SFFILM has introduced the winners of the juried Golden Gate Awards competitors and the Viewers Awards on the 67th San Francisco Worldwide Movie Pageant (SFFILM Pageant). The awards function a launching pad for internationally famend filmmakers who’re early of their careers, they usually qualify movies below 40 minutes for the Oscars. Previous Golden Gate Award winners embrace Panah Panahi, Reid Davenport, Nadav Lapid, Marlon Riggs, Céline Sciamma, Jia Zhang-ke, Stanley Nelson, and Tasha Van Zandt.
This 12 months, the 2024 SFFILM Pageant ran 5 days from April 24 – 28 quite than its regular sprawling two weeks. The SFFILM board opted to tug again conservatively the place others would have gone greater to maintain a extra expansive footprint. Altogether they introduced in 130 filmmakers this 12 months, a wonderful international choice of movies regardless of the calendar drawback of being caught between Sundance and Cannes.
The massive discuss at this 12 months’s SFFILM was the information that San Francisco put in a bid to host the Sundance Movie Pageant starting 2027 because the competition considers choices past Park Metropolis amid a looming contract renewal with the town.
SFFILM’s government director Anne Lai stated in a press release, “The San Francisco Worldwide Movie Pageant has solely gotten stronger by innovating over the previous few years. We simply wrapped our most vibrant and profitable competition since I arrived and achieved it by presenting a discerning vary of movie expertise and retaining our heat and complicated native audiences engaged. These two substances are the important thing to SFFILM and San Francisco’s longevity as a worldwide arts and tradition chief. To see Sundance Movie Pageant discover potentialities for a brand new house is thrilling. Their continued success can solely be good for the movie business at giant. As we start designing our 68th version, I’ve solely optimism for our competition’s future.”
Additionally on the SFFILM Pageant, the Mel Novikoff Award honored Bay Space exhibitor and Landmark Theatres co-founder Gary Meyer in a dialog moderated by IndieWire Editor-at-Massive Anne Thompson alongside a retrospective screening of Meyer-curated movies. The Sloan Science in Cinema Award went to Tania Hermida’s “On the Invention of Species.” Anne Thompson additionally served as a member of the Narratives Jury.
The winners of the 67th Annual SFFILM Golden Gate Awards Competitors are as follows. Language is courtesy of the competition.
World Visions Award
“Nice Absence”
Kei Chika-ura (Japan 2023)
US Premiere
Kei Chika-ura’s Nice Absence is a classy, well-crafted up to date household drama about
reconciliation and love. Its delicate, restrained performances reveal intense anguish. This intricate,layered story strikes via time and house because it ruminates on ageing and the life cycle.
Documentary Award
“Sugarcane”
Julian Courageous NoiseCat, Emily Kassie (Canada 2024)
Sugarcane is a unprecedented investigative thriller, a private odyssey, and a cathartic exposé of
the transgenerational influence of Canada’s residential faculties. Julian Courageous NoiseCat and Emily
Kassie’s delicate collaboration is as a lot a cinematic condemnation of colonization and
complicity as it’s a sobering but celebratory reclamation of historical past, voice, and imaginative and prescient within the title
of therapeutic, from one era to the following.
Bay Space Documentary Award
“In search of Mavis Beacon”
Jazmin Renée Jones (USA 2024)
For his or her boundary-pushing hybrid storytelling mixtape that reflectively appears at archive, digital
ancestors, and the intersection of reality and fiction, we honor director Jazmin Renée Jones and
Olivia McKayla Ross (affiliate producer and cyber doula) for In search of Mavis Beacon with Greatest
Bay Space Documentary Function. Multilayered and provocative, it’s a technological, cultural, and
financial interrogation that’s spirited and imaginative. Transparency, consent, and recognition
are as core to the storytelling as it’s to the legacy they honor.
Narrative Brief Award
“Bogotá Story”
Esteban Pedraza (Colombia 2023)
It’s uncommon a movie could be as transportive as this one and but supply such deep empathy that it conjures
an imaginary however simple familiarity with its characters. For its exact craft, its lovely
cinematography, and its unbelievable specificity of place and historical past, the jury awards Bogotá Story
with the Narrative Brief Award.
Documentary Brief Award
“The Medallion”
Ruth Hunduma (UK 2023)
This movie impressed the jury with its ingenuity in type and deft navigations of scales—each
expansively sociological and intimately private. The jury was energetically engaged by the
weave between gentleness and forcefulness this movie achieved, and we applaud the ambition and
success of this advanced conception. For its pressing story and heat coronary heart, the jury awards The
Medallion with the Documentary Brief Award.
