Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil won the jury award for Best Narrative Feature and Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb’s Butterfly in the Sky won the jury award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2023 San Luis Obispo International Film Festival.
San Luis Obispo International Film Festival will honor two-time Academy Award winning production designer Rick Carter with the King Vidor Award, and two-time Academy Award Best Supporting Actor nominee Judd Hirsch with the Spotlight Award, at the 29th edition taking place April 25-30, 2023.
The 2023 San Luis Obispo International Film Festival announces the film lineup for 29th edition running April 25 to May 7. The 29th edition of the festival opens with Matt Johnson’s BlackBerry and will close with Marvin Samel’s IMordecai.
Dale Dickey (A Love Song) will receive the King Vidor Award and Michael Showalter (The Eyes of Tammy Faye) will be this year’s Spotlight Award honoree at the 28th Annual San Luis Obispo International Film Festival (April 26-May 1). Stacy Peralta’s The Yin and Yang of Gerry Lopez was also announced as the featured film for this year’s Surf Nite at the Drive-in.
The 28th Annual San Luis Obispo International Film Festival (April 26-May 1) announced this year’s robust film lineup bookended by critically-acclaimed documentaries —the Opening Night selection of Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love and the Closing Night selection of Isabel Castro’s Mija. The festival will celebrate its return to in-theater screenings and in-person events, including its famous Surf Nite, a tribute to Philip Glass, Cal Poly Shortcuts, and entrants in this year’s Reel Challenge debut.
The San Luis Obispo International Film Festival revealed the five initial selections for the 28th edition of this year’s film festival taking place April 26-May 1, 2022. They include a recent hit out of Sundance, an award winner and an audience favorite from the film festival tour, an indie comedy with some familiar faces, and an international drama.
The 2021 San Luis Obispo International Film Festival announced this year’s filmmaker award winners with Xuan Liu’s Bloom winning Best Narrative Feature; and Lisa Molomot and Jeff Bemiss’ Missing in Brooks County along with Paul Michael Angeli’s Medicine Man: The Stan Brock Story tie for Best Documentary Feature.
The 27th Annual San Luis Obispo International Film Festival (March 9-14) will open with Philippe Falardeau’s drama My Salinger Year, starring Margaret Qualley and Sigourney Weaver; and the local photographer Brittany App’s environmental documentary Where There Once Was Water will celebrate its US premiere as the Closing Night film.
The coronavirus, (COVID-19) pandemic is having a devastating impact on film festivals with many postponing or cancelling outright. Major festivals such as San Francisco International Film Festival and RiverRun International Film Festival have canceled, while others such as Richmond International Film Festival and Florida Film Festival have been postponed until the Summer or Fall.
The 26th Annual San Luis Obispo International Film Festival presented by Hotel San Luis Obispo (March 17-22) will open with Chusy Jardine’s IT ALL BEGINS WITH A SONG: THE STORY OF THE NASHVILLE SONGWRITER, and close with Benjamin Kasulke’s BANANA SPLIT. Special events include the “Hollywood & Vines” screening events celebrating the intersection of food, wine, and film. The Central Coast Filmmaker Showcase titles were also announced.
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker Robin Swicord will be this year’s Spotlight Award honoree at the 2018 San Luis Obispo Film Fest. The Spotlight Award will be presented to Swicord by SLO Film Fest founder, Mary Harris, during the Closing Night Awards ceremony on Sunday, March 18 at the Fremont Theater. Following the presentation, Variety’s Jenelle Riley will host a discussion of Swicord’s distinguished and wide-ranging career.
Swicord will also participate on the screenwriter’s panel, “It All Starts with a Good Story” with her husband and frequent collaborator, Nicholas Kazan (Reversal of Fortune), as well as former Spotlight Award recipient, Anthony Peckham (Invictus). The trio will discuss screenwriting and the current state of their trade as new opportunities arise in television, VOD and now-popular documentaries on Saturday, March 17, from 10:30AM-11:45AM in the Festival Hospitality Tent.
Robin Swicord is primarily known for her work as a screenwriter for a number of critically acclaimed and beloved films including; Memoirs of a Geisha (which won a Satellite Award for Best Screenplay); Little Women (for which she co-produced, as well as received a Writers Guild Award nomination); Matilda (which was co-written and co-produced with Nicholas Kazan); Shag; The Perez Family; and Practical Magic. In 2009 Swicord received an Oscar nomination for her contribution to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a project Swicord originated and worked on for more than a decade. She has also written two plays that were produced off-Broadway (Last Days at the Dixie Girl Café, and Criminal Minds).
Swicord made her feature-directing debut with Sony Picture Classic’s The Jane Austen Book Club, produced by Julie Lynn and John Calley, for which Swicord also wrote the screenplay adaptation. Most recently, she wrote and directed Wakefield, starring Bryan Cranston and Jennifer Garner. She is currently collaborating with Ava DuVernay on DuVernay’s five-part miniseries about the Central Park Five, for Netflix.
A leader within the screenwriting community, with a reputation for “giving back,” Swicord is a Governor for the Writers Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and chairs the prestigious Nicholl Fellowship. She mentors for the Sundance Screenwriting lab, and often co-leads Film Independent’s Writers Lab. In 2015 she helped create and launch the inaugural Hedgebrook Screenwriting Workshop for women writers, which she led in October of this year. Swicord is married to writer-director Nicholas Kazan; they have two daughters, actor-writer Zoe Kazan and actor-writer Maya Kazan.
image via Youtube 
The San Luis Obispo International Film Festival (SLOIFF) announced that actor Jeff Bridges will be presented with the 20th Anniversary King Vidor Award at the upcoming festival taking place March 5 to 9th, 2014. On Saturday, March 8 at the Fremont Theatre in San Luis Obispo, former King Vidor Award recipient James Cromwell will present the award followed by a conversation with Jeff Bridges, and a screening of one of his films.
One of Hollywood’s most successful actors and a six-time Academy Award® nominee, Bridges’ performance in “CRAZY HEART”—as Bad Blake, the down-on-his-luck country music singer —deservedly garnered the iconic performer his first Oscar® for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. The performance also earned him the Golden Globe, SAG Award and the IFP/Spirit Award for Lead Actor.
Other SLOIFF Highlights include the 3rd Annual Spotlight Award presented to Adam West on Opening Night, after a screening of the new documentary, STARRING ADAM WEST directed by James Tooley.