SFTGG The Valley of the Queens tour with Shawn Sprockett - February 8th, 2025
12th Annual Legacy Film Festival on Aging
The 10-day festival runs Feb. 14-23 and is online. Each program contains two to four films and costs $12.00. For $65.00 you can purchase an All-Fest pass to watch all the programs. Tickets are available on the festival’s website.
The films are divided up into 12 programs: Ageism & Resilience, Caring, Community, Dreams & Goals, End of Life Experience, Food, Free Spirits, Love Always, Memories, Pioneers, Seeking Creativity, and The Next Step.
Two of the many films slated for San Francisco’s 12th Annual Legacy Film Festival on Aging are set in the city and produced by local residents.
“Waiter for Life” is a short documentary about five waiters over the age of 60 who have worked for between 20 to 30 years at Scoma’s, a family-owned seafood restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf since 1965.
“I’d like people to realize that professional waiting is an honorable profession,” said creator Dan Goldes, 63. The waiters Goldes features have been able to buy homes, raise families, and live full lives because, he said, “they had a good job, good union, and a good relationship with management.”
The documentary, he added, “stems from my fascination with people who know how to do things well.”
Other films of Goldes that have featured seniors include:
- “Arrested Again” is about San Francisco’s Karen Topakian, who has been arrested more than 30 times for nonviolent civil disobedience.
- “The Button Tin,” featuring his then-90-year-old mother rediscovering the marshmallow tin that her mother used to store buttons.
- In “Paul Panish: Poem on My Eighty-Seventh Birthday,” Goldes’ cousin ruminates on what it means to be a poet and won the Audience Award at the Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema.
- In “Of Good Heart,” East Bay residents Gary and Cindy, a Republican and a Democrat, talk about how their upbringing – and current political events – brought them into their political selves.
“Waiter for Life “and his 2019 film “5 Blocks,” which looks at income disparity, changing demographics, and the nature of place in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District, have screened at more than 10 film festivals around the world, he said.
Goldes has two documentary projects in development based on subjects in New York City. As for his Scoma waiters, he said, “My subjects are still working at Scoma’s, and I dine there a couple of times a year to keep in touch.”
12th Annual Legacy Film Festival on Aging
Greg