- DOC Film Institute
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DOC Film Institute Established 2005 Type NP Director Daniel Bernardi Location San Francisco, California, United States Affiliations San Francisco State Website http://docfilm.sfsu.edu 
The DOC Film Institute (DocFilm) is an independent organization within San Francisco State University[1] that is dedicated to support non-fiction cinema by promoting documentary films and filmmakers and producing original films on socially and culturally important topics which deserve wider recognition.
DocFilm was created in 2005 with a generous donation from San Francisco State University alumni George and Judy Marcus. It is situated within State's Cinema Department, with access to a broad cross-section of educational institutions in San Francisco and the Bay Area. It is a resource for undergraduate and graduate students studying film in the area as well as faculty interested in the artistic and politic dimensions of documentary cinema.
Contents
History
In 2005 San Francisco State alumni George and Judy Marcus made a generous donation to the university that, among other things, created the DocFilm Institute. In its first three years, DocFilm organized thematic festivals, premieres, individual film exhibitions, tributes and pre-launch activities which brought some of the most important national and international films and filmmakers to a broad base of people. Post-screening sessions featured prominent documentary filmmakers, producers and scholars, thereby opening meaningful dialogues between filmmakers and audiences with and outside the Bay Area.
Since its inception DocFilm has:
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- * Presented over 120 films, including West Coast premieres, to over 12,000 attendees
- * Invited 50+ eminent filmmakers to show films and speak with audiences.
- * Presented interactive seminars by well-known filmmakers for students and general audiences.
- * Collaborated with key regional organizations with shared interests.
- * Created an advisory board with a team of eminent filmmakers, writers, and academicians.
- * Produced a film, Cachao: Uno Mas, that premiered on PBS.
In 2011, Daniel Bernardi assumed the directorship of the Institute and Bill Nichols, the world's most prominent documentary film school, became chair of the advisory committee. Building on the considerable success of the Institute, they created an official charter, connected the Institute more firmly to the Cinema Department at San Francisco State University, and began focusing on: 1) mini-grants to student filmmakers; 2) the production of independent documentary films; and 3) public events such as screenings, lectures and conferences.
Leadership
Staff
- Daniel Bernardi, Director
- Anay Tarnekar, Associate Director
- Silvia Turchin, Resident Filmmaker
Advisory Board
- Bill Nichols, Chairman, Professor of Cinema at San Francisco State University
- Mark Johnson, Director of Fine Arts Gallery at San Francisco State University
- Mary Jane Marcus, Expert on Cross-Cultural Community Building and International Affairs
- Greta Snider, Professor of Cinema at San Francisco State University
Public Programs
DocFilm promotes the work of emerging and established documentary filmmakers through tributes and annual thematic festivals. The public programs have invited some of the most celebrated documentarians to the Bay Area. DocFilm did the west coast premiers of films like Darwin's Nightmare and Grizzly Man which later on gained worldwide recognition among the most important documentaries in recent times.
Oscar Docs
Oscar Docs (2006-09, 2011) is an annual three-day festival of the Academy Award-nominated short and feature documentaries, featuring introductions and Q&As by many of the nominated filmmakers. The event is open to general public.
Other Key Events
- 2008 - An in-house home production, CACHAO:Uno Mas, was screened at various international film festivals in the US, Spain, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. It also screened nationally on PBS.
- 2007 - "Witness to War" led to an exclusive DocFilm weekend screening of Ken Burns’ seven-part documentary, ''The War'', at Lucasfilm’s state-of-the-art Letterman Digital Arts Center.
- 2006 - "A Tribute to Two Masters: Leacock & Pennebaker" featured 22 films by these legendary filmmakers who revolutionized documentary filmmaking.
- 2005 - "The Green Screen U.N. World Environment Day Film Festival" featured 28 inspiring films dealing with life and surival on our planet, including the West Coast premieres of Darwin’s Nightmare and Grizzly Man, both of which subsequently won many prestigious international awards.
