About the Sacramento Film & Music Festival
The Sacramento Film and Music Festival (SF&MF) is a large, multi-day, all-genre international film festival held in Sacramento, California in the United States. It has been in operation under consistent direction and ownership since 2000. The festival's mission is to celebrate and showcase filmmaking from around the world and sponsor the art of film in California's Capital region.
In 2004, in its fifth year, SF&MF was recognized by both Sacramento's Mayor Heather Fargo and California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for its achievements and contributions to the community.
Submissions and Programming
The Sacramento Film and Music Festival is submission-based and highly selective, accepting films in all genres and of all lengths, from anywhere in the world. Programs are determined based on the nature of submissions received and the opinions of the screening committee. A separate film jury determines award winners, in addition to the audience awards.
Sac Music Seen
The Sac Music Seen program pairs local musicians and bands with local filmmakers to produce original music videos. While the larger Festival also accepts music videos for general programming, Sac Music Seen is a unique program in the local arts community and, as such, has been recognized and supported by such entities as the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission and the Sacramento Bee. In the first seven years of the program's existence 2004-2010), it produced approximately 150 original music videos.
10x10 Filmmaker Challenge
In another unique SF&MF program, the 10x10 filmmakers are given 10 days to make a movie of no more than 10 minutes on a given theme. The program started as a midnight screening experiment in 2004 with seven films on the topic of "the Undead and the Seven Deadly Sins". Up to 2009, approximately 70 originals projects have been completed and screened and this program has become the closing event of the Festival.
Student Days
Added to the Festival in 2006, Student Days is a series of programming periods exclusively intended to showcase the works of student filmmakers and is an opportunity to support the work of these gifted individuals. The first Student Days program featured 20 projects over 2 afternoons and included works from the American Film Institute, Chapman University, Columbia College Chicago, New York University, Pasadena's Art Center College of Design, the University of California Los Angeles, the University of Central Florida, and the University of Southern California. The event was renamed Sony Creative Software Student Days prior to the 2007 Festival, in recognition of generous support by the creators of the Vegas, Acid, Sound Forge, and Cinescore family of editing products.
