The San Francisco Greek Film Festival wraps and announces awards and events

The San Francisco Greek Film Festival (SFGFF) wrapped its 18th annual event, which was presented April 16-25. The Festival screened twelve narrative features, seven documentaries, and seven narrative shorts by Greek and Cypriot filmmakers from around the world. The festival was held on a mostly virtual platform, with one in-person drive-in screening. Following the Festival's first experience with virtual presentations in October 2020, the recent series was even more successful, with a fifty percent increase in films streamed, and another sold-out drive-in event. All virtual screenings were offered free of charge, as a gift to the community. Many generous audience members made optional donations, which are greatly appreciated and help the Festival continue its mission.

The SFGFF viewers for the 2021 online screenings responded to prompts to rate each film after each screening, allowing the overall favorites to be named in the audience favorite Astron Awards. When the ratings were tallied, the Astron Award for a narrative feature film was awarded to Tailor, directed by Sonia Liza Kenterman, while the Astron Award for narrative short film went to Parrot Lady, directed by Michael Kalopaidis, and the Astron Award for a documentary to Athos, The World's Brightest Peak, directed by Argyris Liapis.

This year's SFGFF featured the first Jury Awards for the event. The Best Narrative Short Jury Award winner is Bella, directed by Thelyia Petraki. The jury, comprised of Jon Bastian, Allie Light, and Lansia Wann, stated: “This short film is a unique take on a singular POV narrative. Bella not only meshes found footage seamlessly with new, but as it progresses, it becomes more relatable. As it progresses, the emotional connection grows stronger. As it progresses, it reveals the ups and downs of someone's life story. Then, in the end, even without sharing any commonalities to this person's life, you strangely feel akin.”

Read more at thenationalherald.com

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Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons License: CC-BY-SA Copyright: Noah Friedlander