Location | San Francisco, California, United States |
---|---|
Language | International |
Website | https://sffilm.org/sffilm-festival/ |
The San Francisco International Film Festival (abbreviated as SFIFF), organized by the San Francisco Film Society, is held each spring for two weeks, presenting around 200 films from over 50 countries. The festival highlights current trends in international film and video production with an emphasis on work that has not yet secured U.S. distribution. In 2009, it served around 82,000 patrons, with screenings held in San Francisco and Berkeley. [1]
In March 2014, Noah Cowan, former executive director of the Toronto International Film Festival, became executive director of the SFFS and SFIFF, replacing Ted Hope. [2] Prior to Hope, the festival was briefly headed by Bingham Ray, who served as SFFS executive director until his death after only ten weeks on the job in January 2012. [3] Graham Leggat became the executive director of the San Francisco Film Society on October 17, 2005. The Scottish-born Leggat died on August 25, 2011, from cancer, aged 51. [4]
The 63rd edition of the festival, originally scheduled for April 2020, but was ultimately postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [5] The 67th edition of the festival will take place from April 24 to April 28, 2024. [6]
Founded in 1957 by film exhibitor Irving "Bud" Levin, the SFIFF began as a philanthropic effort to secure San Francisco's place in the international arts scene as well as expose locals to cinema as an art form. [1] The first festival screening was on December 4–18, 1957 at the Metro Theatre in Cow Hollow. [7] Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood; Helmut Käutner's The Captain from Köpenick (1956 film); [8] and Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali were among the films that screened at the first festival. [1]
One obstacle in the early years was the lack of support from the major Hollywood studios, suggested reasons being the growing threat of international films' appeal and a fear that the festival would draw commercial attention away from the Oscars. [9] It was not until 1959 that a major American film, Henry King's Beloved Infidel , starring Gregory Peck and Deborah Kerr, played at SFIFF. [9]
The Festival's directing award is named after SFIFF's founder, Irving Levin. [10] From 2003 to 2014, the award was known as the Founder's Directing Award. Prior to 2003, the award was known as the Akira Kurosawa Award. Recipients include:
Named for the longtime San Francisco benefactor of arts and charitable organizations Peter J. Owens (1936–91), this award honors an actor whose work exemplifies brilliance, independence and integrity. [18]
Recent recipients include:
Recipients of the Kanbar Award for excellence in screenwriting include:
Named in honor of San Francisco film exhibitor Mel Novikoff (1922–87), this award is given to an individual or organization notable for making significant contributions to the Bay Area's film community. [25]
Recent recipients include:
The POV Award honors the lifetime achievement of a filmmaker whose work is crafting documentaries, short films, animation or work for television. [28]
Recent recipients include:
The George Gund III Craft of Cinema Award, given in tribute to the longstanding Film Society chairman of the board who died in 2013, honors filmmakers for their contributions to the art of cinema.
Recent recipients include:
The Film Festival's Midnight Awards were given from 2007–2011 to honor a young American actor and actress who have made outstanding contributions to independent and Hollywood cinema. [38]
Recent recipients include:
In 2017, the San Francisco Film Society made a "strategic move" to set its 60th anniversary SF Film Awards Night closer to awards season in early December. [39]
This $15,000 cash award supports innovative thinking by independent filmmakers and shines the spotlight on an emerging director. [40] Films in this juried competition must be the director's first narrative feature and are selected for their unique artistic sensibility or vision.
The Golden Gate Awards is the competitive section for documentaries, animation, shorts, experimental film, and video, youth works and works for television. Eligibility requires that entries have a San Francisco Bay Area premiere and be exempt from a previous multiday commercial theatrical run or media broadcast of any kind. The festival currently awards cash prizes in the following categories: [41]
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognizes the San Francisco International Film Festival as a qualifying festival for the short films (live action and animated) competitions of the 81st annual Academy Awards. [42]
Selected by the International Federation of Film Critics, the FIPRESCI Prize aims to promote film art, to encourage new and young cinema and to help films get better distribution and win greater public attention. [43]
Each year, the festival invites a prominent thinker to discuss the intersecting worlds of contemporary cinema, culture and society. Recent speakers include:
The San Francisco International Film Festival also involves live music and film events, which usually feature contemporary musicians performing original scores to classic silent films. Music/film pairings at SFIFF have included:
Maurice Kanbar was an American entrepreneur and inventor who lived in San Francisco, California. He was particularly well known for his creation of SKYY vodka and was also noted for his extensive real estate investments.
The San Francisco Girls Chorus, established in 1978 by Elizabeth Appling, is a regional center for music education and performance for girls and young women, ages 4–18, based in San Francisco. Each year, more than 300 singers from 45 Bay Area cities participate in SFGC's programs. The organization consists of a professional-level performance, recording, and touring ensemble and a six-level Chorus School training program.
Branko Tomović is a German-Serbian actor and filmmaker.
David John Francis is a British film archivist. He was the second curator of the UK's National Film and Television Archive from 1974 until 1989, when he was succeeded by Clyde Jeavons. Francis went on to become the Chief of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division at the Library of Congress.
SFFILM, formerly known as The San Francisco Film Society, is a nonprofit arts organization located in San Francisco, California, that presents year-round programs and events in film exhibition, media education, and filmmaker services.
Cyrus Frisch is a Dutch avant-garde film maker. Filmmaker magazine called him the wild man of Dutch film.
