Award-winning filmmaker Dan Goldes, who has lived in Glen Park since 1998, has two new short documentary films screening at the 21st version of Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema, Sept. 5 – 7. Information about the free Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema is available at bhoutdoorcine.org.
“Waiter For Life” provides an intimate look at a group of long-time waiters at Scoma’s Restaurant. Each has worked for decades at the legendary restaurant in the heart of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. Cover-by-cover, meal-by-meal, tip-by-tip, these waiters put their kids through school, learn a new language, and put roots down. The film illuminates how fundamentally basic are the ways we make choices in life and that there is nothing “old-fashioned” about hard work being respected and rewarded.
One by one, the waiters tell their stories: Chris got a bachelor’s degree in computer science. Han came from China speaking no English. Salvatore was studying to be a lawyer in Italy. Ultimately, they come to work at Scoma’s and they stay – 20 years, 30 years. “Waiter For Life” captures their stories and how fundamentally basic are the ways we make choices in life.
“Waiter For Life” screens at 7:00 and 8:00 pm at the Bernal Branch Library (500 Cortland Ave.) on Friday, Sept. 6. Part of the Film Crawl on Cortland, the film is among dozens screening in six locations.
Click here to view a trailer of “Waiter For Life.”
In Goldes’s second film, “Of Good Heart,” a Republican and a Democrat reveal how their upbringing – and current events – brought them into their political selves. Featuring East Bay residents Gary Kohler and Cindy Shon, the film screens at Under the Stars, outdoors in Precita Park, on Saturday, Sept. 7.
San Francisco filmmaker Dan Goldes has directed the feature documentary “5 Blocks” (2019), about a San Francisco neighborhood undergoing its most dramatic change in 50 years; and the short documentaries “Of Good Heart” (2024); “Paul Panish: Poem On My Eighty-Seventh Birthday” (2022); “The Button Tin” (2020); “Keeper of the Creek” (2019); “Arrested (Again)” (2017); “Equal Justice Under Law” (2015); and “ub2” (2011). His films have screened at more than 100 film festivals worldwide.
Click here to view a trailer of “5 Blocks.”
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