We stand in solidarity with people of color and anti-racists protesting police violence and other forms of state-sanctioned white supremacy. In support of this ongoing movement, and in-keeping with our belief in the power of documentary to help us look beyond ourselves and to foster critical thinking, we’ve added a permanent, evolving section to this website, dedicated to social justice in documentary media. This section is intended to supplement, not supplant, the inclusion of these issues in the festival’s film selections, news updates and other content, and to provide a central place for our audience to find information and resources. Click Here to see the current iteration of this page.
SEBASTOPOL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL
A Doc Festival for All
In 2020, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences named SDFF a Qualifying Festival for the Documentary Short Subject category. Recipients of the SDFF Jury Award for Short Subject and Jury Award for Mini-Doc are now eligible for consideration in the Documentary Short Subject category of the Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run, provided the film otherwise complies with the Academy rules.
An all-volunteer Steering Committee of filmmakers, film scholars and critics, and film lovers run SDFF. MovieMaker magazine named SDFF “One of the Coolest Film Festivals” twice. While that was a nice feather in our cap, seeing the raves of filmmakers, festival attendees, and our community is our greatest satisfaction.
The inspiration behind the founding of the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival in 2007 was an immense curiosity into lives and experiences outside of our own. In the years since, we’ve worked to serve as a bridge for independent non-fiction filmmakers to audiences keen to explore and learn.
SDFF brings the best documentaries and filmmakers from around the world to northern California for an annual celebration of non-fiction films. We’ll exhibit 70 to 75 films over four days on six screens in Sebastopol. Our audience includes documentary film lovers, industry professionals, filmmakers and curious bystanders.
News from SDFF
- bysebastopolfilm
- 3 days ago
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9 AUGUST 2022 AWARDS. HONORS. FESTIVALS. SPECIAL SCREENINGS. Two SDFF 2022 shorts, The Chemical Factory (Drew Leung, 2021) and Nuisance Bear (Jack Weisman and Gabriela Oslo Vanden, 2021), are...
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- 1 week ago
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2 AUGUST 2022 AWARDS. HONORS. FESTIVALS. SPECIAL SCREENINGS. Corbett Joan O’Toole, an activist and historian featured in Crip Camp (James LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham, 2020) was one of...
- bysebastopolfilm
- 2 weeks ago
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As you probably already know, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, suspending legal access to vital reproductive health care for woman...