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2015 Film Selections
Below is the list of official film selections for the 2015 San Francisco Dance Film Festival, listed in alphabetical order. For film times, screening dates, and to buy tickets, click on film still. To learn more about each film, click on More Info.
For complete festival schedule, VIEW SCHEDULE.
1915 Meran Vor Aprink
(USA, 2015) 11:02Director: Abraham Heisler
Choreographer: Davit Karapetyan
View Film | More Info A memorial tribute to the Armenian spirit channeling universal feelings of loss, remembrance, and a desire to bring peace to the world.
The Acid — Fame
(USA, 2014) 3:48Director: Dugan O’Neal & RY X
Choreographer: WIFE Wrenn
View Film Poetically choreographed music video for the sensuous, downtempo “Fame,” by The Acid.
Aeterna XXI
(USA, 2015) 3:46Director: Walter Yamazaki
Choreographer: Lauren Jonas
View Film | More Info Our time in this physical world is brief, and so is the stage time of dance. This short film is an attempt to grasp the presence of eternity through its temporary physical representations.
Afterthought
(USA, 2014) 5:57Director: RJ Muna
Choreographer: Jodi Lomask
View Film | More Info Afterthought is an excerpt from the performance Synaptic Motion by Capacitor, which explores the neuroscience of creativity. In Afterthought you see a dance that was choreographed while lying in an MRI machine.
Amandi
(Spain, 2014) 6:35Director: Francesc Sitges-Sardà & Elisabet Prandi
Choreographer: Ferran Carvajal & Marta Filella
View Film | More Info A blend of nature, woods and weird landscapes with two characters who travel through that space in constant transformation trying to fit in.
Amoureuse
(USA, 2015) 2:17Director: Matthew Taylor
Choreographer: Brian Gibbs
More Info Dancers entangle themselves in an unedited slow-motion duet in real time.
Angsters
(USA, 2014) 7:13Director: Benjamin Epps
Choreographer: Amy Cain
View Trailer | More Info Dancers explore the anxieties of artistic life through movement amongst large-scale exterior sculpture and paintings.
Arrellah
(USA, 2014) 3:12Director: Damian Smith, Kate Duhamel
Choreographer: Damian Smith
More Info In Arrellah, the Aboriginal word for “dancing ground,” Smith incorporates elements of his Aboriginal roots in sensual, transcendent and haunting work captured on film and on four large canvases for the 45th anniversary of the San Jose Museum of Art.
As Is
(USA, 2015) 3:57Director: Kate Duhamel
Choreographer: Erik Wagner
View Film | More Info As Damian Smith ends his long and celebrated stage career, As Is brings us up close to the raw beauty and artistry of this master dancer.
Ballet Meets Robotics: The Making of Francesca Da Rimini
(USA, 2015) 5:13Director: Ashley Rodholm
View Film | More Info An in-depth look at the process and making of Francesca Da Rimini,” where a robotically controlled camera is used to capture a performance starring San Francisco Ballet Principal Dancers Maria Kochetkova and Joan Boada.
The Birch Grove
(USA, 2015) 20:12Director: Gabrielle Lansner
Choreographer: Lansner Company
View Trailer | More Info Caught between love and death, two brothers wrestle with their past in a dance towards reconciliation.
Bridge
(Russia, 2015) 5:12Director: Nikita Dmitrievsky
Choreographer: Nikita Dmitrievsky
View Film On a constantly flowing walkway, a couple searches for a lasting connection as they are moved by the richly layered music of Philip Glass.
Continuum *
(France, 2014) 9:15Director: Natalianne Boucher
Choreographer: Stéphane Fratti
View Film | More Info A choreographic film mixing dance and animation. Our perception of time and its connection with space is explored in movement through the symbolic depiction of sand’s matter.
