Apr 18, 2018
Festival
San Francisco, CA – SFFILM wrapped the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival (April 4–17) with 242 screenings of 186 films from 45 countries, which were attended by some 300 filmmakers and industry guests. Over two weeks, the 2018 SFFILM Festival showed 59 narrative features, 38 documentary features, four New Visions features, two episodic programs, and a total of 83 short films. The Festival awarded nearly $40,000 in prizes to emerging and established filmmakers with films representing ten countries. Particularly popular were the many screenings and events featuring attending filmmakers and guests as well as those with enhanced Q&As. For the fourth year in a row, SFFILM Festival welcomed a record-breaking number of artist and filmmaker guests to the Festival for special collaborations, engaging with audiences through in-depth post-screening conversations.
New venues and old favorites hosted Festival audiences this year, from San Francisco’s downtown and Mission districts, to Oakland and Berkeley in the East Bay. The Theater at Children’s Creativity Museum proved to be a valuable new gem, with the other City venues SFMOMA Phyllis Wattis Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Dolby Cinema at 1275 Market, the Roxie Theater, the Victoria Theatre, the Castro Theatre, and additional event venues the Walt Disney Family Museum and SFFILM FilmHouse. Oakland’s Grand Lake Theatre hosted SFFILM Festival screenings for the first time, including the hugely successful East Bay component of the Sorry to Bother You Centerpiece event. Screenings at BAMPFA in downtown Berkeley continued a longtime Festival presence at that venue.
“It has been an exceptional year for cinema and we are proud to bring great films and unique collaborations to the Bay Area,” said Noah Cowan, SFFILM Executive Director. “In particular we were delighted to spotlight the many films supported by SFFILM’s granting and residences programs, led by Boots Riley’s outstanding Sorry to Bother You.”
Star-Studded Nights
Scores of Festival screenings featured actors, filmmakers, writers, musicians, and other creative professionals who participated in onstage introductions and Q&A sessions with Festival audiences; these guests included Blonde Redhead, Bo Burnham, Eastman Kodak CEO Jeff Clarke, Terry Crews, Geoff Dyer, Danny Elfman, Dominique Fishback, Peter Fonda, Jermaine Fowler, Neil Gaiman, Alex Garland, Sarah Goldberg, Sam Green, Michel Hazanavicius, Joan Jett, Craig Johnson, Kronos Quartet, Kenny Laguna, Jaron Lanier, Louise Lecavalier, Guy Maddin, John Cameron Mitchell, Jason Reitman, Boots Riley, Paul Schrader, Tom Everett Scott, Jordana Spiro, Jason Sudeikis, Charlize Theron, Gus Van Sant, Wayne Wang, and Henry Winkler, among many others.
Leading lights in the film world were honored with special tributes and Festival awards. In the first of two sold out tributes, Academy Award®-winning actor Charlize Theron dazzled the Castro Theatre audience with engaging onstage conversation and a screening of her new film Tully, with the film’s director Jason Reitman also participating. Celebrated and versatile filmmaker Wayne Wang‘s tribute showed off his newly remastered version of his 1995 film Smoke in the pristine setting of Dolby Cinema at 1275 Market. Internationally renowned scholar, author, educator, and producer Annette Insdorf received the Mel Novikoff Award. Acclaimed experimental filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky received the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award. Groundbreaking, Academy Award®-winning filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman received the George Gund III Craft of Cinema Award.
The Festival’s Big Nights kicked off on Opening Night with A Kid Like Jake, featuring a Q&A with SFFILM grantee and acclaimed independent filmmaker Silas Howard. The 2018 SFFILM Festival Centerpiece was one for the history books. Sorry to Bother You by Boots Riley screened during one evening in both the Castro Theatre in San Francisco and at the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland. After introducing the film in person at the Castro Theatre, writer/director Boots Riley, cast members Terry Crews, Jermaine Fowler, and Michael X. Sommers, with producers George Rush and Nina Yang Bongiovi, travelled across the Bay, where Riley, Crews, and Fowler participated in a Skype Q&A with the Castro audience, and all gathered again onstage at the Grand Lake. The SFFILM-supported film set in Oakland received a hometown welcome long to be remembered. The festivities ended with the Closing Night screening of Don’t Worry He Won’t Get Far On Foot, featuring a Q&A with director Gus Van Sant and composer Danny Elfman.
