Chinonye Chukwu, Marielle Heller and Lulu Wang Among 2019 SFFILM Award Honorees

SFFILM announced some of the film luminaries receiving honors at the 2019 SFFILM Awards Night. The honorees receiving prestigious awards for film include Chinonye Chukwu (Clemency, NEON) will receive the inaugural SFFILM Special Award for Breakthrough Directing, Marielle Heller (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Sony Pictures Entertainment) will receive the Irving M. Levin Award for Film Direction, and Lulu Wang ;(The Farewell, A24) will receive the Kanbar Award for Storytelling.

SFFILM Special Award for Breakthrough Directing: Chinonye Chukwu

This will be the inaugural SFFILM Special Award, designed to recognize an achievement that reflects the organization’s mission—to champion the world’s finest films and filmmakers through programs anchored in and inspired by the spirit and values of the San Francisco Bay Area. In this case, SFFILM wishes to call attention to the accomplishment of Clemency in treating an essential social issue with great delicacy, humanity, and artistic vision.

Chinonye Chukwu is a filmmaker, educator, and social justice advocate. She is the founder of Pens to Pictures, a filmmaking collaborative that teaches and empowers incarcerated women to make their own short films, from script to screen. Her most recent feature film, Clemency, premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Award in the US Dramatic Competition. Chukwu’s next feature film will be A Taste of Power, based on the memoir by the first and only female leader of the Black Panther Party, Elaine Brown. She was named one of Variety’s “10 Screenwriters to Watch” earlier this year.

Irving M. Levin Award for Film Direction: Marielle Heller

The Irving M. Levin Award for Film Direction is presented each year to one of the masters of world cinema and is given in memory the founder of the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1957 will be given to Past recipients include Steve McQueen (2018), Kathryn Bigelow (2017), Mira Nair (2016), Guillermo del Toro (2015), Richard Linklater (2014) Philip Kaufman (2013), Kenneth Branagh (2012), Oliver Stone (2011), Walter Salles (2010), Francis Ford Coppola (2009), Mike Leigh (2008), Spike Lee (2007), and Werner Herzog (2006).

Marielle Heller is an award-winning director, writer, and actor who has built an impressive and multifaceted career carefully crafting a unique voice that has earned her critical acclaim on a number of projects. Her meticulous directing style can next be seen in her highly anticipated feature, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which is set to release on November 22 of this year. The film stars Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers, and recently premiered to rave reviews at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. Heller previously directed the three-time Academy Award-nominated film, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, starring Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant, just three years after the release of her highly lauded directorial debut, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, which earned her an Independent Spirit Award. In the development of that film, she was the proud recipient of the Sundance Screenwriting and Directing Fellowships.

Kanbar Award for Storytelling: Lulu Wang

The Kanbar Award acknowledges the critical importance that storytelling plays in the creation of outstanding films. The award is named in honor of Maurice Kanbar, a longtime member of the board of directors of SFFILM, a San Francisco film commissioner and a philanthropist with a particular interest in supporting independent filmmakers. Past recipients include Boots Riley (2018), Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani (2017), Tom McCarthy (2016), Paul Schrader (2015), Stephen Gaghan (2014), Eric Roth (2013), David Webb Peoples (2012), Frank Pierson (2011), and James Schamus (2010).

With the rare ability to captivate audiences with her sincere storytelling, Chinese-American Lulu Wang continues to establish herself as a writer and filmmaker to watch. Most recently, Wang released her second feature The Farewell, which she both wrote and directed. The film first premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival in the US Dramatic Competition, earning Wang a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize. Since then, Wang’s sophomore feature has garnered a multitude of praises, including Variety naming Wang among its “Top Ten Directors to Watch in 2019.” The film was recently nominated for multiple awards including “Best Feature” and “Best Screenplay” at the 2019 Gotham Awards. Wang’s debut feature film, Posthumous, stars Brit Marling and Jack Huston. On behalf of the film, Wang was awarded with the Chaz and Roger Ebert Directing Fellowship at the 2014 Film Independent Spirit Awards, as well as the 2014 Film Independent Project Involve Directing fellowship.