The Mel Novikoff Award

For over 30 years, SFFILM and the Mel Novikoff Family Foundation have presented the Novikoff Award at the annual San Francisco International Film Festival. The Novikoff Award is named for Mel Novikoff (1922–1987), the pioneering San Francisco-based art and repertory film exhibitor. His influence on film appreciation and movie-going culture endures through the Award which is given to an individual or institution that honors the history of cinema and celebrates theatrical exhibition as a means of connecting audiences with the art of film. The honoree is selected by members of the Novikoff Committee which is made up of notable filmmakers, curators, exhibitors, culture workers, and historians whose work has enhanced the filmgoing public’s knowledge and appreciation of world cinema.

2026 Mel Novikoff Awardee

Michelle Satter

The 2026 Mel Novikoff Award honors Michelle Satter, Founding Senior Director of Sundance Institute’s Artist Programs, who has championed independent filmmakers there since 1981. She will be joined in conversation by Bay Area filmmaker Peter Nicks. Followed by a screening of the celebrated 2012 film Beasts of the Southern Wild, a project supported by both Sundance and SFFILM.

Learn more about the 2026 Awardee →

2025 Mel Novikoff Awardee

Roxie Theater

One of the oldest continuously operating movie theaters in the United States, the Roxie is a Bay Area institution. At the 68th San Francisco International Film Festival, Filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes will moderate a conversation about the theater’s past, present, and future, with Executive Director Lex Sloan and Director of Programming Isabel Fondevila. A screening of Akira Kurosawa’s multivalent Rashomon, celebrating its 75th anniversary, will follow.

Learn more about the 2025 Awardee →

Current Committee Members

John Cooper
Director Emeritus, Sundance Film Festival

A-Ian Holt
Director at the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University

Marcus Hu
Co-Founder/Co-President of Strand Releasing

Kate MacKay
Associate Film Curator at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Pete Nicks
Film Director, Producer and Writer

Janis Plotkin
Senior Film Programmer Emerita, Mill Valley Film Festival, Executive Director Emerita, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

Rodrigo Reyes
Filmmaker; BAVC MediaMaker Fellowship Co-Director

Jonas Rivera
Executive VP, Production, Pixar

Jessie Fairbanks
Director of Programming, SFFILM (ex officio)

Rod Armstrong
Associate Director of Programming, SFFILM (ex officio)

Emeritus

Helena R. Foster

Maurice Kanbar

Philip Kaufman

Tom Luddy

Gary Meyer

Anita Monga

Rachel Rosen

Peter Scarlet

Past Awardees