Award-Winning Films
Nearly $40,000 in prizes was awarded by Golden Gate Awards juries at the 2018 SFFILM Festival. The Festival’s awards ceremony was held on Sunday, April 15, at The Lab. Ten films were in juried competition for the $10,000 Golden Gate New Directors Prize, given to a first-time filmmaker whose work exhibits a unique artistic sensibility. The jury, composed of Programmer Dilcia Barrera, producer and Editor-in-Chief of Filmmaker Magazine Scott Macaulay, and producer Adele Romanski, selected Ana Urushadze’s Scary Mother (Georgia/Estonia). Additional cash prizes went to two winners in the competition’s non-fiction feature categories, where ten films were in juried competition for the McBaine Documentary Feature Award ($10,000) and the McBaine Bay Area Documentary Feature Award ($5,000). The Golden Gate Award Documentary Feature competitions jury was comprised of filmmaker and journalist Carrie Lozano; journalist Noel Murray; and nonfiction filmmaker, and writer AJ Schnack; who presented the McBaine Documentary Feature Award to The Distant Barking of Dogs (Denmark/Sweden/Finland) by Simon Lereng Wilmont. Special Jury mention was given to City of the Sun by Rati Oneli (Georgia/USA/Qatar/Netherlands). The jury presented the McBaine Bay Area Documentary Feature Award to The Judge (USA) by Erika Cohn.
The Golden Gate Award Short Film jury consisted of Director of Canyon Cinema Antonella Bonfanti, filmmaker Mark Decena, and programmer Liliana Rodriguez, who awarded a total of $14,000 in cash prizes. The Best Narrative Short was awarded to Shadow Animals (Sweden) by Jerry Carlsson. Best Documentary Short was presented to Crisanto Street (USA) by Paloma Martinez. The GGA for New Visions Short was given to .TV (USA/Tuvalu/New Zealand/France) by G. Anthony Svatek, with a Special Jury Mention to Fair Grounds (USA/France/Germany) by Ameer Kazmi. First Prize for Best Bay Area Short went to Weekends (USA) by Trevor Jimenez, and Second Prize was awarded to 49 Mile Scenic Drive (USA) by Bradley Smith and Tyler McPherron. The award for Best Animated Short went to Icebergs (USA/Greece) by Elrini Vianelli.
The Golden Gate Award Family Film jury was comprised of writer Carvell Wallace, Betsy Bozdech from Common Sense Media, and Jefferson Elementary School teacher Marcy Johnson, who awarded a $1,500 cash prize and Best Family Film to Crisanto Street (USA) by Paloma Martinez, with a Special Jury Prize to Bird Karma (USA) by William Salazar. The Youth Works jury was comprised of actor, writer, producer and ARTivist Fawzia Mirza and Bay Area students Olina Scott, Anthony Carter, and Juan Montgomery, who awarded a $1,000 cash prize to Goodbye Sam (USA) by Theo Taplitz, with a Special Jury Mention to Elle (UK) by Florence Winter Hill.
The 2018 SFFILM Festival Audience Awards gave festival-goers the opportunity to select their favorite narrative and documentary features. The Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature went to Bo Burnham‘s Eighth Grade (USA), with Un Traductor by Rodrigo Barriuso and Sebastián Barriuso (Canada/Cuba) also scoring highly with Festival audiences. The Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature went to Sam Green‘s A Thousand Thoughts – A Live Documentary by Sam Green and Kronos Quartet, while Betsy West and Julie Cohen‘s RBG (USA) was another favorite at the Festival.
