Filmmaker and community educator, Scarlett Shepard, founded the San Francisco Women’s Film Festival on May 15th, 2004. While a student in San Francisco State University’s cinema program, Shepard noticed the lack of credit given to women filmmakers in the history of cinema.
After consulting with the SFSU cinema department and administration, Shepard embarked on a journey to create a platform that showcases, awards, and celebrates local, student and international women filmmakers. She teamed up with SFSU professors, the SFSU Women’s Center of Associated Students, local award-winning filmmakers and a host of local sponsors. San Francisco State University’s first Women’s Film Festival was born in April 2005.
After the success of its first run, Shepard decided to expand the festival beyond the SFSU campus and rename the festival.
“SFWFF is a necessary step - women directors should no longer be left out or considered a side note in film festivals, film history and the film industry,” says Shepard.
Shepard’s experience with film curriculum mirrors the overall exclusion of women from film history studies and their contributions to cinema inside and outside the classrooms. According to the Directors Guild of America (DGA) statistics, female directors logged 7.4 percent of total member workdays on fiction features in 1999. Similarly, only three women — Sofia Coppola, Jane Campion, and Lina Wertmüller — have been nominated for Oscars in the Best Director category, and none have won.
