In 1957, the Golden Gate Awards was established to augment the San Francisco International Film Festival’s tradition of recognizing and promoting excellence in independent and world cinema. Years later, the Golden Gate Awards continue to recognize and honor filmmakers of the highest caliber. For over five decades, the competition has introduced Bay Area audiences to illustrious filmmakers who have transformed the medium with their award-winning documentary features and animated, narrative, experimental and documentary short films.

Festival programmers put together roughly three-quarters of our programs, including all of the theatrical narrative features. For the remaining quarter we turn to the Bay Area's active and dedicated professional media community. Each year, these filmmakers, journalists, exhibitors, curators and academics devote hours of their valuable time to screen hundreds of entries and make recommendations to SFFS programmers, who will choose the Official Selections. Three juries will view these works at the Festival and bestow Golden Gate Awards on films in fourteen categories.
 
Selected from a wide array of entries, these films truly represent the best of the international filmmaking community. Some past recipients of the award include Satyajit Ray, Roberto Rossellini, Roman Polanski and Shirley Clarke, while local luminaries such as Marlon Riggs, Sam Green and Stanley Nelson also have been awarded for their brilliant efforts.
 
The Golden Gate Awards are one way we fulfill an important Festival function: to increase attention and resources given to independent filmmakers, and to support the development of international cinema. We invite you to join us in celebrating the accomplishments of every winner from the past fifty years as we look ahead to another half-century of Golden Gate excellence.

2011 WINNERS
54th San Francisco International Film Festival

GOLDEN GATE PERSISTENCE OF VISION AWARD
Established in 1997, the Persistence of Vision Award each year honors the achievement of a filmmaker whose main body of work is outside the realm of typical narrative feature filmmaking, crafting documentaries, short films, television, animated, experimental or multiplatform work. This year's recipient is Matthew Barney.

INVESTIGATIVE DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Crime After Crime, Yoav Potash (USA 2011)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Better This World, Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway (USA 2011)

BAY AREA DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Better This World, Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway (USA 2011)

NEW DIRECTORS AWARD
The Journals of Musan, Park Jung-bum (South Korea 2010)

FIPRESCI PRIZE
The Salesman, Sébastien Pilote (Canada 2011)

NARRATIVE SHORT
Blokes, Marialy Rivas (Chile 2010)

DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Into the Middle of Nowhere, Anna Frances Ewert (Scotland, England 2010)

ANIMATED SHORT
The External World, David O’Reilly (Ireland 2010)

BAY AREA SHORT, FIRST PRIZE
Tourist Trap, Skye Thorstenson (USA 2010)

BAY AREA SHORT, SECOND PRIZE
Young Dracula, Alfred Seccombe (USA 2010)

NEW VISIONS
Lost Lake, Zackary Drucker (USA 2010)

WORK FOR KIDS AND FAMILIES
Specky Four Eyes, Jean-Claude Rozec (France 2010)

YOUTH WORK
Z-Man, Nat Talbot (USA 2010)

YOUTH WORK, HONORABLE MENTION
The Snowman, Kelly Wilson, Neil Wrischnik (USA 2010)

YOUTH WORK, HONORABLE MENTION
The Math Test, Sam Rubin (USA 2010)