With Americas’ longest running film fest – San Francisco International Film Festival – now into its – 68th edition, announcing its full complement of films set to wow and woo cineastes, Travel2Films’ S Viswanath* walks film buffs through what they can look forward to at the 11- day gala cinema carnival.

“Such was life in the Golden Gate: / Gold dusted all we drank and ate, / And I was one of the children told, / ‘We all must eat our peck of gold.” United States Poet Laureate Robert Lee Frost.

Yes folks! Americas’ longest running film festival is back. If the US of A’s Palm Springs International Film Festival 2025, Jan 2-13, kicks off the new calendar year’s retinue of film films, followed by Sundance Film Festival 2025, Jan 23– Feb 2 February,  Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2025, February 4-15 and Cleveland International Film Festival 2025, March 26 – April 5, the most eagerly awaited home festival by those residing in the Bay Area is of course the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Affirmatively stepping into its 68^th Edition, SFFILM, as it is otherwise known by its abbreviated form, and organised by the not for profit San Francisco Film Society, the SFFILM sets out each spring for two whole week showcasing the best of contemporary world cinemas for those who have made San Francisco Bay Area their home sweet home.

With over 150 films carefully curated and meticulously collated from over 50 countries across the globe, the San Francisco International film Festival – SFFILM runs from April 17 on up to April 27, 2025, hosting a multitude of filmmakers and their films, to the American audience while also revealing San Francisco’s very own celebrated and upcoming artiste to the world’s entertainment amphitheatre.

The 11-day rendezvous see the film festival bringing the best of this year’s global filmmaking to Bay Area audiences in theatres across San Francisco’s Marina and Presidio neighbourhoods, the Mission, and in Berkeley.

With 11 World Premieres, 10 International Premieres, 10 North American Premieres, and six US Premieres, the 68^th edition of the people’s festival promises a veritable treat for one and all.

According to SFFILM’s Director of Programming Jessie Fairbanks “the programme is packed with discovery titles, emerging storytellers, buzzy new films, A-list talent, and a special horror retrospective—that will be sure to delight audiences and filmmakers alike.”

“It has been a delight to curate over 150 films for this year’s festival and we cannot wait to welcome local and international creatives to the city by the Bay,” enthusiastically effused Jessie promising a veritable a la carte cinemas suiting the picky palates of every cinephile worth his/her hue.

Observing that all feature films in competition, special events, and Marquee sections are California premieres, she says, in addition to many filmmakers returning to the Festival, the programme also includes 11 SFFILM Supported titles which are projects that have received support from the organisation’s youth education and artist development programmes as grants, residencies, or funding, reflecting the year round mission of SFFILM.

A scene from the opening/inaugural film Rebuilding

As always has been the practice with film festivals, the inaugural film opening the 68^th SFFILM is Telluride, Colorado born Max Walker-Silverman’s debut 95 min Rebuilding, a poignant, intimate and timely exploration of communal love and resilience in the wake of devastating wildfires.

The film, which had its premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2025, is headlined by Josh O’Connor of the God’s Own Country film fame, as a stoic rancher resiliently setting out to restore his family’s ranch and rediscover his life’s purpose.

Likewise, New York’s Elena Oxman’s debut feature Outerlands brings the curtains down. Outerlands is described as a tale of discovery and acceptance, which was filmed in San Francisco and supported by SFFILM through the festival FilmHouse Residency and SFFILM Invest programme.

Oxman’s film, according to the festival organisers, leads a robust selection of Bay Area films as the largest-ever showcase of SFFILM supported projects, highlighting the region’s vibrant creative community.

The film centres round Cass, a gig worker in San Francisco balancing multiple jobs, including dealing party drugs, taking on an unintentional caretaker for an acquaintance’s child.

However, what starts as temporary childcare evolves into an unexpected journey of self-discovery and healing in this sweet local film about discovery, chosen family, and acceptance that when Kalli suddenly leaves town, and Cass is placed in charge of her quiet but headstrong 11-year-old daughter, Ari they have to reconcile to the possibility Ari has been abandoned.

As its Centrepiece Section paying tribute to producer Andre Holland, the festival features Rachael Abigail Holder’s Love, Brooklyn, which intimately and intricately examines the Black life through the film’s live triangle as it explores the sexual chemistry and textured relationships among the triad.

The festival’s International Narratives Section features a compendium of 35 choicest features from as many countries – from Ukraine to India to Colombia and beyond, this lineup of films takes the pulse of our global village – with two from India – one in Bengali and the other in Marathi. Incidentally, each of these films are competing in the three competition sections of the festival viz – New Directors, Global Visions and Cine Latino sections.

For one who has watched almost a handful of these films here is a few I would recommend for those attending the SFFILM to try out. The Panamanian film Beloved Tropic by Ana Endara is a beautiful one wherein an immigrant arrives to take care of an aging matriarch on the verge of dementia. How the relationship and bonding between the two despite their social and class disparities is a delectable drama not to be missed.

