San Francisco Film Society

This Hewlett Foundation grant to the San Francisco Film Society will support the dissemination of the award-winning Mexican documentary Presumed Guilty, to audiences that are usually overlooked by conventional documentary distribution. Targeted screenings will reach out to law students, law professors and deans nation-wide; groups of prisoners and their families, and vulnerable youth. Hewlett Foundation provided the seed funding for the film, which became an incredible vehicle for disseminating some of the research that our program have supported for many years about the urgent need for justice reform in Mexico. The research findings are highlighted in the film and are a plea for greater transparency and accountability in Mexico's justice system, and for the implementation of the Constitutional Reform that requires the adoption of an adversarial type of criminal procedures all over the country.

The San Francisco Film Society (SFFS), presenter of the world’s longest continuous international film festival as well as year-round screenings, symposia and film-related classes, is a $4.5 million non-profit organization. In 2008 the Foundation provided a $240,000 grant to enable SFFS to take over a suite of filmmaker service programs from another Hewlett grantee (the Film Arts Foundation) that was going out of business. The SFFS has thus far successfully incorporated the fiscal sponsorship program, the educational curricula and carried forward the membership benefits programs as anticipated, and has also partnered with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation to launch a substantial re-granting program for the region’s independent filmmakers. These new activities, combined with the exploration of a capital project in San Francisco’s Presidio district, have made a thorough business planning process high priorities for the organization. With support the SFFS will proceed to Phases 2 and 3 of a planning process already underway that will result in a Board approved five-year business plan.

The San Francisco Film Society, presenter of the world’s longest continuous international film festival as well as year-round screenings, symposia and film-related classes, will establish a suite of programs that collectively forge a Filmmaker Services division for the $4.5 $million non-profit organization. Under the direction of executive director Graham Leggett, SFFS has successfully negotiated with the Film Arts Foundation (FAF)(a current Hewlett grantee) to adopt core services that FAF is no longer able to provide as a result of fiscal mismanagement and a determination to close operations altogether by the end of 2009 (see application summary for grant #2008-2743 for further explanation). With Hewlett funding SFFS will be able to add 3-4 former FAF staff members to its 20 person team and launch the following filmmaker programs. 1)Educational programming to consist of 36 courses a year teaching filmmakers non-technical subjects such as screenwriting, fundraising and marketing. 2)Membership extended to all 1,700 of FAF’s current members in good standing free of charge consisting of discounts on classes, fiscal sponsorship eligibility, discounted submission fees to SFIFF and screening series, invitations to preview screenings, passes to local video stores (after year 1, cost to former FAF members and anyone else is $90/year - $10 more than FAF’s current fee). 3)Fiscal Sponsorship offered to all 250 of FAF’s current projects (50% of which were active in 2007) and served by long-time FAF staff members 4)Publications will include both the online absorption of the filmmaker resources section of FAF’s print publication (Release Print) consisting of call for entries, classified listings) and the creation of a bi-monthly 32 page tabloid-format magazine for SFFS members and the general public SFFS has cultivated a global reputation for programming the best in international cinema bringing films (both with and without distribution) to the Bay Area as well as screening feature, documentary and short-subject films by local filmmakers. With over a hundred thousand annual patrons and a savvy marketing team the SFFS has successfully branded itself (and attracted impressive corporate sponsorship) as a slick institution presenting great movies. Though it has increased its year-round programming. curated a Bay Area filmmakers-only Golden Gate Award component to its annual festival, and even hired many local filmmakers as festival screeners and staff, the SFFS has neither developed the services (nor built the trust) necessary to connect the benefits and opportunities created by having an international stature and acclaim to the independent filmmaking community of Northern California. This grant will support an effort to establish that connection and will do so at a time when, in the face of FAF’s dissolution, it is sorely needed. ($240,000/3 17% of project budget)