G. Allen Johnson April 2, 2021
John Boyega stars in “Naked Singularity,” which will make its world premiere as the opening night film of the 2021 San Francisco International Film Festival on April 9. Photo: SFFilm
Programming a film festival in 2021 has an inherent difficulty: Because of the coronavirus pandemic, filmmakers toiling away in 2020 were challenged like never before.
Worries about budget and resources are a constant in independent filmmaking; adding COVID-19 protocols to the mix affected everything from where to film to whom you hire for your crew and whom you cast.
So it’s quite the first San Francisco International Film Festival for programmer Jessie Fairbanks, who took over for longtime programmer Rachel Rosen this year. To her surprise, she found the quality of work she had to choose from to be inspiring.
G. Allen Johnson January 27, 2021Updated: January 28, 2021, 6:21 pm
Anne Lai, a former Sundance Institute executive, became the executive director of SFFilm on March 11. Photo: Pamela Gentile, SFFilm
Last year, Anne Lai left Utah’s Sundance Institute and moved to the Bay Area to lead SFFilm. She never dreamed that when the Sundance Film Festival returned on Thursday, Jan. 28, it would be screening films near her new home in San Mateo and not in its base in Park City, Utah.
That’s because the first major film festival of 2021 is mostly virtual, with select in-person events happening around the country, including drive-in screenings at Fort Mason Flix on the San Francisco waterfront.