SFFILM Exclusive

At SFFILM, the beginning of the year brings a flurry of movement to get our annual Festival planned and produced. But, one team has been hard at work since last summer to bring films and filmmakers from around the world to join us at the 68th San Francisco International Film Festival this April 17–27.

“The Programming team for the 2025 San Francisco International Film Festival has been hard at work for several months building an exciting lineup of special events, awardees, and discovery titles to share with audiences in April,” shared Director of Programming, Jessie Fairbanks. “This group has incredible curatorial talent and it is a pleasure to work with this incredible group of programmers.

Jessie and the Programming team represent decades of curatorial experience and a variety of singular perspectives that make for the exciting slate of films that the SFFILM Festival is known for. Learn more about their backgrounds, and keep an eye out for interviews with the team on our Instagram and TikTok channels. Save the date for March 26 when we announce the full Festival lineup.

Who’s Programming the Festival this year?

Jessie Fairbanks, Director of Programming

Born and raised in California, Jessie began her career producing documentaries and clip television for national networks. She spent a decade in NYC producing large-scale events, festivals, and creative projects for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York Film Festival, HBO, The Documentary Group, David Byrne, and Google.

As the Director of Programming, Jessie oversees the artistic curation of the annual San Francisco International Film Festival, Doc Stories, SFFILM Presents series, College Days, the selection of honorees for SFFILM’s Awards Night, and other bespoke screening events.

Prior to becoming the Director of Programming for SFFILM, Jessie worked as a curator for DOC NYC, Tribeca Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, Hamptons International Film Festival, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, Nashville Film Festival, MountainFilm and others. Jessie is a voting member of Cinema Eye Honors, a grant evaluator for Chicken & Egg Pictures, a guest lecturer at local universities, and has participated in a variety of pitch sessions, industry panels and festival juries. She is particularly passionate about providing opportunities to underrepresented artists and documentary filmmaking.

Rod Armstrong, Associate Director of Programming

Rod Armstrong was a cinephile before he could drive, highlighting all of the foreign films coming to the San Diego area and cajoling his parents to chauffeur him to local arthouses. The passion turned into a career with Reel.com, a website with a wide array of editorial content about films. Rod began as a contributing editor and wrapped up his work there as Director of Content. Having long been interested in the endeavors of SFFILM, Rod began in 2003 in the publicity department. Later that year, he joined the Programming team and has been there ever since. Though Rod’s interest in film is broad and omnivorous, his greatest passion, harking back to those teenage years without vehicular transportation, remains international narrative cinema.

Jordan Klein, Programmer

A film lover and filmmaker at heart—Jordan Klein graduated from UC Berkeley and got his start as assistant to the legendary film producer Fred Roos (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Lost in Translation), marking the beginning of his career within the film industry in Los Angeles. He served on numerous productions in mediums ranging from feature film, television, commercials, short films, and music videos. His foundational working experiences helped facilitate his transition to being a production coordinator and administrative assistant to the president of film and television at PRG (Production Resource Group), a multinational company providing lighting and audio solutions to film productions and live concerts for renowned music artists around the globe.

Eventually returning to both film production and the San Francisco Bay Area, Jordan boarded both independent productions with the likes of American Zoetrope (Love Is Love Is Love) and major studio productions with Warner Brothers (The Matrix Resurrections) and Marvel Studios (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings). Jordan’s deep passion, love, and commitment towards cinema brought his heart to a home at SFFILM.

Kristal Sotomayor, Seasonal Curator

Kristal Sotomayor is a bilingual Latinx curator, journalist, and filmmaker based in Philadelphia. They have been distinguished as a 2023 DOC NYC Documentary New Leader and received the prestigious Rockwood Documentary Leadership Fellowship. Kristal is in their fourth year programming films for SFFILM. They have programmed for film festivals across the country including True/False Film Fest, Frameline, and Tri-Co Film Fest as well as being the Programming Director for the Philadelphia Latino Film Festival.

