San Francisco will be host to some of the world’s best and brightest independently minded filmmakers, actors, and producers when the sixth annual
San Francisco Independent Film Festival hits town from Feb. 5 through Feb. 15.

The festival, which has grown from a grassroots endeavor that brought in 3,000 viewers back in 1998 to a well-known event that now attracts audiences tripling that number, will be showcasing close to 100 features and shorts from a wide variety of genres and cinematic styles.

Drama, documentary, comedy, romance, horror, sci-fi, and animation are all represented in this year’s line-up, with four theaters screening the entries. A number of clubs and venues will be hosting after parties and discussions between filmmakers and movie goers.

Founder and director Jeff Ross was inspired to start the festival after realizing that a friend of his, along with many other independent filmmakers, had no real avenues available to them to get their work shown to audiences.

“There was a lot of material coming out at the time that just wasn’t getting seen by anybody,” Ross said.

“There was just a hole in the distribution system, in how people get to see new work. If it didn’t have a distributor, it wouldn’t play anywhere.”

Although Ross had never worked in film before, he had some past experience that helped prepare him to tackle the project.

“I had done some promoting with clubs and bands, and put together fund-raising events, so I knew a little about how to put a show on,” said Ross.

“I figured San Francisco was ripe for (a film festival), because we have such a great community of people who are open-minded about new things, that are curious about new things, and will come and check something out, even if there wasn’t a huge ad campaign convincing them to go,” said Ross.

The idea was a hit, and has grown into a much bigger event that now requires many more people to help with the different aspects of putting on a festival of this scope, from selecting the films, putting the program together and booking the venues.

But the festival is still very independent — there are no corporate sponsors tossing money at the organizers and dictating how the festival should be run. Much of the funding comes from ticket sales, and the companies whose names are listed in the festival program donated goods or services for the event.

The festival is not a place for people to merely sit idly and watch movies — many of the directors and people involved in the production of the films will be present at some of the showings to take questions from audience members and discuss the works.

That’s one of Ross’s favorite parts of the event.

“One of the things that makes the film festival not just going to see a movie is the fact that the filmmakers are there, the actors are there, they can talk about the craft of the films and the subjects,” Ross said.

“It’s a chance for filmmakers to talk to people that are not in their immediate circle or community, they get to talk to people from all over.”

One of the films getting its world premiere at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival is “Bettie Page — Dark Angel,” a biopic about the famous ‘50’s pin-up girl that tells the story of the last three years of her career, and recreates some of her more notorious work — a series of bondage films that eventually gave her the nickname ‘Dark Angel.’

Filmmaker Nico B, whose previous films include “Pig,” a collaboration with the late Rozz Williams of gothic rock band Christian Death, wrote and directed the film. The idea for the film came about after he had been working with images of Bettie Page for about 15 years, distributing some of her movies and pictures through a cult video store he used to own in Europe, and then in the United States.

Only five of Page’s bondage films are known to exist today - the others were all destroyed in the 1950s when the maker of the movies found himself in trouble with overzealous law enforcement that didn’t approve of the work.

“I thought it would be interesting to recreate these original bondage films in black and white, exactly the same way they did them then,” says Nico.

“And from still photographs I would recreate a whole scene, the whole four-minute short, and that was the basis for the film, to recreate five shorts that don’t exist anymore — sometimes from only one photograph. That’s where it started, and then we’ve written a story (around them).”

The actress who portrays Page is Paige Richards, whom Nico met through a photographer friend, and who looks remarkably like the real Page.

“After 10 minutes you forget you’re watching Paige Richards, and you think you’re watching Bettie Page,” said Nico.

The filmmaker has been in contact with Bettie Page, who has been in seclusion since the end of her career, for about the last 10 years — she has written text to go along with some of the DVD’s of her early work that he has released, and she was going to provide narration for this film, but due to contract issues, she ended up not being able to do so.

Despite the title, and her nickname, Nico B doesn’t think the film is dark at all, nor does he think that of Page and her work.

“The film is very pop art, very kitsch; I think it’s a fun movie,” he said.

Another film making an appearance at the Indie Film Festival is “A Certain Kind of Death,” a documentary about people who die and have no next of kin. Filmmakers Grover Babcock and Blue Hadeagh were inspired to do the project when a neighbor of theirs passed away, with no family ties left behind. Hadeagh was asked to identify the body, even though she didn’t really know him.

“We realized this was something—it was an interesting phenomenon that we really hadn’t heard much about it, we felt like we would regret it if we didn’t pursue it,” said Babcock.

The duo had to negotiate with the Los Angeles Coroner’s Department for about six months to get permission to go ahead with their project, and then spent three months following the officers to death scenes and recording the stories of each corpse. They then had to wait to see whether or not the cases were eventually resolved, which sometimes took weeks or even months after they had finished filming.

Tackling a project of this sort brought about a variety of problems for the filmmakers, both logistical and on a more basic human level.

“Emotionally, as you may imagine, of course, it was hard,” said Hadeagh.

“However we were so into the subject matter and inspired by it, we really wanted to make it through the production and do the project,” Hadeagh continued.

“Difficulties came in many different ways,” said Babcock. “Obviously being in this (setting), seeing dead people, often times in very pathetic situations, any person is going to have an emotional response to that. I think the most difficult thing was waiting. You were at the coroner’s office where you would be hearing about and seeing different things that you would ordinarily never hear, see, or think about, and you begin to question if this is going to come to some good end.”

The film was completed after a year and a half, with no outside funding or help.

“We wanted to make sure that the film we gave to people was something that they could think about and discuss, and unlike most documentaries, I wanted it to be open-ended enough for people to reflect,” said Babcock.

“My greatest hope would be that we deliver an experience that is somewhat analogous to our experience making the film and what we were experiencing. Something that can enter their mind and be a point of reflection for a long time, in their own lives and experience.”

An incredible variety of other films, including cult director Alex Cox’s

“Revenger’s Tragedy,” and animator Bill Plympton’s “Hair High,” will be screened at the week and a half long festival, showcasing the spirit, attitude and talent of today’s independent filmmakers.