/Film
2026 San Francisco Black Film Festival
Event WebsiteAbout
Celebrating African American Cinema since 1998, SFBFF celebrates African American cinema and the African cultural diaspora and showcases a diverse collection of films – from emerging and established filmmakers.
SF/Arts Curator Insight
This vibrant showcase for African American cinema and Bay Area filmmakers in particular, emphasizes positive images and eschews negative stereotypes, Audrey Olsen’s black & white doc, “Punkie,” for example, follows exuberant stand-up comedian Punkie Johnson, who was the first Black openly lesbian cast member of Saturday Night Live (2020-2024.). Olsen’s camera captures Johnson on the road, delivering her unvarnished, idiosyncratic brand of comedy and coping with a bout of mental health issues. In “Beyond Blood,” SF-based poet/filmmaker Tiffany Fuller, who was raised in foster care by an aunt, recalls life in Bayview Hunter’s Point, once the center of the city’s Black community, and her legacy of drug addiction and abandonment.
Sura Wood
Contributing Writer, Film
San Francisco Black Film Festival
SAN FRANCISCO BLACK FILM FESTIVAL’s MISSION is to celebrate African American cinema and the African cultural Diaspora and to showcase a diverse collection of films – from emerging and established filmmakers.
SAN FRANCISCO BLACK FILM FESTIVAL’s MISSION is to celebrate African American cinema and the African cultural Diaspora and to showcase a diverse collection of films – from emerging and established filmmakers.