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’re adding a permanent, evolving section to this website, dedicated to social justice in documentary media, Click Here to see the beginning of that page–a selection of documentary suggestions about racism in the U.S.

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SDFF 2020 Filmmaker Speaks Health Care Desert, Hospital Closures Have Impacted COVID

As COVID has torn through the country, it has refocused attention on long-standing issues in American healthcare that have put low-income folks and people of color at much greater risk of both contracting and dying of the disease. SDFF 2020 selection The Desert (Bo Kovitz, 2019) documents the closure of an East Bay hospital that left almost 250,000, mostly low-income, people in the Bay Area over a 30 minutes away from the nearest hospital. Since COVID began spiking in California, Kovitz has spoken out elqouently on “health care deserts”…

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Director of The Wild Responds to Bristol Bay Mining Threat

As we sat down for a Q&A director Mark Titus in late July 2020 to discuss The Wild, the threats to Bristol Bay’s environment, bio-diversity and culture, which his film depicts as “a race against time,” appeared to be accelerating as EPA safeguards have been dismantled by the current administration. Those safeguards have been protecting Bristol Bay, a “wild place that is the last of its kind on earth,” the keystone species of salmon that run in the area, and the people who have made their life in the area, including commercial, sustainable fishers and regional tribes…

Read Full Story Here! See The Wild/Eco-Film Program Details! Full Filmmaker Interview Aug. 9!

Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival 2020 To Finish the Year Online

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SDFF 2021 Set for April 22-25,
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July 6!

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Claudia Escobar, Dear Homeland

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SDFF has Attained Coveted Recognition as Academy Award® Qualifying Festival

Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival is proud to announce that it has been approved by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as an Academy Qualifying Festival for the Documentary Short Subject category.

Currently in its 13^th year, the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival’s mission to bring the best in documentary film to Sonoma County has just been enhanced by its inclusion as an Academy Award^® qualifying festival. Of more than 8,000 film festivals currently listed on FilmFreeway’s entry portal, only 158 of those festivals have Academy Award^® qualifying status. Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival is honored to be in their company.

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.

Jury Awards for SDFF 2020 were scheduled to be announced on March 25 at Opening Night ceremonies. With the advent of the pandemic, those ceremonies were postponed. The award winners have been notified. It is with great pride that we list the winners below, noting that both the Short Subject and the Mini-Doc are eligible for consideration in the 93^rd Academy Awards^® Short Subject Category.

Click pics to see filmmakers' acceptance speeches!

Click Here for Full List of SDFF 2020 Selections

After visiting the Navajo nation earlier this month, filmmaker Karney Hatch (Overdrawn, Plant This Movie!) was overcome by the staggering number of cases and the scale of the loss facing the community and decided to volunteer in hopes of helping the Navajo & Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund raise money by shooting some footage…

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