Founded in 1957, the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF) is the longest-running film festival in the Americas. Held this spring from April 23 to May 7, SFIFF is a top-notch showcase of cinematic discovery and innovation, featuring close to 150 films and events, 100 filmmakers in attendance, and nearly two dozen awards presented for excellence in film craft. And this year, they'll be knocking it out of the park.
This year, Alex Gibney's smart and surprising doc Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, which critically examines both the tech icon and American consumer culture on the whole, will open the Festival. Sundance hit The End of the Tour will anchor the program as SFIFF’s Centerpiece film, which costars Jason Segel as literary giant David Foster Wallace and Jesse Eisenberg as a young, ambitious (and somewhat jealous) journalist, who wins an assignment to follow DFW on his Infinite Jest book tour. Closing out the Fest is Experimenter—the latest from indie great Michael Almereyda—in which Peter Sarsgaard gives an incredible performance as controversial social psychologist Stanley Milgram.
SFIFF58 will also feature a wide variety of collaborations, which enhance individual screenings from the main Festival slate with a number of special guests, including writer Rachel Kushner, who will introduce an archival gem screening in this year’s program, Barbara Loden’s Wanda. The Film Society will also honor sci-fi and fantasy filmmaking legend Guillermo del Toro with the Festival’s prestigious Irving M. Levin Directing Award. SFIFF will also pay tribute to actor Richard Gere for his prolific career, screening his latest film Time Out of Mind. In addition, the Film Society will present a variety of unique onstage performances and presentations this year, including live music and film events with indie duo Cibo Matto and San Francisco’s famous Kronos Quartet.
Full program and tickets at festival.sffs.org.
