San Francisco Film Society Names Graham Leggat Executive Director

August 30, 2005

The San Francisco Film Society announces the appointment of Graham Leggat as Executive Director, effective October 17, 2005.

“We’re delighted that Graham is taking the helm at the Film Society,” said George Gund III, chairman of the Film Society’s board of directors. “His admirable breadth and depth of experience at major New York film organizations that have many elements and goals in common with the Film Society’s mission promise an exciting future for the Film Society and the San Francisco International Film Festival as we plan for the 50th Festival in 2007.”

Leggat comes to the San Francisco Film Society from the Film Society of Lincoln Center, presenter of the New York Film Festival, New Directors/New Films and the extensive roster of year-round film activities at the respected Walter Reade Theater. He has been Director of Communications there since 1999 overseeing the publicity, marketing and special events of FSLC’s wide-ranging year-round calendar and serving as associate publisher of FSLC’s prestigious Film Comment magazine. He is also a columnist for New York Daily News, a contributing editor for Filmmaker Magazine, writing on film/videogame convergence, and a member of the programming board for the cutting-edge New York Video Festival.

Leggat said “I couldn’t be happier than to be joining the San Francisco Film Society at this crucial moment in its storied history. The energy and intelligence of its board and staff, together with the discernment and loyalty of its enthusiastic audiences and partners across the city, promise great things ahead. Even as the Film Society prepares for the SFIFF golden anniversary in 2007—an extraordinary milestone, to be sure—it feels as if it’s ready to invent itself anew.”

Before joining the Film Society of Lincoln Center, which presents the 43rd edition of its own New York Film Festival in late September, Leggat was Assistant Director, Department of Communications at the Museum of Modern Art, New York where he directed the media campaigns for all of the museum’s gallery exhibitions, as well as its extensive film and video programs and the grand opening of the Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Center, home to the museum’s world-class 13,000 title film archive. Prior to that he was Program Director of Gen Art Film Festival, dedicated to American independent filmmakers, a founding selection committee member of New York’s Shorts International Film Festival and Director of Public Relations at the American Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. He began his film industry career in 1991 as an editor and publicist at Cornell Cinema and has served on the boards of the respected media arts advocacy organizations Media Alliance and the Association of Independent Film and Videomakers (AIVF).

Leggat lived in San Francisco for three years while completing his B.A. in American Studies at Stanford University, graduating in 1987. He also has a M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Syracuse University. Leggat has written numerous occasional fiction and nonfiction pieces for a variety of publications. His first book, a sci-fi novel about love and money, will be published next summer by Sterling House Press. He was born in England in 1960 to Scottish parents and emigrated to North America as a teenager in the mid 1970s.

The San Francisco Film Society, presenter of the 49th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 20–May 4, 2006), is a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to celebrating international film and the moving image.