Blog

Families finding shelter in ‘Home Is a Hotel’

An interview with the SFFILM-supported filmmakers behind this documentary on Single Room Occupancy Hotels in San Francisco

Home Is a Hotel, a documentary focusing on residents of San Francisco Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotels that makes its world premiere at the Festival on Sat., April 22, takes its inspiration from a 2015 short film of the same name. Kevin Duncan Wong and Todd Sills, two of the feature’s three directors (the third is Kar Yin Tham) helmed the short as members of a local film cooperative, following a single resident and her daughter, recent immigrants from China. It became an award winner on the festival circuit and through it, Wong and Sills became cognizant that they were onto a bigger story.

“After we screened at CAAMFest, my aunt came to me—we had a woman, Sāam Yī, who took care of my grandpa in the last years of his life—and she was like, ‘You know Sāam Yī lives in an SRO,” Wong remembers during a Zoom call with his partners and SFFILM.

“When people saw the film, the response was, ‘I didn’t know that existed’ or they had some story about some person who was important to them who had or still lived in that kind of housing It seemed like there was this undercurrent; there’s so many people in the city that make it run and make it is what it is that are only able to live here because of this kind of housing.”

“Those responses, not knowing that SROs existed, not knowing what kind of housing stock it was, not knowing about the communities that lived there. It made us feel like there was more work to do,” adds Sills.

What is Home is a Hotel About?

The SROs are residential hotels with communal bathrooms and kitchens, and living quarters that are small for a single person let alone the families they often house. Home Is a Hotel focuses on a cross-section of tenants at SROs found throughout the city. Among the people who open their lives to the filmmakers’ lens are an African American artist, a pair of recovering addicts co-parenting their young son, an elderly Latina immigrant who has lived a life of music, and a mother raising a small child while searching the city for an older daughter lost to the streets.

Wong and Sills began the new project in 2016, originally developing around 15 characters, but they lost a few undocumented participants who became fearful for their status after the election of Donald Trump to the presidency. A few others potential subjects stepped away for one reason or another. Then there were those that had compelling stories but those tales were from their pasts. What the filmmakers were looking for were people with an eye toward the future.

“We were asking folks, ‘What are your hopes and dreams? What do you imagine?’” Wong says. “One of the questions we had on our list was ‘Where do you see yourself in five years, where do you see yourself in 10 years?’ Some folks had something to say about that, and conversely, some were like, ‘I don’t think about this. I don’t try to plan that far ahead because it’s like setting myself up for disappointment.’ That was an interesting answer to the question but they knew where they wanted to go, even if they didn’t have a timeline for when they might get there.”

Originally, and Wong admits, probably naively, the filmmakers thought the feature would take two or three years to complete. Tham joined the film as a translator at the beginning before coming on board as a producer in 2017. Then when Sills accepted a teaching job in Vientiane, Laos, she became one of the documentary’s directors.

How did the COVID-19 Pandemic Affect the Filmmakers?

The onset of the COVID pandemic in 2020 presented the production with a new complication. It changed the course of the lives of some of the people in the film and severely impacted the Tenderloin, where so many SROs are but it also allowed the filmmakers to take some time to look at what they’d shot. They had received some smaller grants but in cutting a new trailer and pulling together a new work sample, they were able to unlock support from bigger organizations, including SFFILM, where Wong and Tham became 2022 FilmHouse residents.

“I felt (the residency) was really helpful on two levels,” says Tham. “One is that sense of community in terms of being able to discuss a project with other makers. And also, because of that program, in some ways, it gave us momentum. That was when we started to look at post in terms of editing, so having that group over the program really helped us structure how we wanted to get feedback, and then really relying on the FilmHouse editing suite to meet and discuss cuts.”
“The other thing I really appreciated was that it was mix of filmmaker from all different disciplines and tastes,” Wong adds. “When I was in the 2016 BAVC fellowship, that was all nonfiction makers. That was great, but it was from a very specific lens. Once we got into the editing phase with this, I think having a diversity of perspectives on the craft was really helpful in finding the film.”

