Overview The San Francisco International Film Festival is SFFILM's 11-day spring festival across San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, and in 2026 it opened in the restored Castro Theatre with Olivia Wilde's The Invite on 35mm and closed there with The Empire Strikes Back. The 2026 edition, the 69th, carried 79 programs from 40 countries, with the juried Golden Gate Awards and Academy Award-qualifying shorts competitions running through it. SFFILM dates the festival to 1957 and calls it the first film festival of its kind in the United States and across the Americas. Outside the festival the organization screens year-round, funds filmmakers through grants and residencies, and runs education programs. On site Premieres and early sneaks fill the evenings. Around the films sit talks, a film industry summit under the Industry Days name, college days and Schools at the Festival, a program just for local students and teachers. Every screening opens with a slideshow and remarks from the stage, and press and talent pass a step and repeat on the big nights. Filmmakers and talent have their own green rooms, guests share an official lounge, and opening and closing night each end in a party. Audience SFFILM describes its audience as film lovers, cultural leaders and industry professionals, and its 2027 deck pitches the festival as one of the few rooms the Bay Area's innovation economy shares with international cinema's creative class. The 2026 festival served 14,000-plus students, teachers and families through its education programs. Talent and Influencers The 2026 opening night was a double bill: Wilde's The Invite, set in San Francisco, and Kent Jones's Late Fame with Greta Lee, and Wilde and Lee were both there for it. Boots Riley's I Love Boosters, with Keke Palmer and Demi Moore, was the centerpiece. Lynne Sachs took the Persistence of Vision Award, Michelle Satter of the Sundance Institute the Mel Novikoff Award, and Ritesh Batra got an evening tribute. Over the prior decade the festival had drawn Greta Gerwig, Nia DaCosta, Ryan Gosling and Guillermo del Toro with their work. Track record Festival attendance: 35,000-plus in 2025, 40,000 in 2026. Eleven titles in the 2026 program had been through SFFILM's own grants and residencies, and the organization supported 51 grantees, fellows and residents in a year by its 2025 count. Brand presence A festival sponsor's logo runs on a slide before every screening, and the top level for 2027 adds a 30-second spot ahead of each screening and a slide before every SFFILM screening for the following 12 months. Partners can take over the official lounge, put product in the talent green rooms, brand the step and repeat, host receptions and happy hours inside the festival, or attach to a single film, the Industry Days summit or Schools at the Festival, with verbal recognition from the stage.