The Documentary Film Institute, is an independent organization within San Francisco State University that is dedicated to support non-fiction cinema by promoting documentary films and filmmakers and producing films on socially and culturally important topics which deserve wider recognition. The current director is Soumyaa Behrens. It is situated within the College of Liberal & Creative Arts at San Francisco State University, with access to a broad cross-section of educational institutions in San Francisco and the Bay Area. It is a resource for undergraduate and graduate students studying film in the area as well as faculty interested in the artistic and politic dimensions of documentary cinema.
Suzi Yoonessi is an American filmmaker. She wrote and directed the award-winning feature film Dear Lemon Lima, and directed the Duplass Brothers film Unlovable and Daphne and Velma for Warner Brothers. Yoonessi's short films No Shoulder and Dear Lemon Lima are distributed by Shorts International and Vanguard Cinema and her documentary film Vern is distributed by National Film Network and is in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Jan Millsapps is a U.S. digital filmmaker, fiction writer, and Professor Emerita in the Cinema Department at San Francisco State University. She has produced films, videos and interactive cinema on subjects ranging from domestic violence to global terrorism, and has published in traditional print and online venues.
Jayan K. Cherian is an Indian poet filmmaker who lives in New York City, US. He used to write in Malayalam and English languages. His documentary film Shape of the Shapeless got wide popularity on Many film festivals like International festival circuit, The International Film Festival of South Africa, as well as several festivals in North America. It won the Silver Jury Prize at the San Francisco Short Film Festival 2010, the Eastman Kodak award for Best Cinematography, and City Visions 2010 award for Best Documentary. Graduated with honors from Hunter College, BA in Film and Creative Writing and MFA from The City College of New York in Writing Directing Film, and Cinematography. Ka Bodyscapes (2016) is his new feature film, Papilio Buddha (2013), his critically acclaimed debut feature film, was screened in the Panorama Section at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival. He made several experimental documentaries and narrative shorts such as: Shape of the Shapeless (2010) Love in the Time of Foreclosure (2009), Hidden Things (2009), Soul of Solomon (2008), Capturing the Signs of God (2008), Holy Mass (2007), Tree of Life (2007), Simulacra the Reality of the Unreal (2007), The Inner Silence of the Tumult (2007), Hid-entity (2007), and Tandava the Dance of Dissolution(2006).
Anthony Wall is a British documentary filmmaker whose lifelong contribution to cinema has been honoured with the Special Medallion of the Telluride film festival. He was the longest-serving Series Editor of the BBC's flagship arts documentary strand Arena, voted by leading TV executives in Broadcast magazine as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time.
Young Dracula is a 2011 short horror film written and directed by Alf Seccombe. The cast includes artist and musician Kyle Field of the band Little Wings, and American television news correspondent Su-chin Pak.
I'm Never Afraid! is a 2010 Dutch Super 16mm documentary film about Mack Bouwense an eight-year-old professional motorcross racer who has a mirrored heart, a condition known as dextrocardia. It is directed by award-winning Dutch filmmaker Willem Baptist and broadcast by VPRO on 20 November 2010. In German and French speaking countries the documentary was broadcast by ARTE.
Ian Olds is an American film director. His directing credits include the documentary Occupation: Dreamland, which follows the 1/505 company of the 82nd Airborne Division in Fallujah, Iraq in early 2004 during the Iraq War. Olds also created the documentary Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi, which depicts the working relationship between American journalist Christian Parenti and his Afghan colleague Ajmal Naqshbandi during the War in Afghanistan.
Noah Cowan was a Canadian artistic director, who served as the executive director of SFFILM from March 2014 to May 2019. He oversaw the organization's exhibition, education, and filmmaker services. Before joining SFFILM, Cowan was the artistic director of TIFF Bell Lightbox, and also worked as the co-director of the Toronto International Film Festival from 2004 to 2008.
Lilian Franck is a German film director and producer, best known for her 2010 documentary Pianomania, a collaborative work with filmmaker Robert Cibis and winner of the Golden Gate Award for Best Documentary at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the German Film Award for Best Sound Design in 2011 and the Semaine De La Critique prize at the Locarno International Film Festival.
Jon Shenk is an Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated documentary film director and director of photography, known for his films Lead Me HomeAthlete A, An Inconvenient Sequel, Audrie & Daisy,The Island President, Lost Boys of Sudan. He is the co-founder, with his wife Bonni Cohen, of Actual Films, a documentary film company based in San Francisco, CA. He co-directed and photographed Lead Me Home which premiered in 2021 at the Telluride Film Festival, was acquired by Netflix, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2022.
Unseen Skies is a 2021 documentary film directed by Yaara Bou Melhem. The film documents the work of artist Trevor Paglen as he undertakes one of his most ambitious projects, Orbital Reflector, launching an artwork into space to highlight the global impact of technology in the 21st century. The film had its premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival in April 2021.
The San Francisco Independent Film Festival, known as IndieFest, is an annual film festival, held in January or February, that recognizes contemporary independent film. It is run by SF IndieFest, a non-profit organization, and based at the Roxie Theater in the Mission District.
Ivete Lucas is a filmmaker, documentarian, producer, editor, and director based in Austin, Texas. Her work includes the documentary short films The Curse and the Jubilee, The Send-Off, Roadside Attraction, The Rabbit Hunt, Skip Day, Happiness is a Journey and the documentary feature film Pahokee.