San Francisco International Film Festival 59th San Francisco International Film Festival took place from April 21 to May 5, 2016 at venues throughout the Bay Area. Founded in 1957 by film exhibitor Irving "Bud" Levin, the SFIFF began as a philanthropic effort to secure San Francisco's place in the international arts scene as well as expose locals to cinema as an art form. The Festival played a major role in introducing foreign films to American audiences. Akira Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" and Satyajit Ray's "Pather Panchali" were among the films that screened at the first festival. One obstacle in the early years was the lack
Satyajit Ray and "Rupasi Bangla", Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's "Chander Pahar", Jim Corbett's "Maneaters of Kumaon," and Jawaharlal Nehru's "Discovery of India." He worked on a children's version of "Pather Panchali," a classic Bengali novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, renamed as "Aam Antir Bhepu" ("The mango-seed whistle"). Designing the cover and illustrating the book, Ray was deeply influenced by the work. He used it as the subject of his first film, and featured his illustrations as shots in his ground-breaking film. Along with Chidananda Dasgupta and others, Ray founded the Calcutta Film Society in 1947. They screened many foreign films, many of which Ray watched