Opening on April 26 with Emanuele Crialese’s GOLDEN DOOR, the San Francisco International Film Festival continues to celebrate its 15-day golden anniversary in high style. The 50th edition of the longest-running film festival in the Americas boasts an ambitious program of films and special events in the City by the Bay until the curtains close on May 10 with Olivier Dahan’s biopic of Edith Piaf, LA VIE EN ROSE. “It’s quite an auspicious moment for us,” announced Graham Leggat, Executiv...
Opening on April 26 with Emanuele Crialese’s GOLDEN DOOR, the San Francisco International Film Festival continues to celebrate its 15-day golden anniversary in high style. The 50th edition of the longest-running film festival in the Americas boasts an ambitious program of films and special events in the City by the Bay until the curtains close on May 10 with Olivier Dahan’s biopic of Edith Piaf, LA VIE EN ROSE. “It’s quite an auspicious moment for us,” announced Graham Leggat, Executiv...
Ninth annual SFBFF reels out 70 films and expands to two weekends, June 7-10 and June 14-17.San Francisco, CA (PRWeb) March 26, 2007 -- Like a magical black cat, the San Francisco Black Film Festival (SFBFF) embarks upon its ninth incarnation on Thursday, June 7, 2007. For the first time in its nine-year history, the SFBFF expands to two extended weekends: June 7-10 and June 14-17. Take a trip around the world as the festival screens more than seventy films from Africa, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Eur...
Wednesday, March 21----- The San Francisco Film Society announced today that Robin Williams will be the recipient of the Peter J. Owens Award to be presented at the San Francisco International Film Festival (April 26–May 10, 2007), which is celebrating its landmark 50th anniversary this year, making it the oldest film festival event in the Americas. The Owens Award, named after local cultural benefactor and longtime Film Society board member Peter J. Owens, honors an actor whose work exemplif...
Friday, January 26----The Sundance Film Festival is a busy event for the hundreds of US and international film festival programmers, promoters and administrators who must spend many hours in the dark sampling films in all the different Sundance categories. Not only is there pressure to view as many films as possible over the course of a hectic 10-day period, but the Festival is a golden opportunity to promote their event, network with distributors and filmmakers, and create a footprint of visi...
The Academy Foundation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences alerted the Port Townsend Film Festival today that it was selected as one of 28 U.S. film festivals to receive grants for calendar year 2007, Festival Grants Committee Chair Gale Anne Hurd announced today.
The Port Townsend Film Festival, which completed its seventh festival last month, will receive $5,000.
The fund will be used to bring filmmakers to the eighth annual festival next year, according to Peter Simpson, execu...
The Tribeca Film Festival has rapidly evolved since its founding in 2002 into the biggest U.S. film festival. In 2006 the Tribeca fest lasted thirteen days and served 465 thousand individuals including 203 thousand who purchased tickets for film screenings and panels. About 4200 productions were submitted coming close to the 4350 entered for the different Berlinale sections (excluding market films). Tribeca has retained its successful eclectic programming approach ranging this year from Holly...
During the San Francisco International Film Festival, Susan Tavernetti spoke with Alan Berliner about his intriguing new documentary, WIDE AWAKE. The first-person film offers an understanding of insomnia in cinematic terms, inventively tossing and turning through the sleepless nights and bleary days of Berliner’s world while he ruminates on the topic. Nominated for the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, the multi-layered work is a delightful collage of interviews, dream interpretation, quirky arcs of ...
If you think the only San Francisco love fest took place during the summer of 1967, think again. No one was wearing flowers in their hair at the Castro Theatre on the May 4th Closing Night of the San Francisco International Film Festival, but a special feeling was certainly in the air. Graham Leggat, the executive director of the San Francisco Film Society (SFFS), took the stage to applause and hoots and whistles, stating, “G’d evening, guys. No festival from Alaska to Argentina has done so...
The parking was impossible. But the weather gloriously balmy by the bay for the San Francisco International Film Festival’s Golden Gate Awards held this evening in the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center. Appropriately, the Golden Gate Bridge itself could be glimpsed in the distance from the lobby windows. During the cocktail reception, Richard Hershowitz, director of the Virginia Film Festival and Skyy Prize juror, joked about giving the new San Francisco Film Society executive director his s...
Over a month ago at the press conference kicking off SFIFF 49, Linda Blackaby announced the documentary line-up, adding that these selections were “often some of the most popular films in our festival.” The gifted director of programming for the San Francisco Film Society noted that a dozen of them would compete in the Golden Gate Awards, and 11 more filled the slate of nonfiction features representing 13 countries. There’s not an emperor penguin among them. Blackaby singled out titles dea...
