49th San Francisco International Film Festival Goes Citywide

Citywide Reach Includes SF360 San Francisco Movie Night, Filmmaker Home Stays, Citizen Press Corps, Satellite Screening Locations, Peninsula and East Bay Screenings, Extensive Presenting Partnerships, Schools at the Festival, Launch of Online Magazine SF360.org, Returning Volunteers and More

March 28, 2006

San Francisco, CA—The San Francisco Film Society, presenter of the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 20 – May 4), has greatly expanded its programs and activities throughout the San Francisco Bay Area community for SFIFF 49 and has received an enthusiastic citywide response. From Film Society members hosting filmmakers in their homes to a pre-Festival special presentation of the inaugural SF360 San Francisco Movie Night and beyond, this year even more than before the Film Society is bringing the city to the Festival and the Festival to the city.

As part of this multifaceted effort, SFFS has enlisted the support of a record number of community organizations, naming more than 30 individual groups as copresenters of programs during the International and established a new track of satellite screenings, taking place at seven diverse locations around San Francisco, as well as continuing to present its annual roster of SFIFF screenings in Berkeley and Palo Alto. The Film Society has also ramped up its Schools at the Festival program, which brings more than 3,000 Bay Area children and youths to weekday screenings at the International, and also brings SFIFF filmmakers into schools. And SFIFF volunteers are returning to their posts in greater numbers, committing their time to support the Festival.

In addition, the Film Society has launched an online magazine devoted to daily year-round coverage of the Bay Area film and media scene (SF360.org, copublished with indieWIRE) and is establishing a Citizen Press Corps composed of Bay Area bloggers.

“A large part of what makes this city great is its willingness to enter into various forms of collaboration and explore new ideas and experiences, both socially and culturally,” said Graham Leggat, SFFS executive director. “That open-mindedness gives us at the Film Society the freedom and the impetus to seek out a wide range of partnerships and to enthusiastically engage our audiences with innovative forms of exhibition, presentation and interaction. It allows us to create, as we say about our SF360 initiatives, new experiences from America’s film and media frontier.”

SF360 San Francisco Movie Night
On Monday, April 17 San Franciscans are encouraged to host a home movie night for a group of friends and be part of the first citywide SF360 San Francisco Movie Night, organized by SFFS and Ironweed Film Club. The inaugural film for Movie Night is the Academy Award–nominated Street Fight by Marshall Curry. The film tells a gripping story of a bare-knuckle 2002 Democratic primary race in Newark, New Jersey—a place where, we discover, elections are won and lost in the streets. Presented with Ironweed Film Club, this is the first SF360 San Francisco Movie Night in a series intended for quarterly or semiannual presentations. To host a movie night, go to ironweedfilms.com and sign up.

Filmmaker Home Stays
San Francisco Film Society members have been invited to open their homes to filmmakers during the Festival. Home stays give the filmmakers an opportunity to be embraced by the community and help them to fully experience the attractions and diversity of the Bay Area. The response has been substantial, with more than two dozen homes being offered to visiting filmmakers. Home stay visits are managed by SFIFF guest services staff.

Citizen Press Corps
For the first time, the San Francisco Film Society is formally establishing a Citizens Press Corps to cover the Festival. Select Bay Area bloggers, podcasters, photobloggers and video bloggers will be accredited as a part of the press corps reporting on the Festival. This coverage will uncover new perspectives on the Festival and help create additional platforms for San Francisco filmgoers to discuss film and its impact on the Bay Area community.

SFIFF Satellite Screenings
In collaboration with several arts organizations and nontraditional screening venues, selected programs from SFIFF 49 will be presented at a range of satellite locations around the city. Programs and locations include a collection of Festival film mashups from the International ReMix program at Edinburgh Castle; an SFIFF/Porchlight nonfiction storytelling event at the Swedish American Hall; selected documentary film screenings at art space Intersection for the Arts, youth media center BAYCAT and local bars El Rio and Bar of Contemporary Art (BoCA); an outdoor screening of local filmmaker Dolissa Medina’s Cartography of Ashes projected onto a firefighter’s training tower at SFFD Fire Station #7; and a live global interactive performance and dance party presented in collaboration with San Francisco State University’s Institute for Next Generation Internet and featuring renowned UK VJ group Addictive TV and supporting acts Rawkshow  and VJon/Lightrhythm Visuals at Mighty.

