Michael Fox review:

Peter Kirby has sequelitis, which is good news for all the kids in the Richmond and Sunset who know his movies. 'Skating & Things II the Seasons of Skating' is, he says, "a skateboard video / art film that bridges the gap between generations X and Y." Kirby, a cabbie / filmmaker until he left the hack about a year ago, pared 13 hours of raw footage-most of it acquired from friends-into twenty minutes of rhythm. "I'm hoping to not have to work straight jobs," Kirby confides. "I'd like to be producing movies professionally." Get in line, pal. 'Skating & Things II the Seasons of Skating' premieres Fri. July 25 at 7:30 p.m. as part of Artist's Television Access' monthly open screening. For more on Kirby's oeuvre, drop by www.peterakirby.com

-Michael Fox is a local independent film reviewer

SF Weekly/Feb. 20, 2002

Taxi Driver

When Peter Kirby, the independent filmmaker sat down at a Tenderloin coffee shop recently to talk about his oeuvre, we expected him to cop an attitude about mainstream movies. "I like a lot of Kubrik and Scorsese," he explained a bit tenatively. He was nervous-this was his first interview. "I thought 'Cape Fear' was a really great movie-I went to the theatre and saw that seven times. I also like a lot of sleeper movies that aren't big hits but are quality films. 'Return of the Living Dead' is a good example. That fits in with my philosophy about making movies. It has to be a good movie." Kirby is a hack-he drives a cab in San Francisco. He also happens to make movies, on which he's spent more than $20,000 of his own money, and which he advertises in laundrymats. He recently finished three works that he considers good enough to actually sell, and they're available on one tape. Two of them, 'Self Portrait' and 'The Hunter' are highly experimental, while 'San Francisco Taxicab," at 45 min. is easily the most thorough history of local cabdriving ever committed to videotape. "None of these films ain't appeared in no film festival" boasts the advertisement. And they ain't. When you send ten bucks to a stranger for three movies that are being advertised next to washing machines, you have to keep your expectations low-especially when the promo copy uses a triple negative. But Kirby is clearly talented, if new at all this. 'Self Portrait' and 'The Hunter' are offbeat, 10-minute pieces that play with mundane images (street signs, people waiting for the bus) and try to give them a spooky, ethereal feel. Kirby, 28, confesses to some film and photography classes at S.F. State but can't speak to any deep knowledge of experimental film. "I saw some of them when I was at S.F. State," he says. "Was 'Potemkin' an experimental film?"

Excellent Question

His three films were made over the past two years, though the ambition to become a filmmaker arose in 1996 when he began driving a cab and scouting locations in an off-the-cuff manner. I started thinking I might want to drive a cab around the same time I figured I wanted to do movies," he says. "I can remember thinking back in high school that driving a cab was something I wanted to do. I wanted to learn the city." From there, he made a lot of trips to the Film Arts Foundation for gear and guidance. Jason Wolos, an equipment manager there, was impressed with his diligence. "You see some people come in, and they get scared off by some little problem or issue with the equipment," he says. "That's never the case with Peter. He worked a lot of long hours. He hasn't been by for a month., though. He's between projects, as they say."

'San Francisco Taxicab' is an amateur exploration of the history of cabdriving from the pioneer days ("Prior to the Gold Rush, there was not anything...that resembled a taxicab.") to the present. The film is drawn from hours of shooting old Chronicle and Examiner articles at the New Main Library, and Kirby chose a fellow cabdriver, Sai Lee, to provide the narration.

"I thought he had an interesting voice," Kirby says. "I first heard him on the radio when he was dispatching."

Sales are slow, Kirby admits. While he's bent the ear of a handful of local shops and asked to sell his 'Home Movies' on consignment, he's primarily been posting notices in laundrymats and hoping. In the meantime he's plotting out his next three films. A sort of storyboard for the movies is filled with little handwritten motivating notes to himself. "Do it right," "Own all your equipment," and "Follow your vision: only the penitent shall pass," a line drawn from 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.' "I try to express everyday life," he explains. "In my life nothing really exciting is happening. I go out and make these movies, but nobody's knocking down my door. Life is slow to me. I guess it's fast to other people."