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Filmmaking Resources

Bay Area Film Festivals

The longest-running film festival in the Americas, the San Francisco International Film Festival is an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and a major cultural event in the Bay Area.

The San Francisco International Film Festival is held each spring for two weeks, presenting around 200 films from over 50 countries. The festival highlights current trends in international film and video production with an emphasis on work that has not yet secured U.S. distribution.

​SF IndieFest is a year-round, non-profit organization that has been operating since 1998. They currently present six annual festivals: the SF Independent Film Festival (SF Indie for short), the SF Documentary Festival (DocFest for short), the SF Independent Short Film Festival (IndieShorts), Another Hole in the Head, their genre film festival and the new Green Film Festival (environmental films) and Decibels Film Festival (music-on-film).

he Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival is an annual independent film festival held each March in San Jose, California and Redwood City, California. The international festival combines the cinematic arts with Silicon Valley’s innovation.

 

In addition to over 130 world or U.S. premieres from over 30 countries, the festival hosts writer's events including screenwriting competitions, a shorts program, technology and artistic forums and workshops, student programs, and a silent film accompanied on the theatre organ.

Founded by award winning independent filmmakers who were involved with the "independent underground cinema revolution" in the early and mid-1960’s, Berkeley Video + Film Festival was created in 1990 to provide a venue for independent film and video makers.

MVFF provides a forum for introducing new films to West coast audiences. Presented by the California Film Institute, the Mill Valley Film Festival takes place in early October. With a reputation for launching new films and creating awards season buzz, MVFF has earned a reputation as a 'filmmakers' festival" by celebrating the best in American independent and world cinema alongside high profile and prestigious award contenders.

Each year, the 11-day festival welcomes more than 200 filmmakers and 60,000 attendees from around the world. The festival also features tributes and spotlights to acclaimed filmmakers, screenwriters and actors. Screenings are usually held at the Christopher B Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, the Sequoia Theatre in Mill Valley, the Cinema in Corte Madera, and the Lark Theatre in Larkspur.

Presented by The Oakland Film Society, The Oakland International Film Festival promotes independent filmmakers and the stories they tell. The Oakland International Film Festival is an annual showcase of independent films from around the world including films “Made in Oakland”. Typically held at various venues in the City of Oakland, The Oakland International Film Festival consists of film screenings, workshops/panels, special events and parties.

Other Film Festivals to Check Out
  • CAAM Fest  - CAAMFest is presented every March in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States as the nation’s largest showcase for new Asian American and Asian films

  • American Indian Film Institute - The American Indian Film Festival is an annual non-profit film festival in San Francisco, California, United States. It is the world's oldest venue dedicated solely to Native American/First Nations films and prepared the way for the 1979 formation of the American Indian Film Institute.

  • Tiburon International Film Festival Tiburon International Film Festival is an annual event showcasing independent feature and short films from around the world. The festival is open to all genres: fiction, documentary, short, animation, music, children, student, etc.

  • Los Angeles Film Festivals - LA Film Festivals is a creative hub for Los Angeles’s top independent film festivals. They proudly host the LA Comedy Film Festival, LA Indie Film Festival, LA Queer Film Festival, LA Women in Film Festival, LA Black Film Festival, LA Asian Film Festival, LA Latinx Film Festival, LA Sci-Fi Film Festival, LA Action Film Festival, LA Horror Film Festival, LA Animated Film Festival, and LA Student Film Festival.

Film Festivals For High School Students

HS Film Festivals

​NATAS Student Awards encourages the pursuit of excellence in video production and focuses public attention on outstanding achievements produced by students. Student Awards for excellence are awarded by the Regional Chapter of The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. 26 categories are available to enter into and any film a student produces in class is eligible for submission for free. See full rules for details.

Film Freeway is a resource to help anyone find film festivals and submit their work in one place. Many websites to individual film festivals will have a link to their film freeway page, but here are links for some of the festivals mentioned on this page.

AAHSFF is the largest student film festival in the world. Each October, thousands of student filmmakers travel to New York City for an action-packed weekend of resources and entertainment, including their Teen Indie Awards Show, where AAHSFF hands out over $500,000 in prizes and scholarships.

