2026 Festival Guests, Jurors, and Screening Committee

Meet the Festival jurors for the Golden Gate Awards for shorts, global narrative features, documentaries, new directors and spotlight competitions. Also, a hearty thanks to our screeners, listed at the bottom of the page. For information about film guests attending festival programs, visit the respective event pages linked here.

69th San Francisco International Film Festival Jurors

New Directors Jury

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New Directors Juror

Aisha Harris

Aisha Harris is the author of the essay collection Wannabe: Reckonings with the Pop Culture That Shapes Me and co-host of the NPR podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour. She previously covered arts and culture for the New York Times and Slate. A native of Connecticut, she earned her B.A. in theatre from Northwestern University and M.A. in cinema studies from New York University.

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New Directors Juror

Celia Mattison

Celia Mattison is a film critic and culture writer based in Queens, New York. Her work has appeared in Vulture, MUBI Notebook, and Slate. She is also the author of Deeper Into Movies, a monthly newsletter about physical media and cinematic ephemera.

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New Directors Juror

Trish Bendix

Trish Bendix is an NLGJA award-winning writer, editor, and producer based in Los Angeles. A regular contributor to The New York Times, Trish’s work has also appeared in outlets such as The Wall Street Journal Magazine, Time and Documentary. In 2024, Trish produced the GLAAD-nominated Netflix documentary, Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution, and her first book, Sappho was a Pop Star, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in 2027.

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Global Visions Jury

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Global Visions Juror

Jason Silverman

Jason has devoted his time to bringing people together through cinema since the early 1990s. His positions include Artistic Director of the Taos Talking Picture Festival (1996-2004), named one of the top ten festivals in the world; Cinematheque Director at the Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe (2004-2020), operating two theaters included in The Sundance Institute’s prestigious Arthouse Project; and as co-Executive Director of Upstate Films (2020-2026). He has worked as a key member of the Telluride Film Festival staff since 1991.

Jason is, with Samba Gadjigo, the writer, director and producer of the feature film SEMBENE! which premiered in competition at the 2015 Sundance Film and the Cannes Festival du Film, and was named one of New York magazine’s top ten films of 2015. Their project Sembene Across Africa has connected millions of viewers in 49 African nations with African cinema, and the two have been instrumental in the rescue and restoration of the films of Ousmane Sembene, “the father of African cinema.” He served as contributing writer for Wired from 1995-2010, as adjunct professor at the Institute for American Indian Arts, and as a consultant for The Lensic, SITE Santa Fe, the Bioneers Conference, the Tribeca Film Institute, El Museo del Barrio, Museum of Fine Arts/Museum of New Mexico and the Santa Fe Opera.

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Global Visions Juror

Lora Hirschberg

Lora Hirschberg was born and raised in Ohio. She attended NYU undergraduate film school from 1981-1985 and subsequently worked in the downtown New York post production scene. After moving to San Francisco, she landed a job in the machine room at Skywalker Sound in 1991. She has mixed over 200 feature films and documentaries and won the 2011 Academy Award for Best Sound Mixing for her work on Inception.

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Global Visions Juror

Heidi Zwicker

Heidi Zwicker is Senior Programmer, Feature Films and Shorts Films at the Sundance Film Festival where she has worked since 2010. She focuses on international and U.S. Narrative Feature Films and Midnight in addition to leading the Short Film programming process. She frequently travels internationally, representing the Sundance programming team at festivals and markets, meeting emerging filmmakers, and serving on juries. Heidi was a Programmer at Palm Springs International Shortfest from 2011-2014 and is Senior Programmer at the Provincetown International Film Festival. Originally from the north shore of Boston, she has a degree in English from University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth and an M.A. in Critical Studies of Film and Television from UCLA.

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Kirby Walker Documentary Award Jury

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Documentary Feature Juror

Michael Kinomoto

Michael Kinomoto is Senior Manager, Production and a Supervising Producer for ITVS where he oversees a portfolio of documentary films in production. Some highlights include the Academy Award-nominated and Peabody Award-winning Minding the Gap, the Emmy-winning Free Chol Soo Lee and Best of Enemies, as well as recent festival award-winners The Librarians, Natchez, and The Tuba Thieves. Earlier, he worked with filmmaker Steven Okazaki as an associate producer, assistant editor, and post-production supervisor on the Academy Award-nominated documentary short, The Mushroom Club, and the Emmy award-winning feature documentary, White Light/Black Rain, both for HBO. Kinomoto holds an MFA in Film Production from San Francisco State University and has also taught film production and studies at several Bay Area universities.

