Meet the 2025 SFFILM Festival Programmers

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.

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