Balboa Theater hosts surf film festival, Sunday block party with the Mermen
The Balboa Theater celebrates the art and cinema of surfing this weekend with the inaugural Ocean Beach Surf Film Festival starting Friday night.
The theater, located just blocks from San Francisco's popular surfing spot Ocean Beach, the three-day festival kicks off with screenings the classic 1966 documentary "Endless Summer." Featuring surfing stars, mighty waves and a glimpse into the surfer psyche, the film will be shown in its original format thanks to a 16mm Technicolor print discovered by local archivist Jon Bastion.
On Saturday, the film line-up includes two sold-out screenings of Thomas Campbell's "The Seedling," presented with live music from noted San Francisco skater and musician Tommy Guerrero and narration by the director along with afternoon screenings of Kathryn Bigelow's "Point Break" and William Phelps' "North Shore."
Sunday finds the film festival hosting a block party that will close down Balboa Street between 37th and 38th avenues between 12 p.m. and 5 p.m. The highlight of the block party will be an an outdoor concert by SF psychedelic surf veterans the Mermen. Founded in the late '80s by guitarist Jim Thomas, bassist Allan Whitman and drummer Martyn Jones, the instrumental power trio started with a fairly traditional approach to surf instrumentals but soon veered into uncharted territory.
The band's second independently released recording Food For Other Fish found Thomas exploring feedback and heavy signal processing through a bank of effects that gave their music a noisier, more psychedelic atmosphere that earned the Mermen comparisons with Sonic Youth. The long-running trio with Thomas, Jones and current bassist Jennifer Burnes continues to regularly record and play live locally.
The party will also include free screenings of local short surf films, face painting for children and DJ sets spun by employees from Tunnel Records, the noted San Francisco record shop that has a satellite location at the Balboa. The festival closes with a paid screening of Grant Washburn's film about Mavericks, "Chasing Big Waves." Visit the Balboa Theater website for details.