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Documentary Feature Juror

Loren Hammonds

Loren Hammonds is an Emmy® and Peabody Award-winning producer and curator of Film, Television, and Immersive work. A NYC native, he is currently Head of Documentary at TIME Studios. He previously held the titles of Vice President of Immersive Programming at Tribeca Enterprises and Senior Programmer at Tribeca Festival. He is currently a board advisor for Subject Matter, Agog: The Immersive Media Institute, and ONX Studio.

Among his recent credits as Producer or Executive Producer are FRIDA (Amazon MGM), DIRTY POP (Netflix), THE LIONHEART (HBO), MLK: NOW IS THE TIME (Meta), THE TERRITORY (Nat Geo), D-DAY: THE CAMERA SOLDIER (Apple Vision Pro) and KATRINA BABIES (HBO).

His views on cinematic and immersive storytelling have been featured in several publications and programs, including The New York Times, BBC Click, NPR, The Today Show, and Vice. He has also been featured as a guest speaker at Cannes Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, AIDC, SXSW, Columbia University Digital Storytelling Lab, Mutek, Pratt Institute, Scuola Holden, P&G Signal, and more.

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Documentary Feature Juror

Trish Adlesic

Trish Adlesic is a two-time Academy Award-nominated, Emmy-winning, and Producers Guild of America Award-winning documentary filmmaker. She produced My Mom Jayne with Mariska Hargitay. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and had its North American premiere at the Tribeca Festival.

Trish produced and co-directed The ABCs of Book Banning with Sheila Nevins for Paramount+, earning an Academy Award nomination. She also directed and produced A Tree of Life: The Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting for HBO.

She co-directed and co-produced I Am Evidence with Geeta Gandbhir and Mariska Hargitay for HBO, a film examining the alarming number of untested sexual assault kits in the United States. I Am Evidence received the prestigious duPont-Columbia Award, was a Peabody finalist, and earned a Primetime Emmy Honors Award and the Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association for excellence in journalism. The film’s wide distribution helped spark a national examination of sexual assault survivors’ experiences within the justice system and contributed to testing decades-old backlogged rape kits, leading to new legislation across the United States.

Her collaboration with Josh Fox and HBO on Gasland and Gasland II earned an Academy Award nomination and an Emmy Award. These seminal documentaries exposed the environmental devastation and public-safety risks associated with hydraulic fracturing.

Beyond her documentary work, Trish has more than 25 years of experience in narrative filmmaking and has worked with acclaimed directors including Gus Van Sant, James L. Brooks, Michael Mann, Jim Sheridan, and Sidney Lumet. She also worked on the long-running television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit for 14 years.

She is a proud member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Producers Guild of America, and the Directors Guild of America.

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Cine Latino Spotlight Advisory Committee

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Cine Latino Advisor

Megan Martinez Goltz

Megan Martinez Goltz is a queer Chicanx storyteller from California. Their practice is rooted in creating immersive soundscapes woven with vibrant histories that span generations, borders, and languages. As a producer, director, and editor, Megan uplifts various projects to encourage cross-cultural understanding and the value of community based storytelling. Their work has been awarded internationally across North America and embraced as an educational tool among classrooms. Megan is currently pursuing an MFA at Northwestern University where they continue to deepen their practice of weaving medicine into media and embracing storytelling as a pathway for ancestral and collective connection.

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Cine Latino Advisor

Carlos A. Gutiérrez

Carlos A. Gutiérrez is Co-Founding Executive Director of Cinema Tropical, the New York–based media arts non-profit organization founded in 2001 that is the leading promoter of Latin American cinema in the U.S. and a recent recipient of the National Society of Film Critics’ Film Heritage Award. As a guest curator, he has presented film series at institutions including The Museum of Modern Art, Film at Lincoln Center, the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of the Moving Image, BAM Film, and Anthology Film Archives. He has co-curated the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar twice (2007 and 2025) and currently serves as Artistic Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Latin Wave film festival and Co-Director of Cinema Tucsón. In 2025, he received the Leading Light Award at the DOC NYC Visionaries Tribute. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and serves on Film Forum’s Board of Directors. He has also served as a juror, nominator, and panelist for international film festivals and funds including IDFA, Tribeca, Mar del Plata, New Orleans, Valdivia, Doclisboa, Morelia, Seattle, Cali, Margaret Mead, DocsValencia, SANFIC, the Sundance Documentary Fund, Tribeca Film Institute’s Latin America Media Arts Fund, and the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.

