49th San Francisco International Film Festival Teams with
Harlan Jacobson’s Talk Cinema for Three Special Screenings

March 28, 2006

San Francisco, CA—The 49th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 20–May 4) is pleased to announce that it is teaming up with Harlan Jacobson’s Talk Cinema, a national organization that treats members to special sneak preview screenings throughout the year. Three Talk Cinema screenings are scheduled during the Festival, and two of the films will be followed by a discussion moderated by Talk Cinema founder Harlan Jacobson. The titles will not be announced in advance; Jacobson, who selects the films, or another Talk Cinema moderator will introduce them once moviegoers have taken their seats.

“Bringing Talk Cinema to the Festival is great fun,” said Jacobson. “There’s no better trip than walking into a theater and not knowing what you’re going to see and then talking about it afterwards. It’s a risk that pays off when people tell me, ‘You know, I’d never have gone to see a film like this—and I loved it.’”

Talk Cinema has locations throughout the country, including a local group in Palo Alto where sneak preview screenings are held 14 times a year at the CineArts @ Palo Alto Square. Harlan Jacobson was a film critic and reporter at Variety for six years, edited Film Comment for eight years and has written about film for numerous major newspapers, magazines and broadcast outlets throughout the U.S. and Canada.

The Talk Cinema screenings at the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival will take place at the Kabuki 8 Theatres on Saturday, April 22, Sunday, April 23 and Saturday, April 29. All Talk Cinema screenings start at 10:00 am. Individual Talk Cinema ticket prices are $9 for San Francisco Film Society members and $11 for the general public. Talk Cinema ticket packages, which include admission to all three screenings, are $24 for members and $30 for the public.

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.