San Francisco Film Society Presents Second SFFS Film Arts Forum: Sundance Confidential December 8 at Mezzanine

Full Evening for Local Filmmakers and Cineastes Exploring, Extolling and Demystifying the Sundance Film Festival and Sundance Institute

November 17, 2008

San Francisco, CA – The San Francisco Film Society will present SFFS Film Arts Forum: Sundance Confidential at 7:00 pm on Monday, December 8 at Mezzanine, 444 Jessie Street. Sundance Confidential will explore, extol and demystify the force in independent filmmaking that is Sundance. Local Sundance alum filmmakers, industry professionals, SFFS Filmmakers Advisory Board members, SFFS staff and other insiders will share thoughts and experiences about Sundance.

The evening will begin by spotlighting Deann Borshay Liem’s Precious Objects of Desire and Jennifer Maytorena Taylor’s New Muslim Cool, two documentaries by local filmmakers that were selected for the prestigious Sundance Institute Documentary Film Edit and Story Laboratory. The filmmakers and their editors will show clips from their film and discuss their approaches to film structure and the collaborative relationship between director and editor. Veteran and local filmmaker Sam Green (The Weather Underground, SFIFF and Sundance 2003, and Oscar nominee for best documentary feature 2004), who served as the lab’s director advisor, will share a sneak peak at his film, The World’s Largest Shopping Mall.

The program continues with a panel discussion covering a range of issues to consider when tackling the Sundance Film Festival. Panelists include marketing specialist and Sundance alum filmmaker Tiffany Shlain (The Tribe, Sundance 2006); CEO of Roco Films, international sales agent and Sundance regular Annie Roney; and seasoned local publicist Chris Wiggum.

All participating vendors, SFFS staff, filmmakers and crew will be available for further discussion throughout the evening. The Film Arts Forum, an activity-packed evening for local filmmakers and cineastes, is an entire conference in the span of a few hours.

Additional initiatives created by the Film Society since August to bolster Bay Area filmmakers are SFFS FilmHouse Residencies, a partnership with the San Francisco Film Commission, that offers production offices—free of charge—to local filmmakers in various stages of production; SFFS Filmmakers Advisory Board, an active group of established Bay Area film professionals whose role is to aid in further developing SFFS Filmmaker Services; and Herbert Family Filmmaking Grants, awards totaling $25,000 designed to foster the creativity and further the careers of independent Bay Area filmmakers.

Tickets $5 year-round SFFS members, $8 general, available in advance at www.sffs.org.
For more information, http://www.sffs.org/events/films/event_forum_sundance.html.

Coming in February: SFFS Film Arts Forum: Online Distribution delves into the benefits and challenges of the brave new, rapidly changing world of independent film distribution.

The San Francisco Film Society is a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to celebrating film and the moving image in all its glorious forms. SFFS year-round programs and events are concentrated in four core areas: Celebrating Internationalism; Inspiring Bay Area Youth; Showcasing Bay Area Film Culture; and Exploring New Digital Media. The Film Society shows the best of world cinema year-round on its SFFS Screen at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas; presents the longest-running film festival in the Americas, the SF International (April 23–May 7, 2009), publishes a daily online magazine, SF360.org, with broad-ranging news and features on Bay Area film and media; and annually reaches more than 7,000 students ages 6–18 with its acclaimed media literacy programs, among many other activities.

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