Valentine’s Month in San Francisco should be less inhibited than anywhere else in the country. We have a reputation to uphold, after all. So the normally innocuous phrase “date movie” necessarily must take on a different meaning, sans innocence. Infuse it with inuendo and suggestiveness, and when the lights go down, whisper sweet nothings in his or her ear. These films will do the rest.
With a lineup deviously strewn with half-demented fictions and outré visions, S.F. Indiefest (Feb 6-20, 2014 at the Roxie) is a magnet for adventurous lovebirds and existential slackers. Pick your rose-red poison from a bouquet of singular works. Here are two exceptionally seductive lookers. Cheatin’ (Feb. 7 and 11 at the Roxie, Feb. 17 at the New Parkway) finds the wildly imaginative animator Bill Plympton applying his puckish worldview to a love story jump-started by a minor car accident. Sparks fly, desires ignite and, eventually, the green-eyed monster makes an appearance. Loveless Zoritsa (Feb. 9 and 11 at the Roxie) is a dark-haired sorceress who inflames passions in a Serbian village: Anyone who falls for her meets an untimely demise, while everyone else thinks she’s a witch or worse. When a cop arrives to investigate, black comedy and romance square off in a heartfelt battle. For more information visit sfindie.com.
Loveless Zoritsa
Experimental film revels in the nonlinear, poetic and abstract. Love is illogical. See the connection? Open your mind — and someone else’s — at the second ASKEW Film and Performance Festival at Yerba Bunea Center for the Arts. The three-night extravaganza, curated by Madison Young under the auspices of Femina Potens Art Gallery’s Live Art Movement, draws on a range of art forms (film, dance, song, etc.) to rebuke, reject and revoke conventional views of conformity, gender and sexuality. Each program is different, and it’s mighty hard to choose among We All Live Here: Primal Expressionism (Feb 6), Breaking Stones: Defining New Roles of Masculinity (Feb 7) and The Sacred and the Profane (Feb 8), the one most germane to this month’s theme. Feel lucky? You should. For more information visit ybca.org.
Le Week-end
Le Week-end, Roger Michell’s wise and enthralling portrait of an English couple marking and occasionally celebrating their 30th anniversary on a sojourn to Paris, asks us to consider the numerous things that familiarity breeds. The opening night selection (Feb 13 at the Jewish Community Center) of the annual Mostly British Film Festival (running through Feb 20 at the Vogue, and Feb 18-20 at the Smith Rafael Film Center) stars the criminally underappreciated Jim Broadbent opposite Lindsay Duncan. It’s hard to imagine any of the pretty young things dipping and darting through Love Me ‘Till Monday (Feb 14) sticking with a partner for three decades, which doesn’t make Justin Hardy’s debut feature any less juicy a Valentine’s Day treat. For more information visit mostlybritish.org. If you prefer your romantic and emotional climaxes in 90 seconds or less, you’re already a fan of the annual British Arrow Awards (Feb 13-20 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts) saluting the best ads of the year from across the pond. Or do you say adverts? For more information visit ybca.org.