Crushing Weight
(Brazil, 2015) 3:38Director: Vinícius Cardoso
Choreographer: Irupé Sarmiento
View Film | More Info A soul lives in an abandoned hospital where it journeys secretly. The body as the unconscious, the dissolution of the self in the breakdown of inside/outside, pain as beauty are explored.
Danced Off the Ground (Det Skal Danses Væk)
(Denmark, 2014) 4:32Director: Maia Elisabeth Sørensen
Choreographer: Sigurd Johan Heide
View Film | More Info A boy walks through his school seeing visions of his classmates dancing in hallways, staircases, and restrooms.
Descent
(UK, 2015) 4:56Director: Antoine Marc & DrewCox
Choreographer: Antoine Marc
View Film | More Info A man crawls to his death. Spilling out the essence of life, he envisions vivid memories to accompany his decline.
Eclipse
(Canada, 2013) 4:00Director: Linda Arkelian & David Cooper
Choreographer: Linda Arkelian
View Film | More Info A short dance film experimenting with light and movement using the theme of light eclipsing a dancer’s body.
Edifice
(Turkey, 2014) 12:30Director: Irmak Karasu
Choreographer: Hazal Kiziltoprak
View Film | More Info The story of a woman’s revolt against the moral values which are imposed by society. The characters question the social trauma inflicted upon their bodily memories.
Escualo
(USA, 2014) 3:57Director: Martin & Facundo Lombard
Choreographer: Martin & Facundo Lombard
View Film A powerfully rhythmic new piece from the acclaimed Lombard twins, set to music by Astor Piazzolla.
Feelings Are Facts:
The Life of Yvonne Rainer
(USA, 2015) 82:00Director: Jack Walsh
Choreographer: Yvonne Rainer
View Trailer | More Info Yvonne Rainer has been overthrowing genres and radically altering the way we experience dance, film, and performance art for 50 years. This film examines the contradictions and creativity of this remarkable provocateur.
Francesca Da Rimini
(USA, 2014) 2:59Director: Tarik Abdel-Gawad
Choreographer: Yuri Possokhov
View Film | More Info Featuring San Francisco Ballet Principal Dancers Maria Kochetkova and Joan Boada, “Francesca Da Rimini” is an experiment using a robotically controlled camera to capture their passionate pas de deux.
Genêt
(Belgium, 2014-2015) 6:51Director: Valery Carnoy
Choreographer: David Noblet
View Film | More Info A male and female dancer move independently in multiple universes with several similarities. They are united through similar impulses, beyond space and time.
Inheritor Recordings
(Canada, 2014) 6:20Director: Brian Johnson & Lisa Gelley
Choreographer: Josh Martin
View Film | More Info Inheritor Recordings is a reimagined adaptation of an excerpt from 605’s original stage work, and warps time and place to augment and expand 605’s raw physicality. A quiet uprising of a new generation.
Instar
(Netherlands, 2015) 6:48Director: Mathieu Gremillet
Choreographer: Juanjo Arques
View Film A film inspired by insects, their environment, behavior, movement and life cycles.
Keeping Time
(Ireland, 2014) 10:42Director: Steve Woods
Choreographer: Fernando Anuang’a
View Film A modern power-station worker leaves his place of work and finds an ancient warrior waiting for him. Keeping Time is a statement that the past is part of the present. Our modernity is really a veneer.
Lay Me Low
(Canada, 2015) 7:50Director: Marlene Millar
Choreographer: Sandy Silva
View Trailer Performed by ten dancers, musicians and singers Lay Me Low cuts right to the heart to communicate a universal feeling of loss while evoking a paradoxical sense of intimacy.
Lei
(Italy, 2014) 2:43Director: Gabriele Rizzi
Choreographer: Cris Ursu
View Film An endless flight of body and soul in which anything could happen… even what looks impossible is made possible through Lei.
Let’s Get The Rhythm: The Life and Times of Mary Mack
(USA, 2014) 53:00Director: Irene Chagall & Steve Zeitlin
View Trailer | More Info Chronicles the history of hand-clapping games on playgrounds around the world. Through wars and migrations, across language barriers and oceans, young girls connect with each other through thousands of variants—ancient as they are global.
