Morris Moves to Roxie

Longtime film festival programmer Jennifer "Junkyard" Morris has joined the Roxie Theater as a programmer.

Morris, a lesbian, has been director of programming for SF DocFest and a programmer at IndieFest for the past four years. Before that, Morris was festival director and director of programming at Frameline, the LGBT film festival, from 1994 to 2011.

The Roxie, which has two screening rooms on 16th Street between Valencia and Guerrero, is the oldest continually operating movie theater in the United States. A nonprofit, the Roxie features first-run and classic independent films and is home to dozens of film festivals, including the San Francisco International Film Festival.

"We're extremely excited for Jennifer to come on board," Dave Cowen, the Roxie's interim executive director, said in an email to the Bay Area Reporter. "Jennifer's success working with many of San Francisco's top film festivals has proven to be a tremendous asset to the SF film community over the years, and the Roxie looks forward to working with her to broaden and strengthen our eclectic lineup of films and events."

Rick Norris, veteran programmer at the Roxie, added: "Bringing Junkyard into the mix is going to fuel-inject a perfect level of savvy fun into programming that is already gaining altitude at a dizzying rate."

Morris, 51, who has also been a Bay Area disk jockey for the past three decades, said the nickname "Junkyard" came about from her love of items other people consider rubbish, primarily rusted pieces of metal and used records.

"It could also apply to all the films that don't make it to the multiplex and would be lost if it wasn't for independent movie theaters," Morris said in an interview with the B.A.R.

"The Roxie was the very first movie theater I entered when I arrived in SF in the late 1980s and it has always held a special place in my heart," Morris explained. "The Roxie holds a very special place in the history of independent film here in the Bay Area and I am honored to be able to continue that tradition and introduce new audiences to wonders of film."

She also expressed confidence in the Roxie's leadership.

"While the Roxie has seen its share of ups and downs and varied leaderships in the past, I feel confident it is in great hands with Dave Cowen and I am excited to be part of its future," Morris added.

Commenting on Morris' appointment, filmmaker Joshua Grannell, aka Peaches Christ, said in an email, "Jennifer 'Junkyard' Morris is one of my absolute favorite Bay Area film programmers. She has been bringing important, underrated cinema to audiences in San Francisco for many years. Her audacious, progressive, fearless programming introduced me to some of my now-favorite filmmakers working in indie film.

Morris has experience working with Grannell.

"Back in 2005, it was Jennifer who first presented a Peaches Christ short film retrospective at the Castro Theatre for Frameline 29," Grannell said. "Even I was surprised! Because of that, I was then flown to places like Belgium and Switzerland (and Missouri!) to present that program and eventually made a feature film. She saw something in us back then and took a chance and I'll forever be grateful."

Jeff Ross, founder of DocFest, the Bay Area's only festival devoted entirely to documentaries, said, "Jennifer Morris is a great pick for programming the Roxie. With her experience at Frameline, IndieFest, and DocFest, I'm sure she will bring a new dynamic to the Roxie's year-round calendar."

Jennie Livingston, director of the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning, said that during Morris' tenure at Frameline, "she produced great queer programming at a time when LGBT cinema and storytelling were entering a revolutionary and fertile phase."

In an email to the B.A.R., Livingston, a lesbian who won the Sundance Grand Prize for her landmark film about the New York City ball culture and African-American and Latino gay and transgender communities involved in it, said that when she saw Morris at the major film festivals around the world "and then saw her introduce the films at Frameline, you knew she had her eye on everything worth seeing and spent years soulfully cultivating the eye, the rhythms, and the intuition it takes to put together a great film program."

In addition to being one of the homes for Frameline for the past 20 years, the Roxie also has a history of screening films of interest to the LGBT community.

Earlier this year, the Roxie drew a sold-out house when it featured the John Waters' classic, Polyester, complete with the scratch 'n sniff 'Odorama' postcards that had been distributed by Warner Brothers when the film was first released in 1981.

Morris, who holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in television and motion pictures from UCLA, also managed the Frameline Completion Fund grant program, which provided $20,000-$50,000 in annual grants for the completion of films that dealt with issues of importance to LGBT communities. She also directed Frameline's Generations Filmmaker Workshop, a cross-generational educational arts program. In her 17 years at Frameline, the festival's audience went from 40,000 to 80,000 people per year.

The Roxie has a projected 2017 budget of $850,000. Morris declined to state her salary.