SFFILM Launch
After an impressive first year resulting in purchases by distributors including Magnolia Pictures and Sundance Selects, SFFILM’s Launch program returned to provide a platform for a select group of exceptional films just beginning their distribution journey. In Launch’s second year, five documentary features within the official lineup of the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival were selected to have their world premieres, and benefit from screening to the unique and diverse audiences of the Bay Area, as the films progressed in their journeys to distribution and exhibition. This year’s Launch films were Matthew Testa‘s The Human Element (USA), Alyssa Fedele and Zachary Fink‘s The Rescue List (USA/Ghana), Denali Tiller‘s Tre Maison Dasan (USA), Alexandra Cuerdo‘s Ulam: Main Dish (USA), and Suzannah Herbert‘s Wrestle (USA).
Live & Onstage
SFFILM presented three immersive programs at the Castro Theatre in the popular Live & Onstage section of the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival. Alt rock icons Blonde Redhead performed their music live as they energized the beloved Ozu classic I Was Born But… The “live documentary” A Thousand Thoughts – A Live Documentary by Sam Green and Kronos Quartet brought director Sam Green on stage for live narration to his own film, along with Bay Area classical titans Kronos Quartet playing live accompaniment to the film about them. A Celebration of Oddball Films proved to be both a festive and sentimental combination of unique imagery and music. The Castro stage was jam packed with instruments and musicians of the Red Room Orchestra, a group of musicians brought together by San Francisco producer and multi-instrumentalist Marc Capelle, as they skillfully complemented intriguing, whimsical, and bizarre short films from the late Stephen Parr’s beloved archive that graced the screen. The Victoria Theatre was the site of two additional live Festival events. Canadian iconoclast Guy Maddin gave the Festival’s annual State Of Cinema address, and San Francisco cult music icon Cory McAbee performed live to his multi-media art program Deep Astronomy and the Romantic Sciences.
Special Events
In addition to Live & Onstage, Festival audiences were treated to several other special events. The first three episodes of the new HBO dark comedy Barry were screened, with cast members Sarah Goldberg and Henry Winkler in person. Three community screenings with free admission were presented at the 2018 SFFILM Festival. Art lovers turned out for CIVILIZATIONS: How Do We Look?, an episode in a new PBS/BBC series, screened at SFMOMA. Among the top international experts profiled is San Francisco’s own Jay Xu, Director of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, who was also present for an extended conversation after the episode aired. Inspiring local documentary work took the spotlight with a community screening of Bay Area filmmaker and two-time Golden Gate Award winner Katie Galloway’s documentary The Pushouts, paired with Jun Stinson’s Oakland short Futbolistas 4 Life, with both directors in attendance. The third community screening of the documentary Pick of the Litter included unique attendees in the audience at the Victoria Theatre. The documentary on the Guide Dogs for the Blind training program was attended by festival goers, many accompanied by their canine companions, and the excitement in the theatre was punctuated by dogs in the theatre cheering on the dogs on screen.
The Creativity Summit continued into its second year in partnership with WIRED. The speakers program addresses issues surrounding the intersection of film and technology, and this year’s panels focused on discussions of “presence,” or how technology broadly (and VR & AR in particular) is impacting artistic and cultural practice. The first Creativity Summit event, supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, was novelist, screenwriter, video game writer, film producer, and director Alex Garland (28 Days Later, Ex Machina, Annihilation) in conversation with USC professor Tara McPherson. Additional dynamic discussion followed in the second event, with Virtual Reality pioneer, computer scientist, author, and composer Jaron Lanier in conversation with WIRED’s Peter Rubin.
