Wrap Notes: Bay Area Filmmakers Shine at the 2023 SFFILM Festival

Apr 27, 2023

The 66th San Francisco International Film Festival brought audiences into theaters across the Bay Area, and showcased works from 37 countries. Now, the reviews are in: It was a resounding success! Keep reading to find the dates for the 2024 SFFILM Festival.

Producer Ryan Coogler and director Peter Nicks (photo courtesy SFFILM/Tommy Lau); director Savanah Leaf (photo courtesy SFFILM/Pamela Gentile); director Matt Johnson (photo courtesy SFFILM/Tommy Lau); and the crew of What These Walls Won’t Hold (photo courtesy SFFILM/Tommy Lau).

In its 66th iteration, the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM Festival) ran from April 13–23, and welcomed moviegoers into theaters across the Bay Area—from the historic Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland to community-centered Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) to the CGV San Francisco, which served as the Festival hub. “The 2023 SFFILM Festival was a resounding celebration of filmmaking and community,” Anne Lai, Executive Director of SFFILM, said. “Not only did we unite filmmakers and audiences in a centralized hub, but we shared the program and Festival spirit with the entire Bay Area.”

With a full slate of in-person programming and events, the 2023 SFFILM Festival featured essential stories from both local and international filmmakers, who hailed from 37 countries. SFFILM, which puts on the Americas’ longest-running film festival, illustrated its ongoing commitment to platforming artists with diverse backgrounds and lived experiences; half of the films in the lineup were helmed by women or non-binary filmmakers—for the third year in a row. “Moviegoing is not just alive, it’s thriving in our communities,” Lai said, and that sentiment is clearly shared by audiences and filmmakers alike.

Award Winners at the 2023 SFFILM Festival

Since its founding in 1957, the SFFILM Festival has proven to be a telling barometer for what’s to come in the year ahead. Not only does the curatorial vision reflect some of the year’s best and brightest films and filmmakers, but the organization’s long-running Golden Gate Awards honored works that are sure to move audiences as they find distributors and hit theaters in 2023. A prime example? Director Savanah Leaf’s Earth Mama, a much-celebrated film that has been acquired by A24, held its hometown premiere during the SFFILM Festival, with stars Tia Nomore and Keta Price also in attendance. Festival-goers will agree: here’s hoping Earth Mama’s Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature is the first of many accolades to come for the SFFILM-Supported filmmaker.

Other narrative films that left an impression on jurors and audiences alike included Laura Baumeister’s nuanced and riveting Daughter of Rage (La Hija de todas las Rabias), which won the Cine Latino Jury Award, and made history as the first film by a Nicaraguan woman filmmaker; the suspenseful, atmospheric Snow and the Bear (Kar ve Ayı), which nabbed Selcen Ergun the New Directors Award; and Iyabo Kwayana’s By Water, a Golden Gate Award-winning animated short that masterfully mixes mediums to paint an unforgettable, searingly intimate film. The Festival’s Centerpiece film, Past Lives, affirmed that first-time filmmaker Celine Song will soon be a household name, along with star Greta Lee, who turns in a striking, devastatingly intimate performance.

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Miri Navasky, Joan Baez, and Karen O’Connor

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Celine Song and Greta Lee at the centerpiece screening of Past Lives

Celine Song and Greta Lee at the centerpiece screening of Past Lives

Photo by Pamela Gentile

2023 Festival Lounge

2023 Festival Lounge presented by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Hummingbirds

Filmmakers Estefanía "Beba" Contreras and Silvia Del Carmen Castaños at their screening of Hummingbirds

Photo by Tommy Lau

BlackBerry director Matthew Johnson

BlackBerry director Matthew Johnson receives the SFFILM Sloan Science on Screen Prize.

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Firelight Media Co-Founders Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith

Firelight Media Co-Founders Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith accept SFFILM's Mel Novikoff Award

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Maya E. Rudolph and Allison O’Daniel - The Tuba Thieves

Maya E. Rudolph and Allison O’Daniel hold balloons as part of a sensory experience for all audiences at The Tuba Thieves.

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Stephen Curry: Underrated

Stephen Curry: Underrated opened this year’s festival at the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Earth Mama

Savannah Leaf’s Earth Mama had its Californian premiere at this year’s festival.

On the documentary side, quite a few titles resonated with audiences and jurors. The SFFILM Festival opened, of course, with the hometown premiere of Stephen Curry: Underrated, with director Peter Nicks and producer Ryan Coogler among those in attendance for the two sold-out showings at Oakland’s Grand Lake Theatre. The Castro Theatre hosted a nearly sold-out screening of Joan Baez I Am A Noise, with the legendary musician and activist in attendance, while the CGV San Francisco boasted the California premieres of Sundance award-winner Bad Press, directed by Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler, and supermodel-and-activist-turned-filmmaker Bethann Hardison and Frédéric Tcheng’s (Halston; Dior and I) Invisible Beauty all of whom delighted audiences during lively Q&As.

Festival-goers were also treated to the world premiere of What These Walls Won’t Hold, Adamu Chan’s impeccably crafted and unwavering look at life inside San Quentin State Prison, which earned a juried Golden Gate Award for Best Mid-Length film. The prestigious McBaine Bay Area Documentary Feature Award went to Home Is a Hotel, which also garnered the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature during its world premiere-run at the SFFILM Festival. Directed by Kevin Duncan Wong, Todd Sills, and Kar Yin Tham, the film was dubbed “essential viewing” by the McBaine jurors for its unflinching look at the Bay Area housing crisis. In addition to the fantastic turnout from local filmmakers, Anna Hints, the first Estonian woman director, won the McBaine Documentary Feature Award for her achingly intimate, visually stunning Smoke Sauna Sisterhood.

To close out the show, audiences returned via the big screen to where this year’s Festival began: Oakland. Visionary local and SFFILM-Supported filmmaker Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You, Festival 2018) presented the first four episodes of his new Prime Video series, I’m A Virgo. Starring Emmy-winning actor Jharrel Jerome (Moonlight; When They See Us), the series is a darkly comedic, fantastical coming-of-age joyride about a 13-foot-tall Black man that, in being a mythical odyssey, questions the purpose of the mythical odyssey. “I think that this is an ‘I told you so,’” Riley said before the episodes screened, recalling that it was quite the concept to pitch.

“I want people to be able to access the means to make their art,” Riley told the audience during one of two sold-out post-screening Q&A sessions. “It’s important to me, but it’s also very selfish. This is where I’m from, and I’m a better artist when I’m here.” Riley’s sentiment encapsulates what’s at the core of the SFFILM Festival; although the films are from all over the world, the Festival is a place where all of that comes together, making essential art more accessible for moviegoers, and providing a platform for filmmakers with something fresh to share.

About the Author

Kate Bove is a freelance writer, whose entertainment writing appears on GameRant, CBR, Ask.com, and other publications. Their short-form fiction has been featured in Portland Review, Exposition Literary, and Lambda Literary’s Emerge magazine, among others.

Upcoming Events

SFFILM has so much fantastic programming set for this summer and fall! Join us for multiple screenings that are soon to be announced and Doc Stories coming November 2–5, 2023. If you like to plan even further in advance, mark your calendars for the 2024 SFFILM Festival, which runs April 24–28, 2024 in venues around the Bay Area.

Stay In Touch With SFFILM

SFFILM is a nonprofit organization whose mission ensures independent voices in film are welcomed, heard, and given the resources to thrive. SFFILM works hard to bring the most exciting films and filmmakers to Bay Area movie lovers. To be the first to know what’s coming, sign up for our email alerts and watch your inbox.