Wednesday, March 19------Acclaimed UK director Mike Leigh will be honored with inaugural Founder's Directing Award at the 51st San Francisco International Film Festival (24 April-8 May). The Founder's Award will be presented to Leigh at the Film Society Awards Night, the annual benefit gala, on Thursday, 1 May at the Westin St. Francis Hotel.The Founder's Directing Award is presented each year to one of the masters of world cinema and is given in memory of Irving M. Levin, who founded the San ...

The San Francisco Film Society announces that Mike Leigh will be presented with the inaugural Founder's Directing Award at the 51st San Francisco International Film Festival (April 24-May 8). The Founder's Award will be presented to Leigh at Film Society Awards Night, the annual benefit gala, on Thursday, May 1 at the Westin St. Francis Hotel.The Founder's Directing Award is presented each year to one of the masters of world cinema and is given in memory of Irving M. Levin, who founded the San F...

DECEMBER 1ST EVENT REPORT"Dear Friend of the Silent Film Festival, Thank you for making 2007 a remarkable year. Our 12th annual festival was our most memorable yet, and three weeks ago you helped make our one-day Winter Event a tremendous success. Beginning with VITAPHONE VAUDEVILLE, Robert Gitt's introduction enthralled us with stories about such vaudeville characters as the brothers Willie & Eugene Howard, billed in their day as “Two Hebrew Humorists Who Hail from Harlem,” bandleader Dick ...

The “Other” Venice Film Festival Venice California was one man's dream of a place to resemble Venice, Italy. In 1900 Abbot Kinney founded Venice, California. At first Venice was a romantic network of canals but Kinney's idea never really worked, and with the arrival of cars and freeways to LA, the canals were abandoned. In the 1960s Venice, California became a low rent district on the ocean that attracted artists and young radicals from across the nation. Always slightly on the margin...