49th San Francisco International Film Festival Presents Third Annual FIPRESCI Prize

International Critics’ Prize to Honor an Emerging Talent

March 28, 2006

San Francisco, CA—The 49th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 20–May 4) announces its third annual international juried competition for the FIPRESCI Prize. The FIPRESCI Prize, which has been awarded by juries of distinguished critics for many years at film festivals throughout the world, is given at SFIFF for first or second feature films by emerging directors. In 2004, the San Francisco International Film Festival was chosen as only the second festival in the United States to host a FIPRESCI jury and award a FIPRESCI prize. The winning film will be announced at the Festival’s Golden Gate Awards on Wednesday, May 3.

FIPRESCI (The International Federation of Film Critics) has been in existence for more than 65 years, with membership from over 60 countries. The prize was established to promote film art and to encourage new and emerging cinema. The purpose of FIPRESCI is to support cinema as an art and as an outstanding and autonomous means of expression.

This year, the FIPRESCI jury will consist of three well-respected critics, including John Anderson and Luc Chaput. The third member will be announced.

John Anderson’s reviews and features appear regularly in Newsday, Variety, Screen International and The New York Times. He is a past member of the selection committee of the New York Film Festival and the author of Sundancing (Avon, 2000), Edward Yang (University of Illinois Press, 2005) and, with Laura Kim, I Wake Up Screening (Billboard, 2006). He is a member and two-times past chair of the New York Film Critics Circle, a member of the National Society of Film Critics and a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

Member of the editorial board of Séquences (third oldest French-language film magazine in the world), Luc Chaput is also a long-time member of the Quebec Association of Film Critics (AQCC) and has served on FIPRESCI festival juries in Venice, Palm Springs, Chicago, Toronto and at many film festivals in his home town of Montreal.

In 2005 the FIPRESCI jury selected as its SFIFF award winner the Italian film Private directed by Saverio Costanzo and in the inaugural year the Oscar-nominated German/Mongolian production The Story of the Weeping Camel (by Ambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni) was honored with the award.

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.