The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill's Mark Bittner & Judy Irving on SOUNDS with Tom Needham

SOUNDS OF FILM with Tom Needham

“The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” is a documentary about Mark Bittner, a homeless musician in San Francisco who forms a deep bond with a flock of wild parrots living on Telegraph Hill. The film explores his relationship with the birds, their unique behaviors, and his personal journey of self-discovery and connection to nature.

“Wild Parrots” was first screened in 16mm in festivals in 2003. Mark Bittner’s memoir, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, was published by Random House in 2004. Ken Eisen of Shadow Distribution picked up the movie, blew it up to 35mm, and booked it in 500 theaters in 2005, grossing over three million dollars. Broadcast on the national PBS series Independent Lens in 2007, the film attracted 1.5 million viewers, making it the most popular show of the series.

Twenty years after the film’s first release, in the spring of 2023, the San Francisco Chronicle hosted a contest to pick the City’s “Official Animal.” In a hotly contested battle over four rounds of voting, the maverick Wild Parrots beat the corporate tourism Sea Lions of Pier 39 and 15 other species. The official City Ordinance took effect in August, the same month the Avalon Theatr in Washington D.C. hosted the premiere of the restored 4K movie.

The restoration was a 5.5-year labor of love. Because the original film was SD (Standard Definition, not HD, High Definition), it disappeared from streaming platforms, which no longer accept SD films. Producer/director Judy Irving, with the help of the Academy Film Archive, had the 16mm film negative scanned in 4K and slowly started cleaning up (“dust-busting”) the 120,000 digital frames. She was joined by Sarah Lemarie, CEO of Mickaboo Bird Rescue, whose volunteered time and expertise made it possible to complete the restoration. And now a whole new generation can see “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” on the big screen.

Filmmaker Judy Irving is a Sundance and Emmy-Award winning filmmaker whose theatrical credits include The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, a feature documentary about the relationship between a homeless street musician and a flock of wild parrots in San Francisco, Pelican Dreams, about California brown pelicans and the people who know them best, Dark Circle, a personal film about the links between nuclear power and weapons, and Cold Refuge, about how swimming in open water mitigates some of life's most serious challenges. In 2015 she was elected to the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Author and film subject Mark Bittner was born and raised in southwestern Washington State. His first ambition as a teenager was to be a novelist, but alarmed by the uniformly miserable fates of all the writers whom he loved, he decided to pursue a career in music instead. After hitchhiking through Europe, he ended up in San Francisco determined to sink or swim as a poet-singer-songwriter. He sank. Completely bereft, he turned to spiritual seeking and ended up on the street where he spent the next 14 years. Ultimately his search led him to the wild parrot flock, which, in turn, led him back to writing, and his first book: The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. He is currently seeking a publisher for his second book, Street Song, which details his journey to the street. He has also completed a set of recordings, Street Songs, as a supplement to the book.

SOUNDS is the nation’s longest running film and music themed radio show. For the past 30 years, the program has delivered a popular mix of interviews and music to listeners all over Long Island, parts of Connecticut and streaming worldwide live on the internet. Past people interviewed for the show include Carter Burwell, Don McLean, Jordan Peterson, Hal Hartley, DA Pennebaker, Wendy & Lisa, Alexander Payne, Ernest Dickerson and Dionne Warwick.

For more information, visit soundsoffilm.com