Ninth Street Independent Film Center is pleased to announce the five independent filmmakers selected to participate in the Media Arts Incubator Program for one year beginning this September. Ninth Street Independent Film Center is home to CAAM, Frameline, SF Jewish Film Festival and other independent media organizations.
Ninth Street’s Media Arts Incubator Program offers access to workspace, knowledge sharing, outreach opportunities, networking events, meeting and exhibition space on an annual basis. In its fifth year, the Incubator Program nurtures groundbreaking independent media projects, sharing our unique collaboration with more of the independent film and media community. Ninth Street is able to offer this annual residency through the generous support in funding from the San Francisco Film Commission. Each resident filmmaker is provided 100 sq ft of individual workspace, access to all shared spaces and 5 hours of free meeting or exhibition per month in the Ninth Street screening room.
CAAM is excited to work with filmmaker-resident Sasha Friedlander on Mudflow. “The film follows Indonesia’s recent Presidential election, set against the backdrop of one of the largest man-made environmental disasters in recent history, the Lapindo mud catastrophe in East Java, Indonesia. The film raises an array of complex and difficult questions about justice, democracy and under-regulated corporate greed, all critical questions of our time.”
Friedlander previously directed Where Heaven Meets Hell, a feature length documentary set in East Java, Indonesia. The film was selected for funding and co-production by ITVS and aired on PBS in June 2013. Sasha is fluent in Indonesian and has lived and worked as a journalist in Indonesia.
The other residents include:
A documentary film about the transformational changes taking place on San Francisco’s Mid-Market Street. Once known as “The Great White Way of San Francisco” it has, over the last 40 years, become a blighted no-man’s land. Now, a seemingly grass-roots coalition is attempting to do what the previous efforts could not: use the arts and technology to bring economic development to the area while lifting up the poor and marginalized who already live and work there. If successful, San Francisco will create a historic first – but given the stakes, the risk of failure is huge.
An exploration of identity and how we become who we are. Meika Rouda was adopted as a newborn and never knew her biological background until she was in her thirties and trying to make a family of her own. After learning of her ethnic background she came to realize that who she identified with was her Jewish adoptive parents more than her biological family’s ethnic make up. Her search engages audiences to consider how they view their own identity and what makes you, you.
Jack Walsh/Feelings Are Facts
At the age of 25, she took her first dance class. At the age of 28, she changed dance forever. Feelings Are Facts chronicles the remarkable life and career of postmodern dance maverick Yvonne Rainer. As a choreographer, performer, filmmaker and writer, Rainer has been a key figure in the American avant-garde for five decades.
David Santamaria/Harriet
The film is a character study of Harriet Goldstein Colarusso. A very attractive, Jewish woman, she grew up in Brooklyn, and was the first female cab driver in New York. As a result, she was discovered by a New York columnist. Soon after a story about her was published (in the dailies), she appeared on “The Johnny Carson Show” and “Who’s Line Is It Anyway”. The story follows her life, dreams, mistakes and hardships as seen through her eyes and the eyes of her colorful siblings.
Main image: From the film Mudflow, one of the projects selected for Ninth Street Independent Film Center’s Media Arts Incubator Program. The film is about a toxic mudflow in Indonesia believed to be caused by shoddy drilling practices. The mud volcano has buried 17 villages and permanently displaced 60,000 people. Photo courtesy of Sasha Friedlander.
