San Diego International Film Festival

The San Diego International Film Festival is an independent film festival in San Diego, California, produced by the non-profit San Diego Film Foundation. The main event has traditionally been held annually in the autumn at venues in the Gaslamp Quarter, La Jolla and Balboa Park.

The festival hosts celebrity awards banquets, panel discussions, retrospectives, parties, premieres and contemporary independent narrative, documentary and short film screenings. Competitive juried categories vary year to year and have included foreign language, animated, Native American, military, social justice, equestrian, thrillers and local films made in San Diego.

Special advanced screenings for VIP members and educational programs for San Diego area high schools are held year round in addition to an annual formal "Oscar watch party" in the winter.

History
The San Diego International Film Festival (originally just "The San Diego Film Festival") and its non-profit foundation were founded in 2001 by event planner Robin Laatz and her filmmaker husband Karl Kozak. In its first decade, films premiering at the festival included Roger Dodger, The Blair Witch Project, Fahrenheit 9/11, An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for Superman, Napoleon Dynamite, Primer, The Machinist and Born Into Brothels.

The festival has been designated "Best Party Fest" and "Best Beach Fest" by the "Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide". It has also been criticized along the same lines for being "more intent on throwing parties than putting quality films on the screen."

New Leadership/Native Direction
In 2012, leadership passed to husband and wife producers Dale Strack and Tonya Mantooth. According to Strack, they were modeling it after Napa Valley Film Festival, with a "longer term goal" of rivaling Sundance or TriBeCa.

The festival expanded to a second location in La Jolla the same year.

Another new change was the establishment of a "Native American Advisory Board", whose name was changed in 2017 to "American Indian Advisory Board". Tribes represented on the AIA board include Sac and Fox, Luiseño, Kumeyaay, Seminole, Lipan/Mescalero Apache and the Barona Band of Mission Indians. Notable members of the board include character actor Saginaw Grant (The Lone Ranger, Breaking Bad), Randolph Mantooth (Emergency!, Sons of Anarchy, brother of Tonya Mantooth) and Erica Pinto, the Chairwoman of Jamul Indian Village.

2012-2019
Notable films premiering at the festival during this time include Silver Linings Playbook, 12 Years a Slave, He Named Me Malala, Goosebumps, The Imitation Game, Wild, Lion, Tiger, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Call Me By Your Name, Marshall, The Favourite, Widows, Boy Erased, Jojo Rabbit, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Marriage Story, The Irishman, and Parasite.

In 2013, New York area film critic Jeffrey Lyons was added as festival host and made honorary jury chairman. He acted as host or as co-host along with his with son Ben Lyons or with Access Hollywood film critic Scott Mantz, up until 2018, when Mantz hosted solo.

The festival added "International" to its name in 2016, having previously been known only as the San Diego Film Festival.

In 2016, the festival established a Film Insider Series for VIP members to watch featured official selections and festival winners, premieres and special advanced screenings throughout the year.

In September 2019, the festival began hosting free screenings of popular movies on Mission Beach.

In 2019, the festival expanded to six days and hosted a second opening night film (The Irishman) at the La Jolla Village.

2020-present
Notable films premiering at the festival during this time include Nomadland, The French Dispatch, Spencer, The Power of the Dog, The Lost Daughter, The Banshees of Inisherin and The Inspection.

In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival was reduced to four days and presented 114 films both virtually and on drive-thru screens.

As of 2020, the San Diego International Film Festival is a qualifying festival for the Canadian Screen Awards.

In 2021, limited in-person screenings resumed at new venues including the Museum of Photographic Arts and the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park, as well as the Catamaran Resort in Mission Bay. A special screening was held on the deck on a historic aircraft carrier at the USS Midway Museum.

In 2022, after organizers at the Women's Museum of California's had ended their Women's Film Festival due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they joined forces with the San Diego Festival to present a women's series of films.

In 2023, the film festival's opening night is being held at Westfield UTC AMC on October 8. Where, for the festival's 22nd year, they will have a showing of the Oscar winning film, The Holdovers. The Festival will be occurring October 18–22 at Balboa Park's Museum of Photographic Arts, during those 5 days there will be showing 91 films of the 3,200 films that were submitted. The theme of this years Festival is "Celebrating the power of film", meaning films will be outlining the importance of film and its impact on our society and community.

Gregory Peck Award
The Gregory Peck Award for Cinematic Excellence has been presented by the family of San Diego native Gregory Peck at the festival since 2014. Recipients at the San Diego festival include Andy Garcia, Laurence Fishburne, Keith Carradine, Patrick Stewart, Annette Bening and Alan Arkin. The family originally presented the award at the Dingle International Film Festival in Ireland. Previous recipients include Gabriel Byrne, Jim Sheridan, Jean-Jacques Beineix and Laura Dern.

Chris Brinker Award
The Chris Brinker Award was created by the family of Chris Brinker, a San Diego area producer best known for The Boondock Saints movies, who died of a brain aneurysm at the age of 42. The award is given every year to the best first time director in competition at the festival.

Golden Eagle
Since 2014, honored celebrities and winning filmmakers have been presented with a "Golden Eagle" themed statuette, sculpted by Apache artist Ruben Chato.

Kumeyaay Eagle Award
An annual award presented to the best film competing in the American Indian track.

Night of the Stars Awards
The festival offers other awards - Auteur, Vanguard, Humanitarian, Rising Star, etc. - that vary year to year. Honorees include:
 * 2022: Regina Hall, Tony Hale, Lisa Ann Walker, Colson Baker.
 * 2019: Lindsay Wagner, Jared Harris, Pitbull, Jillian Bell, Camilla Morrone.
 * 2018: Kenny Loggins, Kathryn Hahn, John Cho, Topher Grace, Zachary Levi, Alex Wolff, Christian Navarro.
 * 2017: Kumail Nanjiani, Heather Graham, Taran Killam and Blake Jenner.
 * 2017: Kate Beckinsale, Simon Helberg and Jason Mitchell
 * 2016: Adrien Brody, Geena Davis, Brit Marling and John Boyega
 * 2015: Beau Bridges, Michelle Monaghan, Eli Roth, Allison Pill, Tom Berenger
 * 2014: Judd Apatow, Michael B. Jordan and Mariel Hemingway
 * 2013: Gus Van Sant, Diane Ladd, Anne Heche, Penny Lane, Stephen Gyllenhaal and Martin McDonagh.

Partnerships
Films frrom San Diego that win or are nominated in the 48 Hour Film Project are screened during the festival every year.

The San Diego International Film Festival has partnered with the San Diego County Office of Education and the San Diego Unified School District to bring films about social issues like homelessness, water pollution and refugees to area high schools.

The festival - along with the GI Film Festival, FilmOut San Diego, San Diego Asian Film Festival, San Diego Latino Film Festival, Horrible Imaginings Film Festival - submits films to San Diego Film Week, a city-wide spring showcase produced by Film Consortium San Diego. Submitted films are eligible to win San Diego Film Awards.