Kenneth Branagh is one of the world's most consistently acclaimed filmmakers, and his work as a director is trademarked by quality, truth and passion. The Film Society is thrilled to celebrate Branagh with the Founder’s Directing Award, given each year to a master of world cinema in memory of Irving M. Levin, the visionary founder of the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1957. The event includes an onstage interview and the screening of one of Branagh’s lesser-seen gems, Dead Again.

Split between black-and-white sequences that take place in 1948 and full-color passages set in a present-day 1991, Dead Again is the neo-noir thriller that helped propel director/star Kenneth Branagh’s crossover from Shakespearean renown into movie stardom. Mike Church (Branagh), a brassy Los Angeles private investigator, takes the case of “Grace” (Emma Thompson), an amnesiac haunted by nightmares. Hypnotist Franklyn Madson (Derek Jacobi) claims Grace’s nightmares are actually flashbacks to a past life in which she was brutally murdered. As the mutual attraction between Grace and Church grows stronger, so does the notion that the detective has a murky past of his own to contend with. Thus, love and revenge compete for a resolution two lifetimes in the making. Branagh’s deceptively light, jocular portrayal of Church cannily sets us up for a set of serious surprises in this suspenseful, psychologically taut and tenderly romantic who-done-it. We knew he had the Bard covered, but with Dead Again, Branagh first revealed the subtle brilliance of his way with cinematic genre at large.

The Founder’s Directing Award is presented each year to a master of world cinema and is given in memory of Irving M. Levin, visionary founder of the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1957. It is made possible by Fred M. Levin and Nancy Livingston. The award was first bestowed in 1986 on iconic filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, and for many years carried his name.

The award has brought many of the world’s most visionary directors to the San Francisco International Film festival over the years. Previous recipients are Oliver Stone, USA; Walter Salles, Brazil; Francis Ford Coppola, USA; Mike Leigh, England; Spike Lee, USA; Werner Herzog, Germany; Taylor Hackford, USA; Milos Forman, Czechoslovakia/USA; Robert Altman, USA; Warren Beatty, USA; Clint Eastwood, USA; Abbas Kiarostami, Iran; Arturo Ripstein, Mexico; Im Kwon-Taek, Korea; Francesco Rosi, Italy; Arthur Penn, USA; Stanley Donen, USA; Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal; Ousmane Sembène, Senegal; Satyajit Ray, India; Marcel Carné, France; Jirí Menzel, Czechoslovakia; Joseph L. Mankiewicz, USA; Robert Bresson, France; Michael Powell, England; and Akira Kurosawa, Japan.




Tickets $24 for SFFS members, $30 for the general public. Box office opens March 19 for SFFS members online at sffs.org and in person at SF Film Society Cinema (1746 Post Street, Webster/Buchanan). Box office opens March 21 for the general public.