Mike Skurko Feels the Magic of Film
By Rachel T. Saunders

When asked about his favorite Festival experiences, Mike Skurko paused, passing rapidly in his mind over all the hundreds of films he has by now seen there. Finally, he said his favorite SFIFF memory is of seeing Greg Araki’s The Doom Generation in 1995. When he arrived at the screening, the theater was full, and he couldn’t find a seat. It was already dark inside, and a group of people asked him to sit with them, since there was a free seat adjacent.

After the film, which he adored, he found out that the person who had invited him to sit there was none other than Greg Araki himself. Needless to say, ever since that early pivotal moment, one of Mike’s favorite things about the Festival has been the possibility of mingling with film directors and being able to discuss their films with them in a festival setting. The Film Society also greatly expands the number of kinds of film he sees each year, as he always attends at least 40 films during the Festival.

Mike is a devoted SFFS member. His intellect is voracious, his tastes eclectic, and his devotion to all things artistic profound. His favorite directors range from Hal Hartley and John Waters to Juzo Itami and Takashi Miike. The Film Society is “absolutely critical to my appreciation of film,” he point out, and he makes a point of being “unemployed” every April to devote himself entirely to the Festival. Mike considers art to be the one enduring human contribution to the world. Art is quite simply “what makes life worth living,” for him. Film is one of his favorite art forms, and he is an avid supporter of both the Film Society and IndieFest, his other favorite Bay Area film festival.

Mike traces his love of film back to high school, at which time he was living in Tokyo. During the summers, he would watch two or three films a day at the Foreign Correspondents Club, of which his parents were members. His devotion to the cinema initially sprouted from his thirst for literature, particularly Russian literature. Seeing so many films, he began to view them not just as entertainment, but as art, akin to both literature and the visual arts. “The magic of film,” he says passionately, “is to bring you in and show you emotion through the eyes of those feeling it.”

Mike majored in literature at Claremont, moving to San Francisco in 1994. Perhaps because of his bicultural childhood, traveling remains one of his top life priorities, and he has visited over 30 countries. He attended his first SFIFF when he moved here in the mid-’90s, and was instantly hooked.

You might catch Mike and his friends at this year’s Festival. He’ll be the one after the movie who approaches the director unhesitatingly, thrusts out his hand, and presents himself, “Hi, I’m Mike Skurko. And you are brilliant. I absolutely loved your movie.”