The San Francisco Greek Film Festival is the longest running Greek film festival in the U.S.A., celebrating its 15th year in 2018. An annual week-long event dedicated to recognizing and promoting Greek and Cypriot filmmakers from around the world, the SFGFF is run entirely by a group of dedicated volunteers and supported by enthusiastic audiences from the Bay Area and across the film industry.
This was an exciting year for the SFGFF and for us at Indigo View. The festival branched out to two of the most illustrious screening rooms in San Francisco for their Opening and Closing Nights: the Premier Theater at Lucasfilm and the Dolby Cinema at 1275 Market at the Dolby Laboratories headquarters. The rest of the week, the films were screened at Delancey Street Screening Room (the festival’s home for the last 14 years), run by the renowned Delancey Street Foundation, the country’s leading residential self-help organization for people in need.
The festival also introduced the first ever Spyros P. Skouras Lifetime Achievement Award, created and sponsored by Tom Skouras, festival Advisory Board member and nephew of the late Skouras, to honor outstanding film industry professionals of Greek descent. The award was presented to Jim Gianopulos, President and CEO of Paramount Pictures and one of the most influential Hollywood film executives.
Indigo View was there to witness it all! As a media sponsor for the festival, we created and produced a short presentation trailer for the festival’s 15th anniversary, three witty promotional videos highlighting the bond between Crete and San Francisco, and an audiovisual introduction for the Skouras Award. All of our videos were enthusiastically received. Company founders Theo Papadoulakis and Ioanna Davi travelled to San Francisco and participated in festival events throughout the week, from October 12th until October 20th, culminating in the prestigious Closing Ceremony at the impressive Dolby Cinema at the Dolby Laboratories.
Other guests from Greece, included director, producer and writer Manoussos Manoussakis, film producer Yiannis Iakovidis, cinematographer Stelios Apostolopoulos, director Dora Masklavanou and more.
Our team had the chance to meet and greet with film professionals and audience members from the Bay Area, the Greek-American community and the US industry in general, taking the chance to discuss Indigo View’s upcoming projects and inform them about the new 35% cash rebate scheme for the audiovisual production in Greece, in place by EKOME since March 2018.
According to its organizing committee, the 15th edition of the San Francisco Greek Film Festival was the most successful festival to date, with Closing Night and several nights at Delancey sold out. From the 24 new films presented (9 features, 15 shorts), the audience distinguished “The Last Note” by Pantelis Voulgaris and “Goldfish” by Yorgos Angelopoulos, honoring them with the Astron Audience Award. Mr Voulgaris was also presented with an Honorary Astron Award in recognition of his long contribution to Greek cinema. Last year’s Astron Audience winner “Cloudy Sunday” by Manoussos Manoussakis was presented as a bonus feature, back by popular demand after the official closing of the festival.
Jim Gianopulos’ speech accepting the Spyros S. Skouras Lifetime Achievement Award was a definite highlight for the festival and everyone present.
As a proud media sponsor, Indigo View was honored and excited to be given a chance to present a fresh look for the festival’s promotional identity, contributing in a fun and new way to building a bridge for contemporary Greek cinema across the globe. Our videos have once more become viral and we couldn’t be happier, especially since we were given carte blanche by the festival to create everything the ‘Indigo way’.
You can view the videos we created for the 15th SFGFF here:
https://vimeopro.com/indigoview/san-francisco-greek-film-festival-2018
Indigo View would like to thank the San Francisco Film Festival and particularly director Kleon Skourtis and co-director Maria Nicolacakis for their trust and incredible hospitality.
We can’t wait to come back to the Bay next year!