Devoting a film festival to documentaries with a progressive political agenda might seem redundant, as the field has been driven and largely defined for more than half a century by crusading filmmakers. But the Social and Economic Justice Film Festival, which runs all day Saturday at the Little Roxie (and is also available via streaming) has several agendas at work.
Launched in 2020, the festival was created “to call attention and highlight the Center for Social and Economic Justice and the need to preserve the Redstone Labor Temple as a community space,” said the CSEJ’s David Frias, campaign co-director of the San Francisco Living Wage Coalition since 2011.
The original plan was to hold a two-day event at the Victoria Theatre, but when the pandemic intervened, the festival moved online, where it’s been presented the past three years. For its first in-person season, the focus has also shifted. The online programming team cast an international net, featuring films from around the world “all relating to the same issues we deal with,” Frias said. “Income inequality, health care, environmental injustice.”
This year the focus is much more local, with only one non-U.S. film in the mix (from Mexico). If there’s a centerpiece to the program, it’s “Somos Esenciales/We are Essential,” a 25-minute film by playwright and performing artist Paul S. Flores, which premiered at Brava in June, 2022. Directed by Rafael Flores, “Somos Esenciales” goes inside the Mission Food Hub, exploring the struggles of Latino essential workers as they content with a raging pandemic and lack of adequate services.
Community Music Center faculty at Ivory & Vine
Lots of interesting music is happening this week, and here are some recommended shows to “wash away the dust of everyday life,” as the great drummer Art Blakey used to say.
Cuban pianist and composer Edward Corzo, a longtime faculty member at the Community Music Center who is deeply ensconced in the Mission music scene, performs Thursday at Ivory & Vine, which celebrated its first anniversary last month.
Friday night at Medicine for Nightmares
Joining tenor saxophonist David Boyce at his Friday “Mystery School” residency at Medicine for Nightmares is the intrepid musical explorer Phillip Greenlief. Just back from a series of gigs in Mexico, Greenlief is a protean force known for interpreting the music of Thelonious Monk, Hank Williams, Nino Rota, and Billy Strayhorn, composing with a wide array of strategies and techniques, including graphic scores, and for free improvisation (the framework guiding his encounter with Boyce).
Rio-born Ricardo Peixto and Julio Lemos at Red Poppy
You can find a very different kind of duo Saturday at Red Poppy Art House, where Rio-born Oakland guitarist Ricardo Peixoto and 7-string Brazilian guitarist Julio Lemos for a program of choro, samba and original pieces. Peixoto has been at the center of the Bay Area’s Brazilian music scene for some four decades, while Lemos has earned renown with his rhythmic prowess and fluency in samba-jazz idioms that run from the late Baden Powell to contemporary masters Rafael Rabelo and Marco Pereira.
Sean Hayes and Etienne deRocher at the Chapel
A singer/songwriter double bill laced with Bay Area nostalgia takes over the Chapel Saturday with the pairing of Sean Hayes and Etienne deRocher. A tunesmith with a rich trove of songs expertly calibrated between the head and heart, Hayes is a Bay Area treasure. Now based in Athens, Georgia, DeRocher opens the evening, bringing back memories of the early aughts, when he was a mainstay at Café du Nord with a brilliant revolving cast of supporting players like bassist Todd Sickafoose (with whom Hayes is also linked via his work with Anaïs Mitchell before she and Sickafoose won a passel of Tony Awards for “Hadestown”).
FACT/SF festival at ODC
In dance, the hot ticket is the second weekend of FACT/SF’s festival at ODC. Last weekend focused on collaborations with choreographers and dancers from Portland, Oregon. This weekend’s program focuses on premieres by Bay Area dancemakers Brianna Torres, Mia J Chong and Emily Hansel, Xochipilli Dance Company, FACT/SF, as well as Columbus, Ohio’s Alfonso Cervera and Taylor Donofrio from Los Angeles. Illustrating the diversity of the contemporary dance scene is the point, along with showcasing some of the region’s top dancers.
Also:
The San Francisco Mime Troupe will perform “Breakdown” for one night only on Thursday, Aug. 24 at Z-Space.
Voss Gallery celebrates an opening Friday, Aug. 26, for Tracy Piper’s exhibit “All the Feels.”
“The Future is Now” has its opening party Saturday, Aug. 26, at Luna Rienne Gallery from 6 to 9 p.m.
El Tecolote celebrates its 53rd Anniversary on Saturday and, while the gala is sold out, you can still donate or bid on the art here.
“Salon de Refusés: A Celebration of de Young Open Rejects” will be at Four Chicken Gallery at 432 Cortland Ave. Friday, Aug. 25, noon to 9 p.m., with a reception at 6 p.m. The show continues on Saturday, Aug. 26, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday, Aug. 27, from noon to 7 p.m.
SFAIC’s main gallery The Monumental Art of Juana Alicia
Closing reception at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts for Currency, Sat. Aug. 26, 2-4 p.m.
See more events here.
don’t foget Mission Love at the 4-star on 8/26: web info below
There is nothing more essential today than artists “ exploring and advocating for social and economic justice.”
My hope is their emphasis will be on the “nosotros”— the “we.”
Inequality and social injustice thrives when the working class is divided into you’s and me’s.
We must unite against war and a world made for the profits of a very few.