5 Blocks

Dan Goldes, Robert Cortlandt / SFUFF 2014, Shorts / USA / WIP / 8 mins

A work-in-progress tracking the radical changes in the five block area of Mid-Market, San Francisco since prior to the recent tech-boom to the present.

73 Questions

Leah Nichols / SFUFF 2017, Films, Documentary, Shorts / USA / 2017 / 10 mins

This beautifully hand-drawn animated short film inverts the popular culture trope of celebrity questionnaires and uses it instead to build a soulful profile of a man whom you would never otherwise stop to get to know.

Al Ghorba

Alia Hijaab / SFUFF 2018, Shorts / 2018 / Documentary / 6 mins

Through a series of dreams, a Syrian woman living far from home tries to deal with being unsettled and displaced from her war-torn country. “Al Ghorba” is an arabic word that can be translated to “the state of being a stranger,” when one is surrounded by strangers and is a stranger to them. This concept is center to the film for it describes one experience moving to a new land that is alienating to you.

The Angel in the Alley

Hamilton Henson / SFUFF 2018, Shorts / 2017 / 15 mins

After a bag of tapes mysteriously appears at the front door of City Hope, Rev. Paul Trudeau gets to know an eccentric neighbor. This is piece is a “live film”, during which Hamilton Henson, its creator will narrate his film live.

Arc of Justice, The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of a Beloved Community

Helen S. Cohen and Mark Lipman / SFUFF 2017, Films, Documentary, Shorts / USA / 2015 / 22 mins

“Arc of Justice” traces the inspiring journey of New Communities and the struggle for racial and economic justice among African Americans in southwest Georgia. Formed in 1969 during the Civil Rights movement, New Communities persevered as the largest black-owned farm in the country despite relentless opposition.

Bonobo

Zoel Aeschbacher / SFUFF 2018, Narrative, Shorts / Switzerland / 2018 / 18 mins

When the elevator of their public housing breaks down, the fates of Felix, a disabled pensioner, Ana, a single mother struggling with her move and Seydou, a young man passionate about dance, intertwine towards an explosive ending where their limits will be tested.

Buchanan Mall

Sophie Constantinou / SFUFF 2016, Shorts / USA / 2016 / 11 mins

Buchanan Mall is five consecutive blocks of underutilized public parkland in the Western Addition neighborhood from Grove to Eddy Street. The 7,000 low-income, predominantly African-American residents who live adjacent to Buchanan Mall, face acute challenges: recent, rapid gentrification, longstanding patterns of discrimination and turf conflict, an exodus of employed adults, and decades-long cycles of displacement, unemployment, and mass incarceration. Buchanan Mall, at the center of this neighborhood, has become a nexus of violence and a place pervaded by fear.

City Surf Project

Oscar Guerra / SFUFF 2018, Shorts / USA / 2018 / 10 mins

A local Bay Area group teach surfing to kids who may not otherwise have resources or access.

Columbus Discovers Air Pollution

Zelda Zivny, Charlie Millenbah, Milo Wetherall / SFUFF 2016, Shorts / USA / 5 mins

Concrete Canvas

Gema Ceron & Nicole Rivera / Student, SFUFF 2018, Documentary, Shorts / USA / 2016 / Documentary / 6 mins

Public art is integral to the empowerment of urban communities. Artists and city servants come together to explore how urban art grants agency to the disenfranchised.