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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

In a windswept Scottish village, widower Kenneth (Peter Mullan) takes pride in his role as the local history guide, donning period costume to honor his claimed ancestor, Sir Douglas Weatherford, an eccentric 18th‑century philosopher and inventor. But when a flamboyant fantasy television production descends on the town and commandeers the local visitor center, the invasion […]

In forensic science, “trace” is the material left behind at crime scenes: fibers, gunshot residue, and other evidence that detectives use as they develop suspects and leads. SFFILM Persistence of Vision award winner Lynne Sachs takes inspiration from this concept to investigate her own life and assumptions, using as her “trace” 600 business cards she […]

A masterful debut, this depiction of a young girl whose family is contending with a challenging older sibling weaves autobiographical and documentary elements seamlessly into a singularly poignant package. Sasha’s family emigrated from Hungary to Vancouver Island in the 1990s. Life there is pretty bucolic—outdoor swims, watching cartoons—but there are outbursts of increasingly odd, antisocial […]

Cronos is a vampire movie with a Latin American twist as director/writer Guillermo del Toro gets to the heart of the eternal myth in Mexican style. The tale begins in 1536, when an alchemist, fleeing the Inquisition, arrives in Veracruz with a fantastic invention that prolongs and regenerates life. Almost 500 years later, the Cronos […]

Nine-year-old Somira and her younger brother Shafi are the focus of this moving drama that follows the Rohingya siblings as they journey from a refugee camp in Bangladesh to a relative’s home in Malaysia. By boat, in trucks, and on foot, the children and their family along with other refugees face smugglers’ extortionate demands, natural […]

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 […]

Ara, Shannon Elizabeth, Nikki, and Olive live by the mantra, “Sell! Sell! Sell!” Each Girl Scout in this diverse group has her own sales goal to reach or maybe even surpass during the short cookie-selling season. The race to become the Cookie Queen is not for the faint of the heart with a surprising amount […]

The Arch is reminiscent of a classical story in the Ibsen or Jamesian mode—in an 18th-century village, a proud widow, Madam Tung, has allowed herself to be treated almost as a deity because of her virtuous behavior. When a troop of soldiers arrive to protect the farmers from bandits, the villagers believe this is a […]

British writer/director Stroma Cairns makes a resonant feature debut with this coming-of-age drama focused on a young man trying to find his place in the world. The film is a family affair as Cairns collaborated on the screenplay with her mother Imogen West and cast as the tempestuous protagonist her brother Jonah West. In his […]

Below the levee, the Bathtub exists as a tightknit community unto itself, practically a separate nation from Louisiana and the rest of the United States. There, six-year-old Hushpuppy (Oscar® Best Actress nominee Quvenzhané Wallis) lives a hardscrabble existence with her ill, alcoholic father Wink (Dwight Henry). When Katrina hits, the rising waters engulf the Bathtub […]

“Where are you from?” That question asked of native-born Argentinian teenager Lila (Anita B. Queen), whose parents immigrated from Korea, hovers over Cecilia Kang’s remarkable drama inspired by her own family’s story. The documentary director’s first narrative feature unfolds in three parts as Lila and her taciturn father Antonio (Chang Sung Kim) join a reunion […]

Three protagonists and their quietly courageous gestures of resilience weave together a cinematic journey across the world. Documenting a father’s struggle in Palestine, a woman’s fateful return to Iran, and the quotidian experiences of Pakistani diaspora, this trio of films raises essential questions about proximity to cruelty, colonialism’s lasting impacts, and what it means to […]

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 […]

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 […]

Winner of the Berlinale’s Silver Bear, Emin Alper’s (Frenzy, Festival 2016) electrifying drama of power struggles in a Turkish mountain village exposes the chaos that erupts when territorialism takes root. In the unnamed community, two tribes clash over land and the right to harvest it. Mesut, haunted by troubling dreams he believes are prophetic, stakes […]

Family separation defined the childhood of filmmaker Carolina Gonzalez Valencia, whose mother Beatriz moved to the US from Colombia to provide for her children by working as a domestic house cleaner. Years later, when Gonzalez Valencia tries to make a film about her parent, she discovers it is easier to resort to playful conversations and […]

Pressure builds quietly before it breaks. Across cultures, five individuals confront the forces pressing in on their lives, reflecting the fault lines shaping women’s place in the world today. A Portuguese mother struggles beneath the invisible mental load of an uneven household, while a daughter in rural Taiwan navigates tradition during a funeral rite. A […]

With Memory of Princess Mumbi, Swiss-Kenyan filmmaker Damien Hauser delivers a dazzling film set in the future but pertinent to today. A war fought over addictive technology leads to its outlawing in many parts of the world by 2093. Despite this, AI remains in use to create worlds and alter actors’ facial expressions. Aspiring filmmaker […]

