The Eighth Annual San Francisco DocFest opens this Saturday at the Roxie offering two weeks of more than 50 nonfiction films and videos including a film produced by Olivier Bonin, a Mission resident.

Bill Banning, one of the DocFest programmers, said the documentaries chosen for the festival can be fun or serious but must be entertaining. The following are three of his favorites:

The Great Contemporary Art Bubble, a film produced by British filmmaker Ben Lewis, shows how dealers and artists can manipulate the art market. The film follows the booming contemporary art market from its peak in May 2008 until its collapse last September. “Since it’s a film about art, the way it was shot it’s visually stunning,” said Banning. Sun., Oct. 25, 7pm, and Wed., Oct. 28, 7pm.

Mine, by Geralyn Rae Pezanoski, is an emotional film about the pets left behind after Hurricane Katrina, the owners forced to abandon them and the adopters who may have to return them. Fri., Oct. 23, 7pm, and Tues., Oct. 27, 9:15pm.

Mitch McCabe is the daughter of a plastic surgeon and the filmmaker behind Youth Knows No Pain. McCabe interviews doctors, experts and patients who have under gone plastic surgery. “It’s a personal documentary and the filmmaker puts herself in the middle,” said Banning. Sat., Oct. 24, 4:45pm, and Mon., Oct. 26, 9:15pm.

Another 48 documentaries are featured including six short films and two long-format films from Bay Area filmmakers.

One of the local filmmakers featured this year is Olivier Bonin, who has lived in the Mission for 11 years. His film, Dust and Illusions, is about Burning Man, an annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

“I thought it was going to be easy,” said Bonin, a first-time filmmaker who started working on the project in 2004. It took five years to finish.

“When I was producing this film I had to see other productions about Burning Man, and they were so bad that I was happy I was doing something different,” said Bonin, who is 36 years old. His film has footage from festivals of the last 30 years. Sat., Oct. 17, 9:15pm, and Thurs., Oct. 22, 7pm.

For complete schedule and directions go to www.sfindie.com

Mission Local OCTOBER 17, 2009