Give Me the Ball!
2026-04-25 20:30 - 22:40 (America/Los_Angeles) | Premier Theater at One Letterman, 1 Letterman Dr # B, San Francisco, CA, 94129, United States
Billie Jean King changed the game of tennis — on the court and across sports culture. Liz Garbus and Elizabeth Wolff’s documentary presents the legend in full, combining rare archival footage with candid interviews to reveal the human behind the icon. King’s groundbreaking fight for equity in professional women’s sports came at personal cost: hiding her sexual orientation, struggling with eating disorders, and subordinating her own well-being to advance the cause. The filmmakers capture both her indelible victories and the challenges she endured with clarity and immediacy, presenting a portrait that is as fierce and uncompromising as King herself. Told in her own words, Give Me the Ball! is a vivid, electrifying meditation on competition, courage, and the transformative power of one fiercely determined individual. —Jessie Fairbanks

Bad Blood
2026-04-25 20:45 - 22:38 | Marina Theatre, 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA, 94123, United States
This stunning film by Leos Carax has earned him comparisons with such virtuoso filmmakers as David Lynch and Martin Scorsese. Awarded France’s Prix Delluc as Best Film of 1986, it more than confirms the promise of Boy Meets Girl (The Festival 1985), made when he was only 24. Like Godard’s Pierrot le Fou, Bad Blood’s poetic fireworks are suspended from a noir-ish plot involving a robbery and a doomed love triangle. Declaring its passion for cinema with every frame, the film recalls the best New Wave films of the 1960s but is firmly rooted in a palpable love of working with actors. And Carax is rewarded by magnificent performances from his central trio—Denis Lavant, the versatile mime introduced in Boy Meets Girl, Juliette Binoche (star of Philip Kaufman’s forthcoming film of Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being) and veteran character actor Michel Piccoli. The camerawork of Jean-Yves Escoffier is nothing short of dazzling. —Peter Scarlet
Star Juliette Binoche attended the 1987 Festival screening.
Films from the Vault revisits previously presented titles at the San Francisco International Film Festival, highlighting the Festival’s role in championing emerging artists and iconic auteurs and inviting audiences to rediscover these films anew. – Jessie Fairbanks

Shorts Block 6: Youth Works
2026-04-26 10:30 - 12:17 | Premier Theater at One Letterman, 1 Letterman Dr # B, San Francisco, CA, 94129, United States
Young filmmakers from across the globe showcase their daring creativity and craft in this collection of films that address the complexity of growing up and the innocence of youth. Employing animation, narrative, and documentary, these shorts embrace emotion, curiosity, and risk-taking to experience the fullness of life. Among the films are a vivid hand-drawn animation ode to ‘80s culture, a tale of effortlessly composed charm in the French countryside, a short demonstrating art as a form of healing after disaster, and a story expressing the power of never giving up on your dreams. Let us introduce you to the next generation of storytellers. —Soph Schultz Rocha
Recommended for ages 11 and up. Films are in alphabetical order rather than order of play. Total runtime 74 min
Cindy Undead

Mariella Gutiérrez (USA 2025, 3 min)

Mysterious and sensational ’80s supermodel Cindy Devereux reaches a breaking point when she can no longer keep herself sewn together.
Dandelion Child

Isabella Montesi (USA 2025, 6 min)

A daughter moves into her freshman college dorm, parting ways with her mother and recalling their precious years spent together.
Fishbowl

Hana Taylor (USA 2025, 8 min)

A young artist, eager to win the top prize for her aquatic painting, buys a fish for inspiration that might just help break her creative block.
Little Things

Noam Rignault Clement (France, Spain, USA 2026, 6 min)

Taking his mother’s advice to enjoy the little things in life, a nine-year-old boy in the charming French countryside embarks with a stolen garden gnome on an inquisitive quest to find just that.
Out of the Blue

Vivian Nguyen (USA 2026, 3 min)

A lonely grocery store cashier daydreams of true love at the checkout counter.
Paper Boat

Yeobin Park (South Korea 2025, 10 min)