What inspired the creation of Home is a Hotel

One of the things that animated the filmmakers to make Home Is a Hotel is the state of housing in San Francisco. The 2022 homeless census estimated nearly 8,000 residents are unhoused. When Wong and Sills embarked on the documentary in 2016, the already high price of housing was reaching the stratosphere. Those living in SROS are keeping a roof over their heads but oftentimes just barely.

“What folks do when housing is expensive, they make do with less than they would like, but SROs are literally the smallest you can go, there’s nowhere left to go. This is really the bottom before you’re unsheltered.” Wong says. “I think we sort of dive into that, make that more visible, bring folks into the experience of that in a way that helps them understand how dire the situation is…I feel like we discover how big of an impact having decent, stable housing can be in seeing that in the lives of characters that we follow…It’s not hopeless. There is a solution. It really is a question of the will to put the resources there.”

“I think there’s enough statistics, enough characterization of what’s going on from a numbers perspective,” adds Tham. “I think what we’re really trying to show is the real lived experience perspective, and hopefully, people can enter into this world with more empathy.”

About the Author

Pam Grady is a freelance writer, whose work appears in the San Francisco Chronicle, 48 Hills, and other publications. She also has her own web site.

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.

An Interview with documentarian Penny Lane

Documentary filmmaker turns her lens on herself and finds a new challenge with ‘Confessions of a Good Samaritan’

Documentarian Penny Lane made her feature debut in 2013 with Our Nixon, an intimate peek into the disgraced president’s White House using home movies taken by his aides. Her features since include Nuts! (Festival 2016), about a radio personality and quack doctor of the early 20th century who sold an impotence “cure” involving goat testicles; The Pain of Others, a found footage documentary about Morgellons disease; Hail Satan?, focused on the Satanic Temple; and Listening to Kenny G, a look at the popular but polarizing smooth jazz saxophonist. It is a wide range of subjects that reflects Lane’s curious mind. Now that curiosity has led her to put herself in front of the camera in Confessions of a Good Samaritan, a look at kidney donation, a serious subject handled with Lane’s typical light touch and good humor, which screens at the Festival on Sunday, April 16, with Lane in attendance.

She made the decision to donate a kidney, not to a family member or friend but to a stranger, before she even imagined making a film on the subject. Lane had an “aha moment” shortly after learning altruistic kidney donation. She thought it sounded interesting and decided it was something she wanted to do. It was then that the research started and that is something she loves to do. From that sprung the idea to make a new film. Lane could have made the film about a donor other than herself. She admits putting herself front and center presented an extra layer of difficulty.

“I have no idea how actors direct themselves when they’re directing movies that they’re starring in,” Lane says during a recent Zoom call. “I have a whole newfound respect for that because it’s literally like how do you even know where to stand if you’re not looking at the monitor?”

But given what she was trying to achieve and the intimate nature of the project, Lane realized she was her only option for a subject if she was going to make this particular documentary.

“I did really want to interrogate the donor,” Lane says. “’Why are you doing this? No, really, why are you doing this? Are you a narcissist? Are you psychologically damaged?’ I never would have done that to any other donor. The other donors I met were so nice and I just never would have put another done through what I put myself through in making the film and so it had to be me. I was the only person I was willing to subject to that sort of torment.”

What is Confessions of a Good Samaritan about?

Confessions of a Good Samaritan expands on the history of kidney donation and why there is such a need for donors like Lane–there are simply far more people stuck on dialysis and dying of kidney disease than there are transplant organs to save them. The documentary follows Lane’s complete journey right up to the operating room door and then through her post-op experiences. Whatever vanity she may have, she had to push out of the way to capture an honest portrayal of her ordeal.

Confessions of a Good Samaritan Director Penny Lane. Photo by Tommy Lau.

“I knew I had to try to be honest and try to be vulnerable the way I would want someone to be for me if I was filming someone else,” she says. “In some ways, it’s easier because I find the act of filming other people pretty awkward, at best. It’s awkward to film another person, at best. At worst, it’s much worse. At least in putting myself through it, I didn’t have the added layer of being like, ‘Oh, I’m filming this person, post-op talking about the rash on their ass. Like, is that too invasive? Should I use that in the end?’ It’s so intimate, but at least it was me. The person I was exploiting was me.”