Let’s Say
(Hong Kong, 2014) 8:00Director: Fuk Pak Jim
Choreographer: Li De
View Film Modern communication issues between people, three scenes, three dances, one message: Stop Phubbing (the act of snubbing someone in a social setting by looking at your phone instead of paying attention).
Little Dreams
(Belgium, 2015) 6:04Director: Wilkie Branson
Choreographer: Wilkie Branson
View Trailer A dance animation about dreams, fears, and aspirations.
Lost in Motion II
(Canada, 2013) 4:34Director: Ben Shirinian
Choreographer: Guillaume Côté
View Film Featuring National Ballet of Canada Principal Dancer Heather Ogden, the film combines original choreography, stylized art direction and seamless VFX to visually interpret the experience of an artist baring her soul on stage.
Memory House
(New Zealand, 2013) 17:02Director: Loughlan Prior & Ryan Fielding
Choreographer: Loughlan Prior
View Trailer Set against a decaying old house, Royal New Zealand Ballet’s leading dancers create dramatic solos and duets that evoke memories of the past.
Mia: A Dancer’s Journey
(USA, 2014) 57:13Director: Maria Ramas & Kate Johnson
View Trailer | More Info | Buy/Rent This is the story of Mia Slavenska, one of the most celebrated ballerinas of her time. It is also a story about historical memory, national identity, and the power of art.
My Mother Loved Dance (Ma Mère Adorait La Danse)
(France, 2014) 65:00Director: Thierry Teston
Choreographer: Brigitte Lefèvre
View Trailer | More Info Follow retiring Paris Opera Ballet director Brigitte Lefèvre through the scenes of a lifetime in this intimate peek behind the scenes of one of the world’s finest and oldest companies.
Néants
(Canada, 2014) 9:02Director: Nellie Carrier
Choreographer: Nellie Carrier Four characters see their destiny falling apart. As they pause in the current moment they experience sensations of mourning, absence, and loss.
One Fine Day
(UK, 2014) 7:00Director: Sima Gonsai
Choreographer: Lee Fisher
View Film Travel through an imagined world through the eyes of Freefall Dance Company.
Open
(USA,2015) 1:55Director: Lindsay Gauthier
Choreographer: Dana Genshaft
View Film An intricate duet bathed in light.
Parables of War
(USA, 2014) 31:59Director: Nina Gilden Seavey
Choreographer: Liz Lerman
View Trailer | More Info | Buy/Rent Dance, documentary, and drama—all coalesce in Parables of War in search of a multi-textured answer to the timeless question of the human condition: how can civilization bind the wounds of war?
Pas
(Canada, 2015) 14:40Director: Frédérique Cournoyer-Lessard
Choreographer: Stéphanie Thellen
View Trailer Through her life, Rose has followed her passion for dance by using it as a singular method of communication essential to connecting with her surroundings.
A Portrait of Marc Brew
(UK, 2015) 5:31Director: Lewis Landini, Jamiel Laurence
Choreographer: Jamiel Laurence
View Trailer | More Info An intimate and highly personal dance film depicting the acclaimed dancer and choreographer in the studio.
Private Life
(USA, 2015) 4:37Director: Deborah Slater
Choreographer: Deborah Slater
View Film Private Life is a meditation on loss from many points of view. A soldier, his comrades and his companion are mixed in emotionally charged flashbacks.
Queen of Distance *
(USA, 2013) 3:12Director: Zoie Harmon
Choreographer: Zoie Harmon
View Film One dancer breaks herself like she breaks in her shoes.
Rare Birds
(USA/Norway, 2014) 59:01Director: T.M. Rives
Choreographer: Alexander Ekman
View Trailer | More Info A making-of documentary following every aspect of production of Alexander Ekman’s technically challenging A Swan Lake (nominated for 2014 Prix Benois de la Danse) at the Norwegian National Ballet.
