SFFILM Exclusive

A Tribute to Joan Chen

At the 67th San Francisco International Film Festival, we celebrated the career of actor, filmmaker, and local legend Joan Chen. She discussed her love for storytelling and the history behind her work with the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Janet Yang.

SFFILM honored the inimitable Joan Chen with a career-spanning tribute. Before a very special 35mm screening of her award-winning feature directorial debut Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl, she and Janet Yang had an intimate—and illuminating—conversation about her path. From her early stardom in Beijing to her later ascension into fame in the US, their conversation touched on the difficulties of immigrating, learning how to navigate Hollywood, and making the jump from acting to directing.

“Films, Filmmaking, and being creative really has nourished me for almost 50 years.”

Watch the full conversation to hear more about Joan’s life and work including her most recent film Dìdi (弟弟), the Opening Night program for the 2024 SFFILM Festival. Dìdi (弟弟) opens in New York and Los Angeles on July 26, and in San Francisco on August 2. Be sure to get your tickets here!

A Tribute to Joan Chen—In conversation with Janet Yang

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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.

Get ready for Sean Wang’s Dìdi (弟弟)

The 67th San Francisco International Film Festival opened with Sean Wang’s feature directorial debut Dìdi (弟弟). We talked to him about the importance of this homecoming and the making of the film.

We kicked off the the 2024 SFFILM Festival with a dual screening of what is sure to be a Bay Area classic in Sean Wang’s Dìdi (弟弟). Bay Area movie lovers filled two movie theaters San Francisco’s Marina District for this personal coming of age film with director Sean Wang, producers Josh Peters and Valerie Bush, and many cast and crew members in attendance.

The film features a brilliant cast including Izaac Wang, Shirley Chen, SFFILM Festival tributee Joan Chen, and Sean Wang’s real-life grandmother Chang Li Hua. The story follows 13-year-old Chris as he makes his way through a series of firsts preceding his freshman year in high school. Sean Wang cited his love for coming-of-age movies, and this film is a love letter to them.

Watch the full conversation to hear more about the story and making ofDìdi (弟弟), and make sure you get your tickets for the opening of this beautifully crafted film.

An Interview with the Filmmaker behind Dìdi (弟弟)

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Action Star at 94, Here’s June Squibb as Thelma

Academy Award-nominated June Squibb closed the 67th San Francisco International Film Festival with a special screening and conversation about her latest starring role

The filmmakers and star of Thelma have the perfect summer movie

SFFILM Festival audiences were treated to a sneak preview of Thelma this April as the closing night film of the program including an onstage conversation with director and writer Josh Margolin, star June Squibb, producers Chris Kaye and Zoë Worth, and composer Nick Chuba.

The film, which opens June 21 in local and national theaters, features steely and hysterical June Squibb in her first leading role as a 93-year-old widow (Thelma) proudly living alone when she falls prey to a cash-grabbing hoax. Vowing to bring the perpetrators to justice, Thelma sets out on an odyssey across Los Angeles, accompanied by her old friend Ben (played by Richard Roundtree in his final performance). Together, the determined duo wields their charm, social invisibility, and elder-age devices to overcome numerous obstacles. Director Josh Margolin draws on action-hero genre cliches, playing with traditional set-ups to illustrate Thelma’s agency.

Watch the full conversation to hear about the making of Thelma, then call your grandma and get your tickets to see this one in the theater!

In Conversation with the Filmmakers of Thelma

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.

On the Invention of Species Celebrates World Premiere at the 2024 SFFILM Film Festival

SFFILM and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation presented filmmaker Tania Hermida with the SFFILM Sloan Science on Screen Award.

What is the SFFILM Sloan Science on Screen Award?

This annual award carries a $5,000 cash prize and celebrates the compelling depiction of scientific themes or characters in a narrative feature film. The 2024 program included a lively onstage conversation featuring the film’s cast and crew, and Noah Whiteman, an evolutionary biologist and Professor of Genetics, Genomics, Evolution and Development at the University of California Berkeley. On the Invention of Species follows Carla, while on the cusp of womanhood and grappling with the loss of her brother, finds herself adrift on the historic archipelago that led to Charles Darwin’s breakthrough studies on adaptation.

SFFILM’s partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation—the nation’s leading philanthropic grantor for science and the arts—culminates in the SFFILM Sloan Science in Cinema Initiative. Launched in 2015, the program celebrates and highlights cinema that brings together science and the art of storytelling, showing how these two seemingly disparate areas can combine to enhance the power of one another. The selections are meant to immerse a broad public audience in the challenges and rewards of scientific discovery, as well as to engage members of the scientific community.

Watch the full conversation to hear about the making of On the Invention of Species.