Lane discovered her biggest challenge in making the film once she went from post-op to post-production. It is in the editing room that Lane typically constructs her characters and their odysseys. Character development is one of her strengths as is determining what does and does not belong in a story and constructing an arc. Presented with herself as her main character she found her normal decisiveness eluding her.

“The irony is this is my most personal film but, because of that, I really had to lean on my collaborators to help me construct the persona of Penny that was relevant to the story,” she says. “I found myself really uncertain – like, is this detail about my schizophrenic grandmother a random detail or does that unlock something for the viewer? I didn’t usually know the answer. So, I had to ask my editor and my other editor and my producer what they thought. That was a really important part of it. It was super-hard to make myself into a character.”

What is next for Penny Lane?

Lane’s next film, Mrs. America, explores American womanhood through the lens of the titular beauty pageant. An introvert, Lane credits documentary filmmaking with forcing her out of her shell and prodding her to do things she maybe wouldn’t do without that particular career. When she started out, she gravitated toward working with archival and found footage because she loves editing and being alone at home. But as her portfolio expands, so, too, does her filmmaking as she constantly pushes herself to learn new ways to tell a story and grow her skills.

“Considering a project, there’s a million good ideas, but what’s the new challenge?” she says. “What’s the new thing I’m going to have to learn to do that’s going to be challenging and difficult and for which there’s a strong possibility of failure? That aspect of it is what really makes me excited. Doing the same thing twice makes me not excited, but doesn’t make me feel comfortable… Half of the project should be pretty comfortable for me, and the other half should be something I’ve never done before that’s going to challenge me and make me super uncomfortable and lose sleep at night… Why do I always do these hard projects? But that’s actually the part that keeps me going.

“I’m not aiming for mastery. I’m aiming for whatever the opposite of that is, where I always feel like a beginner to some extent, because that’s the part that I like. If I ever feel like I really am not feeling like a beginner, I’ll probably just get a new career. But I do think it’s always going to be possible with documentary to feel like a beginner because there’s so many different kinds of stories you could tell, approaches you could take, and types of directing to engage in. I think I’ll probably stick with it for a while.”

About the Author

Pam Grady is a freelance writer, whose work appears in the San Francisco Chronicle, 48 Hills, and other publications. She also has her own web site.

Stay In Touch With SFFILM

A Q&A with Persistence of Vision Award-winner Mark Cousins

Read more about the story behind Mark Cousins’s film works up to date

What is the Persistence of Vision Award?

SFFILM Festival’s Persistence of Vision Award, given to an artist whose singular work falls outside the realm of traditional narrative, goes this year to Mark Cousins, the prolific filmmaker whose deep knowledge and intellectual curiosity is reflected in work that runs the gamut from the 15-hour The Story of Film: An Odyssey to Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise to The Eyes of Orson Welles. The POV Award ceremony on Thursday, April 20, included Cousins in conversation along with a screening of his documentary The March on Rome, which investigates the rise of fascism and Mussolini 100 years ago while finding parallels with the world’s contemporary rightward drift. That’s not all. Friday, April 21, Cousins was on hand for a screening of another of his films, My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock, in which he gives voice to the Master of Suspense, allowing him to explicate his work from beyond the grave.

Cousins was not available for an interview as he was traveling but he did answer questions posed to him via email as he sat in an airport, waiting for a flight.

Q&A Interview

Q: Before we get to your career, I wanted to start with a question about film festivals and their place in film exhibition. If I’m not mistaken, you used to host a traveling one yourself along with Tilda Swinton. We seem to be at a juncture, hastened by COVID, where the theatrical experience is waning. Certainly, not the first time it’s been challenged but streaming seems to have so many in its grip and so many theaters that closing during the pandemic simply never reopened. Art houses are an endangered species. Given that, can you talk about the importance of SFFILM Festival and others in terms of giving filmmakers, who might not otherwise have the opportunity, a venue to show their work on a big screen and audiences the chance to see films that may never come around again or only come around in a streaming setting?

Mark Cousins (MC): Film festivals came about because of market failure. Film distributors weren’t showing a wide enough range of films, so film festivals had to fill in the gaps.

