On November 16, 2011, SFGFF hosted the SF premiere of Leslie Iwerks’ Pipe Dreams and distributed our pilot “Lights! Camera! Take Action!” handouts. The film explores the largest environmental battle in the US today – the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Read more

Here, in the latest in our series of posts that go behind the scenes with the Festival's film directors, we meet two filmmakers with a passion for the great outdoors. We had a simple question, can you send us a photo of yourself with your favorite piece of film kit. Of course, we received some stunning photos in return and some surprising answers. At this year's Festival we're thrilled to be screening shorts from both of these local filmmakers, Mark Decena and Kevin White. 

Read more

The 16th UNAFF (United Nations Association Film Festival) from October 17-27, 2013 in Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, San Francisco and Stanford University celebrates the power of documentary films dealing with human rights issues, the environment, racism, women’s issues, universal education, war and peace.

The theme for this year is INDIVIDUAL TO UNIVERSAL.

The San Francisco Green Film Festival proudly co-presents three films as part of this year's UNAFF:

Read more

Join the San Francisco Green Film Festival for a special screening of With My Own Two Wheels, a film about the bicycle as a vehicle for change around the world.

Screening followed by panel discussion with activists and members of the bicycle community, including:

~ Rose Aguilar, "Your Call", KALW (moderator)

~ Paul Freedman, Founder, Rock the Bike

~ Julian Rhoads, IDEX, San Francisco

~ Maya Carson, Co-Director, Cycles of Change, Oakland

Read more

Featuring groundbreaking footage from seven winters in the Arctic, People of a Feather takes the audience through time into the world of Inuit on the Belcher Islands in Hudson Bay. Connecting past, present, and future is a unique cultural relationship with the eider duck. Recreations of traditional life are juxtaposed with modern life in Sanikiluaq, as both people and eiders face the challenges posed by changing sea ice and ocean currents disrupted by the massive hydroelectric dams powering eastern North America. The eyes of a remote subsistence culture challenge the world to find energy solutions that work with the seasons of our hydrological cycle.

Read more

This compelling Emmy Award winning documentary shows the dirty side of hydraulic fracturing and natural gas, an energy source the industry touts as a clean alternative to fossil fuels. Imagine discovering that you don't own the mineral rights under your land, and that an energy company plans to drill for natural gas two hundred feet from your front door. Imagine having little recourse, other than accepting an unregulated industry in your backyard.

Read more

Sat 03.03 // 5:30 PM

SF Film Society Cinema, 1748 Post St.

USA Premiere.

In person: Gary Marcuse, Director; Betsy Carson, Producer; Peter Bosshard. Policy Director, International Rivers; Katy Yan, China Program Coordinator, International Rivers.

Read more

Fri 03.02 // 7:45 PM

SF Film Society Cinema, 1748 Post St. 

San Francisco Premiere.

In person: Anthony Baxter

Special Double Bill Presentation with LOCAL HERO!

Read more

Sat 03.03 // 3:30 PM SF Film Society Cinema, 1748 Post St. ON COAL RIVER Francine Cavanaugh and Adams Wood USA, 2011, 81 min. Buy Tickets Ed Wiley is a former coal miner and is emblematic of the culture of the Appalachian Region – rugged, opinionated, community-minded, and unwilling to back down in the face of steep odds. Described by Variety as a story of “Hillbilly Davids” besting a “corporate Goliath”, On Coal River follows Wiley and his allies as they wage a campaign to relocate an elementary school which his granddaughter attends that is threatened by the likelihood that a pond containing toxic coal waste will engulf it when an aging retaining wall eventually fails. It also follows the story of ex-Marine Bo Webb, who is angry over the despoliation of the valley he loves by coal companies that engage in mountain top removal. The full environmental impacts of this practice, however, are felt by people like Maria Lambert and her neighbors, who have had their drinking water contaminated as a result. Giving time to both sides of the issue, the film-makers of On Coal River do an extraordinary job of capturing the struggles of ordinary people fighting to save what remains of a valley that they and their families have called home for generations. In the process, they beautifully capture the true human and environmental costs of “cheap”, dirty energy. ~ Mark Valentine oncoalriver.com Preceded by: The Windmill Farmer, Joaquin Baldwin, USA, 2010, 5 mins. Co-presented with the Bay Area Video Coalition and CounterCorp Anti-Corporate Film Festival.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/9LcmmeZ-V3g?rel=0&hd=1

Wed 03.07 // 5:30 PM SF Film Society Cinema, 1748 Post St. FUTURE OF HOPE Henry Bateman UK/Iceland, 2010, 75 min. San Francisco Premiere. Buy Tickets In 2008, Iceland’s entire banking system collapsed in the wake of the global financial crisis. As a consequence, the country’s economic and political systems were shaken to their core. Future of Hope tells the story of how a cross-section of Icelandic society decided to use the crisis as an opportunity to reconsider the country’s economic development path. Featuring imaginative use of animation, a killer soundtrack (featuring artists from Iceland, Ireland, and the UK, including Damien Rice), and Iceland’s ruggedly beautiful landscape, the film chronicles a grassroots movement determined to reinvent the Icelandic society and economy around the principles of sustainable development. Can organic farming, renewable energy, and green technology be the anchors of a new economy? Can a country with the oldest sitting parliament reinvent its model of democracy to create greater transparency and more accountability? With the emergence of the Occupy movement and the teetering of the Euro-zone economies, the issues being debated in Iceland’s parliament and on the streets of Reykjavik are now finally part of a global conversation. Filmed in 2010, the Future of Hope is in some ways prescient and tells a remarkable story of collapse, recovery, redemption, and reinvention to which the rest of the world should pay attention. - Mark Valentine www.futureofhope.co.uk Preceded by: National Parks Project: Sirmilik, Zacharias Kunuk, Canada, 2011, 10 mins. Screening sponsored by New Resource Bank and Presidio Graduate School. Co-presented with the Business Council on Climate Change [BC3].