2019 SF Documentary Festival – First Announcement!

TICKETS ON SALE MAY 1

Announcing the 18th SF Documentary Film Festival

May 29- June 13, 2019
Roxie Theater, Brava Theater, and 518 Valencia Gallery in San Francisco

The San Francisco Documentary Film Festival (SF DocFest) returns to San Francisco May 29-June 13, 2019 for the 18th edition of the festival. SF DocFest will screen acclaimed documentary feature and short films from around the world at the Roxie Theater, Brava Theater, and 518 Gallery in San Francisco. The complete lineup for SF DocFest will be announced Wednesday, May 1st.

Non-Fiction Vanguard Award: Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce
The San Francisco Documentary Film Festival is pleased to honor documentary filmmakers Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce with the 2019 Non-Fiction Vanguard Award. Argott and Joyce will be presented with the award during the festival and will be on hand for a screening of their latest film FRAMING JOHN DELOREAN.

Fresh from this year’s 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, Argott and Joyce’s film is a portrait of John Z. DeLorean. This film examines the enigmatic automaker’s rise to stardom and shocking fall from grace. Interviews with colleagues, employees, lawyers, friends and family who knew him best are interspersed with dramatized vignettes, including a performance by Alec Baldwin -as they all endeavor in their own ways to uncover the real DeLorean.

With the ongoing documentary renaissance, SF DocFest prides itself on recognizing those unconventional, creative risk-taking filmmakers that are redefining the nonfiction cinematic form and are someone to watch. Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce are the latest filmmakers the festival has recognized. Past honorees include Penny Lane (2018), Jamie Meltzer (2017), Sean Dunne (2016), Robert Greene (2014) and Melody Gilbert (2008).

Early Confirmed films for the 18th SF DocFest 

BENDING LINES: THE SCULPTURE OF ROBERT WIGGS

Director: Peter Dehart
BENDING LINES uncovers an amateur mathematician, obscured by time and his profession, whose work communicates the universal quest to discover the essence of the natural world. The film is a story of obsession, vision, and enduring conversation between art and science.

BARSTOW, CA

Director: Rainer Komers
The third part of the American West Trilogy (NOME ROAD SYSTEM and MILLTOWN, MONTANA), BARSTOW, CA is a film about the life and landscape of the Mojave Desert. It examines an American life that neoliberal policies have long forgotten. Poet and inmate Stanley “Spoon” Jackson, who began serving a life sentence in 1977 without the possibility of parole and has served time in more than a half dozen California state prisons, reads excerpts from his autobiography ByHeart.B ARSTOW,CAlooksatwhatlifeislikeontheoppositesideofthe American Dream.

FRAMING JOHN DELOREAN

Director: Don Argott, Sheena M. Joyce
A documentary fused with narrative scenes, this portrait of John Z. DeLorean covers the enigmatic automaker’s rise to stardom and shocking fall from grace. Interviews with colleagues, employees, lawyers, friends and family who knew him best are interspersed withdramatized vignettes, including a performance by Alec Baldwin -as they all endeavor in their own ways to uncover the real DeLorean.

WAITING FOR THE PUNCHLINE

Director: Mat Hames
In Rooster Teeth’s WAITING FOR THE PUNCHLINE, documentary filmmaker Mat Hames captures the gritty stand up comedy club scene of San Francisco through the rise of Nick Scarpino, highly successful podcaster by day, who by night endures harsh rejection in dive bars as he attempts to earn credibility as a standup comedian.

PARIAH DOG

Director: Jesse Alk
PARIAH DOG is a poetic, feature-length documentary which follows several local characters who dedicate their lives to feeding and caring for hundreds of street dogs in Kolkata, India. Working alone, often with limited means, these men and women spend every waking moment caring for the animals they see suffering around them. Sometimes called crazy, sometimes abused like the dogs they love, they struggle on unnoticed. This film tells their story, and the story of the dogs who live and die on the streets of this vibrant, but chaotic city.

SALVAGE
Director: Amy C. Elliott
SALVAGE is a feature-length documentary about the city dump in Yellowknife, Canada. In Yellowknife, the remote capitol of the Northwest Territories, the town dump is the city’s most popular and notorious man made attraction, mined by a colorful community of thrifty locals. But the new city administration is determined to see it tamed, and the battle for Yellowknife’s identity is on.

WE ARE NOT PRINCESSES

Director: Bridgette Auger, Itab Azzam
This film offers a unique peek into the private lives of women who have survived unspeakable sorrow, yet blossom through the healing power of art. During a theater workshop in a Lebanese refugee camp, four Syrian women discover they have a lot in common with the ancient Greek heroine, Antigone, and experience freedoms forbidden in their homeland. Told with humor and heart, WE ARE NOT PRINCESSES elicits intimacy and honesty from its unlikely group of thespians.

A GROWING THING

Director: Sarah Gross
A GROWING THING is a feature length documentary about women living in a township near Johannesburg, South Africa and the women’s empowerment project where they work.
3In Rooster Teeth’s WAITING FOR THE PUNCHLINE, documentary filmmaker Mat Hames captures the gritty stand up comedy club scene of San Francisco through the rise of Nick Scarpino, highly successful podcaster by day, who by night endures harsh rejection in dive bars as he attempts to earn credibility as a standup comedian.