The market isn’t failing as it was. Today, so many films are a click away. The failure isn’t scarcity but abundance.

This doesn’t mean that the job of film festivals is done. Abundance creates its own problems – especially lack of appetite. Not only is film history everywhere today, so are film festivals. Maybe they add to our sense of [feeling] overfed?

Isn’t it time that they innovate more?

That’s why Tilda Swinton and I did our 5 punky playful film events, to try to sketch new ideas about film festivals!

Q: I’m only half-joking when I ask, when do you sleep? If IMDB is to be trusted, I count 9 projects on your plate since 2020 alone. True, we were all forced to sit inside a lot during the pandemic and a couple of the projects are shorts, but it is still a lot of work. What drives you and how do you manage multiple projects simultaneously?

MC: I am driven by the pleasure of making. It is an intoxicant. I started directing in the 1980s, when production was slow, equipment was heavy, and crews were large and mostly male. All those things have changed. There’s a new lightness in filmmaking and I am riding the thermals.

Filmmaker Mark Cousins and Moderator Thom Powers at the 2023 Festival. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

Q: Two of your 2022 projects, March on Rome and My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock, screen at the festival. Talk about your motivation for making them and how you determined your approach to the material. March is such a deep dive into forgotten history that you tie into our alarming present. And Hitchcock is just a delight, scholarship that so perfectly captures the master’s voice.

MC: I was asked to make March on Rome by Italian producer Andrea Romeo and Palomar productions.
I jumped at the chance because I am interested in the far right–in the 1990s, my first good film was about neo-Nazis and Holocaust denial. Also, this was a film about visual culture, which is one of my passions.

I was reluctant at first to make a film about Hitchcock, as so much has been said and done about him. But then I spied an unusual way of looking at this great 20th-century visual thinker, and so I went for it. The result is a lockdown film, a movie close to the contours of Hitchcock which is hopefully ludic!

Q: How do you decide what projects to take on, be they about film or another subject, such as the a-bomb or Belfast?

MC: The subject needs to have visual potential. It needs to be opened by a visual key. Ideally, too, it needs to allow me to combine anger and gentleness.

Q: You made the 15-hour The Story of Film, the 14-hour Women Make Film, and The Story of Film A New Generation, clocking at 2 hours, 40 minutes. Tell me about the joys and pitfalls of these massive undertakings?

MC: People often say that attention spans are shrinking, especially those of young people. But is that true? If you take the long view, I suspect that people still like the labyrinth, getting lost in the maze of a story, a structure, a city. A film is like a city.

Q: What was your gateway drug into film?

MC: Herbie Rides Again. Gene Kelly’s clothes. Cyd Charisse’s legs. The sexualities in Cabaret. Shirley MacLaine running near the end of Billy Wilder’s The Apartment.

Q: Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Abbas Kiarostami, Jeremy Thomas, Sergei Eisenstein, Paul Schrader, Susan Hayward, and Lena Horne are among cinema luminaries that have graced your films. Who are some others you admire?

MC: Imamura Shohei. Kira Muratova. Chantal Ackerman. Lynda Myles. Virginia Woolf.

Q: You used to work in television interviewing filmmakers and actors in a forum that actually allowed them to talk about their work in a way few shows do. Tell me about your time making that series. Also, do you ever miss it?

MC: That was a quarter of a century ago. I was so young. Suddenly I was friends with Jane Russell or drinking beer with Lauren Bacall. I got to know so many movie stars. Before Scene by Scene, classic cinema was a myth for me. After it, it was intimate, discrepant.

Filmmaker Mark Cousins. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

Q: You famously used an axe to destroy your own film, Bigger Than the Shining. So much of film history is the story of vanished films—silents lost to the ether, nitrate prints gone up in flames, etc. Why add one more title to the list of movies we’ll never see again and your own work, at that?

MC: I wanted to make another miserable film because rumor is exciting, theatrical. It fuels our imagination. The unseen is a crucial aspect of cinephilia.

Q: Last question. The award this year is dedicated to producer and Telluride Film Festival co-founder Tom Luddy. Would you care to say a few words about him?