Collaborations
The Festival presented a number of special collaborations connected to individual screenings, designed to illuminate key themes in the Festival program and address pressing social issues and exciting trends. The collaboration screenings included luminary figures from many of the San Francisco Bay Area’s key cultural, technology, and civic institutions—plus several notable out-of-town guests—who participated in special introductions, guided discussions, in-depth analyses and much more. Half the Picture featured an extended conversation about building a pipeline towards gender equity in the film and media industry, with director Amy Adrion and Esther Pearl, Founder & Executive Director of Camp Reel Stories – A Media Camp for Girls. Following a screening of Chef Flynn, filmmaker Cameron Yates and subjects Flynn McGarry and Meg McGarry were joined onstage by Matthew Mako and Rodney Wages, both of the highly anticipated new SF restaurant Avery, to discuss the world of fine dining and the art of collaborating within a sometimes cutthroat industry. Louise Lecavalier – In Motion featured a special conversation in collaboration with the San Francisco Dance Film Festival featuring director Raymond St-Jean, subject Louise Lecavalier, and Executive Director of the San Francisco Dance Film Festival Judy Flannery. The Cleaners included a post-screening extended conversation about the complications involved in policing the Internet with filmmakers Moritz Riesewieck and Hans Block, and Deputy Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation Kurt Opsahl. After a screening of The Rescue List, the filmmaking team participated in a special conversation in collaboration with Human Rights Watch, with additional participants Brad Adams, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch; and Professor Cathy Zimmerman, a behavioral and social scientist who lectures on migration and health, human trafficking, and gender-based violence. Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable featured an extended conversation between director Sasha Waters Freyer and award-winning author Geoff Dyer, who recently published The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand.
SFFILM Makers
The 2018 SFFILM Festival featured a number of films supported by the SFFILM Makers grant and residency programs. The supported films that screened as part of this year’s Festival represent several of the ways in which SFFILM provides funding and creative services for independent film projects from around the globe as part of its year-round artist development programs. One of the many reasons to celebrate this year’s Centerpiece film, Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, was the culmination of its journey that included multiple levels of support from SFFILM, comprised of received three grants and one post-production loan from the SFFILM / Rainin Filmmaking Grants program, and a SFFILM FilmHouse residency, where Riley developed the script. Jeremiah Zagar’s We the Animals received a SFFILM / Rainin Grant for post-production. Ramell Ross’s Hale County This Morning, This Evening received a Documentary Film Fund grant for post-production. Alyssa Fedele and Zachary Fink’s The Rescue List was developed during Fedele and Fink’s time at SFFILM’s 12-month FilmHouse Residency program, and received a Documentary Film Fund grant for post-production.
World Cinema Spotlight
This thematic series at the Festival calls attention to international filmmaking by bringing to light hot topics, reinvigorated genres, underappreciated filmmakers, and national cinemas. This year, SFFILM Festival went into the great beyond with three films from different genres that reveal inspiration, drama, and poetry as they look beyond Earth to outer space. The documentary Mercury 13 told the powerful true story of women trained to be NASA astronauts who were then told that only men were equipped for the job. Russian filmmaker Klim Shipenko dramatized another astonishing true story about restoring power to a rogue satellite with Salyut-7. And finally, Johann Lurf took a more experimental view of the heavens with ★, an examination of cinema’s fascination with space using only movie sequences of the starry skies.
At this year’s Festival, SFFILM continued a partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to highlight compelling cinema that tells the story of science, including Searching (USA) by Aneesh Chaganty, Salyut-7 (Russia) by Klim Shipenko, Mercury 13 (USA) by David Sington and Heather Walsh, and the Alex Garland Creativity Summit event.
Additionally, the Festival highlighted titles dealing with themes of science and technology, including Carcasse (Iceland/France) by Gústav Geir Bollason and Clémentine Roy, The Cleaners (Germany/Brazil) by Moritz Riesewieck and Hans Block, Eighth Grade (USA) by Bo Burnham, The Human Element (USA/Iceland) by Matthew Testa, and Inventing Tomorrow (USA) by Laura Nix.
