Mission
The mission of the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival is to showcase strong, independent documentary films.
Additional goals of the Festival are to:
- Bring together the local film community.
- Develop a strong Latino film program.
- Develop a strong youth program for local children and teens to experience the art of independent filmmaking.
- Become a catalyst for educational and other film programs, such as monthly film screenings and salons, showcasing other genres of independent film, including narrative and experimental work.
Festival Presenter
The Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival is presented by Sebastopol Center for the Arts.
Sebastopol Center for the Arts is a grassroots, nonprofit arts center created in 1988 by a coalition of art, business and community members to provide art programs and services for all sectors of the community. For more information about SCA Click Here.
Film Festival Staff
Linda Galletta, Executive Director
Jason Perdue, Program Director
Tommie Dell Smith, Co-Artistic Director
Teresa Book Webster, Co-Artistic Director
Kathy Douglas, Festival Coordinator
Cynthi Stefenoni, Volunteer Coordinator
Film Festival Founder
ELIZA HEMENWAY founded the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival in 2007 with a vision to showcase strong, independent documentary films in West Sonoma County, and to network the local film community. For more information about Eliza, visit http://www.hemenwaydocs.com.
Film Selection Committee
JASON PERDUE, Program Director, has been a member of the San Francisco Film Society for 14 years and has traveled to film festivals around the country, seeing first-hand how successful festivals are run. He served on the selection committee of the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival in 2007, and has taken on the role of program director for SDFF 2009. He brings a true film fan's perspective to programming this year’s festival.
TERESA BOOK WEBSTER is Co-Artistic Director of SDFF 2011, and has been involved with the festival since its inception in 2007. Her credits as a post-production supervisor and assistant film editor include numerous narrative and documentary features edited in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.
CAROLINA CRUZ-SANTIAGO has worked in various capacities in documentary film and commercial production for the past ten years. Her short film, Aloha New York, about a community of surfers in New York City premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and is currently on the Sundance Channel. She is producing a new film directed by Laurent Alfieri about his French family and their history and memories of life in Tunisia. She lives in Northern California with her family.
VALERIE A. LANDES is the three-time Emmy Award-winning producer of KRCB-TV’s Natural Heroes series which showcases independent short films about people helping our environment. She is also independently producing Hideaway, a short film about the Holocaust for young students. Past positions have included seeking kids with wacky talents at Nickelodeon and hanging out with the Muppets on Sesame Street.
GIL MANSERGH is the festival’s resident film critic, serving as movie columnist in the Sonoma West Times and News, Petaluma Argus Courier, Windsor Times and Healdsburg Tribune. He is the radio host of Cinema Toast on KRSH-FM and Word by Word: Conversations with Writers on KRCB-FM. Gil is also author of the Cinema Toast movie blog on the Press Democrat/New York Times website, Petaluma360.com. A psychological educator and internationally acknowledged expert on using film clips as teaching tools, Gil brings a decidedly different point-of-view to the festival’s selection committee.
JEAN MCGLOTHLIN was part of the independent film community in San Francisco, producing and distributing films primarily for business and education. Her small company produced a feature film and distributed independent films to college campuses. She also produced a video that was bought by McGraw-Hill for distribution. Jean has pre-screened shorts for the San Francisco Film Festival, and although now a metalsmith, she remains a rabid film fan.
TOMMIE DELL SMITH is Co-Artistic Director of SDFF 2011, and has produced and directed award-winning documentaries for over 25 years. As a member of New Day Films, a national film distribution cooperative, she has participated in selecting new documentaries for the collection for 14 years. Tommie has served as panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and several state arts councils and as a juror for other film festivals around the country.
CYNTHI STEFENONI is Volunteer Coordinator for SDFF and was born and raised in Sebastopol. A Directors Guild of America member since 1989, her career has included many television and film projects. She currently has residences in both Los Angeles and Sebastopol, but has always called Sebastopol her home.