Sorry, movie star fans, but the exceedingly glamorous Sundance Film Festival will not be held in San Francisco in 2027, as our bid to be the festival’s new home was rejected.

The most prestigious film festival in the United States is the Sundance Film Festival, considered one of the world’s “Big Five” film festivals along with Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, and Venice. But news broke last month that the Sundance Film Festival was looking for a new host city after spending most of its 46-year history in Park City, Utah. And it was quite exciting that San Francisco put in a bid to become the new permanent home of Sundance.

Well, sorry to ruin your paparazzo dreams everybody, but the Chronicle reports that San Francisco has lost its bid for the Sundance Film Festival. The application was being handled by the San Francisco Film Commission.

“We remain proud of our community and the abundance of quality film festivals and media events that San Francisco is home to like Arab Film Festival, CAAMFest, Frameline, Jewish Film Festival, SFFILM Festival, SF IndieFest, SF Urban Film Fest, Silent Film Festival, Queer Women of Color Film Festival, and so many more,” that commission’s executive director Manijeh Fata said in a statement to the Chronicle. “We know the vital role of the film industry in San Francisco's economic recovery and growth.”

Frankly, this rejection is probably a huge relief to some of those local film festivals Fata mentioned, particularly SFFILM. Sundance would have completely overshadowed those festivals and rendered them small potatoes (not to mention, bleeding their donor bases too).

Plus, theater venues are an incredibly important part of the bid. And we cannot be 100% sure that the Castro Theatre renovations would be complete by January 2027. Yes, the Castro is scheduled to reopen by summer 2025. But a renovation taking a year and a half longer than anticipated is not unusual, particularly in this town.

The Sundance Film Festival expects to announce its new permanent home “later this winter,” per the Chronicle.

Related: San Francisco Is Putting In a Bid to Become the New Home of the Sundance Film Festival [SFist]

Image: Alex Moliski via Unsplash

Despite being issued a cease-and-desist from a Utah Sheriff's Department, Uber will continue to use their helicopter service at the Sundance Film Festival.

As reported earlier this week, Uber has teamed up with the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus to transport Sundance Film Festival-goers in H125 and H130 helicopters from the Salt Lake City Airport to Park City. According to The Hollywood Reporter, rides on the "UberChopper" cost $200 trips (the rate increases to $300 for night trips), and also includes complete Uber SUV service to locations around Park City from the town's helicopter pads. Hey, it's cheaper than trying to Uber from Outside Lands.

But the Associated Press writes, the local sheriff's department isn't down. As Summit County Sheriff Justin Martinez told the AP that he has grounds to ticket or arrest pilots, because Uber and Airbus failed to get the proper permits to land in fields. "I don't want to arrest people and take them to jail," Martinez said. "But that is an option available to me."

Hundreds of residents complained about the helicopter landings. "It was the people who came storming into Sundance, started flying their helicopters and landing them," said prosecutor Robert Hilder, who sought a restraining order against the choppers.

Meanwhile, Uber and Airbus say there was no permit to apply for anyway, according to Business Insider. On Friday, Judge Kara Pettit ruled that prosecutors against Uber and Airbus didn't have enough evidence against a restraining order, but would revisit the case on Monday. But by then, it'll be too late anyway, because that's when the chopper service ends.

"This is an interesting case," Hilder told the AP. "It deals with a lot that's happened in the world and happened very quickly. You essentially have a revolution in transportation."

Sigh. San Francisco Film Society just announced that beloved Executive Director Bingham Ray died today, January 23, while attending the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. In addition to manning the noted SF Film Society, Ray cofounded October Films. October, billed as "one of the foremost independent film companies of the 1990s," snagged two Oscars and scored 13 Oscar nominations and other cinema prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. Some of October Films' credits include Secrets & Lies, The Apostle, Cookie's Fortune, The Celebration, Lost Highway, The Last Seduction, and Breaking the Waves.

"The board of directors and staff of the Film Society are stunned and deeply saddened by the untimely death of our executive director Bingham Ray. We at the Film Society and the entire film community have lost far too early an energetic and visionary impact player who has helped shape the independent film industry for decades in so many important and valuable ways," said Pat McBaine, SFFS board president. "He shall be dearly missed. Our deepest sympathies and condolences go out to Bingham's family and his legions of friends and colleagues all over the world who loved and respected him."