Another is Harvest from UK by Athina Rachel Tsangari. Set in the middle ages and based on Jim Crace’s acclaimed novel the film tracks the disruption brought into the lives of the residents of the village when the landowner seeks to modernise his vast property into modern, machine driven pasture and the resultant power dynamics that plays out between the labour and the landlord.

Set in the school campus wherein a motley group of boisterous teens are up to their neck in playing pranks and confront their principal over the surveillance system in the school even as earthquakes, political unrest and xenophobia sweeps the country is deftly brought out in the Japanese film Happyend by Neo Sora.

The Brazilian fare Manas by Marianna Brennand takes audiences right into the Amazon rainforest spotlighting on the struggles of the women who inhabit the Marajo Island through the two sisters who wish to escape from the shackling and constricting traditional expectations of women in the dense forest’s rural habit to freedom and liberty that the city promises.

Canadian R T Thorne’s 40 Acres is another recommended watch for its tense, nerve wrecking apocalyptic thriller tale centring around a family who have isolated and fenced themself from the world outside and whose idyllic existence turned asunder with the intrusion of an outsider amidst them changing the entire family dynamics.

Cloud by Japan’s Kiyoshi Kurosawa is another interesting chilling thriller watch about an online reseller who has to combat with unforeseen malevolent forces that disrupt his otherwise tranquil and unimpeded activities.

The Chilean flick The Hyperboreans by the director duo Cristóbal León & Joaquín Cociña is another interesting and engaging film, experimental in style and execution, talking about an actor, who, when the negative of a film she starred in disappears, embarks on a quest to recover it, as the Chilean history and legacy of fascist thinker Miguel Serrano, unfold simultaneously.

Likewise, Ink Wash by Sarra Tsorakidis from Romania which tacks a mural artist navigating personal and creative uncertainty after a painful breakup impresses with its cinematography and  contemplative journey of self-discovery, transformation, and renewal.

A sports centred drama Julie Keeps Quiet by Leonardo Van Diji from Belgium bespeaks of a real life episode wherein a rising tennis star goes into a stoic shell coming to terms with her coach’s suspension following sexual abuse charges of which she herself too was a victim. The film is a subtle exploration of how the victim combats the intrusion into her life as authorities probe the matter.

On a similar trail you have The Quiet Son by Delphine & Muriel Coulin from France examining an explosive father-son relationship when the parent – a railroad repairman in northeastern France, discovers his eldest son hangs around a group of right-wing extremists espousing nationalism and is given to violence while championing the cause.

The gut-wrenching and deeply affecting Tunisian film Red Path by Lotfi Achour Tunisia spotlights on a young shepherd, who witnesses a murder and is spared by the Mujahideen extremists returns home to process the harrowing trauma, survival, and horrors he’s endured, yet witnesses their ripple effects as his family mourns and struggles for justice.

Focusing on the trials and tribulations of a Guinean immigrant seeking asylum in France and is busily preparing for his interview Souleymane’s Story by Boris Lojkine, reminiscent of Vittorio de Sica’s classic Bicycle Thief, shows how the man’s life is thrown into a turmoil when his bicycle is stolen while on a delivery errand and how despite being tutored for the interview he fails to click at the crucial hour.

The slow paced, ruminative and reflective Vietnamese film Viet and Nam by Truong Minh Quý follows a two gay lovers Viet & Nam after the fall of Saigon who spend their days toiling in a coal mine and dream of brighter future only if they leave the country in this lyrical drama love story and devastating consequences Vietnam paid for its civil war.

The German fare Xoftex by Noaz Deshe presents a surreal portrait of life inside a notorious Greek refugee camp, where Syrian and Palestinian asylum seekers await news of their fate. As they await the bureaucratic red tape’s decision, they pass time making satirical sketches and planning zombie horror film — only to see sense dawn on them that their camp actually mirrors a nightmare of its own and they are actually in purgatory.

Among the other international narrative features include the South Korean defector-gay drama 3670 by Joonho Park, the heartwarming and emotive epic drama All That’s Left of You by Germany’s Cherien Dabis which charts the life and times of three generations of a Palestinian family over the course of 70 years amidst the unfolding political situation around them.

Then you have Anna Muylaert’s Brazilian  flick The Best Mother In The World whose 2015 film The Second Mother was such a marvellous beauty. Her latest too roadie movie also promises a feastful, crackling fare as it tracks a trash collector mother and her two kids to hit the streets with their pushcart after she leaves a domestic abusive situation.

The Botanist by Jing Yi as the Chinese fare suggests is about a young Kazakh boy with a passion for flora and fauna and a spirited Han Chinese girl who meets up and their resultant sojourn.