Pacific Film Archive Theater in Berkley and Landmark’s Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto
Pacific Film Archive Theater and Landmark’s Aquarius Theatre return as screening venues and will offer locations in both the East Bay and Palo Alto respectively. The extension to these venues allows for Bay Area audiences at large to conveniently experience the Festival in their neighborhood.

Copresenting Organizations
To assist in the promotion and presentation of this year’s Festival, more than 30 community organizations have committed to copresenting programs during the Festival. Copresenting organizations assist in reaching new audiences by introducing the Festival to their constituents. SFFS then returns the favor by promoting community events of interest at various times throughout the year.

Schools at the Festival
The Schools at the Festival program involves thousands of Bay Area students in Festival film screenings and coordinates student interactions with filmmakers from around the world. Now in its 15th year, this unique outreach program creates a strong connection between the Festival and the local educational community, providing students of all ages the opportunity to participate in the Festival experience. Scheduled screenings for elementary, middle, high school and home school groups will be supplemented by special visits to classrooms by filmmakers whose work is being shown at the Festival.

SF360.org
A new copublished online magazine dedicated to daily coverage and social network support of the vibrant San Francisco film and media scene, SF360.org is the flagship project of the San Francisco Film Society’s new SF360 series of initiatives. Designed to strengthen and promote the San Francisco film and media scene in all its various and exciting forms, SF360 is published in partnership with indieWIRE and will be providing extensive coverage on everything film related in the Bay Area, including daily coverage of the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival. The site launched in early March 2006 with full coverage of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.

Volunteers Return in Force
SFIFF depends on the efforts of volunteers to assist in putting on the Festival and they are returning with renewed commitment to this year’s event. Volunteers come from across the country to San Francisco to work, and there are local volunteers who have been a part of Festival for over 20 years and are still going strong. The recruiting efforts for this year’s volunteer corps have included outreach through the Internet, support of volunteer networks and good corporate citizen programs. Volunteer numbers to date have already exceeded those at last year’s SFIFF.

Founded in 1957, the vanguard San Francisco International Film Festival is the longest-running film festival in the Americas. Held each spring for two weeks, the International is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation in the country’s most beautiful city, featuring some 200 films and live events with more than 100 filmmakers in attendance, presenting some 22 awards and attracting a diverse audience of nearly 80,000 people.

The 49th International runs April 20–May 4, 2006 at the Kabuki 8 Theatres, the Castro Theatre and the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco; the Pacific Film Archive Theater in Berkeley; and Landmark’s Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto, as well as several smaller venues. To purchase tickets and for ticket information log on to www.sffs.org, call 925.866.9559 or visit the Main Ticket Outlet at the Kabuki 8 Theatres (1881 Post Street) or the Satellite Ticket Outlet at Virgin Megastore (2 Stockton Street). For additional information log on to www.sffs.org or call 415.561.5000.

San Francisco Film Society, presenter of the flagship SFIFF, is a nonprofit arts and educational organization dedicated to celebrating the world of film and media in all its glorious forms. In early 2006 the Film Society unveiled SF360, a broad-spectrum series of initiatives designed to showcase the extraordinary vitality, variety and innovation of the San Francisco Bay Area film and media scene, including www.sf360.org, SF360 San Francisco Movie Night, SF360 InSchool Cinemas and the SF360 Festival of Festivals.

The Film Society will present the first annual San Francisco International Animation Festival from October 11–15, 2006 and a new SF International Youth Media Festival in 2007.

First to 50: SFIFF will hold its landmark 50th anniversary in April 2007.