My 17 Favorite (Unseen) Photos from SFIFF 2012

by Bill Proctor

Photo by Tommy Lau

It all starts here! This is the core staff for SFIFF55, who all worked their asses off to make the Festival happen. Photo by George F. Gund

One of my favorite red carpet moments was early in the Festival, when the folks from The Fourth Dimension came through for their world premiere.  Here’s Harmony Korine and Val Kilmer, whose segment “The Lotus Community Workshop” kinda blew my mind. Photo by Tommy Lau.

One of the highlights at SFIFF every year is the pairing of silent films with contemporary musicians performing new scores, and this year we had Merrill Garbus and tUnE-yArDs with Ava Mendoza accompanying Buster Keaton shorts. It was an inspired match, and everyone had a blast. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

One of my favorite sights on earth: a full Castro Theatre.  Any time I see this, I know we’re doing something right. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

Look at this classy guy.  Kenneth Branagh came to town to receive the Founder’s Directing Award at the Festival this year, and just charmed the pants off everyone.  This arrival photo just kills me; it doesn’t get any smoother than that. Photo by Tommy Lau.

We gave a new award this year in honor of our late friend and leader Graham Leggat, which went to Benh Zeitlin.  Beasts of the Southern Wild is amazing, and I know Graham would have loved it and would have gotten along famously with Benh. Photo by Tommy Lau.

On day four of the Festival, a fire alarm went off at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas and cleared the building, spilling six packed houses onto the sidewalk in front.  For me this moment is a great testament to the skill and efficiency of our Operations crew, who got everyone out, then back in, and got those films running again with a minimum of disruption to the day’s schedule.  Those guys rock. Photo by Tommy Lau.

The Closing Night film at SFIFF55 was Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey, and we had all the members of Journey there to help celebrate their hometown premiere.  New frontman Arnel Pineda is an amazing guy and is super down-to-earth considering the hurricane of superstardom that has swept him up. Photo by Tommy Lau.

The event I was most sorry to miss this year was David OReilly Says Something, at which the animator showed selections from his work, and then…apparently said something.  His stuff is super weird (check him out here), and I would have loved to hear more about it. Photo by Stefan Jora.

For the duration of the Festival we were also presenting an exhibition in our KinoTek series of cross-platform and multimedia work, featuring interactive artist Karolina Sobecka.  Very cool stuff.  My favorite piece was the projection of a dog in the window in front of the gallery, which would bark at people and interact with them as they walked by on the sidewalk. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

Probably the hottest ticket at SFIFF this year was Sam Green’s live cinema program The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller.  I had the great honor to be there; the piece was moving, funny, informative, entertaining and just plain fascinating.  And oh yeah, that’s Yo La Tengo in the back supplying tunes.  No big deal. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

I’m not really sure what’s happening in this photo, but I have a crazy crush on Rosemarie DeWitt, and she can do whatever her adorable self wants. Also, Your Sister’s Sister was awesome. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

Barbara Kopple, who was selected for this year’s Persistence of Vision Award, shares a moment of mutual adoration with our Rachel Rosen. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

My favorite portrait of the year has to be this one of Chris Nilan, subject of Alex Gibney’s doc The Last Gladiators, about violence in ice hockey and the role of “the enforcer” on the team.  This guy got famous beating by dudes bloody and never losing a fight, and doing so WHILE WEARING ICE SKATES.  Bad ass. Photo by Pamela Gentile.

Local filmmaker Barry Jenkins emcee’d the Golden Gate Awards this year, and did a fantastic job.  Also, he can wear the hell out of a suit. Photo by Pat Mazzera.

And it all ends with a party!  It’s always satisfying to get that last bit of business out of the way on Closing Night and hit the bar to (finally!) start to unwind after 15 days of nonstop work.  A bittersweet moment, to be sure. Photo by Tommy Lau.

Here are a few of my favorite photos taken at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival.  It’s my great pleasure to work closely with the outrageously talented photographers that document our big show every year, and they captured some fantastic moments in 2012.

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