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California
Film Institute
Celebrating film as art and education.
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CFI supports its mission by
presenting the annual Mill
Valley Film Festival; exhibiting film year-round at
the Christopher B.
Smith Rafael Film Center; and building the next generation
of filmmakers and audiences through CFI
Education. CFI is an internationally respected nonprofit
arts organization that presents innovative work of emerging
and established filmmakers whose films address diverse issues
relevant to contemporary society. Learn
more about CFI
CFI relies on the generosity of its community to thrive.
Your support enables CFI to continue offering the quality
programming and events you love. You can provide financial
support by becoming a member, making a donation, or becoming
a corporate or foundation sponsor. There are also many exciting
volunteer opportunities available to help CFI. Be
a Supporter!
For more information
please feel free to Contact Us anytime.
Interested in working at CFI? Check out our
Jobs and Internships
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Enjoy
the Rewards of Membership Year Round, Including:
Discount Tickets at the Rafael: general
admission tickets for members are still only $5.50, despite
an increase in general admission ticket prices to $10.00, allowing
members to experience unparalleled access to the best
international and independent cinema at a much lower
cost than most Bay Area theaters.
Member Preview Screenings: members can
participate in special advance screenings, often
with accompanying actors, director’s screenwriters
and producers. This could be you!
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| Mill
Valley Film Festival
The Mill
Valley Film Festival celebrated its 30th year in 2007
with a stellar showcase of over 200 films from around
the world. Known as the filmmakers’ festival, MVFF
offers a high profile, prestigious, non-competitive environment
perfect for celebrating the best independent and world
cinema.
The 31st Mill Valley
Film Festival takes place October 2-12, 2008. Call
For Entries opens April 1st.
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CFI Education
offers tremendous value to students, artists, aspiring
filmmakers and regional community groups through year-round
screenings and seminars.<more
info> |
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Kudos—Awards and Recognition
The Bohemian's and Pacific Sun's Best of the North Bay 2008
Thank you to the readers of the North Bay Bohemian
and Pacific Sun for voting the Rafael the Best Movie Theater
in Marin. We look forward to continuing to provide you with
your finest experience at the movies and the great programming
you have come to expect from all of us at the California
Film Institute.
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 Sleepwalking
CFI
Member Screening
With special guest: Charlize Theron and Nick Stahl
Sunday, March 2, 2008
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Receive email notices about films and
special events happening at the Smith Rafael Film Center.
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Now
Playing at the Rafael
1118 Fourth Street, San Rafael
 Gonzo:
The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro,” said Hunter
S. Thompson, the iconoclastic American writer
who created the brash, irreverent brand of journalism
called “gonzo,” in which the reporter becomes
a central part of the story. Called by Tom Wolfe “our
greatest comic writer,” Thompson was a walking
contradiction: a die-hard member of the NRA, he was
also a frenzied abuser of mind-altering substances,
as well as a steel-eyed critic of political corruption.
Sponsored by: 
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 Encounters
at the End of the World
Filmmaker-explorer Werner Herzog (Grizzly
Man, Rescue Dawn) takes us on a
personal and poetic journey to Antarctica, where
we observe the animal life native to the bottom
of the world, as well as the singular human lives
who gravitate there. Beginning at the McMurdo
Station, the hub of the US Antarctic Program
and home to 1,100 people during the austral spring
and summer (October to February), Herzog visits
the scientists and adventurers who individually
study volcanoes, penguins and the cathedrals
of light and silence that exist in the ocean
underneath the ice. |
 Mongol
Award-winning Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov (Prisoner
of the Mountains) illuminates the early life of
legendary warrior Genghis Khan, in this stunning historical
epic filmed on remote locations in China, Mongolia
and Kazakhstan and nominated this year for an Oscar
for Best Foreign Language Film. Spanning his life from
his perilous childhood (he was born as Temudgin in
1162) through the year 1206, when feuding Nomadic tribes
united under his leadership, Mongol paints a complex
portrait of the future conqueror and visionary leader.