MC: Did Tom exist? Did he really bring so many people into the movie tent? Did I really talk to him about Mexican melodrama and Leni Riefenstahl and Abel Gance in a hotel in London eating peanuts because we forgot about dinner?

If so, and if my memories of him are only a tiny corner of the picture, then wow.

About the Author

Pam Grady is a freelance writer, whose work appears in the San Francisco Chronicle, 48 Hills, and other publications. She also has her own web site.

Stay In Touch With SFFILM

Meet the 2022 SFFILM Youth Residents

Celebrate this wonderful group of future filmmakers with us.

What is the SFFILM Youth FilmHouse Residency?

SFFILM Education’s Youth FilmHouse Residency, in partnership with SFFILM Makers, is an annual program that begins in the Fall semester for Bay Area students grades 9–12 who identify themselves as Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color (BIPOC) and are excited to explore careers in film and filmmaking.

Throughout the residency, students will engage with other SFFILM residents, SFFILM staff, film industry professionals, and a dynamic curriculum that balances practical skills like production strategy and technique along with trainings, panels, and lectures that highlight industry knowledge and possible career paths through our artist network.

Do you know any students who would benefit from an experience like this? Our Youth FilmHouse Residency is now accepting applications for 2023. Sign up today!

Keep reading to meet the most recent group of Youth Residents for 2023.

2022 Youth FilmHouse Residents

Annabelle Tong

My name is Annabelle and I’m a senior at Berkeley High School. I’ve been making films for about 3 years now and I plan to continue in college. The majority of my work is narrative but I hope to make documentaries in the future and one of my goals is to make music videos! I’ve been in a few film festivals so far and I’m currently in production for my newest project.

Who or what inspires you to be a filmmaker?

I’m very inspired by my friends who make art in other forms, as well as other filmmakers of color.

Anything else you want to share with the public about your experience with the Youth FilmHouse Residency or about yourself?

The Youth FilmHouse Residency was so informative and such a cool experience, I got to meet so many other filmmakers and learn from their knowledge!

Diego Jaime

I am a Junior at Woodside High School and currently live in Redwood City. I plan on studying cultural anthropology and coupling that knowledge with my filmmaking experience to help me make documentary films. I am specifically interested in the connection between music and culture and how they influence one another.

Who or what inspires you to be a filmmaker?

The ability to give a voice to those who may not have one is what inspires me to be a filmmaker. I am also influenced by movies like “Ornette Coleman: Made In America” that push the boundaries of what documentary films can look like and what they can achieve.

Emiliano Mejia

I am a senior at Phillip and Sala Burton High School. I live in Richmond but go to school in San Francisco. My first filmmaking experience was when I was in an internship where I helped make promotional videos for the summer internships the San Francisco Unified School District offers. I am currently working on a short film project for my arts, media, and entertainment class.

Who or what inspires you to be a filmmaker?

My filmmaking idol is Cecelia Condit. I really admire how she is able to take disturbing and surreal fantasy stories with topics such as violence against women and aging to create amazing videos which have been described as feminist fairy tales. I also look up to her because of how she was able to take events from her life and put them into her stories.

Jabreel Green

I’m Jabreel Green. I am in the 12th grade; I’m homeschooled, and I live in Berkeley. My Filmmaking experience is modest. So far, I have participated in 3 SFFILM youth filmmakers camps, I am currently an intern at B.C.M. and I have received a Certificate of training for Field Production, Media Journalism, and a Certificate of Appreciation from B.C.M. I also have two projects that are finalists In the Western Access Video Excellence awards. Right now I am working on a film that I’ve been working on for the past two years. I would love to share more once I’m past preproduction.

Who or what inspires you to be a filmmaker?

What inspires me to be a filmmaker is the chance to tell a story that’s bigger than myself, a chance to create a world that I would live in, an opportunity to connect with characters that have the same problems as us, and a chance to reflect. I want to tell stories so my story can be told.

Kaiya Jordan

I’m Kaiya Jordan and I’m a junior at Berkeley High School. I hold a deep passion for film’s endless possibilities for creative and emotional expression and its ability to allow myself to showcase my perspective and world visually. My films typically incorporate aspects of experimental and narrative cinema, and I love working with combining different film mediums such as stop motion and live action! Passionate about film and art, I hope to pursue the industry in the future.

