Coffee Please
By Amanda Scotese
Only indie film icon Jim Jarmusch could successfully take the clichéd coffeehouse ritual of deep conversation, cigarette dangling in hand, and instead make the ridiculous, banal, and covertly profound vignettes of Coffee and Cigarettes. Interwoven conversations of characters played by rock, rap, and film stars makeup the feature film that will open this year’s 47th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival.
Linda Blackaby, the festival programmer, knows they are delivering a special treat with the Castro Theatre screening of Coffee and Cigarettes. “Jarmusch is an always admired, stalwart, independent filmmaker who I think defines cool,” she explains matter-of-factly. With gritty icons like Iggy Pop and Tom Waits and a primary palette of black and white, the film effortlessly marks “cool” territory.
Cult auteur Jarmusch reigns as an idol for most any hopeful, imaginative filmmaker, for despite his worldwide success (he practically collects Cannes awards), he has stayed true to the rootsy essence of indie film. Born in Akron, Ohio, Jarmusch was a film school failure at New York University after submitting his first student creation, Permanent Vacation. Unswayed, he continued with his passion for cinema, and after Wim Wender’s executive producer handed him some unused filmstock he masterfully pieced together the short version of Stranger Than Paradise. It snatched the International Critics Prize at the Rotterdam Film Festival, and the rest is film-hipster history.
Many independent filmmakers aspire to attain the kind of creative success that Jarmusch has as a director who has established a unique voice in cinema. Coffee and Cigarettes can really best be classified as Jarmuschian. While the lesser-known directors of the SFIFF have not carved out their own genre, it’s virtually impossible to slap a label on the works shown in this year’s festival as they span such a gamut of genres, from comedies to documentaries. Plus the line-up of 172 feature-length and short films come from 52 countries, the largest country collection they have ever featured. While many come from expected places like France, Japan, Canada, a few come from more unlikely ones like Mongolia, Palestine, Georgia, and the Philippines.
Besides that naturally the SFIFF’s films hail from across the world, they share another fine trait: excellence in filmmaking. Coffee and Cigarettes is just one shining example of the SFIFF’s expert taste in choosing films that display top-quality film art. Linda Blackaby and Roxanne Messina Captor, the Executive Director, along with advisory committees and programming consultants, use their authority in cinema to pick out films for the roster. They research independent film year-round to uncover the freshest, most captivating works of film art.
Beyond the screenings, SFIFF happenings include a “State of Cinema” address, a fundraiser, and an awards ceremony. The Film Society Awards night, a chichi soiree at the Ritz-Carlton, will host a mélange of fashionable celebrities, ubercool indie film figures, and San Francisco’s hobnobbing elite. This annual fundraiser honors Milos Cooper, a Czech-American director (Taking Off, The Fireman’s Ball), with the Film Society Award for Lifetime Achievement, and Chris Cooper (American Beauty, Adaptation), an American actor, with the Peter J. Owens Award.
The night before the festival close, the Golden Gate Awards Ceremony at the Brava Theater Center gives a little more TLC to the fragile newbies of the film world at a reception, open to the public for the first time. The two most precocious filmmakers take the FIPRESCI and SKYY prizes, which give praise to emerging directors. The Golden Gate awards venerate the makers of more fringe creations like documentaries, shorts, television productions, and experimental films and videos.
Perhaps these prizes aim to ensure that gifted artists such as Jarmusch don’t fall through the cracks, as he possibly could have after his rejection at NYU. Lucky for him he was so cool as to ignore academia.
Amanda Scotese is a freelance writer and aspiring filmmaker based in San Francisco.