Kristal’s immigrant rights documentary short “Expanding Sanctuary” won the Philadelphia Filmmaker Award at the 2024 BlackStar Film Festival. Their short documentary “Don’t Cry For Me All You Drag Queens” has screened across the globe at Newport Beach Film Festival, NewFest, GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival, and Sidewalk Film Festival. Kristal is currently in post-production on their debut narrative short film “Las Cosas Que Brillan,” a coming of age story about a Trans Latina mermaid, produced with support from the BlackStar Filmmaker Lab. They are in development on a number of short and feature-length directorial projects through their company Sotomayor Productions. Kristal’s work has been supported by the Outfest Creative Hope Fellowship, If/Then & CIFF North Shorts Residency, MDOCS Storytellers’ Institute Visiting Fellowship, DCTV Docu Work-In-Progress Lab, and NeXtDoc Fellowship.

Bedatri D. Choudhury, Seasonal Curator

Bedatri studied literature and cinema in New Delhi and attended graduate school at Tisch School of the Arts. She has worked extensively with documentary films, particularly in the areas of program management and commissioning. She was most recently the Managing Editor of Documentary magazine, and is a programmer with DOCNYC and SFFILM. An alumna of the NYFF Critics Academy, Sundance and SXSW Press Inclusion Initiatives, the National Critics’ Institute, and Berlinale Talents, she lives in New York City and can often be heard on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour. She is presently The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Arts and Entertainment Editor.

Amir George, Seasonal Curator

Amir George is an award-winning filmmaker based in Chicago. George has served as a programmer at True/False Film Fest and Chicago International Film Festival. George co-founded Black Radical Imagination, an experimental short film screening series. As an artist, George creates spiritual stories, juxtaposing sound and image into an experience of non-linear perception. Amir’s films have screened at film festivals including BlackStar Film Festival, Rockaway Film Festival and Camden International Film Festival, as well as cultural institutions, including Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Moma PS1; Royal College of Art; Museum of Contemporary Arts, Los Angeles; and The Walker Art Center.

Schools at the Festival Program Returns for its 34th Year

Since 1991, SFFILM’s Education team has developed a Festival program that brings over titles from the main program and special selects for school-age students. Meet the team behind this exciting program which serves over 10,000 students annually.

Keith Zwölfer, Director of Education

Director of Education Keith Zwölfer oversees SFFILM’s Education and public-facing family programming initiatives. This includes year-round K–12 school programming, Schools at the Festival, Schools at Doc Stories, Youth Filmmakers Camp, and Youth FilmHouse Residency. Keith started his journey with SFFILM in 2004 as an intern for the Education program during the San Francisco International Film Festival. He joined the staff later that year where he quickly moved to expand youth programming to year-round. Over the course of his time at SFFILM, Keith has programmed educational events that have reached hundreds of thousands of teachers, students, parents and children here in the Bay Area as well as across the country through online offerings.

Growing up, his love of the arts was cultivated by parents who saw the importance of providing constant exposure to it through film, theater, music, dance, and museums. Keith began his career working with youth audiences at the Disney Animation and Live Action Production Studios in Orlando, Florida. He then worked and volunteered wherever he could with a wide variety of arts and educational organizations, including everything from chamber music to Cirque du Soleil. He is incredibly proud to be able to provide accessible and meaningful arts experiences to the next generation of artists and art lovers.

Soph Schultz Rocha, Education Manager

Soph Schultz Rocha is the Education Manager at SFFILM. They support the year round K–12 school and education programs and co-lead the Youth Filmmakers Camp and Youth FilmHouse Residency. With a background in filmmaking, art, youth mentorship, and community organizing, they are passionate about giving youth the tools and access they need for their artistic vision to flourish. They are a mentor with First Exposures in San Francisco and was their 2021 Residency Lead Teaching Artist. Soph also co-founded Moments Co-Op, a bookstore and residency space elevating the voices of BIPOC artists and writers in Oakland, CA.