High School Film Programs

Film Progams

PBS Student Reporting Labs is a summer program for teachers and students.  They also have projects/assignments throughout the year based on whatever is happening in the world. If they like your story, they air it Nationally on the PBS Newshour. You can also participate in any of their projects, the ones for the upcoming school year are:

  • Winter 2021 Projects: Skill Level: Intermediate/Advanced. Students practice full suite of storytelling skills – pre-production, production, post, to create a 3-5 minute video news story or package

  • Education During a Pandemic: Students explore ways the pandemic has changed education by producing a 2-5 minute news story with interviews, b-roll, and/or voiceover narration. 

  • Justice For All: Students explore justice in their own community, and use solutions journalism to produce a story about how people are working to create “justice for all.”

  • Mental Health Podcast: Students learn how to make their own podcast episode, resulting in an audio story about a young person and their experience with mental health.

Student Television Network (STN) is a United States based association of high school and middle school broadcasting, film and media programs. They work with teachers to provide support and tools for the classroom. STN also hosts several contests for students and a convention that brings together over 3,000 students and teachers for four days of professional sessions, contests, and interaction with peers.

Student Television Network embraces the educational components of broadcast journalism, video production, filmmaking and media by networking students and teachers with professionals in the industry. Middle school and high school students are given varied opportunities for training, interaction, competition and critiques from qualified experts.

Guest Speakers

Guest Speakers
Frazer Bradshaw

Frazer Bradshaw makes films, both as a director and as a cinematographer. Frazer attended a fine arts high school, where he got an early foundation in the traditional visual arts. Not until his fifth year of art school did he first begin working in film. As a director, Frazer is driven by the art/content side of filmmaking and by the medium's capacity to communicate the complex and the profound. Frazer's first directorial feature, Everything Strange and New, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009, and went on to win an International Film Critics Prize, and the Cinevision Award in Munich. It was also nominated for two Gotham Awards and an Independent Spirit Award. Everything Strange and New played theatrically in major markets and is in distribution through IndiePix. He has also made a number of short works, most notably, Every Day Here, which played Sundance in 2000 and Could Have Been Utah and The Rest of the World, which screened at the New York Film Festival in 2001 and 2003, respectively. As a Cinematographer, Frazer is driven by the art and craft of creating visual images that serve the director's vision and the film, overall. He has shot 13 narrative features and nearly as many documentary features, including Jamie Meltzer's Informant (2013) and work on the Focus Features release Babies (2010), as well as too many short subjects to count, and a plethora of commercial projects.

Pete Nicks

Peter Nicks is an Emmy Award-winning director, known for his immersive camera work and vérité style. He won this year's Sundance Directing prize for his second documentary, "The Force" (2017). He previously directed the critically acclaimed documentary "The Waiting Room" (2012), the first in a trilogy of timely, immersive docus exploring the interconnected narratives of health care, criminal justice and education in Oakland, CA. He received his B.A. from Howard University and his M.A. from UC Berkeley.

David Collier

David Collier has been a prominent figure in the film and video world since 1985. David enjoys the scope of his job, which ranges from visual artist and story-teller to business entrepreneur. He takes great pleasure in working with clients to get at the heart of their message and weave it into a creative, visual treatment.
Straight out of college, David directed and produced For Better or For Worse, a film that explores the lives and relationships of five feisty couples married for fifty years or longer. It earned him several awards, including an Academy Award nomination and brought him a wonderful range of documentary jobs for PBS, BBC, Discovery, MTV and Animal Planet. David sees his work as a license to be curious. Over the years, he has been fortunate to work with a wide-spectrum of clients including Adobe, Adidas, Gap, Clif Bar, Apple, The San Francisco Symphony and Microsoft. His projects have led him not only to amazing places, but also into the lives of incredible people and organizations around the world.

Philip Halpern

Philip teaches Communication Arts and Sciences and is the Visual and Performing Arts Video Lead Teacher at Berkley High.

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