Mar 29, 2011
Festival
The 54th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 21-May 5) today announced its juries and the prizes to be presented at the Festival’s Golden Gate Awards, Wednesday, May 4, 7:00 pm at Temple Nightclub-Prana Restaurant. Winners will be announced for the New Directors Prize and the Golden Gate Awards.
New Directors Prize
The New Directors Prize is a $15,000 cash prize awarded to the director of a debut feature with a unique artistic sensibility or vision.
New Directors Jury
Nick James is the editor of Sight & Sound magazine. He began reviewing films in 1989 for City Lights, where he eventually became editor of the film section. His book on Michael Mann’s Heat was published in 2002 and he was the presenter of the BBC documentary British Cinema: The End of the Affair the same year. He is currently working on a British film criticism reader.
Daniela Michel is the founding director of the Morelia International Film Festival, an annual event promoting a new generation of Mexican filmmakers. She has served as a juror for the Rockefeller Foundation’s Media Arts Fellowships, the Fulbright-García Robles Film Fellowships and the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding as well as for festivals including Sundance and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. She has reported on film as a print journalist and television presenter since 1994.
Marie Therese Guirgis is a talent manager in New York City who has represented film directors since 2008. She is a producer of the upcoming films The Loneliest Planet, The Goodbye People and Keep the Lights On as well as a consultant for MPI/Dark Sky Films. Previously she was senior vice president of Wellspring, where she ran acquisitions and helped launch the company’s theatrical releasing initiative.
Golden Gate Awards
The Golden Gate Awards competition has introduced Bay Area audiences to filmmakers who have transformed the medium with their award-winning documentary features and animated, narrative, experimental and documentary shorts. Bay Area media professionals screen submissions and then make recommendations to SFFS programmers who finalize the selections. Four juries view the official selections at the Festival and bestow Golden Gate Awards on films in seven categories. All winners will be announced at the Golden Gate Awards ceremony.
Golden Gate Awards Documentary Feature Jury
Dan Krauss is an Academy Award- and Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker whose work has won awards from the Tribeca Film Festival, the International Documentary Association and SFIFF. Most recently, Krauss was a director of photography for the Academy Award¬-nominated feature-length documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers and Life 2.0. Krauss is presently at work on a film about the late artist Jeremy Blake.
Mike Maggiore, with director Karen Cooper, programs the premieres for New York’s Film Forum. He has served on the committees of Film Independent’s Truer Than Fiction Award and the Sundance Documentary Fund. Previously he worked as assistant director of the film and video department of Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and as publicity manager for the Museum of the Moving Image.
Esther Robinson is an award-winning filmmaker and producer whose critically acclaimed directorial debut A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and The Warhol Factory took top prizes at the Berlin, Tribeca and Chicago film festivals. Other producing projects include The Canal Street Madam, Home Page and the 1999 satellite release of The Last Broadcast. Robinson is a former program officer of the Creative Capital Foundation and a nonprofit entrepreneur.
Golden Gate Awards Short Film Jury
Andy Gillet, an actor hailing from Megeve, France, made his feature film debut in 2007’s Nouvelle Chance. In 2008 he was awarded the Ètoile d’Or for Best Male Newcomer for his performance in Eric Rohmer’s The Romance of Astrea and Celadon. He most recently finished filming an adaptation of Marcel Proust’s La Recherche du Temps Perdu.
Max Goldberg is a film critic for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, where he writes primarily about alternative cinemas. His work also appears in Cinema Scope, sf360.org, the MUBI Notebook and on his blog, Text of Light. He received his master’s degree in cinema studies from San Francisco State University.
Kim Yutani is a feature film programmer for the Sundance Film Festival. She is also the director of programming for Outfest, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and oversees Fusion, the Los Angeles LGBT People of Color Film Festival and the Outfest Screenwriting Lab. She has served on juries at the Toronto International Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival and the Palm Springs International ShortFest.
Youth Works Jury
Tyler Galloway is a 17-year-old student at Moreau Catholic High School whose interests include reading, writing, music and cinema. He is the entertainment reporter for the school paper and cohost of a popular entertainment review program on MCTV Live, Moreau’s daily news broadcast. He enjoys the works of Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and Paul Thomas Anderson and would love to one day be a screenwriter or director.
Fifer Garbesi is a 16-year-old at Berkeley High School who has always loved being behind the camera. She has had films featured in the San Francisco Women’s Film Festival, the Bernal Heights Outdoor Film Festival, the Cinemasports International Film Festival and a video competition for Sweet Baby Ray’s, for which she won a year’s supply of barbecue sauce. She has recently recovered from aspirations of becoming a feature-film director and now wishes only to document the beauty of nature.
Theo Rigby is a documentary filmmaker and photographer. His films have focused on incarceration in America, the toll of the Iraq War on military families and most recently the undocumented community living in the shadows of the US. His latest film, Sin País (Without Country), has won awards and screened at over 15 film festivals worldwide. Additionally, he has started an after-school digital storytelling program for undocumented youth in San Francisco.
Hailey Scandrette is a junior at DaVinci Academy in San Francisco and a frequent performer with The Marsh Youth Theater. Performance has been a great love of hers since she was seven years old and is a profession she aims to pursue. She also enjoys writing, reading, fashion design and both participating in and viewing film.
Works for Kids and Families Jury
Ryan Moore is a fifth grade teacher at Longfellow Elementary in San Francisco. He has been participating in the Schools at the Festival program with his students for the past four years.
Danielle O’Hare manages programs and operations for the Studio Talent Group at Lucasfilm in San Francisco. She is member of the Lucasfilm Speaker Series committee, curates an internal Great Films on Film program and partners with the San Francisco Film Society to produce The Art and Science of Lucasfilm educational series for schools.
Leida Schoggen was an Assistant United States Attorney for 13 years before embarking on a career as a stay-at-home mother. Much of the educational experience of her children has been provided through a homeschooling program, to which a significant contributor has been the attendance of the SFIFF Schools at the Festival program for the past six years.
For a full list of films in competition, see the Golden Gate Award Competition Official Selection list.
For more information visit fest11.sffs.org.
For photos and press materials visit sffs.org/pressdownloads.