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.

Recently, SFFILM honored award-winning director Steve McQueen and his film Blitz. Before the screening of the film, SFFILM Board President Todd Traina presented the award to Steve with a very special introduction calling attention to the deftness with which Steve navigates storytelling. Along with the award presentation, we all sat for a screening of the film in the world-class Premier Theater at One Letterman followed by an onstage conversation between SFFILM Director of Programming Jessie Fairbanks and director Steve McQueen.

“San Francisco has always been important for me as a filmmaker. It’s very special to be back here at SFFILM because I know they have the most remarkable film community here. When I think of San Francisco, I think of excellence in filmmaking and also nurturing of filmmaking, which is extremely important,” said director Steve McQueen.

Watch the full conversation to hear more about the creation of Steve McQueen’s Blitz, and be sure to watch the film on Apple TV+.

SF Honors: Blitz—In conversation with Steve McQueen

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 brings the most exciting films and filmmakers to Bay Area movie lovers all year long. To be the first to know what’s coming, sign up for our email alerts and watch your inbox.

A dynamic hub for influential conversations about non-fiction funding and the state of the industry, Doc Congress is an annual gathering that takes place during SFFILM’s Doc Stories. By bringing together documentary funders, filmmakers, and distributors to discuss the most prevailing topics of the non-fiction funding landscape, Doc Congress is one of the documentary showcase’s most vital events.

At the 10th Doc Stories, Bonni Cohen, co-founder of the Catapult Film Fund and of the San Francisco-based documentary production company Actual Films, served as Doc Congress’ keynote speaker. Join us as we revisit Cohen’s compelling address here.

In Waves And War: One Film’s Path To Being Made & Seen

In February of 2022, our film team arrived in Virginia Beach to interview retired Navy seal DJ Shipley for our latest film In Waves And War which we were producing in association with Participant Media RIP. It’s the story of three special OPS SEALs who returned from the 20-year war in Iraq and Afghanistan—broken both physically and mentally—and were setting an alternative and risky course for personal healing through an illegal psychedelic drug regimen.

We came to interview DJ but as I spent more time with his wife, Patsy, it became clear to me that her story was equally as important to the film we were making. The wives who ultimately saved the lives of their husbands and families—whose clarity, strength, and vision were the key to the success of the healing process for these guys. It wasn’t an easy story to tell as it was filled with pain, heartache, fear and, in Patsy’s case, betrayal.

Patsy had a number of reasons why she didn’t want to be on camera, not the least of which was that she and DJ have two little girls and she wanted to protect them, being well aware that our film could end up on a big streaming service and as they grew up, they would be surrounded by people who had seen the film and knew of their family trauma.

I could tell that Patsy and I had a connection and she was comfortable talking to me off camera. So, I made her an offer I had never made to a film participant before. I offered to do the interview and then check in with her later to see if she wanted to proceed. I would send her the interview transcript and she could get comfortable with what she revealed.

This kind of collaboration with a film subject is risky, as Patsy could decide to simply pull out and I would have no recourse. But, it was clear to me that a new approach was necessary here, given what this family had been through and I was willing to engage her in the process to the extent that she would feel comfortable enough to display her family’s trauma on screen. Her story is profound and was deeply moving to me.

As I sat through the interview, I realized again what a privilege we have as storytellers to speak to people about the most intimate and complicated aspects of their lives, often giving them an opportunity to realize something about their relationships that maybe they hadn’t hit on before. I was overcome with the reminder and feeling once again of my own passion to connect and help people through sharing stories.

Here I was, a San Francisco-based, and left-leaning, documentary filmmaker, and Patsy grew up in a military family in the heart of Navy SEAL country, widowed by her first husband who was also a SEAL and a stepfather who was part of NAVY SEAL leadership. We couldn’t be from more different backgrounds yet here we were coming together to share something about our common humanity.

