SFJFF to Launch Innovative Online Jewish Film Website
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Lisa Gonzales
Atomic Public Relations
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San Francisco Jewish Film Festival to Launch Innovative
Online Jewish Film Website
Resources to include online short films, searchable archive of Jewish films,
educational resources, social networking tools, and new technology in screening theaters
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (June 4, 2009) — On June 23rd, the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), the world’s oldest and largest film festival in the world, will unveil an innovative new online resource for Jewish film, housed at www.sfjff.org. SFJFF’s new media initiative (supported by Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation and the Charles H. Revson Foundation, with additional support from the Koret Foundation), will take advantage of SFJFF’s 29 years of experience in curating, exhibiting, educating and community-building through film, and extend it from the movie theater to a new global online audience.
The new web resource will offer short films to watch online, easy access to information on hundreds of film titles, downloadable podcasts and videos that add context to film selections, viewer recommendations, educational and curricular materials, social networking opportunities, new tools for audience interactivity in theaters and more. The June 23 launch, timed to coincide with the announcement of the 29th SFJFF lineup, marks the first phase of an ongoing effort to build the largest and most comprehensive online resource for Jewish film in the world.
“The indispensable role of culturally-specific film festivals like SFJFF has always been to provide a trusted platform where audiences can discover films, where filmmakers can discover their audiences, and, just as importantly, where audiences can discover one another,” said SFJFF executive director Peter L. Stein. “That role of being both a trusted source and bridge-builder is even more critical online today, now that people are making, sharing, viewing and shaping media far beyond the theater space. So our new media offerings are actually a very natural extension of our mission. We’re carrying on the conversation that happens before and after our screenings, and making sure it can happen in the boundless space of the web.”
Bringing Films to a New Audience, Bringing Audiences to New Films
Starting with a list of some 1,200 curated titles from its 29-year history, SFJFF’s web-based project will enable hundreds of rare, independent, international and archival Jewish-themed films to find new audiences online, with external links to, director websites, videos of filmmaker panels and Q&As, archival photographs and links to purchase the films online, where available.
”SFJFF’s new website will be enormously useful to filmmakers, curators and your average film geek who wants more information about Jewish themed cinema,“ enthused the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival’s program director, Nancy Fishman. “Filmmakers will get greater exposure and an eventual increase in audience through this cyber gateway; curators will have easy access to information about Jewish film and directors and cineastes will be able to find Jewish themed films at the click of a mouse. It’s a win-win situation for all.”
SFJFF will be the first Jewish film festival in the world to offer its audience the ability to watch festival films in their entirety online, beginning at the onset with a selection of short films. SFJFF will offer select short film favorites from the upcoming festival (to be announced on June 23, 2009) at www.sfjff.org, with additional short films added on a monthly basis after the festival.
Also streaming in their entirety starting on June 23rd are the Golden Gate award-winning Four Short Films About Love and Not Another Jewish Movie, two uniquely authentic snapshots of teenaged Jewish lives. The films were produced by the Festival’s New Jewish Filmmaking Project (NJFP), created for SFJFF by filmmaker Sam Ball and documentary production company Citizen Film. These two films were co-directed by a culturally diverse storytelling corps of Jewish young people –including Latino Jews, Jews of North African heritage and recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Audiences will also be able to comment on the films of the New Jewish Filmmaking Project and engage—often live—with the storytellers in those films.
Says NJFP director Sam Ball, “This new online resource is crucial to our work because young people, who are underrepresented in mainstream American and Jewish culture today, will be able to view one another’s stories and connect with one another online. Young audiences spend much of their time on Facebook and other social networking and media-sharing platforms, and the fact that these films may be recommended to them through friends means that they are more likely to find them and watch them.”
SFJFF’s new media resource doesn’t begin and end at sfjff.org. For presentation of its curricular resources, created by the Jewish Heritage Video Collection, the organization is using the educational platform Moodle, a free, open-source learning management system that allows teachers to participate in developing and improving educational materials, to pull elements from the curricula to place in their own courses, and to collaborate across institutions and geography. A full list of available curriculum will be appear at www.sfjff.org at site launch.
Please Turn On Your Cellphone in the Theater
SFJFF is also transforming the way audience members experience independent film in theaters. SFJFF will, for the first time, utilize VoIP technology to conduct in-theater interviews with remote filmmakers, offer text-on-demand information about the over 70 films screening in the 29th Festival, and give audience members the opportunity to rate festival films straight from their theater seats – using cell phones. Many of these mobile applications have yet to be used in this manner in the film festival environment. Mobile Commons, a web-based application that allows users to create mobile programs based around text messaging, voice calls, and web-based interactive components, is providing this technology. Says Mobile Commons founder Jed Alpert, “Mobile Commons is very happy to help SFJFF convert an amazing festival experience into an ongoing and valuable relationship with attendees.”
The June website launch is only the beginning of a larger effort; sfjff.org will evolve and grow in the months to come, adding new features, films, and social media capabilities. To accommodate continued growth, the new web resource is being constructed utilizing the most expandable available web technology, including open source technology, to insure that the site is a viable and accessible resource available to other film festivals and media nonprofits for many years to come. The new www.sfjff.org will reflect the design of a Festival website from June 23 – August 11, 2009 (with the 29th annual SFJFF scheduled from July 23-August 10th). On August 11th, www.sfjff.org will transition to its year round appearance, with the new web resources featured more prominently on the homepage.
Foundational Support and Project Staff
SFJFF received significant initial funding for its online resources from two national foundations: Steven Spielberg’s Santa Monica-based Righteous Persons Foundation, which pledged $100,000 to the project; and New York-based Charles H. Revson Foundation, which provided a matching $100,000 grant. Seed funding was provided by the San Francisco-based Koret Foundation.
According to Rachel Levin, Associate Director of the Righteous Persons Foundation, “More people are looking to the Internet to find, share and create new stories, so we think it’s natural for SFJFF, which has always been at the forefront of championing independent Jewish cinema, to become a trusted source on the web.” Adds Revson Foundation President Julie Sandorf: “Ensuring that the legacy and educational richness of Jewish cinema are available to the next generation of viewers worldwide is one of the great promises of online media, and SFJFF can help make those connections.”
The project’s lead consultant is Joaquin Alvarado, founder of S.F. State University’s Institute for Next Generation Internet and now Senior Vice President of Innovation and Diversity for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the web developer is Ben Rigby of CocoDeep Studios.
About the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is a dynamic, year-round media arts organization presenting the world’s oldest and largest Jewish film festival as well as a growing slate of nationally significant year-round programs. Over 29 years, SFJFF has become a leader in using media arts to build community and foster cross-cultural understanding. The annual festival, acclaimed as the Bay Area’s most beloved and successful Jewish community event, is presented for three weeks in July-August in five locations to a diverse audience of 30,000. Throughout the year, SFJFF presents film programming at several Bay Area venues; provides innovative media literacy and filmmaking training to teens; maintains an active web presence at www.sfjff.org including an online archive of independent Jewish film; and is launching a digital media initiative to expand online access to and knowledge about Jewish-subject film. SFJFF is an equity partner in its home at the dynamic Ninth Street Independent Film Center in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood.
San Francisco Jewish Film Festival | 145 Ninth St, Suite 200 | San Francisco, CA 94103 | (415) 621-0556