Guest speakers
Filmmakers and friends of DocFilm who have presented films at our festivals, saluted filmmakers or fielded Q & A include Amy Berg, Les Blank, Sarah Botstein, Ken Burns, Mark Danner, Dale Djerassi, Nick Doob, Charles Ferguson, Andy Garcia, Al Gore, Roberta Grossman, Chris Hegedus, Stefan Jarl, Michael Krasny, Richard Leacock, Delroy Lindo, Amanda Micheli, Gavin Newsom, Steve Okazaki, Carl Pope, D.A. Pennebaker, Dikayl Rimmasch, Thomas Sanchez, John Santos, Hubert Sauper, Martin Scorsese, Gail Small, Bertrand Tavernier, David Thomson, Alice Waters, Caveh Zahedi.
Productions
From paying tributes to master artists to highlighting pressing social issues, DocFilm produces films which provide a deeper introspection of a wide range of socio-cultural topics. Institute staff work with professional filmmakers, some of whom are Cinema Department faculty at San Francisco State University. State students benefit from working as interns on these films.
1. Cachao: Uno Mas
DocFilm’s first original production, this film paid tribute to the life and music of one of the greatest Afro-Cuban musicians of all time, Israel Israel 'Cachao' López, widely credited as the father of Mambo. The film also features actor Andy García, singer Gloria Estefan, producer Emilio Estefan, trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, percussionist John Santos and saxophonist Ray Santos. It was produced by Andy Garcia, Tom Luddy and Stephen Ujlaki, directed by Dikayl Rimmasch and co-produced and edited by Anay Tarnekar. The film was shot primarily in San Francisco, Miami and Los Angeles.
Cachao:Uno Mas opened at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 2008, screened at several prestigious international festivals in the US, Spain, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. In fall 2010 the film premiered on the multiple Emmy® Award winning series, American Masters on PBS.
2. Change Dai-Chien in California
This 23min film pays tribute to Chinese master painter, Chang Dai-chien. Chang Dai-chien is among the most widely acclaimed painters of the 20th century. The artist left China in the late 1940s and relocated to the West in the early 1950s. Chang Dai-chien lived in Brazil for roughly fifteen years before moving to California in the mid-1960s. This film was produced by the eminent Chinese art historian Michael Sullivan in 1967, and has never been seen previously. San Francisco State University acquired the film from Professor Sullivan, and DocFilm restored it and created a unique short film that shows the artist's process of painting a work from inspiration to completion. This is the only existing footage of this painter, who is now called the Picasso of China.
3. Films in Development
Genius of Chang Dai-chien - To honor and explore the life and work of Chang Dai-chien, the DocFilm and the Fine Arts Gallery at San Francisco State University are partnering to produce a feature-length documentary on Chang’s development as a calligrapher and painter. Directed by internationally renowned filmmaker Weimin Zhang, the film will follow the artist’s life journey from pre-Communist China to Brazil, later to the California coast of the 1960s and 1970s, and to his eventual retirement in Taiwan. Along the way, it will explore the political, cultural and economic forces - from the Chinese Cultural Revolution to U.S.-Sino relations - that influenced his life, his body of work and also the relation between the East and West today.
Education
Education is an inherent part of DocFilm. As an integral part of Cinema Department, DocFilm offers master classes, production internships, seminars and mentoring to students and audiences at large.
Renowned filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola, Ken Burns, Bertrand Tavernier, D.A. Pennebaker, Richard Leacock, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Christopher Hampton and Hubert Sauper, have presented master classes for San Francisco State University students, sharing their inspirations, experiences, creative process and gave advice on pertinent issues of making films. Some of the classes were videotaped and will be available on the DocFilm website soon.
Notable Current and Past Members
Stephen Ujlaki (Director, 2005-2010)
External Links
References
Categories:- San Francisco State University
- Film terminology stubs
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