Two siblings bond by floating paper boats down a tranquil stream as their family life begins to crack.
Rewinded

Aaliyah Idrissa (USA 2025, 7 min)

A Black woman who gave up on her science dreams as a teen gets a second chance when she unexpectedly time-travels to the ’90s to live one day with her younger self.
Rising Above the Ashes

Cade Savage Schwartz (USA 2025, 15 min)

In the aftermath of the devastating LA fires, community members and artists express their resilience and offer ways to heal together after disaster.
Sonder

Lancey Quan (USA 2025, 9 min)

Seven poetic stories of belonging and growing up, told through seven colors, encompass shifting perspectives and landscapes.
Tropical Fish

Shirley Xie (China 2025, 7 min)

Young Xiao Su has one big wish, to see the tropical fish by the sea. With his best friend, the two go on an arduous journey to turn this dream into a reality.

Yo (Love Is a Rebellious Bird)
2026-04-26 11:30 - 13:17 | BAMPFA, 2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
One of director Anna Fitch’s closest friends, Yo was adventurous, self-assured, and headstrong. Before Yo passed away in 2013, Fitch spent countless hours capturing memories and anecdotes of Yo’s colorful life. That documentation became a broader project through which Fitch processed her grief as she crafted a meticulous miniature recreation of the home where Yo spent her final years. In Yo (Love Is a Rebellious Bird), Fitch and co-director Banker White meld together Fitch’s cherished vérité footage with stunning puppet recreations and the miniature home to memorialize Yo in all her highs and lows. By harnessing the craft of puppetry to explore Yo’s life in Switzerland, her struggles with motherhood, and experiences with aging on her own terms, this hybrid documentary becomes a whimsical record of friendship and the love that bloomed between Fitch and Yo. —Amber Love

Vagabond
2026-04-26 12:00 - 13:53 | Marina Theatre, 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA, 94123, United States
Agnès Varda’s new film, which not only won Venice’s Golden Lion but the awards of the international critics as well, has echoes of her earlier work, Cleo from 5 to 7 and also recalls Alain Tanner’s superb Messidor. Its central character, beautifully played by Sandrine Bonnaire, is a young drop-out who roams a wintry south of France with a knapsack containing a tent on her back. She sleeps and eats where she can, a fiercely independent character little understood by even those who know her best. What she seeks is freedom, and her tragedy is that society extracts from her too great a price for it. Varda tells her story with a strong and simple eloquence that is very moving, and searches not so much for explanations as for emotional understanding. This is a film of considerable resonance precisely because it seeks neither to praise nor condemn, but to comprehend a profound alienation. —Derek Malcolm
Vagabond screened at the 1985 Festival with Agnès Varda in attendance.
Films from the Vault revisits previously presented titles at the San Francisco International Film Festival, highlighting the Festival’s role in championing emerging artists and iconic auteurs and inviting audiences to rediscover these films anew. —Jessie Fairbanks

Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story
2026-04-26 12:30 - 14:36 | Marina Theatre, 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA, 94123, United States
For photographer Kwame Brathwaite, the camera served as an instrument of love for his people. From capturing the mirth flowing through the streets of 1960s Harlem to following the Jackson 5 on a tour of Africa, Brathwaite chronicled Black America in all its glory. It was Brathwaite along with his brother Elombe Brath who coined the now ubiquitous phrase, “Black is Beautiful.” Somewhere along the way, his grand achievements faded into a forgotten past until his family fought to resurrect his legacy and restore his place in the African American canon. His photographs—now collected by the likes of Gabrielle Union, Jesse Williams, and Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz—are not just reflections of Black joy but serve as a defiant insistence on the beauty that is inherent in Black lives and experiences. Yemi Bemiro’s enthralling documentary celebrates Brathwaite’s life, art, and his monumental contribution to Black history. —Bedatri Choudhury

