“The San Francisco crowd is a group of dance lovers,” said Linda Schaller, the director of programming for the San Francisco Dance Film Festival. “Fabulous, die-hard dance lovers,” to be precise, “who are learning that dance film is an art in and of itself.”
Starting Friday and running through November 9 in person, followed by an online-only version through November 30, the 15-year-old festival offers glimpses of bodies in motion in a variety of styles and settings. Appropriately, the screenings themselves are being held all over the city.
This year’s big-name documentary, Tiler Peck: Suspending Time, will unspool at the Lucasfilm Premier Theater in the Presidio, where proximity to Marin makes it easy for the more classically-inclined demographic. The music video screening — which includes recent music videos from Foster the People, David Guetta and Sia, Ezra Collective, and others — will be more like a party for performers and festival attendees, so Shack15 at the Ferry Building, with its Bay views and easy access to the city, is the right setting. The Art/Experimental Shorts screening, which features films from choreographers-directors such as Tsung-lung Cheng and Shoko Tamai, happens at Catharine Clark Gallery.
The bulk of its screenings, many of which feature an accompanying live performance, will be at the Brava Theater Center, a homebase of sorts for the festival. This is most apparent for the Bay Area Shorts screening, which will take place on Sunday, November 9 at 7:30 p.m., an annual tradition that gives local performers and filmmakers a chance to toast to the artistic vision that runs through the region.
Every year, starting in January, Schaller and her team of programmers receive hundreds of submissions. Dance film is a diverse medium — submissions may be shorts or features, narrative or documentary or experimental, screendance or animation — and come from dozens of countries. This year, it took until June for the team to whittle down over 500 submissions into a final program of 91 entries grouped around the theme of “Movement for the Moment.”
The resulting program, per Schaller, reflects not just the dance world, but the world as it is today. On Wednesday, October 29, Farewell, Opéra screens at the Delancey Street Theater. Directed by Yonathan Kellerman, the film follows a trio of Paris Opera Ballet dancers as they reach compulsory retirement age. On Friday, November 7, the festival will put on an encore presentation of Wicket, Lily Plotkin’s documentary about Bboy Wicket’s career and coming out journey. (The film was a favorite at the Frameline film festival this past June, and Wicket himself will perform after the screening.) On Sunday, November 9, choreographer, performer, and educator laura elaine ellis will present a series of short dance films that emphasize underrepresented identities for the annual Raising Voices program. That, plus all the experimental, documentary, and narrative shorts; historic films; and choreographer showcases make for a packed 17-day-long festival.
The world premiere of Tiler Peck: Suspending Time will kick off the festival on Friday, October 24 at 7 p.m. The documentary follows Peck, the New York City Ballet prima ballerina shot during a period of artistic rebirth as she recovers from an injury and starts choreographing for the company she’s starred in for her whole career.
Alex Ramsey, the film’s director, does not come from a dance background. To him, “filmmaking and choreography have a lot in common, because both are built on rhythm, emotion, and vulnerability.” He learned about SFDFF through his producer, Garen Scribner, who has a background in the dance world and a pre-existing relationship to the festival. “Getting this film recognized by [the festival] feels like the best kind of validation,” Ramsey said in an email, “especially as someone who isn’t from the dance world.”
“San Francisco has people who love both dance and cinema,” Ramsey said. “To share it in a city that values both craft and artistry equally feels like the perfect place to bring it to life.”
