One needs few excuses to visit wine country; as it were, the recent Sonoma International Film Festival provided another one, cinema. Amid screenings and mixers, good food, and even better wine, this multiday event brought together locals and out-of-towners for a film festival in which culinary themes figured highly within some of the films selected.

“The Sebastiani, what a crown jewel of a theater,” programmer Amanda Salazar said before a screening at the historic venue in the heart of Sonoma. “I hope you have seen films that have challenged you and moved you…because the power of cinema is that it can do that.” She asked if anyone in the audience had seen more than twelve films; one bleary-eyed man said he was up to eighteen movies.

The Sonoma Film Festival took place from March 19th to the 23rd.

“THE FRIEND”

Co-directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel

Naomi Watts stars as Iris, a New York fiction professor working through grief after her mentor (Bill Murray) dies suddenly. (Not a spoiler: It’s the third scene.) One of his final wishes is that Iris takes in his great dane Apollo—who is too large for any New York apartment, let alone one as tiny as Iris’s. If this sounds like the setup for either a lighthearted romp or a black comedy-drama, the result is neither. Fortunately, it’s not a Dead Dog Movie (DDM) in the strictest sense, but it nonetheless pulls at the heartstrings of anyone who has ever bridged that gap between human and animal love. “The Friend” is well-intentioned and offers up a great cast, yet she can’t quite rescue this maudlin tale from itself despite Watts’s significant gifts (featured image).

“APOLLO 1”

Director: Mark Craig

We stand on the shoulders of Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White II and Roger Chaffey, who gave their lives for America’s dream of reaching the moon. This tear-jerking documentary from Mark Craig revisits not only the early NASA years via archive footage but also speaks to the surviving family members of those brave three men who died in a terrible accident on Jan. 27, 1967. “Apollo 1” also visits with their fellow astronauts and the engineers who helped the crafts aim for the stars. Among the most infuriating facts uncovered later was that corners were cut in the construction of the rockets, almost certainly leading to the fire. Mistakes have continued in our space program since the Challenger and Columbia disasters attest. Still, as one of the engineers observes near the end of “Apollo 1,” it is essential to acknowledge our failures and learn from our mistakes.

“MARCELLA”

Director: Peter Miller

There was a time when pizza and other Italian-American food staples weren’t so common. Thanks mainly to Marcella Hazan, Americans began dining out on more Italian food and cooking it at home. Hazan’s blockbuster cookbooks include “Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking,” she became a staple on American food shows, even with her thick accent and sometimes-diffident presence. The interesting if not quite precisely fascinating “Marcella” traces Hazan’s journey from growing up in Italy and meeting her husband Victor, a Spanish Jew whose parents were initially displeased he would marry a Catholic, and the couple’s peripatetic lives in Italy and America. Marcella, who had a doctorate degree in biology, learned to cook. We are told that when she moved to America, she couldn’t find work or speak the language, and from there, she carved out her American Dream. Victor, who is still living, shares tales of his late wife, as do many of the world’s prominent chefs who speak about her with reverence. While her journey is compelling and her food warm, Marcella could be chilly. She and Victor later warred with their longtime editor, which bears a small mention here. Given Sonoma’s fascination with cuisine, it isn’t surprising this film screens as part of its food-oriented offerings.

“MISTURA”

Director: Ricardo de Montreuil

Bárbara Mori stars as Norma, an aristocratic socialite in Lima whose husband up and leaves for another woman half his age, with Norma months away from losing their shared house. Bereft and angry, Norma lashes out at her household staff, notably falsely accusing her cook, Rosa (Hermelinda Luján), of stealing a particularly expensive cheese from France and promptly firing her. The only staff member remaining is Oscar (Cesar Ballumbrosio), Norma’s driver and a kind soul. Becoming Norma’s confidant as well as chauffeur, Ballumbrosio radiates warmth and wisdom in his gentle portrayal of Oscar. Through a series of events, Norma decides to open a restaurant in the home to make some money, utilizing the recipes she wrote down in France when her father was the Peruvian ambassador. High jinks and surprises ensue, although none are especially inventive. However, Mori is steely and highly watchable, just as Norma is, who comes to see and appreciate her household staff more than she ever has.

