Wrapping SFIFF 09.

By David Hudson on 05/07/2009

[Updated through 5/9]

"Anders Østergaard's 'Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country' took home the Golden Gate Award for best investigate documentary, which comes with a $25,000 cash prize, last night as the 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival came to a close," reports Peter Knegt. "The film, being released in theaters next week through Oscilloscope, follows the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), aka the Burma VJs. Compiled from the handheld footage of the DVB, the film details the VJs as they themselves become the target of the Burmese government."

AJ Schnack ticks off the other festival awards the film has garnered in the past half-year - and he's impressed, too, but he's got a problem with "Burma VJ": "There is no question that the raw, shaky, handycam-style video, sometimes only able to pop up for a moment from its hiding place, is wrenching, inspiring, everything a filmmaker would hope for from acquired video. Around this video, however, director Østergaard has created a framing device that is largely, if not entirely, re-created."

Back at indieWIRE, Ilya Tovbis has written up six films coming out of the festival to watch for.

Susan Gerhard has more on the awards at SF360, where Lynn Rapoport, who has a second SFIFF roundup at Pixel Vision, writes: "In seven months, on December 7 of this year, the political leaders of the planet will be sending their representatives to Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or Cop15, where the framework for a global response to the crisis will be established.... What happens if the deals go sour? 'The Age of Stupid,' a documentary encased like a time capsule inside a fictive but science-based, frighteningly possible future, has some answers." For a bit more on that one, see Eugene Novikov at Cinematical.

One highlight of the festival was clearly Tuesday night's screening of the 1925 silent feature "The Lost World" with live accompaniment from Dengue Fever. Kimberly Chun (Pixel Vision) and Craig Phillips had a grand time. In an earlier roundup at GreenCine Daily, Craig takes on "The Paranoids," "Rudo y Cursi" and "Good Cats."

Speaking of roundups, you'll want to see Max Goldberg's and, for The Auteurs' Notebook, Duc Joie Tran's.

For Brian Darr and Michael Hawley, the closing night film, "Unmade Beds" ranks as one of the best of the fest.

The highlight of Mark Haslam's latest roundup for Vinyl Is Heavy: "Modern Life."

At Just Press Play, Arya Ponto has a full and fun report on the night Francis Ford Coppola was presented with the Founder's Directing Award.

Updates, 5/9: Michael Guillén has extensive notes on the night Robert Redford received the Peter J Owens Award.

Darren Hughes: "Rather than write about the 'Voices Carry' shorts program, which was a jarring and poorly curated combination of Roy Andersson/Terry Gilliam wannabes and thoughtful documentaries, I want to focus, instead, on '575 Castro St.,' Jenni Olson's cleverly conceived piece about Harvey Milk."

[Photo: "Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country," Oscilloscope, 2008]

Tags: Anders Østergaard, Burma VJ, Francis Ford Coppola, Franny Armstrong, SFIFF 2009, Unmade Beds