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 Show
People
Silent Film with Live Music!
Piano accompaniment by Bruce Loeb
Thursday, July 10, 7:00
Presented in a 35mm print straight
from the studio vault, this terrific
silent film comedy stars Marion
Davies as Georgia peach Peggy Pepper, an aspiring
actress seeking her fortune in Hollywood,
who first breaks into slapstick comedies,
and when she graduates to “high
class” dramas, buries her lowbrow
past and changes her name to Patricia
Pepoire. (Her story is an affectionate
parody of the career of Gloria Swanson.)
Directed by the great King
Vidor, this
lighthearted satire of the movie industry
features several celebrity cameos (including
Charlie Chaplin and King Vidor himself)
as well as a fascinating look inside
the growing MGM Studio.
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 The
Mont Alto Orchestra - Chicago
Monday, July 14, 7:00
$15 (CFI Members $12)
Live Music for Silent Film!
You’ve seen the hit musical, now
see the original. Virtually unseen since
its 1927 release, silent film sensation
Chicago will swing to life through a
restored 35mm print from the UCLA Film & Television
Archive and a music score of 1920s pop
and jazz performed by the world-acclaimed
quintet The Mont Alto Motion Picture
Orchestra.
Produced by Cecil B. DeMille, this saucy saga of jazz-age
scandal stars Phyllis Haver in a sexy and witty performance
as Roxie Hart, the married gold digger who shoots her
illicit lover when he makes the mistake of jilting her.
Sponsored by:  |
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 The
Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite)
Opens Friday, July 11
Winner
of Best Screenplay
at the Cannes
Film Festival,
this profoundly
moving cross-cultural mosaic by filmmaker Fatih
Akin (Head-On) traces
the intersecting fates of six characters
whose destinies drive them back and forth
between Germany and Turkey. Turkish-German
university professor Nejat (Baki
Davrak) resents
his widower father Ali’s (Tuncel
Kurtiz) choice of Yeter (Nurcel
Köse),
a prostitute, for a girlfriend, but when
he discovers that she sends money home
to Turkey for the education of her daughter
Ayten (Nurgül Yesilçay),
he travels to Istanbul to find her, unaware
that Ayten, a political activist, has
simultaneously landed in Germany to seek
asylum
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 Tell
No One
Opens Friday, July 18
Just Added!
Based on Harlan Coben’s
international best-seller, this gripping and intricate
French thriller stars François Cluzet as
pediatrician Alex Beck, still grieving for his beloved
wife Margot (Marie-Josée Croze),
who was murdered several years earlier. When two different
bodies are discovered near the scene of the crime,
the police reopen the case and Alex becomes a suspect
once again. The mystery deepens when Alex receives
an anonymous e-mail, linking to a video that suggests
Margot is still alive and also containing an ominous
message: “Tell no one.”
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 My
Winnipeg
Opens Friday, July 25
Lest you are expecting some kind of travelogue,
be assured that visionary Canadian filmmaker Guy
Maddin is operating on all cylinders with this eccentric,
poetic and furiously funny ode to his hometown. Does
Winnipeg, Manitoba, really have 10 times as many sleepwalkers
as any place in the world? Is there a civic law requiring
you to let any former resident of your home stay the
night (including said sleepwalkers)? And was there
a television serial featuring a suicidal hero called “Ledge
Man?”
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 The
Unknown Woman - (La Sconosciuta
Opens Friday, July 25
The latest from Italian filmmaker Giuseppe
Tornatore (Cinema
Paradiso) is a taut thriller starring Xenia
Rappoport as a mysterious young Russian woman who insinuates
herself into the lives of an affluent Italian family,
leading the demons of her past to their doorstep. Taking
a job as a domestic and bonding with the couple’s
fragile young daughter, the enigmatic Irena begins
to expose details of her traumatic and tortured history.
Tornatore unfolds his story as an intricately constructed
jigsaw puzzle, weaving a stylish, suspenseful and even
shocking tale of cruelty, deceit and spiritual redemption.
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