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Cine Latino Advisor

Florencia Manovil

Florencia Manóvil is an Oakland-based Latina writer-director whose work expresses a yearning to evolve societal paradigms, through a queer ecofeminist lens.

In recent years, Manóvil was an SFFILM Sound and Cinema fellow and SFFILM FilmHouse resident, as well as selected for the Writing Climate Pitchfest and Stowe Story Labs. She’s a two-time recipient of the Frameline Completion Fund, and her films have screened at festivals around the world. In 2015 she was named “Best East Bay Filmmaker” for her web series DYKE CENTRAL, lauded by press and fans for its groundbreaking representation of diverse LGBTQ characters.

Born and raised in Argentina, Manóvil moved to the U.S. to study film at Emerson College on an Honors scholarship. Based in the SF Bay Area since 2007, she’s active in her local film community and passionate about sustainable and equitable practices. She’s also a certified Intimacy Coordinator and parent to an inspiring teen artist.

She is a proud member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Producers Guild of America, and the Directors Guild of America.

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Shorts + Mid-Length Jury

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Shorts + Mid-Length Juror

Zelle Bonney

An Acquisitions Executive on the Original Film Team, covering Sundance, Berlinale, Cannes, TIFF, and AFM, Zelle Bonney joined Netflix in 2018 after development and production experience in both NY and LA. Her job experience in film and tv extends from work at a production company, in cable television, and at film studios, including Universal, Warner Bros, and Fox. A graduate of Williams College, Zelle studied art, culture, and economics in South Africa, Ghana, and India. Her goal to support writing for women and underrepresented communities was recognized by the Smithsonian and The National Endowment for the Arts.

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Shorts + Mid-Length Juror

Bao Nguyen

Bao Nguyen is an award-winning Vietnamese American filmmaker and founding partner of EAST Films, a transpacific production company based in Los Angeles and Vietnam. His work has been seen on HBO, Netflix, The New York Times, and Arte, among others. He directed Be Water, an intimate portrait of Bruce Lee that competed in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, was invited to screen at SXSW, Cannes, Telluride, and Hot Docs, and became the most-watched ESPN 30 for 30 film of all time on their platform. His feature documentary The Greatest Night in Pop, about the making of “We Are the World,” premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, debuted as the number one film globally on Netflix, won the PGA Award and Critics Choice Award, and received a Grammy and Primetime Emmy nomination. He directed the critically acclaimed film, The Stringer, which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix. His most recent film, BTS: The Return, which was also released on Netflix, chronicles the world’s biggest band, BTS, as they return from military service to record their 5th studio album. He is a member of BAFTA and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a PBS/WGBH Producers Fellow, a Firelight Media Documentary Lab Fellow, a Berlinale Talents alumnus, and a BAFTA US Breakthrough recipient, and holds a BA in Politics/International Relations from NYU and an MFA in Social Documentary Film from the School of Visual Arts.

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Shorts + Mid-Length Juror

David Lally

David Lally is an Emmy and Annie Award–winning producer at Pixar Animation Studios with nearly 16 years of experience spanning technical artistry and production.

David served as Producer and Executive Producer on Win or Lose (2025), Pixar’s first-ever original series, which won five Children & Family Emmy Awards and three Annie Awards. Before that, he pioneered Pixar’s SparkShorts program, transforming it from an experimental initiative to a studio staple, producing and executive producing shorts including the Oscar-nominated Kitbull and Burrow.

David began his Pixar career as a Technical Artist, contributing to numerous productions, including the Oscar-winning films Coco, Inside Out, Brave, and Bao.

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Family Films Jury

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Family Films Juror

Daniel Handler

Daniel Handler is the author of seven novels, including Why We Broke Up, All The Dirty Parts and Bottle Grove, and most recently a memoir, And Then? And Then?  What Else?  As Lemony Snicket, he is the author of far too many books for children, including Poison for Breakfast, the four-volume All The Wrong Questions and the thirteen-volume A Series of Unfortunate Events, which has been adapted for screen and television.  He lives in San Francisco with the illustrator Lisa Brown, to whom he is married.

