With support from the California Arts Council, the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival (SFTFF) will respond to this TIME OF EMERGENCY FOR TRANS COMMUNITIES by producing our 28th annual transgender film festival at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. Our annual Festival will run November 13-16, 2025 with 5 in-person and 5 online programs.
We will offer ASL interpretation at all of our in-person screenings, and all films (in-person AND online) will be open/close-captioned for Deaf and Hard-of-hearing audiences.
All our programs and events will be offered at $0+ sliding scale, to maximize access since our communities experience economic marginalization, employment discrimination, and continued Bay Area gentrification and displacement.
We build community by providing opportunities for TGNC artists and audiences, fighting for intersectional justice in media arts, and supporting trans filmmakers.
As attacks on trans people’s very existence escalate, The San Francisco Transgender Film Festival (SFTFF) uplifts films celebrating trans ancestors, honoring contemporary leaders, and imagining our liberated futures.
SFTFF programming and events are open to everyone. Access is central to our values: all programs are offered on a $0+ sliding scale with no one turned away for lack of funds; all in-person screenings feature ASL interpretation, and all content is captioned; we require/provide KN95 masks; and only choose mobility-accessible venues;
Our annual film festival, panels and talkbacks take place in-person at the historic Roxie Theater, and online through on-demand, closed-captioned programs.
Our DREAMCommission Program annually awards creation funds to Bay Area BIPOC Trans/GNC filmmakers to support the creation of their new work. We stay connected with these filmmakers, to support and screen their new works in the months and years that follow.
SFTFF screens films that offer empowered visions for movement building and social justice, and prioritizes films by and about our community’s most underrepresented and marginalized people: BIPOC folks; trans immigrants; disabled and Deaf trans people; youth and elders.
We support both emerging and established artists and prioritize grassroots, experimental, or DIY films, since these are the films often made by our community’s most under-resourced people.
Unlike most film festivals, SFTFF only screen works directed by Trans/GNC filmmakers, and where Trans/GNC actors portray Trans/GNC characters, undermining the stereotypes that reinforce the dominant cisgender culture’s transphobia, racism, sexism, and homophobia.
Throughout the year, SFTFF provides curatorial support and guest curation for Trans/GNC film programs across the US. SFTFF and its staff also mentor and support emerging Trans/GNC film festivals in cities across the US and countries all over the world. SFTFF also supports and co-presents other local Trans/GNC arts programming.