The revolution may not be televised by the major networks or covered by the mainstream press, but it’s certainly playing on screens large and small somewhere near you. On Saturday afternoon at the San Francisco International Film Festival, Susan Gerhard, the editor/bureau chief of the newly launched web film magazine SF360 (www.SF360.org), moderated a panel tagged “The Revolution Now Playing: Film as a Tool for Social and Political Change.” Activist filmmakers Jeff Zimbalist (FAVELA RISING...
Surprises aren’t always a good thing in San Francisco. Exhaustive media coverage of the centennial of the 1906 great earthquake and fire—the defining event of the city’s history and biggest natural disaster in America until Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast last year—recently shook Bay Area residents with constant reminders that this is shake-rattle-and-roll country.
On Saturday morning, Talk Cinema founder and former Film Comment editor Harlan Jacobson admitted to being a “n...
The 49th San Francisco International Film Festival (running April 20 to May 4) will launch on April 20th with the US Premiere of PERHAPS LOVE, the first film from Hong Kong to open the Festival. The film will have its gala screening at the historic Castro Theater, one of the grandest and most beautiful cinema palaces in the country. The film, directed by Hong Kong auteur Peter Chan, will kick off 15 days of movie magic as the oldest film festival in North America again unspools in the City by th...
Several films by area and regional filmmakers are included in the 30th Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF). A festival regular, Local Heroes is the way we honor area filmmakers, actors, and crew; films set or shot in Ohio; filmmakers or subjects born here; and films that have a strong local connection. Our Local Heroes section is presented with the generous support of Cleveland State University and Tim & Nancy Callahan. You’ll find them under the category “Local Heroes” in our ...
Graham Leggat, new executive director of the San Francisco Film Society, presenter of the San Francisco International Film Festival, the longest-running festival in the Americas, and Brian Clark, co-founder and managing member of indieWIRE, the leading online publication dedicated to American and international independent film, today announced a strategic partnership that launches a new co-published site, SF360.org, dedicated to daily coverage and social network support of the vibrant SF film an...
Morgan Freeman, Adel Imam, Yash Chopra Named as 2005 Honorees for Dubai International Film Festival Hollywood legend Morgan Freeman, Egyptian comedy superstar Adel Imam and distinguished Indian producer-director Yash Chopra will receive the Dubai International Film Festival’s 2005 honors for distinguished service to the film industry during the December 11 – 17 Festival this year. The three stars have been named as the Hollywood, Arab and Asian honorees in the Festival’s ‘In the Spotligh...
The second Dubai International Film Festival (“DIFF”) will be bigger and better than its predecessor, with more and diverse films, a strengthened team of programmers, and changes in ticketing procedures and scheduling, Festival organizers announced at a press conference at the Madinat Jumeirah today. Apart from the enhancements, the 2005 Festival, which will run from December 11 to 17 this year, will retain most of its successful inaugural framework. Mr. Ahmad bin Byat, the Director General ...
SAN FRANCISCO FILM SOCIETY NAMES GRAHAM LEGGAT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR San Francisco, CA The San Francisco Film Society announces the appointment of Graham Leggat as Executive Director, effective October 17, 2005.³We¹re delighted that Graham is taking the helm at the Film Society,² said George Gund III, chairman of the Film Society¹s board of directors. ³His admirable breadth and depth of experience at major New York film organizations that have many elements and goals in common with the Film...
PAUL HAGGIS TO RECEIVE INAUGURAL MAURICE KANBAR AWARD AT48th SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALApril 21–May 5, 2005)Writer/Director/Producer to be Honored for Excellence in ScreenwritingThe San Francisco Film Society announced today that Academy Award nominee Paul Haggis will be the recipient of the inaugural Maurice Kanbar Award for excellence in screenwriting at the 48th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 21-May 5, 2005). The award will be presented to Haggis at Film Soc...
47th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 15-29) April 15th is tax day. But all the stress of income tax preparations and
payments evaporated when the rousing theme song from San Francisco,
the 1936 movie starring Jeannette MacDonald and Clark Gable, blasted from
the pipes of the Castro Theatre’s Mighty Wurlitzer organ. Everyone in the
1400-seat movie palace clapped along. As Wu-Tang Clan producer and Kill
Bill composer RZA proclaimed about the 1922 historic landmark: ...
MILOS FORMAN TO BE RECIPIENT OF FILM SOCIETY DIRECTING AWARD AT 47th SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALDirector, Producer, Writer in San Francisco April 22Milos Forman will receive the Film Society Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing at the 47th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 15–29). The Award will be presented to Forman by Danny DeVito on Thursday, April 22, 2004 at Film Society Awards Night at the Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco. The San Francisco Film Society wi...
Well if you missed them last spring: here is another chance to view San Francisco award-winning films in Cuba.The 25th International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana will present a selection of award-winning films from the 46th San Francisco International Film Festival in Havana, Cuba, December 2 -12, 2003.The 46th San Francisco International Film Festival Awards section of theHavana Film Festival will include LOST BOYS OF SUDAN, Golden Gate Award BestBay Area Documentary Feature;...
