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San Francisco International Film Festival · 2026

San Francisco International Film Festival 2026

World Documentaries

Programme

9 films · 2 reviews

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Black is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story

Documentary about the photographer, freedom fighter and activist.

(Country: UK, US; Year: 2025; Director: Yemi Bamiro; Writer: Otto Burnham, Yemi Bamiro; Stars: Alicia Keys, Gabrielle Union, Jesse Williams)

Cookie Queens

It’s Girl Scout Cookie season, and four tenacious girls strive to be a top-selling “Cookie Queen,” navigating an $800 million business in which childhood and ambition collide.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Alysa Nahmias; Writer: Alysa Nahmias)

Give Me The Ball!

World champion tennis trailblazer Billie Jean King has had a game-changing impact on culture and sports. Rare archive and candid interviews with Billie Jean and those closest to her reveal how one woman put changing the world ahead of saving herself.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Liz Garbus, Elizabeth Wolff)

Hair, Paper, Water... (Tóc, Giây và Nuóc...)

An ode to an elderly healer and to Rục, her endangered mother tongue.

(Country: Belgium, France, Vietnam; Year: 2025; Director: Nicolas Graux, Trương Minh Quý; Stars: Cao Thị Hậu, Cao Xuân Doanh, Cao Thị Hiệu)

Jaripeo

Review preview for Jaripeo

The documentary is attentive to contradiction without flattening its subjects into symbols.

Edin Custo · 3.5 out of 5
A journey to Michoacán’s hypermasculine rodeos descends into the subconscious of memory, queer desire, and longing, leading to a reckoning with the wounds and beauty of a home left behind.

(Country: Mexico, US, France; Year: 2026; Director: Rebecca Zweig, Efraín Mojica)

Full review

Joybubbles

Joybubbles discovers he can manipulate the telephone system by whistling a magic tone. Born blind and yearning for connection, his early obsession unwittingly lays the groundwork for a subculture that shapes the future of hacking and technology.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Rachael J Morrison)

Nuisance Bear

Review preview for Nuisance Bear

By viewing the situation, at least initially, mostly from the perspective of the bears, the directors ask us to consider who exactly is trespassing on whose turf.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
A polar bear is forced to navigate a human world of tourists, wildlife officers, and hunters as its ancient migration collides with modern life. When a sacred predator is branded a nuisance, it becomes unclear who truly belongs in this shared landscape.

(Country: US, Canada, United Kingdom; Year: 2026; Director: Gabriela Osio Vanden, Jack Weisman)

Full review See: Jack Weisman and Gabriel Osio Vanden on working together and making naivety work for them in Nuisance Bear , Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman on balance and perspectives in Nuisance Bear

Time And Water

Facing the death of his country’s glaciers and the loss of his beloved grandparents, Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason turns his archives into a time capsule to hold what is slipping away — family, memory, time, and water.

(Country: US, Iceland; Year: 2026; Director: Sara Dosa; Writer: Sara Dosa, Erin Casper, Jocelyne Chaput, Andri Snær Magnason)

Yo (Love Is A Rebellious Bird)

Through beautifully constructed miniature sets and puppets, directors Anna Fitch and Banker White craft an elegy to the life and times of Anna’s beloved friend, Yo.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Anna Fitch, Banker White; Stars: Yolanda Shea, Anna Fitch, Dylan White)