Renewal
(USA/Israel, 2014) 39:54Director: Stacey Menchel Kussell
Choreographer: Noa Wertheim
View Trailer | More Info The whole world is searching for ways to live greener. Renewal profiles one group of dancers in Jerusalem finding a solution.
Rhizophora
(Germany/USA, 2015) 16:23Director: Julia Metzger-Traber & Davide De Lillis
Choreographer: Davide De Lillis & Julia Metzger-Traber
View Trailer Dancing between waking and dreaming, eleven Vietnamese youth, with disabilities caused by Agent Orange, take us on a whimsical and intimate journey through their day. It is a reminder of the toxic effects of war and an ode to life.
A Short History of Madness (Une courte histoire de la folie)
(Canada, 2014) 27:00Director: Isabelle Hayeur
Choreographer: Virginie Brunelle
View Trailer | More Info Bringing together contemporary dance and architecture in a series of six pieces, A Short History of Madness evokes the history of treatment of mental illness.
Silent Disco
(USA, 2015) 4:00Director: John Haptas, Kristine Samuelson, Amy Seiwert
Choreographer: Amy Seiwert In a silent disco, dancers move to the different music in their heads.
Slääp
(Sweden, 2014) 4:28Director: Lucas Carlsson & Jonathan Morell
Choreographer: Lucas Carlsson
View Film A dance video inspired by the original Pharcyde music video Drop, where each dancer’s movement was painstakingly choreographed in reverse, creating unusual visual effects, and set to a parody of the original rap in Swedish.
Snap Into It
(USA, 2014) 3:57Director: Devin Jamieson & Jillian Meyers
Choreographer: Jillian Meyers
View Film A gleeful digression from anticipated outcome, in favor of savoring the pursuit of whim // Following a renegade train of thought with dimension, texture, and amplitude // A staccato attempt to trace the digressions from an iconic Langston Hughes poem.
Symmetry
(The Netherlands, 2015) 53:24Director: Ruben van Leer
Choreographer: Lukas Timulak
View Trailer | More Info While Cern researcher Lukas is working on the theory of everything and the smallest particle, he is thrown off balance. Through Claron’s singing he rediscovers love, in an endless landscape, when time didn’t exist; a love with no end…
Tap, Tap, Tap *
(USA, 2014/2015) 4:30Director: Theo Taplitz
Choreographer: Theo Taplitz & Denise Sheerer
View Film A boy suffering from hearing loss finds a pair of magic tap shoes hanging from a telephone wire.
A Tap Dance on the Pier
(USA, 2014) 2:23Director: Geoffrey Goldberg
Choreographer: Geoffrey Goldberg
View Film | More Info When a young man takes a break on a bench on the pier, an unexpected visitor turns his break into a full-out musical number.
Territoire
(Canada, 2014) 12:22Director: Josiane Bernier & Ariane Voineau
Choreographer: Ariane Voineau & Josiane Bernier A poetic essay on feminine identity and perception; it is the other’s reflection upon us, the act of dissolving one’s self to the surrounding world.
Type/Dynamics
(The Netherlands, 2014) 4:49Director: Ruben van Leer
Choreographer: Lukas Timulak A duet set against a real-time data installation shows the emotional urgency contained within our bodies.
Uath Lochans
(UK, 2015) 6:30Director: Simon Fildes & Katrina McPherson
Choreographer: Marc Brew
View Trailer | Buy/Rent A physical response to place by choreographer Marc Brew.
What is Life
(USA, 2014) 4:25Director: Brandon Moore
Choreographer: Dana Genshaft
View Film Winner of the Genero TV competition, choreographer/former San Francisco Ballet Soloist Dana Genshaft’s film was selected as the Official Music video for George Harrison’s ‘What is Life.’
* Student Film
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