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Family Films Juror

Trevor Jimenez

Trevor Jimenez is a director at Pixar (Untitled 2028 feature film, Win or Lose E06 “Mixed Signals”) and previously worked as a story artist on Finding Dory, Coco, Luca, and Soul (Where he served as Story Supervisor). His short film ‘Weekends’ (2017) was nominated for an Academy Award and was also the recipient of an Annie award, and the 2018 Annecy Jury and audience award. Before Pixar, he worked as a story artist at Blue Sky, Disney Feature Animation, Illumination & Henry Selick’s Cinderbiter studios. Trevor is originally from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and now resides in Berkeley, CA. 

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Family Films Juror

Nínive Clements Calegari

Nínive Clements Calegari began her career as a public school teacher before spending 25 years as a founder and senior nonprofit leader dedicated to education and youth. She co-founded 826 Valencia, which has grown into an international network of writing and tutoring organizations, and co-founded the Teacher Salary Project, bringing attention to the urgent issue of low educator compensation. She also served as Director of the Brave New Voices Initiative and as CEO of Enterprise for Youth.

A passionate advocate for teachers, she co-produced the documentary American Teacher alongside Dave Eggers and Vanessa Roth, narrated by Matt Damon, and has produced a series of short films exploring the teacher pay and shortage crisis — work that reflects her lifelong commitment to elevating the teaching profession.

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Youth Works Jury

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Youth Works Juror

Amiko Muscat

Amiko Muscat is a 17-year-old Japanese American filmmaker from San Francisco, California. She is currently a student in the film department at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, where her work explores human connection through storytelling. She has been involved with SFFILM since her sophomore year, participating in the Youth FilmHouse Residency and earning Official Selection in the Youth Works category at the 68th San Francisco International Film Festival. Outside of filmmaking, she is involved in local organizing, founding SF Youth Against ICE and participating in community-based art initiatives.

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Youth Works Juror

Maria Victoria Ponce

Maria Victoria Ponce is a writer/director born in her grandmother’s dirt-floored kitchen in rural Michoacan, Mexico. Ponce’s work navigates the complexities in the routine lives within poor and working-class neighborhoods: themes of immigration, sexuality and coming of age tend to recur. She was a fellow at Sundance/WIF Financing Intensive, Film Independent Fast Track, LPB Digital Media Fund, SFFILM FilmHouse and SFFILM Sound and Cinema Fellowship 2026. She was a finalist for Tribeca/AT&T Untold Stories where she pitched for the coveted $1 million prize. She received grants from SFFILM Rainin, PBS – The Latino Experience and The Berkeley Film Foundation and was named the Rainin Fellow in Film through the Kenneth Rainin Foundation.

Ponce has worked as the Femme Frontera Film Lab Artist Development Manager: La Frontera Film Lab, and a Brown Girls Doc Mafia Mastermind Program facilitator. She’s given talks at SFFILM, Watsonville Film Festival and Women in Media UCSB.

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Youth Works Juror

Cait Yoffie

Cait Yoffie is a senior in the Theater department at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco. Raised in a family of artists and journalists, she’s been deeply immersed in a wide range of creative expression–film, theater, dance, music, visual art, architecture, literature–from a young age. 

In the past few years, her love for film caught up with her, leading her to create her first short. Ignited by the high of filmmaking, she joined SF Art & Film Workshop with Ronald Chase, wrote her first feature screenplay, made a short at Sutro Baths called Deep, attended CSSSA, and co-directed The Jar under the guidance of Joe Talbot.

Now she’s excited to experience a major college film program at NYU or USC, where she dreams of pushing her work much further, working alongside artists with her same level of passion, and together creating a brand new generation of films and filmmakers.

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Youth Works Juror

Melissa Nava

Melissa Nava is a college-bound multimedia artist who has collaborated on independent short animated films with roles as a background artist and animator.

They are a traditional artist, who experiments with overlapping techniques; painting collages with various brushes, pens, clays and real world objects that create unique collaged textures. As a digital artist, Melissa incorporates past known traditional art techniques, using a neutral organic color palette, creating a memory-like piece while invoking a mellow realization in their work. Melissa loves blending new methods and mediums with traditional techniques and finding intent with each medium.

Melissa is emerging with a deeper understanding of their art and who they are, using art as an extension of what they want others to see, in hope of people finding what they personally resonate and want to be connected with.

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Programmers + Screening Committee

SFFILM is grateful to all of the individuals who helped the Festival Programming team sift through thousands of submissions to this year’s edition.

2026 SFFILM Festival Programmers

2026 Festival Screening Committee