San Francisco International Film Festival Celebrates Golden Anniversary And A Half-Century Of Excellence With 15 Days Of Film And Festivities

200 Films From 54 Countries Reflect Global and Cinematic Diversity

April 3, 2007

San Francisco, CA – The San Francisco International Film Festival (April 26 – May 10) celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, the first festival in the Americas to reach this milestone. “A golden anniversary comes around only once in an organization’s lifetime,” says San Francisco Film Society Executive Director Graham Leggat, “and we intend to take full advantage of this remarkable occasion.” With a half-century of cinematic excellence bolstering its reputation as a provocative and celebratory showcase for the finest in world cinema, the International will usher in its next 50 years with a characteristically abundant, diverse and rewarding array of films, tributes, parties, panels, performances and one-time-only special events.

SFIFF50 kicks off April 26 and runs though May 10, offering 200 films (108 features and 92 shorts) from 54 countries, including three world premieres, two international premieres, 11 North American premieres, five U.S. premieres and 40 West Coast premieres.

The Festival opens with Italian director Emanuele Crialese’s Golden Door, in which a colorful Sicilian family journeys to America at the turn of the last century. French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg leads a brilliant cast in this lavish epic. Following the film’s screening at the Castro Theatre, the Opening Night party will take place under City Hall’s majestic Rotunda.

This year’s Centerpiece film is indie stalwart Tom DiCillo’s satiric comedy Delirious, in which Steve Buscemi and Michael Pitt star as “licensed photography professionals” (paparazzi by any other name) on the lookout for celebrities. A swanky party at Suite one8one will follow the film’s West Coast premiere on Saturday, May 5 at the Sundance Cinemas Kabuki.

The Festival’s Closing Night will be Olivier Dahan’s award-winning Edith Piaf biopic La Vie en Rose, in which Marion Cotillard gives a stunning performance as the “little sparrow” who lived, loved and sang with no regrets. Following the screening at the Castro Theatre, the French-themed Closing Night party will take place at SOMA nightclub Mezzanine.

Four major award recipients will be honored at the annual black-tie Film Society Awards Night on Thursday, May 3 in the Grand Ballroom of the Westin St. Francis Hotel. The recipient of this year’s Film Society Directing Award is Spike Lee, who will appear onstage at the Castro Theatre for a conversation with Boston Globe film critic Wesley Morris, a retrospective clips program and a screening of Acts II and III of When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, his epic documentary on Hurricane Katrina. The Peter J. Owens Award, honoring an actor whose work exemplifies brilliance, independence and integrity, will be given to Robin Williams, who will be interviewed onstage by local literary luminary Armistead Maupin (whose novel The Night Listener was adapted for a 2006 film starring Williams) at the Castro prior to a screening of The Fisher King, the Terry Gilliam film for which Williams was nominated for an Academy Award. The Kanbar Award for excellence in screenwriting goes to Peter Morgan, who penned Longford for HBO and scored a back-to-back triumph with The Queen and The Last King of Scotland. Following an onstage interview with critic and author David Thomson, Morgan will introduce The Deal, an earlier collaboration with director Stephen Frears (The Queen) about the jockeying for power among British politicians Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

In addition to these annual awards, the Film Society is bestowing the one-time-only Irving M. Levin Award on George Lucas. Named after the founder of the San Francisco International Film Festival, this special award honors a figure who has demonstrated deep appreciation for movies as an art form, a flair for innovation, a spirit of adventure and a recognition of the important role that San Francisco plays in the world of art and film. Lucas will join Lee, Morgan and Williams at Film Society Awards Night.

This year’s recipient of the Mel Novikoff Award is film historian and preservationist Kevin Brownlow. Named after the pioneering San Francisco film exhibitor (1922–1987), the award is bestowed annually on an individual or institution whose work has enhanced the filmgoing public’s knowledge and appreciation of world cinema. Brownlow will be honored on Saturday, April 28 at the Castro Theatre with an onstage interview with scholar Russell Merritt and a screening of the silent swashbuckler The Iron Mask, for which Brownlow oversaw restoration. In addition, the Festival will present a screening of Brownlow’s authoritative documentary Cecil B. De Mille – American Epic and a special program at the Pacific Film Archive at which Brownlow will screen and discuss excerpts from rare silent films.

Renowned documentarian Heddy Honigmann will receive this year’s Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award, which honors the achievement of a filmmaker who works in forms other than narrative features. Honigmann will engage in an onstage conversation with film writer John Anderson on Tuesday, May 1 at the Sundance Cinemas Kabuki, followed by a screening of Forever, her fascinating portrait Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

This year, the Festival is inaugurating the Midnight Awards to honor a dynamic young American actor and actress entering the prime of their careers, who have made outstanding contributions to independent and Hollywood cinema and who bring unusual intelligence, exemplary talent and extraordinary depth of character to their roles. The first annual Midnight Awards will be given to Rosario Dawson and Sam Rockwell on Saturday, April 28, at a festive late-night event at the W San Francisco Hotel. The Midnight Awards are given in memory of Charles Barile (1954–2004) a lifelong film aficionado.

