Every major film festival has a story about the first time a now-revered director appeared there.
From Quentin Tarantino being heckled as he accepted the Palme d’Or for Pulp Fiction in 1994 to the uproarious tale of how Spike Lee’s 1983 screening of She’s Gotta Have It almost descended into chaos during a blackout at the San Francisco International Film Festival.
But then there are the more experimental debuts. The Blair Witch Project at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival came equipped with a groundbreaking marketing campaign that helped fool audiences into believing the tale of three students who vanished in the woods while on a film shoot was true. Missing posters were displayed throughout Park City, Utah, and audiences were led to wonder what sinister end they had met. The production, actually made by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez (with three actors who are alive and well), sparked a cultural phenomenon that gave life to the “found-footage” subgenre.
It was at that same festival ten years earlier that an unknown Steven Soderbergh premiered one of the most game-changing films in modern cinema, Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Shot on a minimal budget, the production rewrote the narrative of what heights an “independent film” could reach.
Russell Goldman’s Sender is a fusion of some of the most primal elements that made these two films so striking. It’s a storyteller going against the grain to deliver a rousing, if unsettling, experience that lingers long after the final frame.
Comet Pictures
Following a gasp-inducing debut at SXSW, Sender has been making the rounds on the festival circuit, giving audiences across the country a collective auditory and visual immersion unlike any other.
The film was shown as part of SFFILM’s lineup this past Saturday, with yet another powerhouse screening at the Marina Theater. Star Britt Lower and Goldman were on hand to engage in layered discussions about the groundswell the film has caused.
“Just to be able to make art with people you really admire, and then to get to share that with audiences in a room, in a theater,” Lower told The Knockturnal during a special red carpet event ahead of the film. “We premiered at SXSW, and we’re so excited to be here and to share this journey with people. And that’s what film is all about, is sharing that storytelling and this living, breathing organism in a room with other human beings.”
At a time when making independent films feels like resistance, visionaries like Goldman may prove (just as Soderbergh did) that speculative storytelling outside the studio system not only has value but is integral to the art form’s evolution.
“That’s the biggest dream I think any creative person can have,” Goldman shared at the gathering. “We’re so proud of what was like a very small production that feels enormous when you play it in that room, and I hope to keep making movies with all these people.”
When asked about essentially touring with the film to Austin’s SXSW, the Florida Film Festival, and now San Francisco, Goldman recounted how touching it’s been to see audience members find something unexpected in a piece he worked on for over five years.
“When you share your work with other people, you’re kind of seeing it for the first time for yourself as well,” Goldman added. “And I am really proud and honored by that. There was something about the collective experience that we put into this movie that registered with other people’s personal experiences. And for such a strange and out there movie, that’s the best thing that I could hope for.”
Gemma Doll-Grossman, Russell Goldman, and Britt Lower
As applause filled the room following Sender’s showing to a packed house, Lower and Goldman reemerged for the post-film discussion. They welcomed cinematographer Gemma Doll-Grossman, who is from the Bay Area and was cheered on by local supporters. But as the moderator remarked, there weren’t chairs for everyone on the panel. As if an extension of Sender’s scrappy 17-day shoot, the festival organizers searched for and found another, and the scene was reset.
During its 69 years running, the SFFILM event has had a long line of now-iconic directors introduce productions at its venues. Sofia Coppola in 2000 (The Virgin Suicides), Ryan Coogler in 2013 (Fruitvale Station), and Boots Riley in 2019 (Sorry to Bother You), among them. The excitement for Sender recalled the curiosity and anticipation surrounding those once-budding creators, signaling the reverberations of the film still to come.