Despite a tough economy, attendance at the 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival increased 2.5 percent from last year, said San Francisco Film Society’s executive director, Graham Leggat.
About 82,000 people attended nearly 150 screenings and other events associated with the multi-venue festival, which began April 23 and closed May 7.
While other nonprofits are struggling to secure funding, the film society is thriving with income from large grants, fundraisers and festival ticket sales. The four major events at this year’s festival raised well over $100,000, Leggat said. They included the opening night with Peter Bratt’s La Mission, director Francis Ford Coppola and actor Robert Redford’s respective award ceremonies, and the screening of Harry Hoyt’s The Lost World with live music by Cambodian-American band Dengue Fever.
“Our income made from the fundraising gala is 10 percent more than last year,” he said. Proceeds from the April 30 event will support the film society’s Youth Education Program.
On Wednesday, the society awarded $35,000 to Richard Levien for screenwriting and script development for his film La Migra at the festival’s Golden Gate Awards ceremony. Funding for the award came from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, which gave the film society a five-year, $3 million grant, the society’s largest ever, to support Bay Area filmmakers who make narrative feature films with social justice themes.
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| For the silent-film classic The Lost World, live music was performed by the Cambodian-American band Dengue Fever. |
Leggat said the society was able to attract more funding and boost attendance through deft marketing and offering events year-round.
“During the last four years, the society has exponentially expanded programs and activities,” he said. “And we offer beautiful films. We give people an opportunity to see the world, to escape for a few hours.”
This year’s selections cast viewers far and wide: into the gritty streets of the tyranny-ridden nation of Burma in Denmark director Anders Østergaard’s Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country; into an eclectic group of Parisians intertwined in their love and relationships in French filmmaker Claire Denis’ 35 Shots of Rum; and into an Indian novella that probes cultural mysticism in Indian film director Suman Makhopadhyay’s Chaturanga.
“People read in the newspaper about Iran, Mexico or Indonesia, but when you see a film from these countries, it gives you a slice of life,” said Miguel Pendás, the film society’s creative director. “The International Film Festival gives people a chance to know about other countries and other people in a way that they can’t experience by travel alone. Many of these high-quality films will never be released in a commercial basis.”
The festival also brings local filmmakers into focus.
“In the last year, the film society, has grown. Filmmakers from the Bay Area are a big part of the festival,” Pendás said.
This year’s selections from Bay Area filmmakers included Empress Hotel by Academy Award winners Irving Saraf and Allie Light, which takes viewers into the lives of the residents of a San Francisco homeless shelter – a boxer, a degree-holder and a publisher.
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| From the film Ferlinghetti |
City Lights bookstore founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s life story is documented in Ferlinghetti by filmmaker Christopher Felver. The film chronicles Ferlinghetti’s radical life, from his early days as a U.S. soldier in Nagasaki to his achievements as a successful publisher in San Francisco and icon of the Beat movement.
The San Francisco International Film Festival says it is the longest running film festival in the Western Hemisphere. It has showcased the works of Academy Award-winning filmmakers such as Indian director Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali and Japanese director Akira Kurosowa’s Throne of Blood.
Pendás said international participation has increased dramatically since the 1960s. The festival was the first of its kind to promote documentaries, short films and experimental films, he said.
Because of the festival’s longevity, organizers emphasize presenting old films to new audiences. This year’s festival showed the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman.
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| From the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid |
This year the festival gave Francis Ford Coppola its founder’s directing award for his contributions to cinema, which include The Godfather trilogy, Apocalypse Now and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Previous recipients of the award include Mike Leigh (2008), Spike Lee (2007) and Werner Herzog (2006).
Photos courtesy of the San Francisco International
Film Festival.
Reach the reporter at [email protected].