Tuner
2026-04-26 13:00 - 15:17 | Premier Theater at One Letterman, 1 Letterman Dr # B, San Francisco, CA, 94129, United States
Academy Award®–winning director Daniel Roher (Navalny, Festival 2022) makes a striking leap into narrative filmmaking with this stylish, genre-bending thriller. Leo Woodall plays Niki, a meticulous piano tuner whose hypersensitive hearing makes the world painfully loud—but also gives him an uncanny ability to detect the inner workings of locks. His quiet life tuning pianos across New York alongside his mentor, played with wry warmth by Dustin Hoffman, takes an unexpected turn when Niki’s rare talent draws the attention of criminals eager to exploit it. As he becomes entangled in increasingly dangerous safecracking jobs, a tentative romance with a music student (Havana Rose Liu) presents another path. Propelled by inventive sound design and sharp performances, Tuner blends crime caper, romance, and character study into a tense, darkly funny exploration of talent, temptation, and the fragile line between survival and self-destruction. —Jessie Fairbanks

Risa and the Wind Phone
2026-04-26 14:00 - 16:03 | BAMPFA, 2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
An abandoned telephone booth calls out to 10-year-old Risa. After a tragic fire devastates their small town, residents take to calling the dead on an out-of-order telephone high atop a hill. But only Risa can hear the voices from the other side. Hoping to finally contact her mysterious father somewhere in this crowd of impatient spirits, she starts to take on the unfinished business of departed loved ones. Continuing a game of chess, locating life insurance policies, and finding a new home for a lost dog all become part of Risa’s daily to-do list. What starts as a simple set of tasks aided by a well-meaning neighbor, turns into a life-defining search for love and acceptance in this charming storybook romp from acclaimed director Juan Cabral. –Amber Love

A Sad and Beautiful World
2026-04-26 14:30 - 16:28 | Marina Theatre, 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA, 94123, United States
Ambitious and emotionally potent, Cyril Aris’s drama explores one couple’s romantic travails with three tumultuous decades of Lebanese history as the backdrop. Since childhood, Nino and Yasmina have had a connection. The former loses his parents to a car accident while the latter feels her world shaken by the separation of hers. Flash forward, and a car crash of a different sort reunites the two as young adults and their bond rekindles. In the final period, Nino’s optimism clashes with Yasmina’s more realistic outlook as they discuss children and whether or not to leave the country they love but that is riven by conflict and economic uncertainty. The filmmaking is dynamic, employing various techniques to convey the swirl of life and love in a volatile world while the two lead actors share a big-hearted chemistry amid the challenges Nino and Yasmina face. —Rod Armstrong

Daughters of the Forest: Mycelium Chronicles
2026-04-26 15:15 - 17:18 | Marina Theatre, 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA, 94123, United States
Tangled networks spread through the forest floor, connecting plants, humans, and fungi in an inseparable web of coexistence. In the forests of Mexico, mycologists Eliseete and Julieta are working to document and preserve their communities’ long-held symbiosis with the mushrooms that grow around them, a project grown more urgent in the face of continued environmental destruction and cultural loss. From decay comes life, and in this debut feature, director Otilia Portillo Padua weaves together the scientists’ hopes, dreams, and work with immersive interludes that dive into the depths of the forest to give voice to the mushrooms themselves. Through this dreamlike meditation on interconnectedness and shared fates that occupies a unique space between documentary and science fiction, Daughters of the Forest: Mycelium Chronicles presents not a story of devastation, but an attainable dream of a more thriving future. —Amber Love

The Oldest Person in the World + Paper Trail
2026-04-26 16:00 - 18:19 | Premier Theater at One Letterman, 1 Letterman Dr # B, San Francisco, CA, 94129, United States
For over a decade, SFFILM mainstay Sam Green (Utopia in Four Movements, Festival 2010; 32 Sounds, Festival 2022) tenaciously documents the world’s oldest person, as determined by the Guinness Book of World Records. Traveling the globe, Green interviews each new record holder as the title passes. What begins as a simple premise evolves into a profoundly personal reflection on witnessing extraordinary lives. Green narrates moments from his subjects’ experiences alongside his own, offering a window into human endurance and the passage of time. As Green’s life evolves in parallel, the question expands: who will be the next record holder, and what drives the desire to document them at all? The result is an essayistic rumination on life’s extremes: death, birth, and the constant nature of change. —Amber Love
The Oldest Person in the World will be preceded by the short film Paper Trail, directed by Don Hertzfeldt (USA 2026, 14 min).
Festival alumni and Oscar® nominee Don Hertzfeldt brings beautifully tactile animation and rich sound design to Paper Trail, tracing the span of a life through the literal marks we leave behind.

