Jenny Slate’s ‘Landline’ to Open San Francisco International Film Festival

Gillian Robespierre’s Landline, the story of a Manhattan teenager who discovers her father is having an affair, will open the 60th San Francisco International Film Festival, which is set to run April 5-19 at venues throughout San Francisco and Berkeley, Calif. The film, written by Robespierre and Elisabeth Holm, stars Jenny Slate, Edie Falco, John Turturro, Jay Duplass and newcomer Abby Quinn. Amazon will release Landline on July 21.

The festival’s 2017 award recipients will include Eleanor Coppola, who is set to receive the George Gund III Craft of Cinema Award, which will be presented to her after her new film Paris Can Wait screens; Tom Luddy, artistic director and co-director of the Telluride Film Festival, who will receive the Mel Novikoff Award; and artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson, who will receive the Persistence of Vision Award.

The schedule will include special tributes to James Ivory, in conjunction with a 30th anniversary screening of Maurice; Shah Rukh Khan, whose San Francisco-set My Name Is Khan will screen; John Ridley, who will bring an early look at his new Showtime series Guerilla; and Gordon Grund, who will be profiled in the short documentary The Illumination.

The fest will present a special screening of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, which will include a conversation with William Randolph Hearst III, the grandson of William Randolph Hearst, who inspired the film.

The festival’s State of Cinema address will be delivered by Pixar and Disney Animation Studio president Edwin Catmull.

The event is presented by the San Francisco Film Society, which has been rebranded as SFFILM.

Further information about the festival lineup and schedule can be found at sffilm.org/festival.

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