'Great Absence,' Sugarcane, 'Seeking Mavis Beacon' Win Top 67th San Francisco Film Festival Awards

Great Absence directed by Kei Chika-ura (courtesy SFFILM)

Great Absence directed by Kei Chika-ura (courtesy SFFILM)

Kei Chika-ura’s Great Absence, a contemporary family drama about reconciliation and love, won the Global Visions Award at the the 67th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM Festival).

Sugarcane, Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie’s extraordinary investigative thriller, a personal odyssey, and a cathartic exposé of the transgenerational impact of Canada’s residential schools won the Documentary Award.

Jazmin Renée Jones and Olivia McKayla Ross (associate producer and cyber doula) won the Best Bay Area Documentary Feature Award for Seeking Mavis Beacon, a “boundary-pushing hybrid storytelling mixtape that reflectively looks at archive, digital ancestors, and the intersection of fact and fiction.”

Audience Award: Narrative Feature went to The Teacher directed by Farah Nabulsi and the Audience Award: Documentary Feature went to Agent of Happiness directed by Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbó.

Called the Golden Gate Awards, the awards are also notable as a qualifier for films under 40 minutes for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

“I am delighted by the jury and audience selections from the 2024 lineup. The 2024 winners represent both the global scope and bold artistry on display at the festival this year,” said Jessie Fairbanks, SFFILM’s Director of Programming. “I want to thank our jurors, who gathered here from around the country and screened films with our audiences every day of the festival. And we are very excited to continue this momentum with SFFILM’s Encore Presentation at The Roxie this weekend where you can catch the Audience Award winners and some of the jury titles.”

The Festival opened with a celebratory hometown premiere of Sean Wang’s Dìdi (弟弟) across two sold-out theaters. With the Oscar-nominated director, producers, and numerous local cast members in attendance, Opening Night reaffirmed SFFILM’s commitment to the Bay Area’s robust filmmaking community.

Director Greg Kwedar’s much-anticipated Sing Sing, which stars Academy Award nominee Colman Domingo and local Bay Area artist Sean San José, received a warm welcome from a sold-out crowd on the Festival’s second night.

The Festival honored local pioneer and champion of film exhibition Gary Meyer with the Mel Novikoff Award, and paid tribute to multi-hyphenates Chiwetel Ejiofor (Rob Peace) and Joan Chen, a local legend whose directorial debut, Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl, screened on 35mm for Festival attendees after an intimate onstage conversation with producer and President of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Janet Yang. Two sold-out screenings complete with standing ovations of Josh Margolin’s Thelma, which stars the steely-yet-hysterical June Squibb, closed the 2024 SFFILM Festival.

“The 2024 SFFILM Festival was a true celebration of Bay Area filmmaking and movie-goers,” said Anne Lai, Executive Director of SFFILM. “We saw theaters packed with fantastic audiences enjoying wonderful films from around the world and from a thriving pipeline of independent filmmakers we have supported being able to come back and share their work in hometown premieres. This was our most successful Festival in years, and I am already looking forward to planning for the 68th edition next year.”

Some of the special honors of the 2024 SFFILM Festival were previously announced alongside the program launch, including SFFILM’s Persistence of Vision Award, which went to Belgian filmmaker and multimedia artist Johan Grimonprez (Soundtrack for a Coup d’Etat), and the Mel Novikoff Award, which honored local film hero Gary Meyer, and was presented with a special retrospective screening of Meyer-curated films, the 1960 Mexican classic Macario and Jessica Yu‘s memorable short Sour Death Balls. The Sloan Science in Cinema Award went to Tania Hermida’s On the Invention of Species (La Invención de las especies).

The winners of the 67th Annual SFFILM Golden Gate Awards Competition are as follows:

Global Visions Award
Great Absence
Kei Chika-ura (Japan 2023)
US Premiere

Documentary Award
Sugarcane
Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie (Canada 2024)

Bay Area Documentary Award
Seeking Mavis Beacon
Jazmin Renée Jones (USA 2024)

Narrative Short Award
Bogotá Story
Esteban Pedraza (Colombia 2023)

Documentary Short Award
The Medallion
Ruth Hunduma (UK 2023)

Bay Area Short Award
a film is a goodbye that never ends
María Luisa Santos (Costa Rica 2024)
World Premiere

Animated Short Award
La Perra
Carla Melo Gampert (Colombia 2023)

Family Film Award
Dynasty and Destiny
Travis Lee Ratcliff (USA 2024)

Youth Works Award
Sil-tteu-gi
Yezy Suh (USA 2023)

Audience Award: Narrative Feature
The Teacher
Farah Nabulsi (UK/Palestine/Qatar 2023)

Audience Award: Documentary Feature
Agent of Happiness
Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbó (Bhutan/Hungary 2024)