Time and Water
2026-04-26 16:45 - 18:44 | BAMPFA, 2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason faces an unthinkable task: composing the eulogy for Okjökull, the first glacier declared dead due to climate change. In Sara Dosa’s (Fire of Love, Festival 2022) luminous documentary, Magnason confronts the disappearance of his country’s ice while preserving the stories of his grandparents, intertwining personal history with vanishing landscapes. Drawing from home movies, photographs, songs, and folklore, Dosa constructs an immersive portrait of loss and continuity. Moving seamlessly between intimate recollections and the monumental sweep of glaciers over millennia, Time and Water is a visually striking meditation on vulnerability, charting the fragility of the natural world and the urgent need to bear witness before vital elements of it disappear. —Jessie Fairbanks

The Queen and the Smokehouse
2026-04-26 17:30 - 19:04 | Marina Theatre, 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA, 94123, United States
In the Polish seaside town of Łeba, a kingdom rests upon plates of smoked cod, mackerel, halibut, and salmon. The picturesque beaches are one tourist draw; the town’s smokehouse is another, overseen by Leba’s undisputed queen, Meicia. This delightful documentary follows her as she spends her summer days managing her business, serving her customers, and bringing together a group of employees who adore her immensely and fear her slightly. What Meicia has built over the decades is not just a beloved institution but a quiet matriarchy of sorts, a tight ship run by a woman who has spent her life bringing people the joy of a perfectly smoked meal. But now, Melicia is at a crossroads as her health is failing, and she begins to look back at her life and reckon with her legacy. —Bedatri Choudhury

Nuisance Bear
2026-04-26 18:00 - 19:58 | Marina Theatre, 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA, 94123, United States
A yearling polar bear is smart enough to beat a bear trap, but is he wise enough to survive the world of humans? That is a question that hovers over this Sundance grand jury documentary prize winner that follows the animal between Churchill, Manitoba, and Arviat, Nunavut. The small communities depend on bears like the one at the center of the film: Churchill relies on the dollars brought in by tourists eager to commune (at a distance) with the apex predators while Arviat’s Inuit villagers hunt the animals for their meat and skin. As the sea ice that is the marine mammals’ hunting ground shrinks, they wander into town more frequently searching for food, endangering both humans and bears. Narrated by Arviat elder Mike Tunalaaq Gibbons, this immersive, gorgeously photographed, and poetic film evolves into a powerful meditation on impacts: of painful history, climate change, ursine incursions, and human interventions. –Pam Grady

Sloan Science on Screen Award: Silent Friend
2026-04-26 19:00 - 22:15 | Premier Theater at One Letterman, 1 Letterman Dr # B, San Francisco, CA, 94129, United States
On the cusp of the Covid-19 pandemic, Tony (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), a Hong Kong neuroscientist conducting research at a German university, observes a botanical garden’s ancient gingko tree one lonesome and chilly evening. The mysterious arboreal entity enchants him, leading him to a synthesis between scientific pursuit and the beauty of nature. Tony is not the first to feel the pull of that tree, the quiet and enduring witness to the passage of time and ultimately a leafy companion to people whose connection to the environment is inseparable. Ildikó Enyedi’s ethereal cinematic triumph captures the essence of humanity across more than a century, a triptych of stories that take place in 1908, 1972, and 2020. With a mesmerizing array of cinematographic styles, Silent Friend creates an evocative portrait of the evolution of intellectual thought and irrepressible curiosities. Léa Seydoux costars. —Jordan Klein