Schools at the Festival
SFFILM Education’s Schools at the Festival (SATF) program, run by Associate Director of Education Keith Zwölfer, had another record breaking year, welcoming 8,023 students (ages 6-18) and teachers from schools across the Bay Area attending 19 screenings of feature films and shorts programs over the course of the two-week Festival. Each screening included Q&A discussions with filmmakers and special guests. For the second year, all students were able to attend SATF screenings for free, through the generous support of the Nellie Wong Magic in Movies Education Fund, Google, and our other generous supporters. Many local and international guests (actors, animators, directors, producers, and subjects) also discussed their films and craft in Bay Area classrooms during SATF’s school visits, reaching an additional 1,200 elementary, middle, and high school students and educators. Celebrating its 28th year, SATF aims to develop media literacy, broaden insights into other cultures, enhance foreign language aptitude, develop critical thinking skills, and inspire a lifelong appreciation of cinema.
Master Classes
The 2018 SFFILM Festival featured three Master Classes with film professionals and industry leaders. In The Shape Of Pixar Characters: A Workshop for Kids, Pixar Animation Studios story supervisor Jason Katz gave a behind-the-scenes look at how Pixar creates characters for their films, from the way they look, to their defining personality characteristics, to the way they interact with the world around them, resulting in memorable and iconic characters. Another behind-the-scenes presentation, Hand-Drawn Artistry with Dreamworks Animation: A Workshop for Kids included a screening of the new animated short Bird Karma, and a peek behind the curtain with its filmmaker, DreamWorks Animation director William Salazar, who led participants through hands-on activities to explore and learn principals of traditional hand drawn animation. During Trying on The Crown: David Thomson Master Class the legendary film scholar examined media portrayals of Queen Elizabeth II, using film clips, jokes, and moments of reverence to convey the moods of respect and rebellion that come with trying on the Crown.
SFFILM Screening Room & App
For the fourth time since its launch in 2015, the SFFILM Screening Room, a curated year-round film streaming service available exclusively to SFFILM members through an innovative web platform and mobile app, will again feature many official selections of the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival. Twelve feature films from the 2018 lineup are now available on the service and will remain available for streaming through mid-June. New films will continue to be added to the site throughout the year. The SFFILM Screening Room service is available exclusively to SFFILM members on the web at sffilm.org/watch. Members can also access streaming content by downloading the SFFILM app and logging into their membership accounts. The SFFILM app is available for iOS, Apple TV, and Android devices as a free download on iTunes or Google Play. The web platform and app have been created with the generous support of Alta Magazine and Margaret and Will Hearst.
Available for streaming now are the following titles from the 2018 SFFILM Festival program: Carcasse by Gústav Geir Bollason and Clémentine Roy (Iceland/France); City of the Sun by Rati Oneli (Georgia/USA/Qatar/Netherlands); Claire’s Camera by Hong Sangsoo (France/South Korea); Djon África by João Miller Guerra and Felipa Reis (Brazil/Cape Verde/ Portugal); Louise Lecavalier – In Motion by Raymond St-Jean (Canada); The Next Guardian by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó (Hungary/Netherlands); The Other Side of Everything by Mila Turajlić (Serbia/France/Qatar); Purge This Land by Lee Anne Schmitt (USA); Salyut-7 by Klim Shipenko (Russia); Suleiman Mountain by Elizaveta Stishova (Kyrgystan/Russia); Those Who Are Fine by Cyril Schäublin (Switzerland); and Tigre by Ulises Porra Guardiola and Silvina Schnicer (Argentina).
