First Looks, the Roxie’s Oscar-Qualifying Theatrical Release program, supports filmmakers in their Academy Award quest. We put together a unique lineup of shorts (with running times of 40 minutes and under) from any genre (documentary, narrative, and animation) to serve as the film’s Academy qualifying run. Filmmakers interested in participating can check out more info […]
Newly Restored! July 1997. Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends spend the summer going on dates with older men for money. Armed with only a cellphone, Hiromi sets out to date her way to ¥128,000 in order to purchase an expensive topaz ring before the mall closes for the day. Based on the novel by […]
The destruction of a Palestinian home by Israeli edict and the murder of a youth at the hands of an Israeli settler set the stage for even more shocks to come in writer/director Farah Nabulsi’s assured feature debut. Saleh Bakri is Basem, an amiable educator who tries to steer the deceased boy’s younger brother Adam […]
Mel Novikoff Award The 2025 Mel Novikoff Award celebrates the Roxie Theater — Local gem, cultural landmark, and steadfast champion of independent cinema, the Roxie Theater has been igniting San Francisco’s film scene for over a century. Waiting out pouring rain in the shelter of Kyoto’s Rashomon Gate, a woodcutter and a priest relate the […]
Co-Presented by the Jewish Film Institute! Basel Adra, a young Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, has been fighting his community’s mass expulsion by the Israeli occupation since childhood. Basel documents the gradual erasure of Masafer Yatta, as soldiers destroy the homes of families – the largest single act of forced transfer ever carried out in […]
When a group of students at Columbia University in New York launch a movement protesting the war in Gaza, they spark a nationwide uprising in solidarity with the people of Gaza. Encampments spring up at hundreds of other campuses as students object to their own university’s investment in the US and Israeli arms industry. Featuring […]
Presented by Odyssey Film Institute Seymour Krelboin (Jonathan Haze) works in the Skid Row flower shop owned by Mr. Mushnik (Mel Welles). In his spare time, Seymour creates a new plant species he names Audrey Junior in honor of his girlfriend Audrey (Jackie Joseph). Audrey Junior begins speaking and demands to be fed human blood […]
Q&A with filmmaker, Deborah Craig, Ondine Rarey, and other guests. Co-presented by the GLBT Historical Society “Sally!” the feature documentary begins with Sally Gearhart at the height of her powers in the 1970s. She was one of second-wave feminism’s most beloved icons, penned a cult classic fantasy novel about a female utopia and fought one […]
Taking its name from the polluted river that flows through Shanghai, director Lou’s hometown, the brooding Suzhou River uses the singular first-person perspective of its unseen videographer-narrator to explore the grubby underbelly of the city, observing the story of an unsuspecting motorcycle courier who finds himself snared in a kidnapping plot and murder rap. A […]
With Blind Massage, Lou creates a true ensemble movie: the blind and partially sighted masseurs and masseuses of Sha Zonqi Massage Centre, in Nanjing, central China, a distinctly unglamorous, bottom-line undertaking run by the light-hearted Sha Fuming (Eric Qin Hao) and the more serious Zhang Zongqi (Wang Zhihua). It’s a powerful ride through a parallel […]
“Critic’s Pick! ‘A Quiet Knockout'” – Natalia Winkelman, The New York Times From Miguel Gomes, the award winning director of Tabu and Arabian Nights, comes a globe-trotting tale of unrequited love. Earning Gomes the Best Director prize at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, Grand Tour blends melodrama and screwball comedy in this cat-and-mouse chase between […]
In January 2020, director Xiaorui reunites his cast and crew to complete a film that was abandoned during production ten years earlier. However, the team is suddenly placed into lockdown together during the onset of COVID-19. Confronted with the challenges of the pandemic, Xiaorui and his crew are forced to determine how to move forward […]
