The Festival, the San Francisco Cinematheque and PFA are pleased to present elegant new works by two of the Bay Area's most esteemed independent and personal filmmakers. Gunvor Nelson and Warren Sonbert have each developed a distinctive way of creating tapestries of moving images which deny familiar cinematic ingredients such as character and plot yet are profoundly evocative and visually stunning experiences. In Natural Features, Swedish-born Nelson mingles hundreds of still images (of herself, political figures, personal mementoes, newspaper illustrations) with 3-D objects (toys, jigsaw puzzles, foil-wrapped chocolates, paint brushes) and "real" (though distorted) images, photographed through glass layerings into a free-associative and frequently bizarre form of animation. Perhaps no film has more successfully blended an evident passion for painting with a sensitivity to filmmaking as lush pigments alter with and punctuate the different photographic layerings. Friendly Witness moves out into the world for the source of its imagery, locations ranging from Sonbert's backyard to some of the most remote places on earth. Sonbert foregoes any pretense of a linear narrative connecting the hundreds of shots, glances, symbolic gestures, rhythmic motions, colors, textures, and other sometimes subtle visual elements that echo and rhyme, sometimes returning with a haunting and new dimension. The binary soundtrack-the first half familiar pop tunes, the second somber orchestral music-serves as a curious counterpoint to the images, pulling us forcefully in and then driving us back to contemplate. --Steve Anker