Bay Space Brief Award
“a movie is a goodbye that by no means ends”
María Luisa Santos (Costa Rica 2024)
World Premiere
For it’s intimate portrayal of bonding and longing, eager eye for element and texture, and poignant
meditation on the passage of time and current within the ‘in between’ areas, the jury is happy to
award María Luisa Santos with the Bay Space Shorts Prize for a movie is a goodbye that by no means ends.
Animated Brief Award
“La Perra”
Carla Melo Gampert (Colombia 2023)
With its visceral and deeply affecting exploration of parent-child relationships, sexuality, and grief,
La Perra fantastically paints an unsettling and common coming-of-age story. Carla Melo Gampert’s
expressive, sketch-like, watercolor animation, and immersive, sensorial sound design, transports
audiences right into a fantastical and deeply felt world that’s solely its personal. The jury ecstatically
bestows La Perra with the Animated Brief Award.
Household Movie Award
“Dynasty and Future”
Travis Lee Ratcliff (USA 2024)
We discovered this touching, well timed, and accessible story to be a real grasp class in documentary
filmmaking. It’s evident in each body how a lot thought and care was put into the movie, from the
cinematography and modifying to the music and storytelling. Dynasty & Future is a charming
expertise that deeply respects the connection between its essential characters in addition to the
historical past and tradition it explores.
Youth Works Award
“Sil-tteu-gi”
Yezy Suh (USA 2023)
The jury was extremely moved by Yezy Suh’s intimate exploration of household, tradition, and self. Her
use of animation and private household footage helps us see her household via her eyes, and
reminds us that our recollections can bridge bodily and cultural distance. Sil-tteu-gi is a wonderful
instance of the ability of private expression and vulnerability. We can’t wait to see what Yezy
does subsequent!
Viewers Award: Narrative Function
“The Trainer”
Farah Nabulsi (UK/Palestine/Qatar 2023)
Viewers Award: Documentary Function
“Agent of Happiness”
Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbó (Bhutan/Hungary 2024)
Honorable Mentions and Jury Recognition
World Visions
“Empty Nets”
Behrooz Karamizade (Germany 2023)
Behrooz Karamizade’s compelling, propulsive romantic drama portrays a striving younger
fisherman, who’s in love and desperately seeks to interrupt from Iran’s harsh societal restraints, all as
his desires and fantasies run up in opposition to the bounds of the actual world. We commend the filmmaker’s
insistence on telling his story with such frankness whereas navigating censorship and the
repercussions of creating his movie in Iran right now.
New Director Jury Recognition
“Banel & Adama”
Ramata-Toulaye Sy (Senegal 2023)
A singular, genre-bending first characteristic crafted with highly effective cinematography, Banel & Adama is a
feminist eco-drama set in a drought-ridden distant village. Filmmaker Ramata-Toulaye Sy mixes
magic imagery with the realities of a nomadic neighborhood as a younger spouse resists historical
patriarchal superstitions.
Cine Latino Jury Recognition
“Heartless”
Nara Normande, Tião (Brazil 2023)
US Premiere
Nara Normande and Tião’s Heartless is a strong, unpredictable coming-of-age movie about
identification, belonging, and need. The movie boasts a robust forged of younger actors who painting an
eclectic group of associates throughout a socioeconomic spectrum. The movie is punctuated with putting
vignettes of ardour and compassion, household bonding, and seaside life. The top-of-summer bliss
foreshadows a darker actuality of homophobia, racism, and violence.
Documentary Honorable Point out
“Black Field Diaries”
Shiori Ito (Japan 2024)
We acknowledge with an honorable point out, director Shiori Ito’s Black Field Diaries and the
extraordinary artistry, journalistic integrity, and unflagging braveness to push her story via. For
this to be her first foray into the artwork of fusing rigorous visible journalism with first-person
documentary-making is a monumental act worthy of our discover, gratitude, and cheering on.
Household Movie Honorable Point out
“Yuck!”
Loïc Espuche (France 2024)
We had been charmed by this movie’s capacity to seize the common expertise of coming of age. Yuck!
portrays moments of curiosity and discovery in a considerate and genuine means, all whereas honoring
the innocence of childhood.
Youth Works Honorable Point out
“Light Breeze”
Wenwei Hu (China 2023)
North American Premiere
Light Breeze is a visually beautiful movie that celebrates kindness and surprising bonds. The jury
was touched by Wenwei Hu’s fantastic movie and commends his efforts!