We just premiered In Waves And War at the Telluride Film Festival this past month. Patsy and DJ were there. They experienced standing ovations from the audience even before the credits came on. There was a visible emotional response from the audiences that was more profound than anything we had experienced before. Tears were leaking from the eyes of a few streaming platform executives. For the filmmaker and subject, it was a home run.

Two months later, our sales agents are reporting back things like: although the film is beloved by all that have seen it, in today’s climate, streamers are looking for “content” that has been proven to generate millions of eyeballs. Insert your favorite celebrity here. It’s no secret that celebrity docs and true crime rule the day. We find ourselves in the awkward position of having made a powerful film that doesn’t have an easy way to foretell its success. We continue to work on the best distribution path for the film.

Bonni Cohen On Co-Founding The Catapult Film Fund

In 2010, I was set up on a blind lunch date with Lisa Kleiner Chanoff, who I knew through mutual friends. She was interested in the documentary field and wanted to know if there was a need to fill on the funding side that could be useful. In other words, rather than funding films one at a time, was there a hole to fill more globally?

Lisa had dipped a single toe into the field, having funded a few individual projects but was looking to make more of a difference. I told her that the most difficult moment, in my opinion, for a documentary, is the early stage when it’s just an idea and can easily, without any support, die on the vine. It’s no secret that this has led to a barrier to entry for artists with fewer connections and means. I could see in Lisa’s eyes that she was intrigued and a few weeks later, we set the blueprint for The Catapult Film Fund.

There were a few organizations dabbling in development funding at that time, but we envisioned a fund dedicated to getting filmmakers over the line from just an idea to a sample piece that reflected the film they wanted to make for presentation to production funders. The idea for the fund was specifically about taking big risks.

[Now,] Catapult has funded 290 films in the last 15 years. In our first round, we invited 20 filmmakers to submit applications and this past round we received nearly 900 applications for 15 slots.

These projects take years to become All that Breathes and Crip Camp—and may have struggled longer to find those films without the support of Catapult.

Since Catapult was born there are now a whole slew of organizations out there that see the importance of development funding and have also made a big difference for the field including Sundance, Points North, Chicken & Egg Films, and Impact Partners, to name a few. We know that, as a field, we are capable of responding to the needs of filmmakers as those needs present themselves.

It is frustrating to sit here in 2024 and consternate about the state of documentary distribution, particularly at a time when truth is under attack and we know, as a community, how valuable our films are to righting the ship. But, let’s remember a few things:

In my lifetime, public television was born, cable TV was born, and streaming platforms came into view. Distribution is not a solid state. As Brian Newman writes in his Sub-Genre newsletter:

“I think that’s been the trouble we’re having in the film business as things have become stuck. People are looking at the old map for a way out of this mess, and it also doesn’t align with our new reality.”

We all need to be looking in new directions. The problem, however, is that much of our industry leadership is focused on putting out the fires, and on reading the old maps. We’re waiting for someone to come along with the new map. Luckily, I’ve been seeing a lot of such rumblings from both newer/upcoming leaders, and some who’ve been in the field for quite a while, but who have stayed nimble. I can’t report on all of those developments yet, because many remain behind the scenes as works-in-progress, but the next era’s winners are clearly going to be those who chart the new maps.

The State Of Documentary Filmmaking In 2024 & Beyond

I am looking for a miracle. And I am not pessimistic about finding one. I have seen this community step and solve seemingly insurmountable problems before.

There are clearly impressive and innovative experiments going on as we speak—inroads into self-distribution through a grant from FilmAid and the new platform for documentaries called Jolt, that Geralyn Dreyfous and Jim Swartz from Impact Partners are spear-heading. [There] are new experts in the field, like Mia Bruno, who are taking on indie theatrical distribution, and there are [tireless] filmmakers, like Brett Story with her incredible Sundance Award-winning film, Union, who have worked… to self distribute her film around the country to audiences who need to see it most.