Ray was hospitalized over the weekend following a series of strokes. He is survived by his wife Nancy, and their children Nick, Annabel and Becca. He was 57.

Once known a the framework for independent film to reach a wider audience, the Sundance FIlm Festival is now a showcase for the rich and famous to showcase stabs at cinema gold. More or less. Take, for example, Jennifer Siebel-Newsom, whose documentary Miss Representation premiered.

Local photographer Drew Altizer, whose new site SFWire.com keeps track of all your favorite local rich freakazoids, snapped these shots of the former SF first lady Jennifer Siebel-Newsom and her pals, including Gloria Steinem and Jo Reynolds Daphne Zuniga.

Siebel-Newsom's documentary features Margaret Cho, Katie Couric, Geena Davis, Rosario Dawson, Dianne Feinstein, Jane Fonda, Paul Haggis, Catherine Hardwicke, Dolores Huerta, Jackson Katz, Jean Kilbourne, Martha Lauzen, Lisa Ling, Rachel Maddow, and more. According to its IMDB page, the movie "[e]xplores the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America, and challenges the media's limited portrayal of what it means to be a powerful woman" Which sounds right up our alley, so look elsewhere for snide commentary about it.

Speaking of snide, Dede Wilsey's son Todd Traina debuted his newest film at Sundance, too. It's called Another Happy Day, a film about "touchy dynamics." It looks good. Unless it's loaded with quirky characters. In which case, forget it. We loathe quirky characters, which is what, for us, made Six Feet Under unwatchable. We digress.

Read all about Drew's Sundance hobnobbing at SFWire.

Ooooh!!! You know we love the Asian-American Film Festival! We love the feature films by the young ambitious Asian-American directors, we love , we love the KQED-ready documentaries about identity and history, we love the beautifully shot foreign films, and we loooooooooove Music Video Asia! MAN, do we love Music Video Asia. (Plus -- a sing-along Colma The Musical!)

The film festival starts in two weeks and runs from March 13 through the 23rd, with screenings all over SF and the Bay Area. Check out the movies here, and buy your tickets here. (Alas, Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay is already sold out (!!!) of presale tickets, but they usually release a few tickets on the day of, so if you love your stoner movies, put down the bong and get in line outside the Kabuki Sundance on Sat. March 15 for the 3 p.m. showing.)

And as always, SFist will be there on the scene, taking in the movies, so keep coming back here and see how this year's SFIAAFF goes!

Timberwolves 109 Warriors 108- And how did the Warriors celebrate not only MLK Day but the official start of George Bush's last year in office? They lost to the worst team in the NBA, the Minnesota Timberwolves as an Al Harrington lay up in the final seconds clanged off the rim. The TWolves had lost 16 straight games on the road. Of interest is the fact that the Beard had only fifteen points and missed a couple of shots at the end of the game, this coming after spending the previous night partying in Sundance as the movie he produced, "Made in America," premiered. That might have had an effect on his performance, but we're going to let it slide as how many basketball teams feature a player who produces a documentary that makes it to Sundance?

-A few notes about Sunday's playoff games: We here at SFist have a rule about playoff games played in freezing temperatures in that whichever coach appears to be less spooked by the cold wins. Coughlin dressed like it was just a normal winter game and other than looking like he got frostbite, didn't appear to be bothered at all. Mike McCarthy, the Packers coach, dressed like Ralphie's brother in A Christmas Story. We also couldn't help notice that while Eli looked completely nonplussed by the weather, Favre looked miserable out there.

"Tales of Mere Existence" By Levni R. Yilmaz Esq

VOTE LEV!!!
TOME is in this competition that Delta Airlines is running to play short films between features on the plane. The 'Tales' episode "Conversation" is up against 4 other short films, The winner will be announced at Sundance (!?!) in a week or so. Please take a moment to cast a vote here.

