Rachel Rosen, director of programming for the San Francisco Film Society, Benoit Jacquot, director of FAREWELL, MY QUEEN, and Melanie Blum, SFFS interim executive director, arriving at Opening Night of the 55th San Francisco International Film Festival, April 19, 2012.  Photo © Pamela Gentile, courtesy of San Francisco Film Society The longest-Running Film Festival in the Americas Enjoys a Spectacular Year with Superb Programming, Numerous Spe...

  11 Narrative Features From Nine Countries Contend for $15,000 New Directors Prize, 12 Documentaries From Nine Countries Contend for $35,000 in Cash Prizes The 55th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 19 - May 3) today announced the films in competition for the New Directors Prize and the Golden Gate Awards for documentary features. The International will award $70,000 in total prizes this year. The New Directors Prize of $15,000 will be given to a narrative first feature...

The Avignon/New York Film Festival, now in its bar-mitzvah year, will ply cinephiles with French and U.S. indie films—and, of course, paté and wine--from November 9-11 and 16-18 at Manhattan’s Hunter College-CUNY. Co-sponsored with Hunter’s Film & Media Studies Department, this “transAtlantic crossroads of independent cinema” will serve up five feature films from the U.S. and three from Europe, including New York City Serenade, by writer/director/actor Frank Whaley; Thomas Mignone’s...