The Devil Smokes by Mexico’s Ernesto Martínez Bucio about five siblings fending for themselves in the wake of parental abandonment, the well-crafted film bagging the Berlinale’s inaugural Perspectives Award for fiction debut.

Ghost Trail by Jonathan Millet from France is both a political thriller and personal survival tale of a Syrian exile haunted by his past, wherein you have a former literature professor under cover is seeking out the guard who tortured him during his incarceration.

How a couple’s marital bliss goes on the rocks while celebrating with friends following the invasion of Russian soldiers invade their building amidst the Ukraine flare up forms the fulcrum of Honeymoon the Ukrainian fare by Zhanna Ozirna.

Colombia’s Horizon by César Augusto Acevedo revolving around the125 decades-long conflict which has claimed the lives of many in Colombia, Hot Milk by UK’s Rebecca Lenkiewicz about an unsettling mother/daughter story set over a sultry Spanish summer,

The Last First Time the Mexican flick by Rafael Ruiz Espejo about a teenager from a small Mexican town experiencing the first flush of love and sex as also sexuality in this gay drama, Olivia & The Clouds by Dominican Republic’s Tomás Pichardo Espaillat experimental and visually mesmerising exploration of love, memory, and the fluidity of perception, Gala del Sol’s Colombian fare Rains Over Babel which takes one into the neon-lit bar filled with colourful figures, drag queens, queers and trans sets the stage for an epic life-and-death adventure, as the players traverse through a kind of hell on earth in this dark comic fantasy inspired by Dante’s Inferno.

Winner of the Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize, the Marathi film Cactus Pears (Sabar Bonda) by Rohan Parashuram Kanawade is a queer tale which also touches upon the proverbial hierarchical class and caste divide themes in conservative India.

Like their Maharashtrian counterpart, the director duo Tanushree Das & Saumyananda Sahi in their Bengali drama Shadowbox charts the life of Maya who juggling several jobs – a laundry service, housekeeping, tending chickens – to fend for the family of teenage son and PTSD-afflicted veteran husband.  Ostracised by family and proud to seek help, her life comes asunder when hubby goes missing and she under suspicion of murder.

Sharp Corner by Jason Buxton from Canada, a psychological thriller about a man obsessed with preventing an accident in front of their yard, Sukkwan Island by France’s by Vladimir de Fontenay deals with a father-son bonding in a visually stunning adaptation of David Vann’s novella, That Summer In Paris by France’s Valentine Cadic speaks of how an aspiring swimmer seeking to participate in the Olympics is turned away as also by her own half -sister having travelled from Normandy to Paris comes to terms with her unexpected new situation forms the focus of this self-discovery film.

Thea Gajic’s Surviving Earth a UK feature revolves around a Yugoslav refugee detoxing himself counsels others on the path to recovery, but whose idyllic world starts to crumble slowly following a series of unfortunate happenings.

Bulgaria’s Triumph by Kristina Grozeva &  Petar Valchanov is described as a comedy of errors based on real life events set around 1990s Bulgaria grappling with the fall of communism, wherein a hapless general desperate to prove his worth off the battlefield sets upon a treasure hunt following the prophesy of his personal psychic that they can communicate with aliens, using a powerful artifact hidden in Bulgarian soil.

Tunisia’s Where the Wind Comes From by Amel Guellaty speaks of the youth’s aspiration to escape to a better world with an art contest in Germany providing that possible opportunity. It also focuses on the bonhomie between two friends who seek to make a meaning of their lives.

Winter in Sokcho by Koya Kamura is a poignant showcase of how the arrival of a mysterious guest at a boarding house in a snowy seaside town on South Korea’s east coast, upends an introspective young woman’s life, in this nuanced and delectable visually alluring meditation on identity, longing, and ephemeral nature of life.

The Narratives USA Section a septet of films is on offer: The Dutchman by Andre Gaines, Idiotka by Nastasya Popov, Isle Child by Thomas Percy Kim, Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) by Joel Alfonso Vargas, Operation Taco Gary’s by Michael Kvamme and Ricky by Rashad Frett.

Of course you have the documentaries, shorts, and a whole lot of other sectional screenings as well to look forward to. Well, with San Francisco turning into one ubiquitous Cinema Paradiso this April its time to let one’s cine hobby take the better of all things and regale and indulge in the multifarious and magnificent magic of movies. Vive la Cinema! Prosit!

by

S VISWANATH is a veteran film critic who officiates as JURY at several National & International Film Festivals. He deputises as CHIEF CINEMA CURATOR/PROGRAMMER & CREATIVE ADVISOR for Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFes). He also curates & advises on the selection of shorts & documentaries for Bengaluru International Short Film Festival (BISFF). Mr Viswanath is the author of “RANDOM REFLECTIONS: A Kaleidoscopic Musings on Kannada Cinema”.