SFIFF50 has teamed up with Jumpcut and Yahoo! Video to present the GreenWorld Contest, an online competition of short films focused on the conversations, changes, leadership, vision and imagination necessary to create a world that is truly sustainable. The entries in various forms and genres, from fictional suspense drama and romantic comedy to investigative reportage and personal essays to animated and experimental work may be viewed at http://www.jumpcut.com/groups/greenworld. The contest began on March 15, and the winner will be announced May 9 at the SFIFF50 Golden Gate Awards Ceremony and will receive a $1,000 cash award. The winning and runner-up entries will also be featured onscreen at the May 9 SFIFF50 celebration and performance, Halou, Tarentel and the GreenWorld, at Mighty.

Eleven films will be in juried competition for the 11th annual SKYY Prize, a $10,000 cash award given to a new feature filmmaker. The contenders are: Kim Rossi Stuart’s Along the Ridge from Italy; John Barker’s Bunny Chow from South Africa; Daniel Wu’s The Heavenly Kings from Hong Kong; Xiaolu Guo’s How Is Your Fish Today? from China; Joachim Trier’s Reprise from Norway; Tariq Teguia’s Rome Rather Than You from Algeria; Jean-Pascal Hattu’s 7 Years from France; Pavel Giroud’s The Silly Age from Cuba; Francisco Vargas’s The Violin from Mexico; Marwan Hamed’s The Yacoubian Building from Egypt; and Horace Ahmad’s Zolykha’s Secret from Afghanistan.

The Golden Gate Awards Ceremony celebrates exceptional filmmakers with the prestigious SKYY Prize and FIPRESCI Prize (an international critics prize for best film) as well as awards in 14 juried Golden Gate Award categories, the Chris Holter Award for Humor in Film and the SFIFF50 GreenWorld Contest for online video shorts. Winners will be announced live at Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center on Wednesday, May 9. Admission is free; tickets are required.

Also new this year is the Chris Holter Humor in Film Award. The Holter Award, honoring the life and work of San Francisco native, teacher and filmmaker Chris Holter. The award will provide a $2,500 cash prize to the filmmaker whose film (short, documentary or feature, in any genre or technique, including animation) paints the most humorous, heart-warming and life-affirming portrait of the human condition. The grant is provided by the Metro Theatre Center Foundation, with funds from the Ora A. Holter Family Trust and the Chris Holter–Ron Merk Family Trust Fund.

Each year, the Film Society invites a leader in art and cinema to address issues facing the film world today. This year, the State of Cinema Address will be delivered by the brilliant theater and opera director Peter Sellars, whose multimedia works continually expand the potential of globally relevant images and ideas. Sellars also is profiled in Jon Else’s documentary Wonders Are Many, screening at this year’s Festival. Sellars recently served as artistic director of the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna, commemorating the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth; two of the seven films he commissioned for New Crowned Hope are screening at this year’s Festival: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Daratt and Garin Nugroho’s Opera Jawa.

This year’s Live & Onstage events include a screening of Victor Sjöström’s haunting silent film classic The Phantom Carriage, with a new score composed and performed live by local icon Jonathan Richman; The True Story of the World: On the Road at 50, a portmanteau program of readings, testimonials and images in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac’s classic Beat Generation novel, with Peter Coyote, Michael McClure, Diane Di Prima and other special guests; Notes to a Toon Underground, with 11 adventurous musicians presenting world premieres of newly composed scores to historic and contemporary animated shorts; Five-0: Stories and Images from 50 Years of the SF International, featuring onstage appearances by Festival alumni and clips from 50 years of the International’s glorious and tumultuous history; and Festival favorite Guy Maddin’s new silent masterwork Brand upon the Brain! The film’s original score will be performed live by a 13-piece ensemble, with live narration by the captivating and multi-talented Joan Chen, foley artists and a “castrato” adding to the fun.

Three Spotlight: sections—Cinema By the Bay, Kinotek and The Late Show—showcase thematic areas of interest at SFIFF50. The San Francisco Bay Area has long been an epicenter of filmmaking innovation, and the 50th International is thrilled to present Spotlight: Cinema by the Bay, surveying the breadth of the local scene. The seven presentations comprising this section represent a sampling of the distinct visions at work here and employ a variety of genres and forms to tell singular stories. Of particular note is the world premiere of Gary Leva’s Fog City Mavericks, a star-studded chronicle of the amazing past 40 years of Bay Area filmmaking. Brad Bird, Chris Columbus, Peter Coyote, Philip Kaufman, John Korty, George Lucas, Walter Murch,  Rob Nilsson, Matthew Robbins, Robin Willams, Saul Zaentz and many other fog city mavericks will appear onstage for a special introduction and post-screening Q&A.