“CHECKPOINT ZOO”

Director: Joshua Zeman

In the three-plus years of the Russia-Ukraine war, thousands of human lives have been lost—human and animal alike. Joshua Zeman brings us to Ukraine’s Feldman Ecopark, founded by Oleksandr Feldman, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament. (Feldman wears a kippah, undermining Putin’s “de-Nazification” narrative.) As the war commences in March 2022, a team comprising the zoo staff, volunteers and other do-gooders seeks to help relocate the animals away from the front lines as Russia’s bombings continue. Zeman’s camera captures the horror up close and personal (many scenes are not for the faint of heart) but also shows the bravery—and the impossible good humor—of those who dare to help the zoo’s denizens to safety.

This war has taken so much from Ukraine, and even as the American president claims to be able to solve it, the death and destruction continue. The animals, who know not of geopolitics, are its unlikeliest victims.

“CAFE CHAIREL”

Director: Fernando Barreda Luna

Mauricio Isaac stars as Alfonso, the humble owner of a failing coffee shop, who one day meets Katia (Tessa Ia), who is sleeping in a van outside his shop. Mauricio agrees to give her a job, but it is apparent that Alfonso barely knows his way around the coffee business. Director Fernando Barreda Luna, who co-wrote the script with Atsushi Fujii, paces his story perhaps a little too deliberately, and it takes a good hour-plus before we learn the real reason these two seemingly incompatible souls have been brought together. Still, Isaac and Ia exhibit palpable chemistry, and the script resists going in tried-and-true directions.

“SUBURBAN FURY”

Director: Robinson Devor

Sara Jane Moore’s name might not be well known, although she sought notoriety in a rather ignominious way in September 1975 when she shot at President Gerald Ford in San Francisco. Now 95 years old and out on parole, Moore tells her story—or what in her mind passes for a “true” story, whose many twists and turns are outmatched only by her fury when questioned about them by director Robinson Devor. Moore tells Devor of being a paid FBI informant and spying on the notorious Symbionese Liberation Army, whose plot to kidnap Patty Hearst went spectacularly made-for-TV when Hearst eventually joined their cause and helped them rob a bank. Moore’s radical ideals also saw her arc intertwined with other Bay Area radicalism figures such as Popeye Jackson, a prison reform advocate, Black power figure and drug runner. The deeper Moore gets into her tale, the more difficult it becomes to determine if she seeks sympathy, a public justification for her actions or neither. Other than Moore’s own recollections, the only other peek behind the curtains are the writings of her onetime FBI handler (read by an actor), whose alias “Bertam Worthington” has never been deciphered. Her story is intriguing, but because the legalities of the case disallowed anyone. Still, Moore from speaking in the film, what we are treated to is not so much a history lesson or a human tragedy but rather the ramblings of a narcissist.

“THE LUCKIEST MAN IN AMERICA”

“THE LUCKIEST MAN IN AMERICA”

Director: Samir Oliveros

This stranger-than-fiction drama stars Paul Walter Hauser (“Cobra Kai,” “I, Tonya”) as Michael Larson, an honest-to-John loser who, in the early eighties, realized that the supposedly “random” patterns on the quiz show “Press Your Luck” were, in fact predictable. Larson used this knowledge to avoid the Whammies—taking the producers for over $100,000. Despite their attempts to call him out for cheating, they were faced with the embarrassing fact that Larson had figured out and then beat the system. Hauser is an actor of tremendous talent, and he’s surrounded by A-grade fellow players, including David Strathairn and the ever-reliable Walton Goggins as “Press Your Luck” host Peter Tomarken. Director Samir Oliveros does a decent job at ratcheting up the tension in the script he co-wrote with Maggie Briggs and filmed in Oliveros’s native Colombia, yet “Luckiest Man” isn’t nearly as compelling as the documentary “Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal.”

Short Docs panel

It’s difficult to tell an entire story in such a short time, yet three films in this series stood out for doing just that. “They Call Me the Tattoo Witch” brings us close to Tran Ngoc, a Vietnamese tattoo artist who covers up the scars of her clients in ways that bring them a renewed sense of self-value. “The Final Copy of Ilon Specht” visits with the dying Specht, a one-time copywriter for L’Oréal who came up with their famous “Because I’m Worth It” tagline and is now reflecting back on her legacy. In “Undrown (Desahogarme),” we meet Ernesto, a Guatemalan day worker whose dreams refuse to be tied down despite his difficult circumstances.