The 68th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) will take place April 17-April 27 with screenings at various theaters around San Francisco and the East Bay.
For a full view of special awards, spotlights, and centerpiece films, check out the complete festival guide. Tickets can be purchased here.
Below is a preview of the festival, featuring brief looks at six films:
1.) THE BOTANIST
(China, 2025. 96 min)
The soulful connection between humans and nature lies at the forefront of Jing Yi’s directorial debut, The Botanist, about a young boy, Arsin, in the remote northern province of Xinjiang during one summer. Arsin spends his time quietly in nature, pressing flowers, examining a faded family tree and contemplating the building blocks of life. The cast of non-actors are amazing, and the stunning real-world environment is beautifully captured in a manner that exhibits the environment as a critical character. When Arsin meets Meiyu, a young girl in the village, his perception of the relationship between nature and civilization becomes simultaneously complicated and ethereal, as the filmmakers employ subtle elements of magical realism to portray his evolving emotional and physical understanding of the world. Other world-building elements include a village radio continuously spouting news about oil taxes and burgeoning industry, Arsin’s aloof brother (“uncle”) calling his network of former lovers and friends in Shanghai, and high-angled shots of the village and surrounding landscape. All of these elements create a meditative and enchanting coming-of-age story about how a forgotten pastoral corner of the world still finds ways to embrace our kinship with the natural world.
Screenings (click here for tickets):
– Fri., April 18th, 6:00pm at the Presidio Theatre
– Sat., April 19th, 5:15pm at BAMPFA
2.) TRIUMPH
(Bulgaria/Greece, 2024. 98 min)
Triumph is hilariously absurd, a stranger-than-fiction true story about a Bulgarian military special operation in the 1990s that searched for a powerful alien artifact buried in the countryside. With an unflinching belief in a psychic, Pirinia, General Zlatev commands the stubborn mission to continue operating despite continuous changes to the artifact’s location based on “galactic” signals Pirina receives. Pirina’s sexual coercion of the General and other mission leaders helps her maintain control, yet Triumph is primarily focused on Slava (Maria Bakalova), the daughter of the mission’s commanding officer, Colonel Plantnikov. Slava, innocent yet highly observant, develops a cosmic connection of her own, thus threatening Pirina’s manipulative grip over the operation. As in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and The Apprentice, Bakalova proves again that she is a masterful onscreen presence with complete comical control of her physical features. Triumph wisely plops the audience directly into the action, allowing us to quickly learn and scrutinize the character relationship complexities, shifting power structure, and mission’s objectives on our own. Without the contextual build-up, our realizations are more effective and hilarious, yet Triumph is told with a serious sense of calm, lacking quirky music or one-liners, thus delivering a parable that echoes our current conspiracy theory-infested, highly manipulative political climate.
Screenings (click here for tickets):
– Thurs., April 24th, 6:00pm at the Marina Theatre
3.) CLOUD
(Japan, 2024. 123 min)
Cloud is (another) new slow-burning thriller from Koyoshi Kurosawa (Cure; Pulse). Filled with characters living on the edge of unencumbered desperation, Cloud focuses on an online reseller, Ryosuke Yoshii, who strikes it big with his opportunistic, albeit dishonest, business model and moves to a large lake house with his girlfriend to continue advancing towards a wealthy and idyllic life. As his business grows, mysterious occurrences disrupt his new life, and the results of his past misleadings and misdealings return in haunting and violent ways. Cloud is a very quiet film for its first two-thirds, toying with our perception of peaceful solitude versus eerie loneliness. Utilizing online resellers as the backdrop, Kurosawa makes the case for the ease by which people, especially young people, can abandon moral obligations for the false promise of fleeting financial and physical freedom. Cloud is a troubling commentary on the ethical dilemmas and fickle restraints that the digital landscape has on all of us, punctuating despair’s slippery slope to deadly action all for the sake of acquiring “more.”
Screenings (click here for tickets):
– Sun., April 20th, 8:30pm at the Marina Theatre
4.) HAPPYEND
(Japan/USA, 2024. 113 min)
Neo Sora’s Happyend takes viewers to an uncomfortably believable near-future in Tokyo where a spreading culture of xenophobia, combined with the innocuous actions of a few rambunctious high school students, spark a school’s upper class bureaucratic administration into installing a sophisticated surveillance system. Sora situates Happyend’s action within a tight-knit group of friends, specifically long-time best friends Kou and Yuta, in order to highlight the personal fractures and the effects of governmental fear-mongering that affects all levels of society. With constant earthquake alerts being used as political leverage, the school administration and the Japanese government are easy stand-ins for how far-right fascist groups hide behind scare tactics to gain high levels of power across the globe. Sora also shows the ripple effect the students’ actions have at home, signalling different yet serious challenges facing each generation as they each face an unknown collective future. At the heart of Happyend, beyond technology and politics, is Sora’s yearning for young people to have the space to embrace their rambunctious youthfulness, whether through music, innocent pranks, young love, or just simply not being forced to grow up too soon.
Screenings (click here for tickets):
– Wed., April 23rd, 8:45pm at the Marina Theatre
– Fri., April 25th, 4:30pm at BAMPFA
5.) OLIVIA & THE CLOUDS
(Dominican Republic, 2024. 80 min)
Tomás Pichardo Espaillant’s breathtaking, experimental exploration of love and memory, Olivia & The Clouds, practically explodes off the screen in colorful animated majesty and poetic expressionism. Through a variety of animation mediums, shifting perspectives, and in a dreamlike non-linear fashion, the film follows the journey of two couples to demonstrate how emotions and memories can twist and divert from each other. The animation is accompanied by a vivid soundscape of textured environmental ambience, natural voicework, and sensual music. By the end of Oliva & The Clouds, you’ll be rummaging through your cascade of emotional responses, wondering how you’ve carried your memories and deepest loves with you.
Screenings (click here for tickets):
– Tue., April 22nd, 6:30pm at the Presidio Theatre
6.) OPERATION TACO GARY’S
(USA, 2024. 88 min)
Simon Rex (Red Rocket) and Dustin Milligan (Schitt’s Creek; Hot Frosty) are brothers on a wacky, unpredictable road trip in Michael Kvamme’s Operation Taco Gary’s. Rex plays Danny, a zany conspiracy theorist who ropes his stiff younger brother, Luke, played by Milligan, into a race against time before an encroaching global catastrophe, all having to do with a Mexican fast food chain, Taco Gary’s. Operation Taco Gary’s is reminiscent of the anything-goes cult comedies of the early 2000s, like Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and EuroTrip. Rex is a dependable source of gut-busting laughs, turning his twitchy, frenetic, comedic chops into an over-the-top portrayal of a loose-canon conspiracy theorist, and plays well against Milligan’s straight-man energy. Kvamme is no stranger to comedic timing, having co-founded the Funny or Die website, and manages to cram a plethora of unique characters, sight gags, recurring jokes, and a preposterously hilarious plot into a brisk and entertaining romp.
Screenings (click here for tickets):
– Sun., April 20th, 8:30pm at the Presidio Theatre