Japantown's new Sundance Cinemas Kabuki will offer the more discerning moviegoer (i.e.. people who self-consciously laugh out loud during Shakespeare comedies) something, well, more. Curbed SF has the full rundown on the new movie house that's sure to make you feel even that more self-righteous than you already do while braving the choppy waters of independent film. Check it:

Designed by Berkeley-based ELS architects, the renovation of the former AMC Kabuki 8 utilizes post-consumer recycled woods, repurposed metals, locally reclaimed resources, and live bamboo plants. And although they're not LEED accredited, the theater strives to maintain an eco-friendly facility by recycling and composting its waste.

Wow. The place has yet to show its first preview and we're already more annoyed with the audiences there than at the Embarcadero Cinemas. Who knew such a thing was possible?

But on the plus side? "A special over-21 seating area where guests can pair their fine films with fine wines." Getting smashed at le cinéma universel? A special section where teenagers are verboten? To get a buzz, we no longer have to wait until the lights dim to surreptitiously de-tinfoil a brownie and pop it into our mouth? Wonderful! That is exciting news. And we can't wait to see Japantwon become the new it neighborhood. We've always had a soft spot for the area ever since Japantown Bowl closed up shop. Weep, weep.

Also, this could very well be the theater to go to if you don't want to get murdered. Options: it's what America is all about. See you at the movies, kids.


Image credit: Curbed SF

Even though there's no film fests in town, we stopped by the movie theater and checked out American Fusion, which opened this past weekend at the Sundance Kabuki. This film totally reminded us of a Jimmy Kimmel Patton Oswald joke we heard a few years ago that references the breaks one gets upon growing older.

Well, the wickedly funny Taiwanese grandmother, played by Lan Yeung, was not 100 (which according to Oswald, entitles one to kill anyone with their bare hands if possible), but close enough. She had us doubled over many many times throughout this film with her irreverent (and very unabashed) cultural stereotyping. If you’ve ever had a grandparent or elderly relative who resorts to blackmailing you into compliance with their not-so-subtle threats that they’re gonna kick the bucket any day now - or if you’ve ever had to witness their inappropriate ethnic comments (to put it nicely) in public -- then you know exactly what we’re talking about.

It’s not just about Grandma, though. American Fusion is an in your face portrait of intergenerational family conflict that almost anyone can relate to in part (and some probably all too well). It features former NYPD Blue hottie Esai Morales (what’s the latest on his legal woes?!), aka Dr. Martinez, the Mexican dentist who steps directly into granny’s path when he makes a move on her middle-age daughter, Yvonne (Sylvia Chang). There are plenty of cameos in the film, including one by Pat Morita (R.I.P.), the beloved Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid.

American Fusion continues at the Sundance Kabuki, and opens this Friday at the Oaks Theatre in Berkeley.

p.s. Any word on when the new Sundance café (that replaced Pasta Pomodoro) next to the theater is gonna get its liquor license? It’s about time!

SFist Wendy, contributing.

Filmmaker Shimon Dotan spent about a year interviewing various imprisoned Palestinian political terrorists about their lives and their crimes. We were a little startled that even people serving multiple life sentences in a maximum-security Israeli jail wear street clothes, live together in what look like big dorm rooms, attend graduate programs in universities, and even run for political office. The Israeli prison guards reluctantly admit that prisoners are able to communicate freely amongst themselves and with prisoners in other prisons, and that several terrorist attacks have been planned and executed from within the prison walls.

Passes! Passes! We got movie passes! Wanna see , a movie about a high-spirited Asian-Canadian girl whose older sister is going through a Christian religious conversion, and whose family is learning to assimilate in Vancouver? (The "fire horse" part of the title refers to a superstition in Chinese astrology that children born in 1978 are particularly rambunctious.) We have no idea what's going on in that picture above, but it looks awesome!

Eve is playing for two weeks only at the Sundance Kabuki theater -- we've got five passes to give away, which are good for you and a friend for any screening any day between Monday and Thursday. We'll mail you the passes, so give us your address (and we won't use it for any other purposes).

Winners will be announced around the end of the day today.

