Celebrating 20 Years of Independent Cinema in San Francisco

Welcome!

Twenty years ago I realized there wasn’t a venue in San Francisco for new independent films by young, adventurous film makers and launched SF IndieFest to showcase a few of them. Much to everyone’s surprise, 3000 people came out to the Roxie and Victoria Theaters to see about a dozen feature films with no stars and no marketing budgets to promote them.

Things have changed quite a bit since then in San Francisco and in how we all discover new artists. IndieFest, though now with more films and more screenings then back then, is pretty much still doing the same thing. We are all about discovering your new favorite filmmaker and championing alternative and independent film making.

This year’s festival is back at the Roxie and Victoria to present 33 new feature films and 51 new shorts. We also look back at our 20 year history with a retrospective film series consisting of one film chosen to represent each year of our past. We are presenting some of our staple events (the Big Lebowski Party, the Anti-Valentine’s Day 80s Power Ballad Sing A Long, Bad Art Gallery) and introducing some new ones, including a live reading and panel to celebrate our very first Screenplay Writing Contest winners.

We have a selection of amazing films in the festival, kicking off with our opening night “NYC-music-and-dance-program” of STUCK followed by a retrospective presentation of Girl Walk//All Day. Your opening night ticket includes an open bar, pizza from Paxti and a very good time!

The fest wraps with Our Turkel’s THE MISOGYNISTS, an almost perfect “IndieFest Film.” In between there are dozens of narratives, docs, shorts, animation of all styles and genres. There is definitley something for everyone!

I hope you can set aside some time the first two weeks of February to see some of the best new indie films from around the world (and around The Bay), and look back to see how we and the genre of independent cinema have grown over the past two decades.

We are thankful to all our fans, supporters, filmmakers, volunteers and partners that help make this film festival stay Festive!

Jeff Ross

Founder/Director

SF IndieFest