The World of Love
2026-04-26 19:30 - 21:38 | BAMPFA, 2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
Boisterous, mischievous, and seemingly unassailable, Lee Joo-in is the master of her world. Whether dancing with classmates, sparring with her charismatic brother and devoted mother (Parasite’s Jang Hye-jin), or sharing tender moments with her boyfriend, Joo-in’s life appears in harmony. That balance shatters after a public confrontation and a series of unsettling anonymous messages compel her to confront difficult truths long buried. Bong Joon-ho hails director Yoon Ga-eun as a master at eliciting extraordinary performances from child actors, exemplified in newcomer Seo Su-bin’s achingly tender and multifaceted portrayal of Joo-in. The World of Love further establishes Yoon as one of the most exciting emerging voices in contemporary Korean cinema. —Jordan Klein

It Would Be Night in Caracas
2026-04-26 20:00 - 22:05 | Marina Theatre, 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA, 94123, United States
The lawlessness afoot in Venezuela’s capital city is vibrantly captured in this gripping adaptation of Karina Sainz Borgo’s novel by the filmmaking team behind Bad Hair (Festival 2014). It’s 2017, and Adelaida (Natalia Reyes) returns to Caracas to bury her mother and finds a metropolis teeming with chaos. While she huddles in the apartment she shared with her mom, memories of childhood and a doomed romance as a young adult flood back in flashbacks. Leaving one day for a brief foray for supplies, she returns to the building and finds the flat forcibly occupied by armed members of the resistance. Relocating into the abandoned apartment of a neighbor, she also rescues Santiago, a former colleague who has been jailed, and they shelter together to plan next steps. With violence at their doorstep, Adelaida and Santiago must attempt to escape from a building (and a city) that holds them captive. —Rod Armstrong

Two Pianos
2026-04-26 20:30 - 22:33 | Marina Theatre, 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA, 94123, United States
Arnaud Desplechin returns to SFFILM with his high-pitched drama set in the world of concert pianists. Tempestuous Matthias (François Civil) returns to Lyon from a tour in Japan, and reconnects with his mentor Elena (Charlotte Rampling, at her diva best), who plans to retire and hopes they can duet at what will be her final performance. Complicating matters is Matthias’s old flame Claude who is now married to his former best friend and whose child bears more than a passing resemblance to Matthias. Desplechin is a master at tracing fraught personal dynamics, frequently finding sly humor amid the emotional fireworks, and his script (written with Kamen Velkovsky) is buoyed by an expert cast. As Matthias wavers between romantic and professional opportunities offered by Claude and Elena, there is a constant tension over how he will respond to the desires and demands placed on him by these two strong-willed women. —Rod Armstrong

Give Me the Ball!
2026-04-27 16:30 - 18:21 | BAMPFA, 2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States

Figaro Up, Figaro Down
2026-04-27 18:00 - 19:43 | Marina Theatre, 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA, 94123, United States
A Juilliard-trained baritone, Tim Blevins performed on the world’s most prestigious opera stages, tackling challenging roles with skill and power. A rare Black presence in a white-dominated art form, he rose to fame—but lost everything to addiction: his career, family, and home, leaving him unhoused in the Tenderloin. After decades in despair, Blevins takes control of his destiny, staging a comeback that restores not only his place on stage but also his role in his family’s life. Filmed with care and grace, this San Francisco-set tale of fame, loss, and redemption illuminates a life as remarkable as the operas he mastered. —Bedatri Choudhury

Who Moves America
2026-04-27 18:15 - 20:15, 2026-04-27 20:45 - 22:45 | Marina Theatre, 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA, 94123, United States
Who Moves America explores the lives of UPS Teamsters facing long hours, unsafe conditions, and relentless physical demands. The film reveals the pressures on delivery drivers and logistics workers who keep cities—and the country—moving, highlighting the stakes behind everyday services often taken for granted. Through intimate portraits and on-the-ground reporting, the documentary showcases the power of collective action, capturing organizing efforts led by union leaders as they negotiate fair pay, safer working conditions, and job security for members of North America’s largest labor organization. By tracing the strategies, struggles, and solidarity of these workers, Who Moves America illuminates the human backbone of modern commerce and offers a vivid, urgent portrait of labor in motion—a story of resilience, organizing, and the fight to reclaim dignity on the job. —Jessie Fairbanks