Isabel is a newly hired ball girl at a pristine golf course on Manila’s outskirts. An Ilokana from rural northern Philippines, she immediately feels out of place among the high-status guests. Motivated by the sweltering heat and her insatiable curiosity, Isabel slips away from her duties on the driving range. Over a languid afternoon, Isabel […]

Amir and Ali are twins reeling from their mother’s death in childbirth. Plus, their deadbeat dad won’t let the boys stay with him, so they work for the owner of a fishing business who gives them rudimentary shelter. Amir speaks rarely, only using the names of animals to communicate, but his passion for reading creates […]

In American Doctor, filmmaker Poh Si Teng follows three US physicians—Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian—striving to alleviate suffering in Gaza as the war shatters its medical infrastructure. What begins as an urgent mission of care becomes a searing confrontation with the limits of neutrality. The doctors shoulder impossible choices, witnessing profound suffering while navigating the dangers […]

Ramzi Bashour’s poignant road movie depicts an anxious mother transporting her delinquent son from Indiana to California, highlighting the glories of the American Midwest while unpacking the dynamics of parenting and letting go. Layal (Lubna Azabal, radiant) is a tightly wound Lebanese American who teaches Arabic to hapless students. While listening to a meditation program, […]

Join director duo and multi-disciplinary artists Jess X. Snow (Roots That Reach Toward the Sky, Festival 2025) and Ashima Shiraishi, for a filmmaking workshop for teens focused on collaboration and creativity through multiple mediums. Recently named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film,” Jess has written and directed four short films currently […]

Change unfolds swiftly and powerfully in this intimate, decade-spanning portrait of Syrian refugee Israa and her family as they navigate life across multiple countries. In 2015, directors Itab Azzam and Jacob MacInnes discover the vivacious 11-year-old selling cigarettes on the teeming sidewalks of Izmir, Turkey, where she introduces them to her favorite food vendors and […]

Cao Thị Hậu and her family live in Vietnam surrounded by rolling green hills enveloped in mist. Here, she sits with her grandchildren tending to their pains and spinning stories of the cave in Quảng Bình where she was born. Folk tales, bees, tigers, and home remedies all braid themselves into her fables and the […]

Within the world of bucking broncos and bull rides of the Michoacán jaripeo lurks a partially obscured world where queerness, masculinity, and desire churn together in a generative friction. This evocative documentary carries us on a sensory journey into Central Mexico’s rodeo culture and observes the queer community that embraces and challenges it. Vérité Super […]

Traverse cityscapes, valleys, highways, and borders through films by an international ensemble of storytellers. In these vivid portraits of gathering and return, the dialogue between people and land is as alive as human conversation. From an afternoon game of pelote in Belgium to climber Ashima Shiraishi’s meditations in the Payahuunadü valley, movement becomes both medicine […]

From Grammy-winning duo Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Music + Film returns to the Festival with guitarist Gabriela Quintero and her first solo project. Featuring the World Premier of Beth Aala’s intimate new documentary, which follows Gaby as she creates her debut independent album. In her hometown of Zihuatanejo, Mexico, the film captures the intersection of Gaby’s […]

Agricultural engineer Amilcar Cabral (1924–1973) dreamed of freedom for Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde in West Africa and set about making that liberation happen. In this impressionistic documentary, the life of this remarkable revolutionary unfolds through letters Cabral wrote to his wives, set to a soundtrack of slogans and dreams. Shot in 16mm, the film tells […]

Winner of the Berlinale’s Silver Bear, Emin Alper’s (Frenzy, Festival 2016) electrifying drama of power struggles in a Turkish mountain village exposes the chaos that erupts when territorialism takes root. In the unnamed community, two tribes clash over land and the right to harvest it. Mesut, haunted by troubling dreams he believes are prophetic, stakes […]

At first glance, Gara is a simple farmer, tending her crops and animals, making cheese, and caring for adolescent Nada. But there is far more to this woman who lives amid the beauty and isolation of Montenegro’s mountainous Sinjajevina plateau. Gara’s quiet but intense love for Nada is an extension of the deep love she […]

Maria’s older sister Alina vanishes without a trace, last seen by Maria cutting through the schoolyard to take out the trash. That image haunts her as Alina remains missing and everyone from their parents to the local authorities question *Maria* about her sibling’s last known movements. Set on the cusp of a new era in […]

A trio of documentaries survey the American political landscape, both past and present. Featuring Martin Luther King Jr. speechwriter Clarence B. Jones (in Stephen Curry’s directorial debut); rising voice Nezza, who sings an anthem of hope at an LA Dodger game; and the supporters and opponents of Zohran Mamdani within NYC’s Jewish community. Films are […]

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 […]

