How this year’s version of festival will be different

When it came time to make plans for the 60th anniversary of the San Francisco International Film Festival, organizers wanted to look to the future, not the past.

“This year is about experimentation and growth for us,” said Noah Cowan, executive director of SFFilm. “We’re taking a lot of chances in the program and getting more people to come to town. We’re eager to see how the Bay Area reacts.”

Here are several ways that the festival will be different this year: Brand: The San Francisco Film Society, which runs the festival, has changed its name to SFFilm. The festival still goes by the name San Francisco International Film Festival, though SFFilm Festival is the preferred name for the future.

There is even a new website, at www.sffilm.org. And for those who follow the festival on Twitter, the handles are @sffilm and #SFFILMFestival.

Format: In a change that will ultimately maximize viewing opportunities for film aficionados, the festival is restructuring its schedule.

The first part of the festival will emphasize the glitzier tributes, where famous people will be on hand. SFFilm will also be front-loaded with special events that relate to film and technology. After the first weekend, the next portion of the festival will be more traditional. “There will still be lots of cool people around,” Cowan said, “but the festival will focus on the global storytelling that we are known for.”

The biggest schedule change — and one that’s likely to delight filmgoers — is allocating the last days of the festival to repeat showings. “This place is chockablock with cinephiles,” Cowan said, “and we are giving them more chances to see key films of the festival.” Venues: After decades of being based at the relatively isolated Kabuki in Japantown, the festival experimented with new venues last year in the Mission District, and that experiment continues this year with even more transitfriendly locations in the heart of the city.

The festival will hold major events at the Dolby Cinema, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (in the Phyllis Wattis Theater) and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The festival will again plant a flag in the Mission District — “30 percent of our audience last year was new,” Cowan says — with numerous screenings at the Alamo Drafthouse, Roxie and Victoria theaters. In another nod to cinephiles, the festival — for the first time ever — will show films for 11 straight days at the venerated Castro Theatre.

All the major venues can be easily accessed via BART or Muni. Gala: In another departure, the festival is moving its gala from April to the fall, with a format that allows for more tributes. The reasons: SFFilm wants to honor a more diverse array of artists and hopes to gear the event more for the awards season.

“The gala was becoming a repository for lifetime achievement honors. It felt like a throwback,” Cowan said. “The gala will move to a tribute format so we can celebrate just about anybody, including new stars and hip directors.

“The Bay Area has been an important center for Academy (Awards) voters. In the fall, we will be able to have more of an influence on the Oscars by who we champion, because it will be later in the year, not April. We want our influence to continue all year round.” Closing night: This year’s closing night — “The Green Fog — A San Francisco Fantasia” — promises to be different from any other the festival has had. The festival organizers asked Canadian director Guy Maddin to collaborate on a visual collage that reimagines Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” accompanied by music performed by the Kronos Quartet.

“We wanted to make something brand new about San Francisco,” Cowan said. “Something that shows how San Francisco exists in the film imagination.”

David Lewis is a Bay Area freelance writer.