Editor

Graham Leggat, new executive director of the San Francisco Film Society, presenter of the San Francisco International Film Festival, the longest-running festival in the Americas, and Brian Clark, co-founder and managing member of indieWIRE, the leading online publication dedicated to American and international independent film, today announced a strategic partnership that launches a new co-published site, SF360.org, dedicated to daily coverage and social network support of the vibrant SF film and media scene.

Mirroring much of indieWIRE’s highly successful publishing model, but with its own distinctive look and feel, SF360.org will cover the many year-round festivals, dynamic youth-media and media arts groups, maverick independent and experimental filmmakers, film industry legends, cutting-edge digital media companies, top-shelf production houses, and never-say-die documentarians in the SF Bay Area through long-form articles, shorter news pieces, columns, editorials, photo galleries, daily listings, and a comprehensive calendar of events.

On the community side, SF360.org will feature a powerful suite of social networking features, allowing Bay Area audiences, writers, non-profit arts organizations, and filmmakers to set up and organize groups, coordinate events, establish virtual festival and production offices, maintain personal and group blogs, and variously network with each other on joint projects.

SF360.org is the flagship project of the San Francisco Film Society’s new SF360 series of initiatives. Designed to strengthen and promote the SF film and media scene in all its various and exciting forms, SF360 includes SF360 Festival of Festivals, SF360 San Francisco Movie Night (One City/One Film), and SF360 InSchool Cinemas. SF360.org will go live early March 2006, as part of the run-up to the Film Society’s much-anticipated 49th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 20 – May 4). Established in 1957, SFIFF will be “First to 50” in April 2007.

“indieWIRE has been the voice of independent American and international film for a decade now,” said Leggat. “In that time it has helped discover and support countless superb films and filmmakers as well as inform and excite both the audiences and the makers of many more. The San Francisco Film Society is thrilled to be partnering with indieWIRE to create an innovative platform for the singular and vital film and media exhibition that flourishes year-round in the San Francisco Bay Area.”

“We are very excited to be entering into partnership with the San Francisco Film Society, whose San Francisco International Film Festival has been an intelligent and welcome home for American and international filmmakers for nearly fifty years,” said Clark. “SF360.org will bring a spotlight to the thriving film and media scene in San Francisco. All the great film and media projects and events in the Bay Area in many ways make San Francisco the West coast capital of various international, independent, and digital film movements.”

The San Francisco Bay Area is recognized around the world as a crucible for new creative visions. The San Francisco International Film Festival arose out of this rich ground in 1957 and for the last 49 years has been acclaimed for its programmatic excellence, sophisticated and engaged audiences, and welcoming attitude toward new and established figures in world cinema. The Festival draws from and reflects the uniquely diverse and internationalist cultural climate of San Francisco, making it an exemplary showcase for the premieres of international, national and local works, each year screening some 200 works to audiences in excess of 75,000, including more than 300 filmmakers, journalists, and industry professionals.