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Rough Cuts is a series of work-in-progress documentary screenings that are produced by The LAB. Each evening one rough cut of a feature-length documentary will be screened, followed by a moderated conversation about the film with the filmmaker. We hope that the series also provides a welcome space for local filmmakers, film professionals, and fans of documentary film to meet and catch up.

$6 admission, complimentary drinks and hors d’oeuvres provided.

Beard Club, Each day, every man must decide either to shave or not to shave. The act can be one of conformity, rebellion, laziness, or transition. “Beard Club” traces beard trends as far back as Alexander the Great, while, at the same time, presenting profiles and musings of religious men, former 60s activists, world beard competitors, bearded women, and a young Arab graphic novelist. Funny and razor-sharp, “Beard Club” holds a mirror up to the ideas and ideals of facial hair. directed by Laura Lukitsch

Moderator – Mark Smolowitz

Marc Smolowitz is an Academy Award nominated documentary film & television producer (“The Weather Underground” ’03, “Trembling Before G-d” ’01), and is the Producer at TellyTopia, a Silicon Valley company that provides IP-TV solutions to cable operators, satellite companies and online media channels. He also serves as Chair of the Technology Impact Circle at Full Circle Fund, an engaged philanthropy organization cultivating the next generation of community leaders and driving lasting social change in the S.F. Bay Area.

For more details about the screenings and series, visit thelab.org/roughcuts

To attend, please RSVP to roughcutsrsvp@yahoo.com and indicate which screening(s) you plan to attend and whether you plan to bring any guests.

Read It and Weep is a series that aims to take the rock show format and diversify its offerings, encouraging artists from the Bay’s vibrant music scene to present alternative performances.  On October 10th the vehicle will be video and projection.

Some of the artists showing are possibly better known for their musical affiliations (Numbers, Gowns, 16 Bitch Pile Up, K.I.T., 21 Grand, Zeek Shek), but at ATA they will have the opportunity to represent another facet of their talents and interests.

Join us for an evening of short pieces including an 80s pop culture powerpoint, a multi-media performance about asteroids, a percussive surround sound video depicting a 17 year sandstorm, AND a chance to win prizes in punk rock charades!

featuring work by

Sarah Bernat
Eric Landmark
Zeek Shek
Sarah Lockehart
Erika Anderson
Archie McKay
Joey Mansfield
George Chen
and Paul Morgan as Charades Master!

Clean Thursday by Aleksandr Rastorguev

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kino21’s series, How We Fight, presents international works that explore soldiering and depict the experience of war from the point of view of those on the ground.  From Argentina, Russia, Iraq, Germany, France, Holland and the U.S., several of these films are US premieres. On Thursday, September 25 we begin with Iraqi Short Films, a brand new compilation of videos shot in battle by soldiers and militia members in Iraq. Subsequent programs include video diaries of the battlefield and pre- or post-combat rumination, extended observational portraits and interview-based works.  There are depictions of Russian conscripts in Chechnya, PKK rebels in the mountains of Iraq, American veterans returned from Vietnam, and mercenaries and peacekeepers stationed across the globe, from Bosnia to Rwanda, from the Middle East to the USA.

The series continues with two films portraying the words and worlds of conscripted soldiers. Tonight is a study in opposites, on one hand frank questions about slaughter in Interviews with My Lai Veterans and on the other, poetic and ironic observation on fighters’ repose in Clean Thursday. But these films share an unflinching ear and eye for the soldiers who have fought on the ground in two of the world’s most powerful armies.

Filmed two years after the My Lai massacre took place in Vietnam, the Oscar-winning Interviews presents five soldiers who recount their personal experience and understanding of that gruesome day, each one with a different perspective. While Interviews focuses on how soldiers interpret and narrate their role in massacre, Clean Thursday gives the converse: a sensuous and candid look at how soldiers live their moments between the carnage. During the Russian occupation and “cleansing” of Chechnya, a group of rear-guard soldiers is in charge of keeping their army clean. An old steam train transformed into laundry wagons and bathhouses is where most of Rastorguev’s film takes place. Soldiers arrive from the front, sweating and trudging through mud. For a day or two of respite, they wash, swear, remember family, brag about sexual conquests, and recount the hell of a war they’ve survived, as they clean their bodies and clothes only to “once again” kill or be killed at the front.

How We Fight: Conscripts, Mercenaries, Terrorists and Peacekeepers is presented with the generous support of the Potrero Nuevo Fund of the Tides Foundation, the LEF Foundation, and Goethe Institut San Francisco.