This year’s San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM Festival) opens on April 10 and runs through April 23. As always, it’s a Can’t Miss for Bay Area movie fans.
The menu at SFFILM includes 86 feature films and 70 shorts from 52 countries, impeccably curated by Director of Programming Rachel Rosen and her team. 72 of the films have female directors. At last year’s fest, I was introduced to the movie that became my choice as 2018’s best film, Leave No Trace.
This year’s program is especially loaded. Here are some enticing festival highlights:
- The premiere of the upcoming Netflix series Amistead Maupin’s Tales of the City. Nothing is more San Francisco than the Tales of the City saga, first serialized in the Chronicle in 1978 and adapted into the 1993 PBS episodic series that made Laura Linney a star. The Netflix series continues the story into today’s San Francisco, with Linney’s Mary Ann returning to 28 Barbary Lane. Laura Linney will attend the screening.
- Linney will make a second personal appearance to receive an award at a screening of her film The Savages.
- French director Claire Denis will present her venture into sci-fi, High Life. The word among critics is that High Life is a doozy – and both the sex and violence are unforgettable.
- Laura Dern will appear with her latest film, Trial by Fire.
- Fresh from its premiere at SXSW, actress Olivia Wilde will attend the screening of the film she has directed, Booksmart, starring Kaitlyn Dever.
- Documentarian Jennifer Siebel Newson will present her latest, The Great American Lie. Siebel Newsom, also the First Lady of California, is not a dilettante, as anyone can tell her previous film, Miss Representation.
- John C. Reilly will receive an award at a screening of last year’s The Sisters Brothers.
- The world premiere of Q-Ball, the documentary about the basketball team at San Quentin. (Yes, they play all their games at home.) The film is produced by Warriors star Kevin Durant.
- Boots Riley, the Bay Area director of last year’s iconoclastic hit Sorry to Bother You, will make the State of Cinema Address.
- Loro, master filmmaker Paolo Sorrrentino’s take on Italian scoundrel/prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, will screen. Sorrentino has already created two of the most brilliant films of this decade – The Great Beauty and Youth.
My under-the-radar recommendation is the quietly engrossing The Sound of Silence, which just premiered at Sundance, starring Peter Sargaard. It’s the feature debut for director and co-writer Michael Tyburski, and it’s exceptional.
The 2019 San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILMFestival) opens this Wednesday. Here’s SFFILMFestival’s information on the program, the schedule and tickets and passes.
Throughout SFFILMFestival, you can follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.
