This year’s San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) opens April 17, and runs through April 27. SFFILM is the longest-running film festival in the Americas, and this year’s fest is the 68th. The Premier Theater at One Letterman will host the Opening, Centerpiece and Closing Nights, and most screenings will take place at the Marina Theatre and the Presidio Theatre. Screenings and events will also take place at BAMFA in Berkeley and at seven other San Francisco venues.
The menu at SFFILM includes 150 films from more than 50 countries. Peruse the program and buy tickets at SFFILM.
Here are some of the more special elements of this year’s SFFILM:
- Opening night with Max Walker-Silverman’s Rebuilding, a drama starring Josh O’Connor (Challengers, La Chimera, The Crown) as a man whose resilience is challenged by the devastation of wildfires.
- Actor André Holland will appear to receive a tribute and to showcase his new film Love, Brooklyn. Holland also appears in another SFFILM film, The Dutchman.
- Director Chris Columbus will appear to receive a tribute and host a screening of his 2005 musical drama Rent.
- Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari, who brought her her hilariously offbeat Attenberg and her wickedly funny Chevalier to previous SFFILM fests, is here again with her latest, Harvest, starring Harry Melling and Caleb Landry Jones.
- SFFILM celebrates the treasured Roxie Theater with its 30-yar-old Mel Novikoff Award and a Roxie screening of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, in the year of that movie’s 75th anniversary,
- One of the deepest documentary sections in recent memory, including fourteen US and thirteen international features.
- Horror retrospective with The Babadook, Carnival of Souls, They Live, Chain Reactions and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- Movies starring Marlee Maitlin, Josh O’Connor, Kate Mara, Andre Holland, Ben Foster, Chloe Sevigny, Danielle Deadwyler, Marina Foïs, Caleb Landry Jones, Harry Melling and Simon Rex.
As usual, I’ll be looking for under-the-radar gems and posting my recommendations just before the fest’s opening