Mark and Alex grew up as extremely close brothers in Missoula, Montana. As they entered adolescence, both realized they were gay, and in struggling to come to terms with that, both entered into abusive relationships (with the same man) and fell into drug use and depression. After returning from rehab, Alex announced to his twin and his family that he no longer identified as male, and was adopting the name Clair. The movie is about their family's in accepting, and then embracing, this new reality as the twins enter adulthood.

was filmed over a three and a half year span, and as the twins grow up and become more comfortable in their own shared, yet separate, identities, it was truly moving to see their mother move herself from anger and denial to a whole-hearted happiness that both Clair and Mark had grown up so well. The twins are both extremely well-spoken and thoughtful, and speak eloquently about embracing ambiguity in themselves and their twin: Clair put it well when she says, "I wasn't born a man or a woman, I was born to make this change from one to another."

As someone in the question and answer session said, this is a movie where everyone -- not just Clair -- goes through a profound transformation: whether it's Clair growing more comfortable in her gendered identity, Mark learning to expand his boundaries through love, or their mother realizing that her child is still her child. And as someone else pointed out at the Father's Day screening, the Fairleys' father's unconditional support of Clair was a lifeline as well.

Red Without Blue screens again on Wednesday the 20th at the Castro at 2:30, and then will be showing on the Sundance Channel on June 25th at 9 p.m.

Picture of identical twins Mark and Clair Farley by Brooke Sebold.

If you’re hoping to get into the competitive side of air guitar, or just prove to your partner that your moves really are totally solid, you should check out “Air Guitar Nation”, a new documentary (though, hey, we do prefer the word ROCK-umentary) directed by Alexandra Lipsitz. Think of watching the film as being akin to viewing tapes of the opponents so you can crib their best moves, sound tracks, and style (kind of like the plot of Stomp the Yard except that all things Air Guitar rock way, way harder). In order to give SFist readers a decided edge over all other comers, Alexandra Lipsitz was kind enough to give us a connoisseur and insider scoop on the air guitar scene. In addition to air guitar tips, Lipsitz reminds us that the hippies that remain in SF are so much lamer than those of yesteryear. Excellent!

Wanna become part of ? We've got passes, good for any day Monday through Thursday of next week.

Air Guitar Nation opens May 11 at the Sundance Cinemas Kabuki in San Francisco.

What inspired "Air Guitar Nation?"
The love of Music, of acting out and becoming a rock god, Cedric Devitt and Kriston Rucker's genius, The Wall St Journal, Finland, men who stuff there pants and are not ashamed to do so on camera, Bjorn Turoque and C-diddy, Brian May, Groupies and what they will do for love, making something out of nothing etc. etc.

Have you ever rocked an air guitar or other air instrument?
I am a purist on the air guitar - I rock, I love duets and dueling banjos is one of my favorite tracks to air to at weekend aireoke.

What is the MONEY move in an AG competition?
I think throwing an air guitar up in the air is hot, but if you find a way to hang upside down and air guitar- evoke some danger somehow- like rushing the judges or falling off a stack of amps- that rocks- maybe some ripping off of clothes but most importantly you have to have good facial expressions at the ready. Bjorn Turoque is famous for the "I can’t believe how much I rock "face

What should one wear to an AG competition?
Whatever suits your persona. I have seen everything from a diaper to a full body stocking to a fuzzy suit, but Cdiddy mastered it with the Hello Kitty Breast Plate!

Who are the best AG'ers out there?
Zac "the magnet" Monro, Cdiddy, Miri "Sonyk Rok" Park, Bjorn Turoque, Oshi ( the reigning world champ) The destroyer, Stan Kreich, William Ocean, Rockness Monster, Mother Rucker, Hott Lixx Hullihan, Chi Chi Rodriquez, Power...I can go on for hours. It all comes down to a moment in time anyone can have a good day. But the champions have many more good days than us normal folk.

What's the best song to AG to?
Motorhead's Ace of Spades is one of the best- I like Shook me all night long, California Uber Alles, Joker and the Thief by Wolfmother, Bohemian Rhapsody, Song #2, Take me Out, Cannonball, Stop, Hot For Teacher, Welcome to the Jungle, a 12 minute live version of Freebird can be amazing if you get 35 sweaty tired folks together in a bar at 2am after a good night of air guitaring