Citizen Film

This short film reveals the inspiration, motivation and political challenges at San Francisco City Hall during the frantic days leading up to the first government-sanctioned same-sex marriage.

Gracenter is a recovery residence that offers a supportive and gently challenging program for women who wish to strengthen their early sobriety. Typically, participants have completed a primary recovery program and are seeking to re-establish employment, healthy relationships, and deepen their spirituality through participation in 12 Step programs. They are committed to being a healing presence in the lives of women.

This Ukrainian-Jewish teenager immigrated to San Francisco as a young child. Now on the brink of adulthood, she interviews her grandparents about their new lives yearning to see her American world through their eyes. Yelena understands that life in the US has changed her profoundly.

"People of the Graphic Novel" is a playful introduction to the history of an art form: from the first "funny pages" to seminal artists including Will Eisner and Art Spiegelman.

Moscow, January 1948. In the bitter cold, a large crowd attends the State Funeral of the Yiddish actor and director Solomon Mikhoels. An official proclamation mourns the death of "a great People's Artist of the Soviet Union." What people are really mourning is the death of the most popular Jewish theater in the Soviet Union, and the man who kept it alive against all odds for over 20 years. No doubt many suspected the truth: he had just been assassinated by Stalin's secret police.

In 1996, Women's Educational Media released their groundbreaking documentary Its Elementary-Talking About Gay Issues in School. It's Still Elementary tells the fascinating history of why and how the 1996 film was made, the infamous response it provoked from the conservative right, and the questions it raises about the national safe schools movement today. Includes interviews with some of the original students and teachers from Its Elementary.

Established by Warren & Chris Hellman and their children in 1994, the Hellman Fellows Program has supported more than 850 junior faculty members, who are now chairs and heads of departments, MacArthur Geniuses and tenured faculty with long track records of successful research.

School lunch chef Wanda McAfee-Conart reflects in her job and how it connects her to the sensory environment and to her own family history.

Rita Semel, interfaith pioneer and Jewish activist, is a recipient of the San Francisco Foundation Community Leadership Awards "for her life-long successes in creating healthy, just, and inclusive communities in the Bay Area and worldwide. She builds bridges of understanding between diverse religious and ethnic communities, and brings together the interfaith community to help alleviate poverty and end discrimination. Her catalytic leadership is felt far and wide, from the San Francisco Interfaith Council to the Global Council for the United Religions Initiative. Her legacy will be a more peaceful and compassionate world." - San Francisco Foundation

On the way to creating a new future, the New Jewish Filmmaking Project is rediscovering the past. 11 young storytellers, ages 15-25, collaborated with Citizen Film’s team of documentary professionals to create a multimedia exhibit that offers a set of signposts for what Jewish identity has been and is becoming.

Eva Paterson, winner of the San Francisco Foundation 2007 Community Leadership Awards (The San Francisco Foundation Award). Eva has empowered thousands of people to make their voices heard in the critical civil rights struggles of our times. Eva's passionate and longtime commitment to advancing social and racial justice through law and public policy, communications and the arts, and alliance building has had a profound local and national impact. Her vision, coalition building, and tenacity have not only won landmark cases, but have raised the visibility and impact of the justice movement to change the very fabric of our society.

This intimately photographed film offers a peak into the lives of a culturally diverse group of young American Jews.

Take a journey with master graphic novelist Joann Sfar as he finds inspiration in his Algerian-Jewish heritage and the lively streets and cafes of his current home in France. This collaboration between Citizen Film, KQED Presents and Paris-based Les Films du Poisson was telecast on PBS stations around the U.S. in 2012.

Malcolm Margolin , Writer, Publisher, and Founder of Heyday Books, winner of the San Francisco Foundation 2008 Community Leadership Awards (the Helen Crocker Russell Award) - for promoting California's diverse cultures for more than 30 years, and for bringing voice, visibility, and value to multicultural, multilingual communities.

Depicts what happens when students K-8 discuss LGBT-related topics in age-appropriate ways. Shot in six public and private schools (in San Francisco and New York City, as well as Madison, Wisconsin, and Cambridge, Massachusetts), It’s Elementary models excellent teaching about family diversity, name-calling, stereotypes, community building, and more.

Chinese for Affirmative Action is a recipient of the San Francisco Community Leadership Award for being "a champion against discrimination and for advancing systemic change for a racially just society. With its foundation firmly in the Asian and Pacific American community, its grassroots and policy efforts cross cultures to ensure equal opportunities for communities of color, reduce language barriers, and promote immigrant rights across the Bay Area." - San Francisco Foundation

Children’s Book Press, winner of the San Francisco Foundation 2009 Community Leadership Awards (The San Francisco Foundation Award) – the first independent, nonprofit publisher of bilingual, multicultural books and stories for children. In the past 33 years, it has served as a vehicle for civil rights, human rights, and social justice, with a profound impact on the children, youth, and adults who better understand their own lives and histories as a result of its books. Childrens Book Press builds the connection between literacy and success, preserves traditions, and helps build a stronger future for our children.

Justice, opportunity, connection, equity, friendship, respect, experience, community, knowledge, health, success, love – what do I, you, we…hunger for?

This Ukrainian-Jewish teenager immigrated to San Francisco as a young child. Now on the brink of adulthood, she interviews her grandparents about their new lives yearning to see her American world through their eyes. Yelena understands that life in the US has changed her profoundly.

Klaira presents a surprising vision of assimilation and a loving depiction of San Francisco. She and her grandparents explore how the experience of immigration changed their sense of self and altered the fabric of their relationship.