Governor Jerry Brown Doc to Open San Francisco Fest’s Documentary Showcase

The San Francisco Film Festival will kick off its upcoming Doc Stories showcase with a world premiere of director Marina Zenovich’s Jerry Brown: The Disrupter, about California Governor Jerry Brown’s political career.

SFFILM’s documentary film showcase has also booked director Chris Smith’s Sr., a doc about filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. as its closing night film.

The filmmaker’s son, Robert Downey Jr., co-produced the film.

The Doc Stories programmers also booked Laura Poitras’ All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, the Venice Golden Lion Winner and a film about artist Nan Goldin, as its Centerpiece screening.

And there’s Doc Stories slots for directors Jesse Short Bull and Laura Tomaselli’s Lakota Nation vs. United States, which is executive produced by Mark Ruffalo and Marisa Tomei; Sacha Jenkins’ Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues; Jeff Malmberg’s Mickey: The Story of a Mouse, a portrait of Disney’s Mickey Mouse character; and New York Times Op-Docs, a series of the New York Times’ short-form docs by indie filmmakers.

Now in its eighth year, the Doc Stories showcase will also feature films about the French Laundry’s original restaurant owner Sally Schmitt, the first female mayor in Afghanistan, Zarifa Ghafari, and a motley crew of Wisconsin-based flagmakers.

“Documentaries take us to new and challenging territories, often revealing secrets about ourselves as we share the experience of watching them together. This year’s program is filled with iconoclasts, both known and still under the radar, and presents a breadth of films at the forefront of Documentary, leading the charge towards what the genre can be,” Jessie Fairbanks, SFFILM director of programming, said in a statement.