Attendance Tops 87,000 at the 45th San Francisco International Film Festival

This year was a notable success for the Festival as attendance exceeded 87,000, more than last year’s record all-time high. Over the course of 15 days thousands of filmgoers, filmmakers and film industry representatives attended 265 Festival screenings of 185 films in San Francisco, Berkeley and Menlo Park.
Festival highlights included the Opening Night film, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, with director Jill Sprecher in attendance. The Festival closed Thursday, May 2 with a bang with the world premiere of Woody Allen’s Hollywood Ending with cast members George Hamilton, Mark Rydell and Tiffani Thiessen in attendance.

ZOOM! After Hours presented The Triumph of Love with actor Mira Sorvino in attendance. The Festival presented the North American premiere of Hayao Miyazaki’s new animated masterpiece, Spirited Away, in the original Japanese-language version. The sold-out screening featured a special appearance by producer Toshio Suzuki and Pixar’s John Lasseter who will act as creative consultant for Disney’s English-language version of the film. A performance at the Castro Theatre of Superchunk and Kinugasa: A Page of Madness teamed an original score by the popular and critically acclaimed indie rock band with the 1926 masterpiece of Japanese silent film.

Film industry luminaries Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Philip Kaufman and Saul Zaentz all attended screenings at the Festival. Guests at Opening Night included actors Joan Chen and Delroy Lindo. Rising stars who attended the Festival this year include Dong Jie (Happy Times), Bai Ling (Face) and Frida Betrani (The Last Wedding).

The Other Side of Midnight, a new series for lovers of extreme cinema, sponsored by Guinness, provided cutting-edge entertainment for the after-hours crowd and presented high-octane selections Ichi the Killer, Dogtown and Z-Boys, May and The Princess Blade.

Among the documentary subjects who answered audience questions following Festival screenings were Jacques Derrida (Derrida), Tina Naccache (Who Hangs the Laundry?), Alexandra Pelosi (Journeys with George) and Dan Dixon (Photos to Send).

The SKYY Prize
This year the SKYY Prize winner is The Wild Bees directed by Bohdan Sláma, a sensitive and engaging coming-of-age film about a group of young Czech villagers. The SKYY Prize jury selected the film, “for its deft and sensitive storytelling and character portrayals.” Honorable mention was given to Karmen Gei, directed by Joseph Gaï Ramaka, “for its ambition and originality in creating a new and exciting form of musical.”

The jury consisted of Finn Taylor, director of Dream with the Fishes and Cherish; Alberto Barbera, former director of the Venice Film Festival and member of the International Advisory Board to the San Francisco Film Society; and Scarlet Cheng, a Los Angeles–based film journalist who has written for Premiere, Vogue, the Los Angeles Times and the Far East Economic Review. The SKYY Prize, which includes a $10,000 cash award, was established in 1997 by the Festival and premier sponsor SKYY Vodka to recognize a first-time feature filmmaker whose film exhibits unique artistic sensibility.

Audience Awards
The Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature went to Spirited Away, which tells the story of a young girl who enters a world of ghosts, goblins and gods. Suspenseful and witty, the film marks another milestone in Miyazaki’s work, which includes Princess Mononoke and My Neighbor Totoro. Disney will release Spirited Away in the fall of 2002. Runnerup in the narrative feature category was Oscar-nominated Elling by Norwegian filmmaker Petter Naess, a dark comedy about two men trying to live in the real world after being discharged from mental institutions.

The Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature went to Photos to Send by San Francisco–based filmmaker Dierdre Lynch. Photos to Send explores the stories of residents of County Clare in Ireland who were photographed by Dorothea Lange in the 1950s. It is a lyrical and moving tribute to the great artistry of Lange and the inspiring lives of her subjects. Runnerup in the Documentary Feature category was Uncle Frank, a delightful account of filmmaker Matthew Ginsburg’s octogenarian uncle who performs for his fans in retirement homes. Uncle Frank is the first documentary produced by Kevin Spacey’s production company, Trigger Street.

Grand Prizes
Golden Gate Award Grand Prizes were presented for Best Documentary, Best Short, Best Bay Area Documentary and Best Bay Area Short. Each Grand Prize winner received a $1,000 cash award.
The jury selected Rivers and Tides, directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer as Best Documentary. They wrote, “It exemplifies form designed to reveal and explicate content. We recognize this film for its overall excellence.” The award for Best Short went to The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal, Matt McCormick’s film about graffiti removers who “collaborate” with graffiti artists to create unconsciously motivated “collaborative works of art.” The jury decided on the award because it “makes an ironic and witty case for the defense. The film is socially engaging and brilliantly original, and given its low budget, it is much deserving of support and recognition.”

