Mind Reels, the Lark’s special daytime documentary film series, returns with four captivating films, inviting you to participate in thoughtful discussion following the screening.

PETER ASHER: EVERYWHERE MAN (2025)

Dir: Daniel Geller ~ Dayna Goldfine

The extraordinary life of Peter Asher—pop star, producer, manager, and confidant to legends such as Paul McCartney, James Taylor, and Linda Ronstadt.

GUEST SPEAKERS:

BEN FONG-TORRES
Ben Fong-Torres, a native of Oakland, began, in the late 60s, as an editor and writer at Rolling Stone magazine. He was depicted in a movie (Almost Famous), and is the subject of a documentary, Like a Rolling Stone. He has published ten books, including his best-selling memoirs, The Rice Room, and two compilations (Not Fade Away and Becoming Almost Famous). At the magazine, he wrote more than 30 cover stories, subjects including Linda Ronstadt and Peter Asher as well as Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Grace Slick, and Ray Charles. While at Rolling Stone, he doubled as a weekend DJ on FM pioneer KSAN, and, from 1997 to Covid, co-anchored the Chinese New Year Parade on KTVU, for which he won five Emmys. Ben attended San Francisco State University and is in its Alumni Hall of Fame. He also has been bestowed an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts.

PAUL LIBERATORE
Paul Liberatore is an award-winning Bay Area journalist who has written about rock music and pop culture over the past five-plus decades. Until his retirement in 2018, he was a longtime music and feature writer for the Marin Independent Journal. Since then, he has written a biweekly music and entertainment column for the IJ and the Bay Area News Group. In the 1980s, he was on the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle as a general assignment reporter, feature writer and assistant city editor. As an author, his nonfiction book, “The Road to Hell,” an investigation of the Marin County Courthouse Shootout and the infamous case of “Soledad Brother” George Jackson, was published by Atlantic Monthly Press and was a New York Times Book of the Times. He has been honored with a Milley Award from the City of Mill Valley for his contributions to the arts and became the eighth recipient of the County of Marin’s Cultural Treasure Award in 2014. He has also been a musician, fronting his own band, the Liberators, and is proud to have been a member of the Bay Area writers band, the Rock Bottom Remainders.

DAN GELLER & DAYNA GOLDFINE
For over 35 years, Emmy-award winning directors/producers Geller and Goldfine have jointly created critically acclaimed multi-character documentary narratives that braid the personal stories of their protagonists to form a larger portrait of the human experience. In addition to PETER ASHER: Everywhere Man, their work includes: HALLELUJAH: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song (2021), which debuted at both the Venice and Telluride Film Festivals, had a worldwide theatrical release via Sony Pictures Classics and was shortlisted for a documentary Oscar.

Other films of Geller and Goldfine include The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden (2013), which had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival and its European premiere in Berlin, and played theatrically internationally; Something Ventured (2011), which premiered at SXSW and went on to play festivals and screen internationally, including a national PBS broadcast in January 2013; Ballets Russes (2005), which was recognized as one of the top five documentaries of 2005 by the National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review, appeared on a dozen critical top-ten lists, including Time Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Hollywood Reporter, the San Francisco Chronicle and Slate; Now and Then: From Frosh to Seniors, which premiered theatrically in October 1999 and aired on PBS in October 2000 as the lead program of the Independent Lens series; Kids of Survival: The Art and Life of Tim Rollins + K.O.S. (1996), a feature-length documentary about the South Bronx-based art group, which aired on Cinemax in September 1998 and was the recipient of two national Emmy Awards; Frosh: Nine Months in a Freshman Dorm (1994); and, the award-winning Isadora Duncan: Movement from the Soul (1988).

Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine were admitted to the Documentary Branch of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2014.

JOEL SELVIN
Joel Selvin has been covering pop music for the San Francisco Chronicle since shortly after the Civil War. His magazine articles have appeared around the world in publications you would have thought knew better. He has written several books that some people have actually read.