Four thousand film festivals populate the globe. But more than many, the San Francisco International Film Festival may satisfy a collective hunch of what such a gathering should be. Perhaps age has something to do with it; at 53 years old, SFIFF, held this year from April 22 to May 6, 2010, is the oldest film festival in the Americas. Then there's the topography of San Francisco, which rises, falls and yields vistas that themselves cop filmic metaphors. Or maybe it's because San Francisc...

  Some might say that the most prized award given at the Sundance Film Festival is the public prize. Winners of the Audience Award, as opposed to winners of the juried competitions, tend to indicate an innate audience appreciation that speaks volumes to film distributors and critics. In that light, tonight's Opening Film at the 15th Gen Art Film Festival is bound to be a crowd pleaser. HappyThankYouMorePlease is the directorial debut of actor Josh Radnor, best known for his role o...

  It has been a decade and a half since Gen Art, the nationwide networking organization devoted to art, fashion, music and movies, first launched a New York-based film festival to highlight works from emerging American independent artists. But different from other festivals of a similar stripe, the Gen Art concept was quite simple: seven films shown over seven nights with audience members invited to an after-party at a hot club or restaurant each evening. This winning formu...