Best Bay Area Documentary was awarded to Daughter from Danang, directed by Gail Dolgin and Vicente Franco. The subject of the film, Mai Thi Hiep was present fo the screening. “This extraordinary metaphor for U.S. involvement in Vietnam,” the jury wrote, “shows us what happens even between loving individuals who don’t understand one another’s cultures.” Sharing the prize was Dear Judge, directed by Laleh Soomekh. “If this film is as widely seen as it deserves to be,” the jury wrote, “perhaps juries in the criminal justice system will do the same thing we have done and refuse to enforce bad laws, beginning with the mandatory minimum sentencing law which is the subject of this heartbreaking film.”

Best Bay Area Short was awarded to Hypocrite, directed by David Chalker, because “it embodies the important principle of stylistic innovation and is a bracing call to civil disobedience of the mass media spectacle.”

The jurors for the Golden Gate Awards Grand Prizes were Claudia Landsberger, president and founding member of European Film Promotion and president of Holland Film; Bill Krohn, codirector/writer/producer of It’s All True, a film based on an unfinished project of Orson Welles; and Frederick Marx, Oscar-nominated producer, director and editor of Hoop Dreams.

Awards Night
San Francisco and Hollywood’s elite turned out for Film Society Awards Night, the Festival’s gala dinner. At the beginning of the evening, Film Society Executive Director Roxanne Messina Captor and Mayor Willie Brown welcomed the guests, including cochair Janet Reilly and her husband, Clint, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang, State Senator and President Pro Tem of the Senate John Burton, San Francisco Public Defender Kimiko Burton and 1997 Peter J. Owens Award recipient Annette Bening. Oscar-winning director Warren Beatty received the Akira Kurosawa Award, sponsored by Bulgari, for lifetime achievement in directing. Actress Sharon Stone and Terry Semel, CEO of Yahoo, presented the Kurosawa Award to Beatty at the sold-out event.

The next day in a sold-out house at the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres, Beatty was interviewed by New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell, followed by a screening of Reds. Kevin Spacey was also honored at Film Society Awards Night and received the Peter J. Owens Award, underwritten by the Peter J. Owens Trust, for his brilliant acting achievements. Sean Penn, who acted with him in Hurly Burly, presented the Owens Award to Spacey. One day before, an enthusiastic audience watched David D’Arcy of National Public Radio interview Spacey on stage at the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres prior to a screening of Swimming with Sharks.

POV and Novikoff Awards
The Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award was presented to pioneering documentary and experimental filmmaker and father of New Latin American Cinema Fernando Birri for his achievements in filmmaking and film education as well as his lasting contribution to world cinema. A screening of Birri’s films, Tire Dié and Los Inundados, followed the tribute.

The Festival recognized the achievements of archivist and preservationist David Francis by presenting him with the Mel Novikoff Award for enhancing the public’s knowledge and appreciation of world cinema. Following the tribute, Francis presented a screening of the restored print of Where Are My Children?, a provocative silent film about abortion made in 1916 by Lois Weber and her husband, Phillips Smalley.

Schools
The Schools at the Festival program screened 18 films to over 4,000 elementary, middle and high school students. Program coordinators worked with over 40 Bay Area schools to integrate Festival films into existing curricula and expand students’ awareness of social and cultural issues. They also coordinated more than 25 director visits to schools. Highlights of this year’s Schools program included six sold-out screenings, including Stacey Peralta’s Dogtown and Z-Boys, where the entire sixth and seventh grade classes from James Lick Middle School were in attendance. Students engaged in an emotional discussion following the screening of Daughter from Danang, a documentary dealing with intercultural and intergenerational themes.

Seminars
This year the Festival presented two seminars that examined the latest advances in digital technology and the hurdles that filmmakers overcome to create their art. In Digital and New Technologies: How They Affect the Filmmaker and the Filmgoer, professional filmmakers, producers, distributors and industry leaders discussed new opportunities in digital content creation, the use of digital tools and the creative challenges of alternative exhibition and distribution. Panelists were Tim Schafbuch, Director of Digital Cinema at LucasFilm THX; John Manulis, CEO, Visionbox Pictures; Scott Stewart, President of Original Production and Development and Cofounder, The Orphanage; and Steven Bergman, Head of Strategic Development and Marketing, Boeing Digital Cinema.

Filmmaking in a Hostile World provided a platform for international filmmakers who have triumphed over the adversities of oppressive governments, war and economic depression and have risen to the challenge to create meaningful work in a hostile world. Panelists were Anand Patwardhan (War and Peace), Wang Guangli (Go for Broke), Tina Naccache and Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir (Who Hangs the Laundry?) and Iranian actor Behrouz Vossoughi who received last year’s Unvanquished tribute for film artists who have faced repression and censorship. Adrian Belic, director of Genghis Blues, moderated the panel..