William Randolph Hearst Foundation Awards San Francisco Film Society $200,000 Two-Year Grant

Resounding Vote of Confidence for SFFS Education Programs for Bay Area Youth

October 5, 2006

San Francisco, CA—The San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) announced today that it has been selected to receive a grant of $200,000 over two years from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation to support and expand its long-standing Education Programs. Under the leadership of Executive Director Graham Leggat and Education Program Manager Keith Zwolfer, the Film Society’s media education programs broaden insights into other cultures, enhance foreign language aptitude, develop skills for critical analysis of film and inspire a lifelong appreciation of cinema, and annually establish strong relationships with schools, cultural centers, museums, innovators in the film industry and other local nonprofit organizations to carry out these goals.

“SFFS Education Programs fill a yawning gap in media education and international understanding for Bay Area schoolchildren and are helping create a new generation of sharp, outward-looking, and visually literate youngsters,” said Leggat.  “We’re thrilled by the expansion opportunities the Hearst Foundation grant will provide. We could not be more grateful—or more eager to get started.”

“The San Francisco Film Society, with a half century of experience presenting contemporary American and international film and moving image media, and fifteen years working directly with Bay Area schoolchildren of all backgrounds, is an invaluable ally in the Foundation’s ongoing efforts to help youngsters make sense of their lives and the world they live in, especially as it changes and presents new challenges,“ said William R. Hearst III.

Since 1957, the San Francisco Film Society has been enriching the lives of Bay Area residents through the presentation of the best film and media from all over the globe, especially through the world-renowned San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF). Nowhere are these contributions more apparent than in the Film Society educational programs. For the past 15 years, the Film Society has supported successful arts-in-education programs (Schools at the Festival and Filmmakers in the Schools) that bring children ages 8-18 to special festival screenings and visiting Festival filmmakers to Bay Area schools.

For the past decade, SFFS has reached more than 30,000 students, roughly 2,500 teachers and community leaders, and more than 500 total educational institutions through screenings, talks, school visits, and other special events. All SFFS education programs target a wide range of Bay Area students, from home-schoolers to private and public schools, while notably serving under-resourced populations from low-income communities. The programs are designed for students ages 8 to 18; educational institutions serving youth; and teachers, community leaders, and parents. In October 2005, SFFS expanded this program into a year-round education initiative that presents monthly screenings for youth in schools and at local theaters. Between October 2005 and April 2006, SFFS presented 10 screenings and visits to 34 schools and overall reached more than 1,550 children.

This year, during the 49th SFIFF, SFFS expanded its Festival education programs with added school screenings and international filmmaker visits as well as a new initiative, Focus Forward, that supported the active participation of several high-school students in behind-the-scenes Festival work and, from this, the creation of a short documentary about the Festival by selected youth filmmakers. Roughly 4,200 youth attended the Schools at the Festival programs and 16 international filmmakers from 9 countries made visits to Bay Area schools.

The occasion of the SFIFF 50th Anniversary in April 2007 will be the anchor event to expand the educational outreach still further, with plans to double the number of SFFS monthly in-school screenings, as well as offer increased curriculum support, lesson plans and teacher training sessions. Throughout these events and programs, SFFS is deeply committed to education and outreach. SFFS currently collaborates with a wide range of Bay Area schools on the presentation of its acclaimed Schools at the Festival and Filmmakers in the Schools programs as well as other education and outreach activities.  In the coming year, beginning in September 2006, as SFFS ramps up to its First to 50 golden anniversary, SFFS is energetically seeking to expand its media education programs, with the planned rollout of many more school screenings as well as increased lesson plans, curriculum support, teacher training, and media literacy and production programming.

SFFS also has announced that it will present the first San Francisco International Youth Media Festival and Conference in Summer 2007. Organized in collaboration with the SF-based media-literacy organization Just Think Foundation, this event will serve as an international platform for screenings of the finest film and media work by youth ages 8-18 as well as workshops, panels and networking forums.

The United States is the world’s only developed English-speaking nation without a consistently and widely taught media-education component in its standard school curricula. SFFS education programs help fill this yawning gap in media education—aiding not only in the creation of a new generation of sharp and visually literate Bay Area youngsters, but also in the preparation of students for the challenges of professional life in a media-rich workplace as well as the cultivation of a sense of world citizenship and international understanding.

The San Francisco Film Society, presenter of the 50th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 26 –May 10, 2007), is a nonprofit arts and education organization dedicated to celebrating international film and the moving image.