San Francisco Documentary Festival

Wake the Town: Bay Area Stories + Q&A

Expired June 10, 2024 6:59 AM
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8 films in package
Memory Palace
After graduating from college, a first-gen Chinese-American revisits the places that defined each era of his life: early adolescence in the suburbs, fresh independence in a big city, and his ancestral hometown in China. Using the “method of loci,” or “memory palace technique,” he reflects on the relationship between familiar spaces and the vivid, often-poignant memories they conjure.
Co.Ink
Valentin Gatica is a Multi-Media artist and Painter who recently immigrated to San Francisco from Buenos Aires. This film documents this transition in his life and explores his process as he creates a new body of work in the United States, Co.Ink, a playful deconstruction of mass media marketing.
Wake the Town
Three former residents of Oakland CA tell their stories of leaving the city they called home. Two of the three have now died--one of murder--showing the high tragically cost of housing instability.
Compton's '22
On an unknown date in August 1966, trans women in San Francisco's Tenderloin district rioted against police violence at Gene Compton's Cafeteria. There was no news coverage, and the arrest records no longer exist. Decades later, historians Susan Stryker and Victor Silverman unearthed the history of the riot and interviewed the surviving “Compton’s queens.”
Vincent
A young man incarcerated for 9 years comes back into society and goes skating for the first time.
We Exist in Memory
How do you rebuild “home” from nothing but memories? This verite-style film thrusts us into the intimate conversations between Maria and her grandchild, Marucha: two Indigenous refugees living in displacement. To Maria, the Venezuelan delta is her home. To Marucha, these refugee camps are all she knows. Through the rhythms of their daily lives, we witness the complexity of raising a new generation in displacement and explore how land, memory and identity are deeply intertwined.
like a stone or flower
Three artists of different generations reflect on the ability of art to transcend rationality and logic.
Wake the Town Bay Area Stories Q&A

How do you rebuild “home” from nothing but memories? This verite-style film thrusts us into the intimate conversations between Maria and her grandchild, Marucha: two Indigenous refugees living in displacement. To Maria, the Venezuelan delta is her home. To Marucha, these refugee camps are all she knows. Through the rhythms of their daily lives, we witness the complexity of raising a new generation in displacement and explore how land, memory and identity are deeply intertwined.

  • Runtime
    13 minutes
  • Country
    United States
  • Director
    Darian Woehr
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