After the Castro's traditional welcoming of events on the Mighty Whirlitzer, Jan Wahl, KRON 4's own Hat Lady Film Reviewer, introduced the theme of the festival and the spoke the voice of the sponsors. Though brief, Wahl's introduction cemented the specific niche of SF Indie Fest. Though Independent film festivals abound, San Francisco's interest is a unique expression of the city's desire for cultural multiplicity. And my do we have an avid cinema-going public!

After Wahl addressed the crowd, she introduced Jeff Ross, the festival's founder. Ross explained the festival's earliest days were borne of necessity. Originally lasting only 4 days at the Victoria Theatre, Ross began the fest because a friend made a film to screen at Park City, but had no venue at which to show it. Creating a venue for his friend's film became a democratic venture, opening doors to others who had similarly made films and had no place to screen. This year, Indiefest is 8 years old and backed by notable local film organizations and a host of SF-centric businesses, such as SFStation, Lost Weekend Video, and the 2-year-old Blog SFIst.com. Conceding to his anxiety for public speaking, Ross introduced Bruce Fletcher and Tiffany Nyman, who's job it was to explain why we will not meet the director of the evening's film, John Hillcoat.

Originally slated to introduce the film, the director, along with two other makers of the film, got ill in Park City. After Fletcher introduced Nyman, Nyman explained that Hillcoat's child had caught a bug at their home in the UK, and Hillcoat ran home to attend. Humorously sidetracked by some random audio-visual problems, Nyman stepped down and Fletcher reasserted the theme established earlier by Wahl: Indifest will be showing films that won't be accessible anywhere else. "I highly suggest you see NAISU NO MORI: THE FIRST CONTACT, it's unlike anything else and it's a film that will not EVER hit DVD so this is the ONLY place you'll see it."  (For more on this, read the review of this film in the review section.) And with this, the film began to roll.



Far more star studded than one would expect from the opening film at IndieFest 8, THE PROPOSITION is a western set in British Colonial Australia in the late 1800's. Scripted and scored by Nick Cave, the film is an Australian/UK Co-production that looks at a period of British Colonialism in a way that is both morally and hygienically ambiguous. Starring Guy Pearce (of MEMENTO and LA CONFIDENTIAL fame), co-starring Ray Winstone (SEXY BEAST, COLD MOUTNAIN), and featuring John Hurt, Emily Watson and Danny Huston among others, the film follows the parallel cop and robber stories of Charlie Burns and Captain Stanley, respectively. Comprised of four Irish Brothers, an erudite aborigine with impeccable English and a female healer, the Burns Gang are responsible for the most brutal crime committed on a white family in the recent history of the Colonial Territory.

The film begins in a graphic shootout inside a brothel, the audience entering on the side of the attacked identify with the criminals. After surviving the assault, Charlie Burns (Pearce) and his younger brother Mikey, are questioned by Captain Stanley (Winstone) regarding the whereabouts the remaining members of the Burns Gang. Inconclusively written, the dialogue in this scene sets our criminal hero on a path to uncover and destroy his brothers, in return for the survival of the younger, possibly disabled Mikey.  While Winstone's portrayal of the "civilize at all costs" police Captain is clean, headstrong and absorbed in his own brand of justice, Pearce's portrayal of Charlie is quiet, ambivalent and somehow accepting of the "fresh hell" about him.

Though strident differences are represented in the film, the parallels between the civilized and the uncivilized are quiet ones and the film's moral ambiguities are portrayed in ways that are almost shockingly subtle. The criminals spout poetry and read books - sing hymns as they rape and pillage, the English policemen drink excessively and treat most like animals, the local body of colonial government is blood hungry and heartless and the white colonists are at war with the aborigines who's land they take leaders they kill.

A complex and veiled commentary on the nature of civilization, the film offers a view on issues central to the genre of the Western that are so uniquely realized, they're as controversial as they are universal. What the film conjectures is that the "spirit of the western" as it were, is not unique to America and is a close cousin to colonialism. As manifest destiny has made a true cause of distinguishing itself from ‘the demon' colonialism, this proves a controversial look at the history of an era we find fit to revive every 15 years. Simultaneously incomprehensible and essential, the film's history of British and Irish vigilantes (cowboys without cows) depicts a form of independence that is not idyllic, rather it is immediate, frightening and gruesome. (Did I mention the violence is not only graphic it's revolting?)

Following the discussion cum debates in the foyer, a large portion of the mass attended the Opening Night party at Belazzo 18 Art Gallery on Mission and 18th; where it was rumored many of the festival's filmmakers would be in attendance. Featuring multiple DJs, a backroom screening space for short films, and a confounding (and again, SF-centric) performance of "Drunken Jeopardy" by the conceptual art grouping Shadow Circus Creature Theatre, there was food, drink and entertainment following this theme of San Francisco Independence in every space available. Bolstering the niche and the agenda of the festival in its hometown, it seems that the festival keeps its promises.

For more on the events of SF Indie Fest, go to http://www.sfindie.com/indiefest06/