SFFILM Sloan Science on Screen Award Conversation

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Wrap Notes: Bay Area Artists & International Filmmakers Shine at the 2024 SFFILM Festival

With a full slate of in-person programming and events, the 2024 SFFILM Festival featured essential stories from both local and international filmmakers, who hailed from 40 countries.

Photo by Pamela Gentile

The 67th San Francisco International Film Festival brought audiences into theaters throughout San Francisco and Berkeley and showcased works from 40 countries. The Roxie Theater hosted SFFILM Festival Encore Days in early May, and the reviews are in The 2024 SFFILM Festival was a resounding success.

In its 67th iteration, the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM Festival) ran from April 24–28, and welcomed moviegoers into theaters across the Bay Area, from the Premier Theater at One Letterman in the Presidio to San Francisco’s bustling Chestnut Steet and the Marina Theatre to the East Bay’s Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA).

“The 2024 SFFILM Festival was a true celebration of Bay Area filmmaking and moviegoers,” said Anne Lai, Executive Director of SFFILM. “We saw theaters packed with fantastic audiences enjoying wonderful films from around the world and from a thriving pipeline of independent filmmakers we have supported being able to come back and share their work in hometown premieres.”

From Sean Wang’s Dìdi (弟弟) to a Tribute to Joan Chen, the 2024 SFFILM Festival Provided Exemplary Programming

The Festival opened with a celebratory hometown premiere of Sean Wang’s Dìdi (弟弟) across two sold-out theaters. With the Oscar-nominated director, producers, and numerous local cast members in attendance, Opening Night reaffirmed SFFILM’s commitment to the Bay Area’s robust filmmaking community. Audiences were generous and excited throughout the Festival. Director Greg Kwedar’s much-anticipated Sing Sing, which stars Academy Award nominee Colman Domingo and local Bay Area artist Sean San José, received a warm welcome from a sold-out crowd on the Festival’s second night. Other notable moments included at-capacity screenings of Slava Leontyev and Brendan Bellomo’s Porcelain War, Vicki Abeles’ Counted Out, and Shiori Ito’s Black Box Diaries.

Photo by Tommy Lau

Shorts Filmmakers

Photo by Tommy Lau

Industry Days

Photo by Tommy Lau

SFFILM Executive Director Anne Lai, Vicki Abeles, Danny Glover, SFFILM Director of Programming Jessie Fairbanks

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Johan Grimonprez, Fumi Okiji

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Josh Peters, Sean Wang, Valerie Bush

The Festival also honored local pioneer and champion of film exhibition Gary Meyer with the Mel Novikoff Award, and paid tribute to multi-hyphenates Chiwetel Ejiofor (Rob Peace) and Joan Chen, a local legend whose directorial debut, Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl, screened on 35mm for Festival attendees after an intimate onstage conversation with producer and President of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Janet Yang. Two sold-out screenings complete with standing ovations of Josh Margolin’s Thelma, which stars the steely-yet-hysterical June Squibb, closed the 2024 SFFILM Festival.

Award Winners at the 2024 SFFILM Festival Included Sugarcane, Great Absence, The Teacher & Seeking Mavis Beacon

Other special honors included: SFFILM’s Persistence of Vision Award, which went to Belgian filmmaker and multimedia artist Johan Grimonprez (Soundtrack for a Coup d’Etat), and the Sloan Science in Cinema Award, which went to Tania Hermida’s On the Invention of Species (La Invención de las especies). Golden Gate Award winners included: Julian Brave Noisecat and Emily Kassie’s Sugarcane (Documentary Award), Farah Nabulsi’s The Teacher (Audience Award: Narrative Feature), Kei Chika-ura’s Great Absence (Global Visions Award), Jazmin Renée Jones’ Seeking Mavis Beacon (Bay Area Documentary Award), and Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó’s Agent of Happiness (Audience Award: Documentary Feature).

The remaining Golden Gate Awards went to Estaban Pedraza’s Bogotá Story (Narrative Short Award), Ruth Hunduma’s The Medallion (Documentary Short Award), María Luisa Santos’s a film is a goodbye that never ends (Bay Area Short Award), Carla Melo Gampert’s La Perra (Animated Short Award), Travis Lee Ratcliff’s Dynasty and Destiny (Family Film Award), and Yezy Suh’s Sil-tteu-gi (Youth Works Award).

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Janet Yang, Joan Chen

Photo by Tommy Lau

Industry Days

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Anne Thompson, Gary Meyer

Photo by Tommy Lau

Greg Kwedar

Photo by Pamela Gentile

Chiwetel Ejiofor, SFFILM Director of Programming Jessie Fairbanks

SFFILM, which puts on the Americas’ longest-running film festival, further reaffirmed its ongoing commitment to fostering in-person community with the SFFILM Festival Encore Days program, which was held at the Roxie Theater from May 2–4. “This was our most successful Festival in years,” Lai said, “and I am already looking forward to planning for the 68th edition next year.”

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.