While he awaits the approval of a visa to join his girlfriend, Tara, abroad in Italy, Amir inhabits an existence in limbo. He spends his days biking through Tehran, delivering packages and visiting with friends across the city where hot afternoons playing table tennis intermingle with his memories of first meeting Tara. As Amir hovers […]

The placid surface of a rural Costa Rican town hides a mystery in Kim Torres’s striking debut feature. A newcomer to the village, teenaged Laura (Lara Yuja Mora) takes wary steps toward her new home and adulthood with a curiosity and confusion typical of her age. But even as she makes new friends in this […]

Canadian DJ and multihyphenated artist Kid Koala brings his unique gift for storytelling to a new medium as he makes his directorial debut with this delightful, animated adaptation of his award-winning graphic novel. When young astronaut Celeste embarks on her first interstellar mission, she leaves behind her dedicated caretaker Robot to navigate a new unfamiliar […]

Seven-year-old Arabella (Lucrezia Guglielmino) only wants to go Taco King, not listen to her boring father give a speech (Chris Pine, speaking flawless Italian). Given no choice in the matter, the precocious child opts for revenge. She finds her instrument in Holly (Benedetta Porcaroli), convincing the troubled young woman to let her join her road […]

British writer/director Stroma Cairns makes a resonant feature debut with this coming-of-age drama focused on a young man trying to find his place in the world. The film is a family affair as Cairns collaborated on the screenplay with her mother Imogen West and cast as the tempestuous protagonist her brother Jonah West. In his […]

I never saw myself as a pop singer,” says Marianne Faithfull in this wonderfully imaginative portrait of the iconic chanteuse that includes her last recorded performance. She’s speaking about her life to the Record Keeper at the Ministry of Not Forgetting (played by George MacKay), a fictional institution dedicated to examining historical myths and truths, […]

Agricultural engineer Amilcar Cabral (1924–1973) dreamed of freedom for Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde in West Africa and set about making that liberation happen. In this impressionistic documentary, the life of this remarkable revolutionary unfolds through letters Cabral wrote to his wives, set to a soundtrack of slogans and dreams. Shot in 16mm, the film tells […]

Based on a true story, A Child of My Own follows a woman so desperate to become a mother that she steals an infant. Director Maite Alberdi returns with a bold, inventive documentary that fuses dramatized sequences and first-person interviews to examine identity, ambition, and the weight of family pressures. At its center is Alejandra, […]

In stories of queer love, intergenerational love, self-love, and love across borders, filmmakers deftly mediate between intimacy and universality. Seven films weave a fabric of love in many languages: phone calls, imagined conversations, home videos, handwritten letters, and stolen glances. Puppeteer Zach Dorn considers CGI-mediated closure in The Sopranos, while Mars Verrone assembles a portrait […]

Claire Denis adds a new visual dimension to her work with this lyrical adaptation of Herman Melville’s allegorical Billy Budd, which shifts from the battling British navy of 1797 to the superfluous French Foreign Legion of 1999. On the African coast, in a nameless country of paradisiacal beauty and hellish poverty, a detachment of legionnaires—all […]

An unexpected night spent with former boy-band sensation Danny (Nick Jonas) upends the world of wedding singer Rick (Paul Rudd), an American transplant who traded his rock-star ambitions for a quiet life in Ireland. When Danny later adapts a song Rick wrote without permission and it becomes a massive global hit, Rick struggles to convince […]

The Arch is reminiscent of a classical story in the Ibsen or Jamesian mode—in an 18th-century village, a proud widow, Madam Tung, has allowed herself to be treated almost as a deity because of her virtuous behavior. When a troop of soldiers arrive to protect the farmers from bandits, the villagers believe this is a […]

Set in late-80s suburban Tokyo, 11-year-old Fuki is thrust into adolescence by the harsh realities surrounding her parents. Her father Kenji (Lily Franky) is suffering from a terminal illness, and her mother Utako (Hikari Ishida) is overburdened by the consequences. For Fuki (Yui Suzuki), the specter of death begins manifesting in various corners of her […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Isabel is a newly hired ball girl at a pristine golf course on Manila’s outskirts. An Ilokana from rural northern Philippines, she immediately feels out of place among the high-status guests. Motivated by the sweltering heat and her insatiable curiosity, Isabel slips away from her duties on the driving range. Over a languid afternoon, Isabel […]

George MacKay (1917) and Callum Turner (Masters of Air) star in this eerie drama as Cornish villagers who go to sea on the titular fishing vessel that recently reappeared in the harbor 30 years after vanishing along with its crew. The two men return with a huge catch and to a world that is both […]

David brings his two children on a summer vacation to the Croatian coast in hopes that the rustic camping and sparkling Adriatic Sea will bring his family closer together in the wake of his recent separation from the kids’ mother. Seventeen-year-old Klara struggles with anorexia, the deep toll exacted on her body and mind more […]