Screen Grabs: 25th DocFest bring high-heeled anarchy, Amazing Sea Monkeys, rock stars' wangs - 48 hills

SF DocFest, a spinoff of SF IndieFest, has grown into a stable of satellite events across the annual calendar, with additional festivals planned. Some Bay Area cinema showcases that existed when DocFest began have closed due to shrinking audiences and rising costs. DocFest is celebrating its 25th year with a program running from Wednesday 27 through Thursday 4, with online screenings continuing until Sunday 7. The lineup includes new nonfiction filmmaking and an honorary “2001 Flashback” sidebar that revisits titles from the inaugural edition, including early ticket prices. A dedicated night features early Errol Morris-like studies of all-American eccentrics, including Atomic Ed and the Black Hole, Gibtown, and Plaster Caster.

"SF DocFest, i.e. the San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, was the new kid on a crowded local block-the first spinoff from SF IndieFest, which has since created a whole stable of satellite events across the annual calendar. (With yet more to come, as animal-centric Critter Fest will launch this fall.) Not a few Bay Area cinema showcases that were well-established when DocFest arrived are now defunct, victims of shrinking audiences and rising costs, among many factors. But DocFest and other IndieFest brethren endure, the former now marking its 25th year."

"That quarter-century mark gets celebrated with a program this Wed/27 through Thurs/4-its online component runs till Sun/7-that as usual finds a lot of fun in new nonfiction filmmaking. But there are also some honorary looks backward, notably a "2001 Flashback" sidebar (complete with 2001 ticket prices) bringing back a few favorite titles from the festival's inaugural edition. The kind of Early Errol Morris-Like studies of all-American eccentrics that have been an integral part of DocFest gets a night to itself this Wed. via three such golden oldies."

"First on that look-back bill is a double bill of Atomic Ed and the Black Hole by Ellen Spiro (who'll attend the screening) about a former atomic bomb-maker turned collector of Nuclear Age errata, with Mellisa Edmon's Gibtown, profiling the Central Florida hamlet that's retained its edge after decades as a home for sideshow and circus performers during their off-season."

"The night's second program is Jessica Everleth's Plaster Caster, whose subject was just in her early 50s at the time-she passed away a few years ago at age 74. Cynthia "Plaster Caster" Albritton was famous as a rock groupie who coddled (and/or worried) rock stars' egos by making plaster-cast sculptural duplicates of their, um, non-musical equipment. Her models ran from Jimi Hendrix to New Wave and punk luminaries; eventually she also cast the breasts o"

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