So, I get the irony here: I stand before you passionate but humble. I have not one, but two films that Actual Films has finished this year—In Waves and War and The White House Effect—…and neither of them have a distributor on board yet.

In the film, you see Patsy Shipley help save the life of her husband and play the central character in a great on-screen love story. Patsy ultimately [agrees] to participate in the film. We took a risk on Patsy, spending valuable production time on an interview that we might never have gotten permission to put in the film but, ultimately, Patsy told us how much she appreciated the interview and gave us permission to use her story.

Being open to a new way of working paid off for us and, part of what we do as artists and storytellers is to figure out new pathways we don’t have an ending for. Industry wide, we are now in such a moment. I continue to be optimistic about what we can innovate as a field to get these critical films out in the world.

I came out to the Bay area to attend the Stanford Documentary Graduate Program in the early ‘90s. Being there, not only did I meet my life partner in life and film, I was privileged to sit at the foot of the documentary masters—Jon Else, Kris Samuelson, Debbie Hoffman, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman to name just a few. I began to realize that there was something special here in San Francisco, [something] unique to the independent documentary voice, and I harnessed it.

There has always been excitement and fear for me as a documentary filmmaker. Excitement for the stories we are allowed to tell and fear that those stories might never get seen.

But, if we examine the waves of history in our field and how we have exhibited documentary film here and around the globe, there have been trends of distribution that have not supported massive audiences and there have been times when our documentaries have had the experience of being viewed by millions around the world.

Why are we making these films? Who are they for? What is the measure of success in audiences and exhibition?

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 brings the most exciting films and filmmakers to Bay Area movie lovers all year long. To be the first to know what’s coming, sign up for our email alerts and watch your inbox.

Deadline and NOS Studios’ Doc Talk podcast hosts John Ridley and Matt Carey made their way to SFFILM FilmHouse for an insightful conversation and thoughts about the changes in the nonfiction filmmaking landscape with SFFILM’s Executive Director Anne Lai and Director of Programming Jessie Fairbanks.

They continued by going behind the scenes with SFFILM Education alum and director Jonah Mosshammer and fellow filmmaker Brennan McGee, directors of the short film Arepas en Bici, which premiered at Doc Stories.

Watch the full conversation and stay tuned for the next episode of Deadline’s Doc Talk coming very soon!

Deadline’s Doc Talk—Featuring SFFILM Doc Stories

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 brings the most exciting films and filmmakers to Bay Area movie lovers all year long. To be the first to know what’s coming, sign up for our email alerts and watch your inbox.

SFFILM honored Azazel Jacobs and his film His Three Daughters in the world-class Premier Theater at One Letterman. Before the screening of the film, SFFILM Board President Todd Traina presented the award to Azazel with a very special introduction calling attention to the masterful storytelling in His Three Daughters. After the screening, SFFILM Director of Programming Jessie Fairbanks was joined onstage by Azazel Jacobs and actors Elizabeth Olsen and Jovan Adepo. During the conversation, the filmmakers discussed everything from the structure of the film and the nuances behind its construction to the connection between the actors and their collaboration in the achievement of a singular goal.

“The fact that we get to be here is such a huge privilege to us. We didn’t make this with results in our minds. We made this because of a process that we had all missed. That’s where it came from,” said Elizabeth Olsen. “[We] wanted to support a filmmaker who we love as a person and as a creative.”

Watch the full conversation to hear more about the creation of Azazel Jacobs’s His Three Daughters, and be sure to watch the film on Netflix starting on Friday, September 20.

SF Honors: His Three Daughters—In conversation with Azazel Jacobs, Elizabeth Olsen, and Jovan Adepo

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 brings the most exciting films and filmmakers to Bay Area movie lovers all year long. To be the first to know what’s coming, sign up for our email alerts and watch your inbox.