Who or what inspires you to be a filmmaker?

My inspiration as a filmmaker comes from the stories I witness and hear about in my community, city, and people I choose to surround myself with. I’m inspired by the everyday dialogue of people I love and the scenery and landscapes I’m able to see.

Anything else you want to share with the public about your experience with the Youth FilmHouse Residency or about yourself?

The Youth FilmHouse Residency introduced me to the rich Bay Area community of filmmakers, and I’m so grateful I was able to meet and work with like minded young filmmakers!

Keertana Sreekumar

Keertana Sreekumar is a 16-year-old filmmaker and English teacher. At age 15, she became the youngest screenwriter to win at Toronto Independent Film Festival for her feature screenplay, “The California Child’. This project is currently in development with filmmaker Vijaykumar Mirchandani. She is a co-writer on the upcoming online sitcom, ‘The New Normal’. She works as an assistant teacher at The Quarry Lane School. Keertana has managed 30+ artists through her management company, K. Productions, curating art gallery showings around the world.

Who or what inspires you to be a filmmaker?

I grew up consuming art across mediums and demographics. I find inspiration for storytelling within Malayalam films of the 90’s, Latin Magical realism, Annie Ernaux’s memoirs, Indian classical music–the list is endless. My first screenplay, “The California Child”, was inspired by my high school experiences as a teenager with memory loss and a keen interest in hyperfixating on the culture I consumed.

Anything else you want to share with the public about your experience with the Youth FilmHouse Residency or about yourself?

SFFILM is one of the most welcoming creative spaces I have entered. Both Soph and Rosa have been incredibly supportive of our development as creatives!

Kyla Burfoot

My name is Kyla Burfoot and I’m a Junior at Woodside High School. At Woodside I’ve taken the Digital Filmmaking, Digital Communications, and Advanced Digital Photography classes. These have all helped me advance my camera skills and over the years I’ve made quite a few school projects like music videos, broadcast packages, silent films, creative movies, and black and white. Currently I’m working on a broadcast package for KQED’s Youth Takeover, about hate crimes against Asian American and Pacific Islander elders. Thematically I tend to lean towards underdog stories, universal human experiences, and searching for beauty in the mundane.

Who or what inspires you to be a filmmaker?

Wong Kar-Wai and Stanley Kubrick are two filmmakers who inspire me to be a filmmaker, with their breathtaking cinematography and beautiful storytelling. My family and friends also inspire me to make films because I love to capture the connections we have. Personal films about human experience impact me the most. Reading the news and hearing about current events also inspires me, because I feel drawn to spreading important stories to people.

Anything else you want to share with the public about your experience with the Youth FilmHouse Residency or about yourself?

I’m incredibly grateful for the Youth FilmHouse Residency experience. I loved working with the wonderful community of student filmmakers and adult filmmakers SFFILM works with. For anyone thinking of signing up–do it!

Monica Medina

My name is Monica I’m in 11th grade and go to Oakland School for the Arts. I live in San Leandro and I’m interested in narrative filmmaking. I’ve worked on a couple projects in the past with narratives and documentaries and hope to learn more about the film process.
Who or what inspires you to be a filmmaker?

Who or what inspires you to be a filmmaker?

Cinematography really drives me in film making, how a single shot can convey so many emotions.

Santiago Avila-Green

My name is Santi. I’m 16 in my sophomore year of high school. I’m originally from Los Angeles but moved to Oakland in 2019 to be closer to family. I’ve been writing scripts for years and started acting as a little kid. My interests have evolved into writing more and more and directing/cinematography. I usually write narrative stories with a mix of sci-fi & drama. I am currently working on finishing my first feature length script.

Who or what inspires you to be a filmmaker?

Some inspirations that come to mind are Christopher Nolan, Michel Gondry, Greig Fraser, David Fincher and Tarantino.

Anything else you want to share with the public about your experience with the Youth FilmHouse Residency or about yourself?

I found it to be a very eye opening & important experience as I grow as a filmmaker.

Applications for Fall 2023 Residency Will Be Announced in the Summer. For more information visit here.

Stay In Touch With SFFILM

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

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.