Mar 30, 2010
Festival
The 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival (April 22-May 6) today announced its juries and the prizes to be presented at the Festival’s Golden Gate Awards, Wednesday, May 5, 7:00 pm at Temple Nightclub-Prana Restaurant. Winners will be announced for the New Directors Prize and the Golden Gate Awards in various categories. Winners of the SFFS/Film Arts Foundation Documentary Grant and the Spring 2010 SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grant will also be announced.
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
Sylvia Feng is president and CEO of Public Television Service (PTS) of Taiwan. Since 1992, she has devoted herself to the promotion of public broadcast in Taiwan and succeeded in rallying public support that brought about the passage of the Public Television Act in 1997. In 1999, Feng created the first and only documentary program in Taiwan, Viewpoint, widely recognized as a prime moving force behind the rapid growth of documentary filmmaking in her country.
Lisa Kennedy has been the Denver Post film critic since 2003. She is a member of the National Society of Film Critics as well as the Alliance of Women Film Journalists. Before making the leap west, Kennedy lived in New York City, where she did stints as editor-at-large for Out magazine, managing editor for Us magazine and editor of the film section at the Village Voice.
Jim McKay is a filmmaker and co-founder of C-Hundred Film Corp. He produced and directed Lighthearted Nation, R.E.M.’s Tourfilm, numerous music videos and an award-winning series of public service announcements called Direct Effect. McKay’s films as a writer/director include Girls Town, Our Song (SFIFF 1999), Everyday People (SFIFF 2004), and Angel Rodriguez. McKay has directed numerous TV shows including The Wire, Big Love, Hung and In Treatment. McKay served as a producer on many films including American Movie, Spring Forward and Stranger Inside. McKay was a Rockefeller Fellow in 2003 and a Guggenheim Fellow in 2004.
Golden Gate Awards
The Golden Gate Awards competition has continually introduced Bay Area audiences to illustrious filmmakers who have transformed the medium with their award-winning documentary features and animated, narrative, experimental and documentary shorts. Submissions are evaluated by screeners who recommend films for official selections to the Festival. Four juries view the official selections at the Festival and bestow Golden Gate Awards on films in seven categories. All winners are announced at the Golden Gate Awards.
Golden Gate Awards Documentary Feature Jury
Dayna Goldfine is an Emmy winning director/producer, who, with her partner Dan Geller, creates critically acclaimed multicharacter documentary narratives. Their film, Ballets Russes (Sundance 2005), received recognition as one of the top five documentaries of 2005 by both the National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review. With Geller, Goldfine is currently in postproduction on two feature-length documentaries: Satan Came to Eden: The Galapagos Affair (2011) and VC (2010).
Eugene Hernandez manages the online trade publication indieWIRE, which he cofounded in 1996, as the editor-in-chief. He is also the editorial vice president of SnagFilms, which acquired indieWIRE two years ago. Eugene has served as an instructor at the New School in Manhattan and participated as a juror and panelist at numerous international film festivals. As a writer he has contributed to the Wall Street Journal, Variety, Screen International, Filmmaker Magazine and the Hollywood Reporter.
Paul Sturtz is a director of the True/False Film Fest, which he helped found in 2003, and he is the founder/program director of the Ragtag Cinema, an independent theater in Columbia, Missouri. He also serves on the Columbia City Council.
Golden Gate Awards Short Film Jury
Robert Abele is a film and television critic/journalist whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Variety, Premiere, DGA Quarterly, Emmy, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Dallas Morning News, Total Film and Playboy. A former theater critic, he collaborated with Emmy-winning comedian Kathy Griffin on her New York Times bestselling memoir, Official Book Club Selection; coauthored the book, The Paramount Story and has served on juries for the AFI Film Festival, the USA Film Festival and the PEN Center/USA West Literary Awards.
Kelly Duane de la Vega is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and 2009-10 HBO/FIND fellow. Her feature documentaries have been shown in countless film festivals around the world and broadcast on PBS stations and on the Documentary Channel. Duane de la Vega produced and codirected See How They Run (2001) that premiered at South By Southwest Film Festival. Her Emmy-nominated film Monumental: David Brower’s Fight for Wild America (2004), opened theatrically nationwide and was selected to screen at Lincoln Center. She is also the senior director of content at TurnHere, a video production company. Duane de la Vega currently is in production on a feature length documentary, Better This World.
Jacques Thelemaque is a writer/director who, in 1993, cofounded Filmmakers Alliance, and in 2004, FA Productions, of which he is copresident. He was also the former chief community officer at Withoutabox.com. Thelemaque has written and directed eight award-winning short films and one feature film. He’s also produced five feature films and numerous short films. Thelemaque is currently on the board of advisors for the IFP Emerging Filmmaker Lab and the Ashland Independent Film Festival.
Youth Works Jury
Allxie Cleary is finishing up her senior year at the Bay School of San Francisco. She participates actively in her school’s theater program (currently starring in The Wizand The Importance of Being Earnest) and student council. She writes copiously and aspires to be an engineer or to work in the film industry.
Kento Mizuno is a 17-year-old Japanese American who has lived in Paris, New York and Tokyo and is currently attending the Bay School of San Francisco. Photography is his passion, and he has won several nature photography awards including a high school scholarship sponsored by the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA). He dreams of one day working for the National Geographic Society.
Christopher Upham is a writer/director and story consultant who teaches screenwriting at San Francisco State University and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. As an actor, he has been in more than 50 films. His feature-length personal documentary about the long-term effects of Vietnam combat, Return to Dakto, won prestigious Pacific Pioneer and Fleishhacker grants and currently is in postproduction.
JarredFrancis Ergino is 16 years old and studies at Seton Home Study School in San Jose. He enjoys tennis, hiking, bike riding, drawing, video gaming, researching, reviewing and watching movies, learning to play guitar and piano, singing and a little bit of dancing. Eventually he’d like to be the director of the next big thing.
Works for Kids and Families Jury
Kristin Farr manages educational outreach projects for KQED Public Broadcasting in San Francisco. She hosts professional development workshops that help educators learn best practices for using arts-related media in the classroom. Farr also writes art reviews for KQED’s arts blog, helps to produce a monthly arts educational podcast called Gallery Crawl and develops K-12 curricula related to all of KQED’s arts programs including the local television series Spark.
Velvy Appleton, a Golden Gate Award winner in 1999, has been producing and directing for more than 25 years. In addition to producing hundreds of broadcast commercials and network IDs, Appleton produced visual effects for Hellboy, Sin Cityand SpyKids3D. In the Bay Area, Appleton has produced at Industrial Light & Magic, Radium, Mekanism, the Orphanage, Wild Brain and Colossal Pictures. Currently, he is an executive producer at Pixomondo|PublicArt.
Jane Mauchly is an educator, artist and storyteller. She has taught mixed-media art and digital storytelling classes in schools and programs such as the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland and Just Think (now part of One Economy). At St. Monica School in the Richmond district of San Francisco, she integrates art and technology, including film critique and short filmmaking projects, into her classroom curricula.
For a full list of films in competition, please reference the Golden Gate Awards official selection list.
For tickets and information, go to www.sffs.org or call 925-866-9559.
For photos and press materials visit sffs.org/pressdownloads.