Essential SF
Essential SF is a celebration of the collective work it takes to make film vital, accessible, and fascinating here at home and across the globe. From animators to critics to theater owners to print traffic managers and everyone in between, the collection of Essential SF honorees commemorates where film culture has been, and where it’s going next.
Biographies
Julie Charles is SFMOMA’s Deborah and Kenneth Novack Director of Education in the museum’s Education Department. She serves as the leader for all of SFMOMA’s educational programming, which includes the museum’s robust offerings for school communities and educators. Since 2006, Julie has designed and led programs for various audiences, including families, youth, teens, students, and teachers. Julie joined SFMOMA in 1997 as the Manager of Docent Programs.
Julie has taught art history at multiple Bay Area museums, including the Fine Arts Museums of California, the Contemporary Jewish Museum, the Asian Art Museum, and the San Jose Museum of Art, and at universities, such as the Academy of Art University and UC Berkeley Extension. Julie earned both her BA (University of California, Los Angeles) and her MA (American University, Washington, D.C.) in Art History and in 2012 was a graduate of the Getty Leadership’s Next Gen program.
Shaun Farley attended Binghamton University in New York, where he doubled in History and Anthropology before realizing sound was where his interests really lay. He then attended Emerson College in Boston, where he earned a Master’s in Visual and Media Arts and was drawn to sound for film and television. His audio post career began in 2004 at WGBH in Boston, carried him to the Washington, DC area, and ultimately led to Skywalker Sound in 2014. Throughout his career, he has been a passionate advocate for the impact sound can have in storytelling. This has led to speaking engagements at AES conventions and The Smithsonian, as well as editorial leadership with the website DesigningSound.org. Shaun continues to work with Skywalker, and regularly advises emerging filmmakers on ways they can take advantage of sound in their films.
Founded in 1977, Frameline is a San Francisco-based nonprofit media arts organization dedicated to the development, exhibition, distribution, and preservation of LGBTQ+ cinema and independent queer media. Frameline’s mission is to change the world through the power of queer cinema. As a media arts nonprofit, Frameline’s programs do just that by connecting filmmakers and audiences in the Bay Area and around the world through the funding, distribution, restoration, and amplification of queer films.
Frameline, the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, is the oldest queer film festival in the world. Its inaugural event, dubbed The Gay Film Festival of Super-8 Films, was organized in 1976 and held in 1977 at the Gay Community Center in San Francisco. Featuring largely experimental works, the Festival projected its films on a bedsheet pinned to a board.
In 1979, “Frameline” became the name of the group running the annual festival. Three years later, the group was incorporated under that same name. Led by Michael Lumpkin, the newly minted Frameline: San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival became a world-class, professional film festival. Over the years, the Festival’s name has continued to change — in 2005, it became the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, before adding a “Q” to the end of the acronym 10 years later. However, Frameline’s commitment to showcasing and celebrating films by and about LGBTQ people has remained steadfast.
The Lee Neighborhood Theatres started in 1992 with the opening of the 4 Star Theatre in the Richmond District in San Francisco. The Presidio Theatre followed in 2004 and Marina Theatre opened in 2008. Frank Lee and his wife Lida have specialized in first-run bookings featuring Asian films during the early ‘90s with an emphasis in films from Hong Kong and Mainland China.
Bay Area audiences were introduced to these films on a traditional open-ended run at the 4 Star. Additionally, an annual New Asian Film Series was organized and continued for eight years featuring hard-to-find Asian films from the Far East. Currently, the Presidio and Marina Theatres on Chestnut Street primarily screen current Hollywood film releases and independent films.
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