Local Stories By Local Filmmakers

Media Alliance is proud to sponsor the April 10th screening of three short documentaries as part of the 7th Annual San Francisco International Women's Film Festival. SFIWFF is one of the country’s foremost film festivals dedicated to increasing awareness of the underrepresented voices of women filmmakers, celebrating that work and bringing it to the attention of new and wider audiences.

On April 10th, at 3 PM, the Roxie Theater in San Francisco will host a screening entitled "Local Stories by Local Filmmakers". Three films will be presented:

Esther and Me (2010, 33 min.)
A touching and humorous portrait of San Francisco Jewish nursing home resident, Esther Weintraub. Through the use of interviews and archival and contemporary photos, the film traces Esther's story over the course of 74 years, from age 15 as a professional violinist in a Canadian mandolin orchestra to age 89 as a San Francisco nursing home resident.

Positive Negatives (2010, 35 min.)
David Johnson, now 84 years old, was the first African American student to study photography under Ansel Adams. But unlike Ansel Adams, David Johnson found his landscape on the street where he lived. He produced an invaluable collection of black and white images from 1946 to 1966 showing the social, political and private lives of Blacks living in San Francisco's Fillmore District. Several of his prints are included in the Library of Congress and his name is etched in concrete at the Fillmore Plaza in San Francisco.

Raging Grannies (2009, 30 min.)
In ostrich feathers, crazy hats, and boas the Raging Grannies protest all over the Bay Area with a sense of outrage, a sense of humor, and a commitment to non-violence. They are women over 50, some as old as 90, who are enraged by the conditions under which some people are forced to live, by threats to our environment, by war, and by injustice wherever they find it.