An Evening with Ritesh Batra + The Lunchbox
2026-04-27 19:00 - 21:58 | Premier Theater at One Letterman, 1 Letterman Dr # B, San Francisco, CA, 94129, United States
Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox unfolds as a quietly radiant tale of connection amid the everyday bustle of Mumbai. Ila (Nimrat Kaur) prepares daily meals for her husband, but a mistaken delivery through the city’s famed dabbawala network sends her lunches to Saajan (Irrfan Khan), a solitary office worker nearing retirement. Over time, the pair build an unexpected bond through notes tucked inside the lunchboxes, sharing thoughts and small confidences that bridge their separate lives. Batra’s debut feature offers a luminous observation of loneliness and intimacy, capturing city rhythms with warmth, humor, and humanity. Anchored by the magnetic performances of Kaur and Khan, the drama transforms an ordinary culinary mishap into a moving story of hope and the quiet power of human connection. —Jessie Fairbanks

Sound and Cinema Showcase
2026-04-27 19:30 - 20:57 | San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM), 200 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco, CA, 94102, United States
The 2nd annual Sound and Cinema Showcase celebrates our partnership with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, our filmmaking fellows, and student composers. After the films screen, there will be a Q&A with the participants.
Films are in alphabetical order rather than order of play. Total runtime is 90 min.
Breathing Room
Elivia Shaw (USA 2026, 18 min)
In California’s Central Valley—the region that feeds the nation—a team of Mexican doctors fights to provide essential care to a community caught between environmental hazards and inhumane immigration policies.
The Darkest Night
Andrés Gallegos (Chile 2026, 22 min)
Driven by desperation, 16-year-old Diego uses stolen cash to save his beloved mentor, igniting a confrontation that will change who he is forever.
Perm and Circumstance
Maria Victoria Ponce (USA 2026, 12 min)
Inspired by his idol and wanting to impress the teacher he is crushing on, 13-year-old Juan Po gets a DIY perm done by his father. Now he must survive an entire day at school with a mangled ‘fro.
This program is in partnership with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

First They Came for My College
2026-04-27 20:30 - 22:43 | Marina Theatre, 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA, 94123, United States
Echoing the reality of schools across the country, Sarasota’s New College is caught in the middle of a war on “woke.” With an ambition to “reclaim” the liberal arts institution, Florida governor Ron DeSantis intends to do away with what he perceives as its liberal ideology and replace it with regressive doctrine in alignment with conservative tenets. A group of students band together in resistance, determined to prevent the state from fundamentally changing the school and its mission. With an agitated urgency, Patrick Xavier Bresnan’s essential documentary captures the students as they collaborate with their professors, attend board meetings, question New College’s leadership, and push back against a cultural war that aims to snuff out the very ideas they cherish and emulate. First They Came for My College is both a portrait of conservative overreach and a record of the fearless resistance against it. —Bedatri Choudhury

Figaro Up, Figaro Down
2026-04-28 16:30 - 18:14 | BAMPFA, 2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States

Centerpiece: I Love Boosters
2026-04-28 18:30 - 20:49 | Grand Lake Theatre, 3200 Grand Avenue, Oakland, CA, 94610, United States
A fearless crew of inventive young women turns shoplifting into a radical act of defiance. Led by Corvette (Keke Palmer), they move across Oakland, boosting coveted goods as both survival and protest—challenging a system built on exclusion and excess. They even offer a community service, selling their stolen wares at deep discounts to make fashion accessible to all. When their exploits draw unwanted viral attention and their feud with fashion mogul Christine Smith (a hilarious Demi Moore) turns personal, the Boosters plan one final, audacious heist. Joined by unexpected allies wielding supernatural powers and time-bending technology, they discover a chance to ignite revolutionary change. Bursting with eye-popping visuals and razor-sharp social commentary, I Love Boosters is a brash, hilarious, and wholly unexpected joyride of friendship and style. – Jessie Fairbanks

