The Odd Mondays Series
Monday June 7th, 7:30 PM Noe Valley Ministry 1021 Sanchez St.
In the downstairs Fellowship Hall
Ramon & Judith Sender & the Noe Valley Ministry
present
A New Film by Irving Saraf and Roberta Goodman
Directed and Edited by Irving Saraf and Allie Light
Official selection 2009 Nashville Film Festival, 2009 San Francisco International Film Festival,
2009 Saladearte International Film Festival,
Salvador, Brazil.
The Empress Hotel, in San Francisco's Tenderloin, is home to a rarified clientele -- sufferers of mental
illness or addiction who have lived on the streets. Not every person can stay on meds or get clean,
yet out of chaos and hopelessness, a community is formed. The film tells the stories of ten of the
residents. Lynn, holder of an M.S. from MIT, reenacts her life on the street. Paul, once a successful
publisher, describes the spirits that now control his body and Eddie talks about his anger, the violence
in his life and his many arrests.
Jeffrey, Sonja and Margarit reveal their battles with addiction and Rene's fight against mental illness.
Action moves from the hotel to the streets of the Tenderloin to provide insight into the lives of
homeless people and what drives their demons and addictions.
Irving Saraf, winner of the 1991 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, In The Shadow
Of The Stars and National Emmy Award for Dialogues With Madwomen, (both with Allie Light), was
born in Poland, raised and educated in Israel and has a B.A. in Motion Pictures from UCLA. He works
in fiction and documentary film as producer, director and editor with over 150 films to his credit,
mostly made for TV. He was the filmmaker of Poland, Changing World (Emmy nomination) and USA
Poetry, (with Richard Moore & Philip Greene) 12 half-hour films about modern poets for NET.
Irving was founder and former head of the KQED-TV film unit and former manager of Saul Zaentz
Production Company. For many years he taught film production at San Francisco State University.
Allie Light, winner of the 1991 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the 1994 National
Emmy Award for best interview program, writes, directs and produces documentary films with her
partner, Irving Saraf. Her credits include: Rachel's Daughters: Searching for the Causes of Breast
Cancer, Dialogues With Madwomen, (Emmy Award; Freedom of Expression Award, Sundance Film
Festival); In The Shadow Of The Stars, (Academy Award); Mitsuye and Nellie, Asian American Poets;
Visions of Paradise (five films about folk artists); Shakespeare's Children (produced by Kate Kline
May); Blind Spot: Murder by Women; Children and Asthma and Good Food, Bad Food, Obesity in
American Children (programs about children's health and the environment); An Iraqi Lullaby and
The Sermons of Sister Jane, Believing the Unbelievable. Her most recent work is Empress Hotel,
released in 2009.
Allie has published a book of poems, The Glittering Cave and edited an anthology of women's writings,
Poetry From Violence. Her essays appear in publications about women. Ms. Light lectured in film at
City College of San Francisco and, for ten years, in the Women Studies Program at San Francisco '
State University. Her life story appears in On Women Turning 50, Celebrating Mid-Life Discoveries, by
Cathleen Rountree (Harper/Collins, 1993), and interviews with Allie are in Film Fatales: Independent
Women Directors, by Judith M. Redding & Victoria A. Brownworth (Seal Press, 1997) and
Documentary Filmmakers Speak by Liz Stubbs (Allworth Press, 2002). Allie has served on the
Media Advisory Panel for the National Endowment for the Arts and is a member of the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Roberta Goodman: During her tenure as building manager at the Empress Hotel, Roberta was
inspired by the life stories of the residents and was committed to putting a human face on
homelessness. Knowing the power of art and its transformative potential, she thought that film would
be the best genre to share the lives of some of the Empress residents. She initiated the film project
and partnered with Oscar and Emmy winning filmmakers, Allie Light and Irving Saraf, and together,
produced "Empress Hotel."
Monday June 21st, 7:30 PM Noe Valley Ministry 1021 Sanchez St.
In Celebration of the 2010 Summer Solstice
In the downstairs Fellowship Hall
Ramon & Judith Sender & the Noe Valley Ministry
present present the film
Back to the Garden: Flower Power Comes Full Circle
Directed by Kevin Tomlinson
http://www.backtothegardenfilm.com
In the Downstairs Fellowship Hall
FREE ADMISSION
In the sixties they were satirized and vilified for rejecting materialism and corporate culture; in the
seventies they stopped the war, started communes, urged back to the land and environmental
sustainability… but by the eighties they had virtually disappeared from everyday life. So where did
all the “flowers” go?
In 1988—nearly twenty years after Woodstock — Seattle filmmaker Kevin Tomlinson asked himself
that question while interviewing a group of back-to-the-land hippies at a back-country healing
gathering in Washington State. He found these folks thriving contrary to popular belief and raising
families while refining their hippie idealism—independent of a mass culture that had
marginalized and all but forgotten them. Doubtful about how seriously this would be viewed in 1988,
the footage sat untouched for almost 20 years.
In 2006, Tomlinson took another look. What these off-grid hippies had talked about in 1988—
sustainability, living simpler, sustainable lives, love for the earth, questioning authority, self-reliance,
and community responsibility—seemed to be blossoming and coming full circle as the impact of
climate change, an unpopular war, shopping-as-patriotism and the green movement took center stage
in mainstream discussion. He set out to find his original subjects again with new questions. The
adventure that followed offers profound, moving insights into one of the most iconic social movements
of our time—and speaks to all of us who grew up then or were affected by sixties counterculture. The
non-conformist lifestyles of these aging back-to-the-landers and their now-thriving families, firmly
insulated from global economic shocks, today looks ahead of its time and wiser than ever.
Kevin Tomlinson – Director
Kevin has been an independent Seattle-based producer, director and cinematographer for over 25
years. He has earned numerous Emmys and Tellys for his network news camerawork with NBC
(Winter Olympics, Dateline, Today show, Nightly News), ABC (20/20), CBS (48 hours, 60 minutes),
PBS (McNeil/Lehrer, Bill Nye the Science Guy), as well as Discovery, Nickelodeon, Japanese TV
(NHK, TV Ashahi), German TV (ZDF, Pro Sieben), Italian TV (RAI), and more.
As a cinematographer, Tomlinson has shot documentaries and travel programs throughout Europe,
Turkey, Morocco, Haiti, Peru, Sri Lanka, Siberia and India. Many shows have been broadcast
nationally on the PBS series Rick Steves' Europe, which won a golden Cine Eagle award in 2001.
He currently shoots documentary and corporate programs for Microsoft, The Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation, and non-profit organizations Bridges to Understanding and Interplast.
Kevin has taught filmmaking at the Seattle Film Institute and 911 Media Arts, where he has
taught Digital Video and Documentary Production since 2004.
Judy Meryl Kaplan – Producer
Since 1988, Judy has managed and produced programs for Heaven Scent Films and was the
primary interviewer/production manager/co-producer for “Back to the Garden.” As a lifelong fine
artist she has exhibited her paintings, created bronze sculpture for public installations, designed
and produced recycled clothing and accessories through her company Frim Fram Design, and has
received both private and public grants and commissions. She's also an RN and a cancer research
consultant for the biotech industry.
In 1969, she hitchhiked to the Woodstock festival at 17 and remembers that it was “very muddy.”