A Key Stop for Awards Season

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Jessie Fairbanks Talks About Starting Planning for the SFFILM Awards Night Months in Advance

By Noma Faingold                                                                                                                                                        (December 1, 2025)

Hollywood’s award season, culminating with the 98th Academy Awards next March, has begun. SFFILM’s 2025 Awards Night (in its 68th year) on December 8 is an early stop and proven momentum builder during the circuit. Director of Programming at the San Francisco International Film Festival, Jessie Fairbanks, starts her preparation to secure the four recipients in June by reaching out to studios and the teams behind the talent.

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A House Made of Splinters

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By C.J. Hirschfield

(March 8, 2023)

Some feature length documentaries transport you across the world, into space, or under the ocean, exploring fantastic and fascinating environments that you never could have imagined.

The Academy-Award nominee A House Made of Splinters takes place under just one roof, and the drama is no less compelling for it. Inside the walls of an Eastern Ukraine temporary shelter for children, there is compassion, friendship, love, and joy, mixed with fear, pain, and lost childhood.

 

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UNDERSTANDING WHAT HAPPENED AT ATTICA

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Ashia Solei Interviews Stanley Nelson

Co-Directors Stanley Nelson and Traci Curry brilliantly reshape race narrative in ATTICA by giving voice to the unheard minorities and disrupting the dominant historical narrative. It is a strategy that Nelson has used in his many films including THE MURDER OF EMMETT TILL, JONESTOWN: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PEOPLE’S TEMPLE and MILES DAVIS: BIRTH OF THE COOL.

Stanley Nelson Making 'America Revisited II' for Independent Lens - Variety Continue reading →

Shorts are BIG this year… All the 2021 Oscar™ Nominated Shorts Reviewed

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Just as reading a great short story can have an impact in a relatively few pages, short films also can entertain, inform and challenge us with limited running times. Most of our favorite filmmakers started their careers making short subjects. Which of this year’s Oscar™ nominated creators will be the makers of the next breakout independent film on their way to a studio blockbuster? You can watch and place your bets. And remember that this year the public has seen all nominated movies the same way most Academy members have been watching them for years—at home. 

 

The 2021 Academy Awards are on Sunday, April 25. The nominated short films have been collected into three programs, Animation, Live Action and Documentary, and are now playing in select theaters and on Virtual Cinema. Trailers and more information can found here. 

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SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN FOREVER

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by Gary Meyer
ON THE TOWN, ROYAL WEDDING, SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN, SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS, IT’S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER, FUNNY FACE, THE PAJAMA GAME, INDISCREET, DAMN YANKEES, CHARADE, ARABESQUE, TWO FOR THE ROAD and BEDAZZLED.

All winners in our book.  Hollywood’s elite agree.  And yet the man who directed them all, Stanley Donen never was even nominated for an Oscar.
On the eve of the 2019 Academy Awards we are saddened to learn of his passing but happy that he lived a full 94 years and gave movie audiences many hours of pleasure.  It will be interesting to see how they work Stanley into the Oscar “In Memory” reel.
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RAMBLINGS ON THE OSCARS 2019-Or is it 2018 Awards Given Out in 2019?

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by Gary Meyer

“When they called my name, I had this feeling I could hear half of America going, ‘Oh no. Come on… Her, again?’ You know. But, whatever.”
– Meryl Streep, Best Actress, The Iron Lady, 2012

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Will this be Glenn Close’s big night? As The Onion suggests in their annual irreverent Guide to the Oscars, “with seven nominations and no wins, Close currently holds the record for the most cut-to reaction shots of her pretending to look happy for other people.”

As we prepare for the “Big Night” without any Streep nominations I thought our readers would enjoy some tips and other fun.  We’ve got speech writing tips, ballots, Oscar Bingo, food ideas and predictions. Plus the Independent Spirit Awards.

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IS ROMA A GAME CHANGER?

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by Gary Meyer

The film industry is watching closely to see if Alfonso Cuarón’s ROMA changes everything. The award-winning director clearly made his movie to be seen on the big screen in theaters with the best possible sound and projection. But it was financed by Netflix, a company that wants their films and shows to only be seen on their streaming platform.

 

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A barrage of ads for “Roma” — in trade publications, on Netflix-owned billboards in Los Angeles — has continued for months.  Photo by Hunter Kerhart for The New York Times

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The Everyone’s-a-Winner 2016 Oscar Nominee Unofficial Goodie Bag

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by Gary Meyer

Are you having an Oscar Party? Maybe you should go through your house and assemble some goodie bags. But we doubt you can top the bags that will be delivered to the acting- and director-category nominees the morning after the Academy Awards.

Lash Fary with some of the 2014 Unofficial Oscar Goodie Bag goodies his team assembled. –Photo courtesy of Business Week

Lash Fary with some of the 2014 Unofficial Oscar Goodie Bag goodies his team assembled. –Photo courtesy of Business Week

“Even Hollywood’s most acclaimed stars are disappointed if they do not win an Oscar. When our consolation gift shows up the next day, we like to think it is welcome distraction to lift their spirits,” says Lash Fary, whose company Distinctive Assets assembles the bags.

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Wonder if they were fighting over a goodie bag?

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