and teeth-gnashing lows of a unique Marxist political film collective that rose from the utopian ideologies of the '60s and somehow survived the turmoil and tumult of the '70s.

PRECEDED BY: McLaren's Negatives

Dobrinya and the Dragon

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 17:25:08 -0500

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A classic Russian fairy tale reimagined with a gleefully modern sensibility. Princess Zabava is kidnapped by the fearsome three-headed dragon, Gorynych, and only the great hero Dobrinya can save her. Visual tricks and slapstick hilarity abound in this animated delight.

Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 18:03:19 -0500

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This irreverent yet unexpectedly poignant documentary relates the incredible-but-true saga of the German Jewish chemist behind that hippy-chic iconic bottle of peppermint Castile soap, and the son who devised his own inspiring way of following in dad's footsteps.

PRECEDED BY: Diet Leibovich

Drifting Elegant

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 16:44:09 -0500

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Locally produced, the suspenseful Drifting Elegant focuses on Victor, a young Arab-American man convicted of rape, and three educated San Franciscans whose lives he affects, triggering a web of secrets, sexual desire and prejudice.

Figner: The End of a Silent Century

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 15:23:41 -0500

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The finest and last practioner of a fading art, analog soundtrack designer Edgar Figner is cast aside by contemporary Russian society and retreats into the past, where reality, memory and stunning footage from Soviet films blend into an intimate portrait of the post-Soviet Russian experience.

Forgiveness

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 22:00:09 -0500

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A ghost story with strong political overtones, Udi Aloni's psychological thriller uses the conventions of suspense and the supernatural to examine Israel and Palestine's need for healing to begin.

Frozen City

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 22:01:01 -0500

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Full of frank and believable conversations and interactions, this portrait of a taxi driver whose life is on a downward trajectory offers an indelible, intimate portrait of a life gone awry.

Going Private

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:39:50 -0500

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A garden party on Switzerland's trendy Gold Coast goes irreparably awry in this dramatic investigation into the overlapping of work and private life.

Have You Heard from Johannesburg?

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:41:21 -0500

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Academy-Award–nominated filmmaker Connie Field (Freedom on My Mind) traces the turbulent rise of the 1980s anti-apartheid movement in this tightly constructed and enlightening documentary.