Petaluma International Film Festival offers cinematic feast

Running Oct. 28 to Oct. 30, the eighth annual festival at Petaluma’s Boulevard 14 Cinemas features a diverse lineup of films from 40 countries.|

Long before Netflix and OnDemand made home “binge watching” possible, festivals were the best and only way for film fans to indulge in gleeful cinematic overconsumption. It is to satisfy just that kind of urge that Saeed Shafa founded the Petaluma International Film Festival.

For its eighth year, Shafa and his team will be bringing to the Boulevard 14 Cinema dozens of films and documentaries from all over the world.

“Ever since we started, interest has been very high in the area,” he said. “The movie-going community in Petaluma and around Sonoma County is very active. They are always looking for something new.”

This year, they will certainly get it.

Boasting on screen performances by stars such as Sharon Stone, Peter Coyote, Kevin Pollack, and Girard Depardieu, the 40 films on display at this year’s event - running Oct. 28-30 - are the work of filmmakers from around 18 different countries.

Featuring strong storytelling and brilliant performances, the event includes features and short films from the U.S., England, France, Italy, Turkey, India, Iran, Canada, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Switzerland, and - just for fun - a few made right here in Sonoma County.

“A few years ago we started doing a Sonoma County Showcase,” Shafa explained. “It focuses on films made in the area, or made by local filmmakers. It’s been one of the most successful parts of the Petaluma International Film Festival. Many people don’t realize how much film is being made in and around Petaluma.”

One such film, featured in this year’s showcase, is director Alex Ranarivelo’s “Running Wild” (screening Oct. 29 at 6:15 p.m.), which tells the story of a recent widow (Dorian Brown) who discovers that her late husband’s secret debts have put their horse ranch in jeopardy.

Ranarivelo is the director of the recent “The Dog Lover,” which was shot in and around Petaluma. The new film features Sharon Stone as the villain, with performances by Brown (FX’s “Wilfred”) and Tommy Flanagan (“Sons of Anarchy”), following the widow as she hires a crew of ex-convicts to help round up a herd of wild horses that have made her ranch their home.

Ranarivelo and Brown will be present for a question and answer session following the screening.

Asked why the festival was created with the notion of including a large number of international films, Shafa pointed to the community’s eclectic nature.

“Our community is very diverse. I thought it would be beneficial to show films made locally, and made in America, but also to show films from other cultures as well,” he said. “That’s why I decided to put the word ‘international’ into the name of the festival.”

Shafa has some experience with such endeavors, as he is also the founder and director of the Tiburon International Film Festival, which just marked its fifteenth year last April, and the San Francisco Iranian Film Festival, which he created in 2009.

“I busy all year round,” he laughed.

Here are some highlights of what to look for at this year’s festival:

From Canada comes Sean Garrity’s bittersweet road-trip movie “Borealis” (Oct. 29, 8:30 p.m.), about a gambling-addicted dad who takes his estranged pot-smoking daughter on a trip to see the Northern Lights, while she still can. A rare eye disease threatens to take her vision completely, and despite being pursued by a ruthless bookie (Kevin Pollack), the mismatched duo find themselves bonding in illuminating ways. A different kind of bonding takes place in Constance Murphy’s 15-minute short “Rhapsody” (accompanying “Borealis”), in which Gerard Depardieu plays a lonely man who agrees to watch after a young woman’s baby each day when she goes to work in the city. The sweet and delicate film has won accolades at numerous film festivals around the world.

Turkey’s delightful “Snow Pirates” (Oct. 29, 4:15 p.m.) is the story of three boys living under a strict military dictatorship in 1980. With a cold winter having fallen upon them and their families left with little money to buy firewood, the boys set off on a holiday adventure, with their sleds in tow, seeking to find and recover whatever bits of coal they might find in the ash-heaps across the town.

The film is directed by Faruk Hacihafizoglu.

Fans of documentaries - and burlesque dancing – will want to quickstep it to “The League of Exotique Dancers” (Oct. 28, 10:15 p.m.), director Rama Rau’s “backstage tour” through the colorful history of Las Vegas dancers. Featuring newly discovered archival footage, the film tells the stories of a number of pioneering women who dared to live their dreams, and what they’ve been doing with their lives ever since.

“Freightened: The Real Price of Shipping,” an eye-opening documentary by Denis Delestrac, examines the costs of freight shipping in America. Featuring interviews with such folks as Noam Chomsky, the film takes a look at the overseas cargo shipping industry, which supplies 90 percent of the goods American consumers buy each year.

The film screens at noon Oct. 30.

It is just one more of dozens of films, which should provide local binge-watchers more than enough to sate their appetite for rich, unusual, wholly unpredictable film making.

For more details about the event at the 200 C. St. theater or to buy tickets, visit petalumafilmfestival.org.

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