San Francisco Film Society Launches SF360, a New Slate of Innovative Citywide Initiatives
At an evening reception at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Graham Leggat, executive director of the San Francisco Film Society, today unveiled SF360, a broad spectrum of initiatives designed to showcase the extraordinary vitality, variety and innovation of the Bay Area film and media scene. 

“There’s an alchemical genius at work in San Francisco,” said Leggat. “It’s a frontier, full of intelligence and energy and the desire to do new things. The SF360 initiatives—with their intensely collaborative exploration of new film and media platforms, new work, and new audiences—are an attempt to bottle that lightning.”

Leggat outlined four initial SF360 projects, leading with the announcement of the creation and launch of SF360.org, a landmark copublishing joint venture with indieWIRE, the leading online publication dedicated to American and international independent film. Launching in early March 2006, SF360.org will provide daily year-round news, features, event photography, listings, columns and editorials on dynamic Bay Area film and media activity. It will also feature a deep set of social networking tools, enabling users to plan and administer events, set up virtual production offices, organize public and private groups and create various types of blogs.

Read more about SF360.org.

View the indieWIRE announcement.

The other inaugural SF360 initiatives announced at the reception were:

• SF360 Festival of Festivals, an annual three-day event that brings together under one roof exciting new programming by the staffs of some 15–20 of the most prominent film festivals in the Bay Area. Founding festival partners include San Francisco International Film Festival, the S.F. International Asian American Film Festival, Film Arts Foundation, S.F. Jewish Film Festival, Frameline: S.F. International LGBT Film Festival and S.F. Silent Film Festival.
• SF360 San Francisco Movie Night, one night in early April 2006 in which small and large groups will gather to view and discuss one specially selected film. Organized in partnership with S.F.-based Ironweed Film Club, a DVD-of-the-month club that uses movies to rally audiences around social and political issues, S.F. Movie Night will be the largest citywide film screening in the country. Read more about Movie Night.
• SF360 InSchool Cinemas, a public/private partnership launch Fall 2006 that will install digital projectors in S.F. high school auditoriums. Through its innovative education program, the S.F. Film Society will provide films, curriculum support and discussion with filmmakers to this network, which can also double, after-hours and during festival times, as a citywide net of community theaters.

The San Francisco Film Society is the presenter of the San Francisco International Film Festival, the longest-running film festival in the Americas, which will be the country’s “First to 50” in April 2007. At the reception Leggat announced two new international film festivals to be presented by the SFFS in the coming year:

• The San Francisco International Animation Festival and Conference, a four-day multitrack event that brings together studio and independent producers and buyers, software and hardware companies and thinkers and audiences of all descriptions. Launching Fall 2006 in partnership with the city of San Francisco Mayor’s Office and the S.F. Digital Media Advisory Council
• San Francisco International Youth Media Festival, a four-day event devoted to the finest work from youth aged 8–18 from across the country and around the world. Launching early 2007 in partnership with Bay Area Video Coalition, the Mayor’s Office, DMAC, San Francisco State University Institute for Next Generation Internet and Bay Area Youth Media Consortium.

Leggat stressed the invaluable support of SFFS partners in all these endeavors, acknowledging reps from organizations listed above, notably reception cohosts Brian Clark and Eugene Hernandez of indieWIRE, Stephanie Coyote of the S.F. Film Commission and Joaquin Alvarado of the SFSU Institute for Next Generation Internet.