The San Francisco Greek Film Festival (SFGFF) has officially announced that its 2024 event will occur from March 16 to March 23. All program details will be announced soon and will be available on the SFGFF website: https://grfilm.com. The Festival will offer eight full days of in-person screenings at Delancey Screening Room in San Francisco, as well as online program options.
The SFGFF, now in its 21st year, is the first and longest-running Greek film festival in the U.S. Back in 2004, a dedicated group of Greek-Americans combined their love for their home country of Greece and appreciation for cinema to create an event that would present the works of contemporary Greek and Cypriot creators to San Francisco Bay Area audiences. They partnered with the Modern Greek Studies Foundation: https://mgsf.org, which already has two decades of work celebrating the importance and beauty of Hellenic culture.
With its strong support of Greek culture, the Northern California Greek-American community has been part of the extended SFGFF family, faithfully attending the Festival through the years. The storytelling of Greek/Cypriot filmmakers has unique and broad appeal to all audiences, and local cinephiles are enthusiastic patrons of SFGFF screenings. SFGFF provides opportunities for emerging Greek/Cypriot filmmakers to show their work and also celebrates important artists from the history of Greek cinema. Legendary Greek performer Melina Mercouri’s Topkapi was screened in 2020, marking the 100th anniversary of her birthday, and the documentary feature on Olympia Dukakis by Harry Mavromichalis, Olympia, was screened in 2019.
Started in 2004, the San Francisco Greek Film Festival (SFGFF) is the first and longest-running Greek film festival in the U.S. SFGFF is dedicated to recognizing, supporting, and promoting the best film work by Greek and Cypriot filmmakers from around the world. With screenings of new, innovative, and highly acclaimed films and different events around the annual film Festival week, the SFGFF seeks to inspire, engage, and entertain its diverse audience. Throughout its history, the Festival has also featured screenings of classic films. Through the powerful medium of film, the Festival sustains, elevates and promotes Greek culture, history and language in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. The SFGFF has showcased some of the most highly regarded Greek/Cypriot films produced over the past 20 years. Since its founding, the film festival has showcased nearly 400 movies, hosted nearly 75 filmmakers as guests, and inspired, engaged and entertained over 9,000 attendees from San Francisco and throughout the Bay Area.
The SFGFF is funded through sponsorships by individuals and businesses, grants and ticket sales. Entirely run by volunteers, the Festival staff works throughout the year to plan the event, supported by an Advisory Board of experienced and respected community and industry leaders. Proceeds of the film Festival benefit the Modern Greek Studies Foundation, a San Francisco nonprofit that is committed to enriching knowledge and appreciation of Greece’s linguistic, literary, cultural and historic contribution to the Western World. Sponsorship opportunities are available for the 2024 SFGFF; see the website https://grfilm.com for details.
This year’s SFGFF poster is designed by Apollon Bollas, full name Constantinos Apollon. In addition to his design work, he is a Greek actor, singer and producer, with French roots. He has been working as an actor in theatre, movies, and TV commercials, and he became a Theatrical Producer with his Company, Acb Productions, in 2012.
