SFFS Presents: Film Socialisme. A New Film by Legendary Filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard September 2, 2011

The San Francisco Film Society’s new theatrical home, San Francisco Film Society | New People Cinema will open Friday, September 2 with Film Socialisme (Switzerland/France 2010), legendary director Jean-Luc Godard’s evocative, magisterial essay on the decline of European civilization.

Ever the provocateur, master filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard required that his latest film be presented with subtitles that only suggest the welter of language(s) spoken. It’s an appropriate gambit as the film addresses the decline of Western civilization—and its Babel-like confluence of languages—within the contexts of a polyglot cruise liner traversing the Mediterranean and, more intimately, an intellectual, loving family that runs a service station in provincial France. Weaving together philosophical texts, documentary footage and scenes from classic films, this is a dissonant, dense and challenging work, but also an impassioned and undeniably brilliant investigation into the costs of liberty.
At San Francisco Film Society | New People Cinema, the supremely stylish state-of-the art theater located in the ultra-contemporary New People building at 1746 Post Street (Webster/Buchanan) in Japantown, the San Francisco Film Society will offer its acclaimed exhibition, education and filmmaker services programs and events on a daily year-round basis for the first time in the organization’s storied 54-year history. For complete up-to-date information on all San Francisco Film Society | New People Cinema programming, including buying tickets, visit sffs.org/cinema

Official Website: http://www.sffs.org/content.aspx?catid=8,898&pageid=2284&TitleId=fsc-filmsocialisme