This Week at SF Film Society | NEW PEOPLE Cinema are CONTAGION & PANIC IN THE STREETS!

August 28
he San Francisco Film Society’s Global Threats Film Series continues with a global pandemic double feature of Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (USA 2011) and Elia Kazan’s Panic in the Streets (USA 1950)!
Contagion: 6:30pm; Panic in the Streets: 4:00, 9:15pm

About Contagion: In a world of mass transit, the transmission of a deadly disease has rapid global reach, as shown in Soderbergh’s expert thriller starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law and Marion Cotillard. Made with admirable style and economy, the film educates and informs while also being viscerally entertaining.

About Panic in the Streets: In Elia Kazan’s noirish thriller from 1950, a doctor and a policeman in New Orleans have only 48 hours to locate a killer infected with pneumonic plague. For Kazan, the plague is more of a metaphorical device than an opportunity for a realistic procedural about prevention, but the film provides a stark reminder of how much more complicated it has become to prevent the spread of deadly diseases in the last 60 years.

Following the 6:30 pm screening of Contagion, Mark Smolinski, Director of Global Health Threats with the Skoll Global Threats Fund and a consultant on Contagion will discuss the science behind the film and the ways in which the threat of global pandemic has changed between the eras of the two films in our double feature. More info >>