Other Cinema by the Bay programs include Les Blank’s All in This Tea, a flavorful portrait of tea expert David Lee Hoffman; Edie and David Ichioka’s Murch, a clips-filled portrait of the great film editor Walter Murch; the world premiere of Miles Montalbano’s Revolution Summer, an engaging narrative about young San Francisco activists written under the influence of the Iraqatastrophe; Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Strange Culture, an unconventional documentary about an artist falsely accused of bioterrorism, featuring Festival favorite Tilda Swinton; Else’s Wonders Are Many, which traces the history of the A-bomb and the making of Doctor Atomic by composer John Adams and director Peter Sellars (this year’s State of Cinema Address speaker) for the San Francisco Opera; and Carved Out of Pavement: The Work of Rob Nilsson, an intimate evening with the fiercely independent local director who will discuss his unconventional artistic process and preview clips from four digital works in progress.

For the second consecutive year, Spotlight: KinoTek presents cinematic works that illuminate the ways in which burgeoning technologies alter the production, distribution and exhibition of media. KinoTek programs include Arrows of Time and Halou, Tarentel and the GreenWorld (both described in the Satellites section); Special Forces, a live-cinema collaboration between Pierre Hébert and Bob Ostertag; and Cyrus Frisch’s Why didn’t anybody tell me it would become this bad in Afghanistan, the first feature-length piece to be shot on cell phone and premiere at a major festival.

Spotlight: The Late Show presents daring, edgy, and outrageous films that arouse, amuse and shock. This year, the focus is on international horror, a rich and burgeoning genre demonstrating that audiences the world over love a good thrill. The four Late Show films are: Jonathan King’s Black Sheep from New Zealand, Roar Uthaug’s Cold Prey from Norway, Takeshi Furusawa’s Ghost Train from Japan and David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry’s The Signal from the U.S. Audiences are invited to mingle at the Stella Artois lounge at the Sundance Cinemas Kabuki 30 minutes prior to each Late Show screening.

Also returning for a second year is SFIFF/Dialogues, a range of opportunities for Festivalgoers to engage with authors, filmmakers and industry experts through panels and discussions. Taking place in House 2 of the Sundance Cinemas Kabuki, this year’s Dialogues include Picturing Development, focused on issues raised by Abderrahmane Sissako’s powerful film Bamako (showing in the Festival’s World Cinema section) and featuring executive producer Danny Glover in discussion with activists and academics; Stories from the SF Film Frontiers, featuring Stefanie Coyote, Kevin Epps and other local film community movers and shakers; No Snacking Allowed, for which panelists will discuss new distribution strategies; and It’s a New (Green) World, focusing on innovative strategies to address burning environmental issues and inspire audiences to action. To augment SFIFF/Dialogues reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle will lead the new Chronicle Chats, in-depth Q&A discussions following select film screenings.

The Festival continues to expand its geographic and programmatic footprint with Satellites, a series of special events taking place at nontraditional venues. Events include Ken McMullen’s Arrows of Time, a live-cinema presentation at the McBean Theater; Décio Matos Jr.’s Fabricating Tom Zé, a head-bopping documentary on the great Brazilian musician screening outdoors at El Rio; Rob Nilsson@Eye Candy, for which scenes from the Bay Area director’s films will be projected on a giant outdoor screen at Justin Herman Plaza; Jon Else’s Wonders Are Many, about the making of Doctor Atomic for the San Francisco Opera, screening at Intersection for the Arts. Finally, for Halou, Tarentel and the GreenWorld, beloved local bands Halou and Tarentel take the stage at Mighty for contrasting and intense multimedia performances that merge electronic and psychedelic music with dreamy visuals. Videos made by the winner and finalists of the GreenWorld Contest of online video shorts will be screened as well.

With SFIFF/Online, the International continues its ongoing exploration of new digital tools and forms. Four SFIFF50 online projects will showcase digital exhibition, production, networking and community building:  International Online, a new concept in the online presentation of festival films at better-than-DVD quality; SFIFF50 GreenWorld Contest, presented in partnership with Jumpcut and Yahoo! Video, an online competition of short films focused on the conversations, changes, leadership, vision and imagination needed to produce a world that is truly sustainable; SFIFF50 Global Reach, a collaboration of the Digital Sister Cities initiative, brings SF’s Bay Area Video Coalition and Reseau 2000 in Paris together with five new media centers in New York for real-time production via emerging wireless environments and next generation Internet connectivity; and the Online Directors’ Forum, at which SFIFF50 directors and audience members will interact with audiences in Tokyo, Toronto, Paris and Dublin in a live international high definition multi-cast Internet. Both Global Reach and Online Directors’ Forum are presented in partnership with San Francisco State University’s Institute for Next Generation Internet.