Sponsors and Partners
The 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival was supported by more than 100 sponsors and partners. These included SFFILM’s lead sponsor, First Republic Bank; and major sponsors 150, Adobe, Alta Magazine, Blue Angel Vodka, Dolby Laboratories, IMDbPro, Ingeniux, Joie de Vivre, Netflix, Peet’s Coffee, Prime Group, and Showtime Documentary Films. The 2018 SFFILM Festival supporting partners were Bulleit Frontier Whiskey, Consulate General of France in San Francisco, Daydream, Flow Kana, Fort Point Beer Company, Francis Ford Coppola Winery, French American Cultural Society, HBO, Hennessy, Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office, Hotel Zelos, Hotel Zeppelin, Hotel Zetta, Levi’s, Meyer Sound, New Box Solutions, VMG Partners, Buckhill, Covington & Burling LLP , Chronicle Books, Kodak, Sustainable Development Goals Film Institute, Google, Deloitte, LUNA, Omni, Riverview Systems Group, SAG-AFTRA San Francisco-Northern California Local, and ZAP Zoetrope Aubry Productions. The 2018 SFFILM Festival event partners were Bright Event Rentals, Proper Hotel, WIRED, and Trick Dog; venue partners included Dolby Cinema at 1275 Market, SFMOMA, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Children’s Creativity Museum, BAMPFA, Castro Theatre, Grand Lake Theatre, Public Works, Roxie Theater, San Francisco Design Center Galleria, Victoria Theatre, and The Walt Disney Family Museum. Support was also provided by the Québec Government Office in Los Angeles, Spain Arts & Culture, and Swiss Films. Government and foundation supporters of SFFILM include Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Bernard Osher Foundation, Catapult Film Fund, Compton Foundation, Flora Family Foundation, Grants for the Arts, Hearst Foundations, The Jenerosity Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Koret Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Time Warner Foundation, Westridge Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Vulcan Productions.
The 2018 SFFILM Festival was also generously supported by media partners Alice@97.3, California Sunday Magazine, KCBS, and KIQI – Hecho en California. The Festival is also grateful for the participation of technical sponsors Brickley Production Services, Flying Moose Pictures, Holzmueller Productions, RF Audio, VER, and WorldStage; hotel sponsors Carlton Hotel, Fairmont San Francisco, Galleria Park Hotel, Hilton Parc 55, Hilton SF Financial District, Hilton San Francisco Union Square, Hotel Abri, Hotel del Sol, Hotel Griffon, Hotel Kabuki, Hotel Vitale, The Marker, Marriott Marquis San Francisco, The Orchard Hotels of San Francisco, and Phoenix Hotel; beverage sponsors included Bruce Cost Ginger Ale, Frísco, House Kombucha, Purity Organic, Sparkling Ice, Stookey’s Club Moderne, U.S. Pure Water, and ZICO; restaurant and food purveyors included Alter Eco Foods, Asian Box, Bluestem Brasserie, Casa Sanchez, Delfina, Divine Chocolate, El Porteño, Homage, James Standfield Catering, Judy’s Breadsticks, Justin’s Nut Butter, La Mediterranee, Mr.Tipple’s, Presidio Social Club, Prospect Restaurant, Sol Food, Taj Campton Place Restaurant, The Taco Shop at Underdogs, Tosca Café, Venga Empanadas, We Love Jam, and Z Cioccolato.
For general information visit sffilm.org/festival
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For photos and press materials visit sffilm.org/press
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2018 San Francisco International Film Festival
The longest-running film festival in the Americas, the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM Festival) is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in one of the country’s most beautiful cities. The 61st edition runs April 4-17 at venues across the Bay Area and features nearly 200 films and live events, 14 juried awards with close to $40,000 in cash prizes, and upwards of 100 participating filmmaker guests.
SFFILM
SFFILM is a nonprofit organization with a mission to champion the world’s finest films and filmmakers through programs anchored in and inspired by the spirit and values of the San Francisco Bay Area. Presenter of the San Francisco International Film Festival, SFFILM is a year-round organization delivering screenings and events to more than 75,000 film lovers and media education programs to more than 10,000 students and teachers annually. In addition to its public programs, SFFILM supports the careers of independent filmmakers from the Bay Area and beyond with grants, residencies, and other creative development services.
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