The San Francisco Independent Film Festival, known as IndieFest, is an annual

film festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upon ...

, held in January or February, that recognizes contemporary

independent film An independent film, independent movie, indie film, or indie movie is a feature film or short film that is produced outside the major film studio system, in addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies (or, i ...

. It is run by SF IndieFest, a nonprofit organization, and based at the

Roxie Theater The Roxie Theater, also known as the Roxie Cinema or just The Roxie, is a historic movie theater, founded in 1912, at 3117 16th Street in the Mission District of San Francisco. It is a non-profit community arthouse cinema. History The Roxie is o ...

in the

Mission District The Mission District (Spanish: ''Distrito de la Misión''), commonly known as The Mission (Spanish: ''La Misión''), is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. One of the oldest neighborhoods in San Francisco, the Mission District's name is ...

History

The San Francisco Independent Film Festival was founded in 1998 by Jeff Ross, operations manager of the

San Francisco International Film Festival The San Francisco International Film Festival (abbreviated as SFIFF), organized by the San Francisco Film Society, is held each spring for two weeks, presenting around 200 films from over 50 countries. The festival highlights current trends in in ...

and office manager of the

San Francisco Film Society SFFILM, formerly known as The San Francisco Film Society, is a nonprofit arts organization located in San Francisco, California, that presents year-round programs and events in film exhibition, media education, and filmmaker services. The Execut ...

, at the end of a decade when independent films had increased in importance. The impetus was that San Francisco independent filmmaker Rand Alexander was unable to find a venue in the city to show ''Caged'', which had premiered at the

Slamdance Film Festival The Slamdance Film Festival is an annual film festival focused on emerging artists. The annual week-long festival takes place in Park City, Utah, in late January and is the main event organized by the year-round Slamdance organization, which als ...

. The first festival took place in January 1999 and comprised 20 films, with a focus on experimental and otherwise unconventional works. The second IndieFest was held in January 2000, expanding from four days to nine, and the festival has continued to take place in January or February and further expanded to two weeks. The 2000 IndieFest added cartoon shorts; in 2002, despite losing corporate sponsorship in the wake of

9/11 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

, the festival added foreign films. Ross directed the festival alone until a program director, Bruce Fletcher, was added. IndieFest is now based at the

in the

; it began at the

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, also in the Mission, and has used other Bay Area theaters including the United Artists Galaxy, the

Castro Theatre The Castro Theatre is a historic movie palace in San Francisco that became San Francisco Historic Landmark #100 in September 1976. Located at 429 Castro Street in the Castro District, it was built in 1922 with a California Churrigueresque façad ...

, the Brava, the

Alamo Drafthouse The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is an American cinema chain founded in 1997 in Austin, Texas, which is famous for serving dinner and drinks during the movie, as well as its strict policy of requiring its audiences to maintain proper cinema-going etiq ...

, the Lumiere, and the Fine Arts Cinema in

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

. It has become known for the associated parties, particularly the Big Lebowski party. The 20th IndieFest, in 2018, included a film from each previous festival. The 2021 festival, held during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, was

streamed Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

. The 2022 festival had a mix of screenings at the Roxie and virtual events.

Associated events

SF IndieFest also runs the spin-off film festivals DocFest, the SF Documentary Film Festival, started in 2001, Another Hole in the Head, a horror and science fiction festival started in 2003, the San Francisco Independent Short Film Festival, started in 2019, and the Livable Planet Festival, which was launched in 2021 as a replacement for the

San Francisco Green Film Festival The San Francisco Green Film Festival was an environmental film festival which was held annually from 2011 to 2019. History The festival was founded by Rachel Caplan, who had previously worked for the Edinburgh Film Festival, the San Francisc ...

, which folded after the COVID-19 pandemic forced cancellation of the 2020 festival, and was rebranded in 2022 as the Green Film Festival of San Francisco. The first Decibels Music Film Festival took place in fall 2021 at the Roxie and online. Past associated festivals included the Northern California Action Sports Film Festival and the US edition of the International Short Film Festival. A week-long Winter Music Fest was added in 2010, taking place the week before the film festival; starting in 2011, it ran concurrently and the number of music-related films was increased. Ross also started A Mighty Ruckus, a

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

festival.

Film categories

The San Francisco Independent Film Festival has separate film entry categories for general entrants and for Bay Area filmmakers. Both have sub-categories for length (features and shorts) and genre (narrative fiction, documentary, and animation).

Awards

The SF IndieFest awards panel confers the following awards: * Audience Award for Best Feature Drama * Audience Award for Best Feature Comedy * Audience Award for Best Feature Documentary * Audience Award for Best Short Drama * Audience Award for Best Short Comedy * Audience Award for Best Short Documentary * Audience Award for Best Animated Short * Audience Award for Best Midnight Movie * Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature * Jury Prize for Best Documentary Feature * Jury Prize for Best Narrative Short * Jury Prize for Best Documentary Short * Jury Prize for Best Animated Short * Screenplay Competition Best Feature Script * Screenplay Competition Best Short Script * Vanguard Award, recognizing "unconventional, creative risk-taking filmmakers that are redefining the cinematic form"

References

{{California Documentary film festivals in the United States Film festivals in the San Francisco Bay Area Film festivals established in 1998