Enough Is Enough
2026-04-29 17:00 - 18:14 | BAMPFA, 2155 Center Street, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
Arriving fresh from it’s World Premiere at Berlinale, this documentary is a rare window into the Kivu War. Enough Is Enough follows Congolese filmmaker Elisé Sawasawa, whose displacement and refugee experience shapes his unflinching journalistic lens. On the ground amid armed conflicts between Democratic Republic of Congo, rebel forces, and neighboring Rwanda military, Elisé and his friends navigate a world driven by power, greed, and the frenzy over rare minerals. With shocking firsthand footage and intimate accounts from refugees targeted by their own army, the film immerses audiences in the harrowing realities of survival and resistance. Brave, bold, and uncompromising, Sawasawa delivers a documentary that is as challenging as it is essential, offering an urgent portrait of conflict, displacement, and resilience. —Jessie Fairbanks

Those Who Whistle After Dark
2026-04-29 17:45 - 20:01 | Marina Theatre, 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA, 94123, United States
In Pinar Yorgancıoğlu’s atmospheric and darkly humorous tale, recently retired Melih struggles to find purpose in his post-career life. He jostles for his family’s attention while slowly preparing his late sister’s property for rent. Meanwhile, his wife and daughter pursue risky gambits in the hope of quick fortune, putting the household at risk and overlooking Melih’s mounting despondency. Into this fragile domestic world drift figures that may be ghosts—or blurred memories. Their unexpected appearance offers Melih a distraction, prompting him to conduct scientific experiments that draw him further from his wife and daughter, as both face increasing peril. Full of ironic humor and sly observations, Those Who Whistle After Dark revels in the contradictions of family life. Brimming with warmth, wit, and unexpected charm, it weaves intimate dynamics with surreal touches, creating a story that is delightfully imaginative. —Jessie Fairbanks

Shorts Block 4: Shades of Menace
2026-04-29 18:00 - 19:57 | Marina Theatre, 2149 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA, 94123, United States
In the absence of love, menace takes shape. Six sinister stories invite viewers on a journey from the familiar corners of homes and highways to darker and more treacherous places in the spirit of twisted family traditions. Depravity reaches new heights, bringing unsuspecting souls into the clutches of supernatural forces in this spellbinding tapestry of shorts. Filmmakers from six nations deftly wield their mastery over their craft as they demonstrate the many shades of humanity’s dark side. —Jordan Klein
Films are in alphabetical order rather than order of play. Total runtime 89 min
Callback
Matthew Puccini (USA 2026, 16 min)
Max’s acting career has hit rock bottom, but when his boyfriend nabs a callback for a coveted role, Max discovers how much lower he can go.
Corpus Christi
Bea Lema (Spain 2025, 12 min)
A seamstress begins seeing nightmarish visions, but the fabric of her reality is far more sinister than what is woven deeply into her psyche.
The Fall
Maxime Tevissen, Tom Alcamo, Hugo Hannache, Dylan Cam, Alexandre Velves, Titouan Kervajan, Yaëlle Alberti (France 2025, 7 min)
At the site of a plane crash in the high Alps, a mysterious masked mountaineer makes an ominous discovery … they are not alone.
The Veil
Gabriel Motta (Brazil 2025, 20 min)
When he reluctantly participates in one of father’s cultish rituals, Junior witnesses something horrifying beneath a ghostly white veil.
Vultures
Dian Weys (France, South Africa 2025, 15 min)
In the dead of night, a tow truck driver arrives at the scene of an accident where he discovers his payday is far more than he had bargained for.
A Year of Marriage
Pablo Camargo López (Mexico 2025, 19 min)
Things go bump in the night when a newly wedded couple receives a gift, part of a longstanding tradition. A tradition that hungers for raw meat.
