IBFF completed its 2013 Showcase presentation in the San Francisco Bay area after screening ten films from seven countries over ten days: nine premieres, five filmmakers arriving from as far away as London and Tel Aviv, and attendance that would have ranked it number two in the US for single screen average for indie films for the week.
Highlights included the opening night screening of the West Coast premiere of When the Iron Bird Flies, with its editor/associate producer Catherine Hollander handling the Q&A for hospitalized director Victress Hitchcock, who spoke via speakerphone with guest presenter Anam Thubten on stage after the film; director Dafna Yachin flew in from Tel Aviv to present the West Coast premiere of her Digital Dharma, and she was joined onstage by Jeff Wallman, executive director of TBRC, the organization founded by E. Gene Smith, featured in the film; five US premieres—Karma, from Nepal, Olo, the Boy from Tibet, from Japan, Mindfulness and Murder, from Thailand, and Thangka and The Great Pilgrim, both from China; the West Coast premiere of KanZeOn, with filmmaker Neil Cantwell on hand from the UK; a rare public screening and Bay Area premiere of the Cannes Grand Prix-winning The Mourning Forest; and a special screening of Tokyo Waka with filmmakers Kris Samuelson and John Haptas hosting a wide-ranging Q&A to close out the program.
IBFF 2013 SHOWCASE was co-presented at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center by the California Film Institute, and in San Francisco by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
