"Jeff Ross didn't plan to start his own film festival. In 1998, he was working for both the SF International Film Festival and the San Francisco Film Society, yet he couldn't find a single local venue to screen the film "Caged" by his friend Rand Alexander. Within months, Ross found himself running the first San Francisco Independent Film Festival (SF IndieFest) out of The Roxie Theater in The Mission."
"A common refrain among the filmmakers playing at SF IndieFest is the scarcity of resources. Writer-director Lauren Shapiro's first festival entry - co-presented by the Jewish Film Institute - is also her first feature. "Still Life" (Feb. 7, 3:30 p.m.) is based on Shapiro's own Alameda adolescence when her mother was battling leukemia. Yet, the biggest hurdle in telling the deeply personal story was simply paying for it."
""Fundraising, by far, has been the hardest part of this entire project for me," says Shapiro, whose "entirely-community-funded" film still has an active PayPal for additional expenses. In a sense, she said, a tight budget made the effort "really lean and focused and scrappy every step of the way.""
Jeff Ross started SF IndieFest in 1998 after failing to find a venue for Rand Alexander's film "Caged." It began at The Roxie Theater in The Mission and expanded over 28 years into a five-festival enterprise showcasing hundreds of independent films. IndieFest 2026 runs February 5–15 at The Roxie and online, mixing international films with parties and panel discussions and staging afterparties at Kilowatt and Muddy Waters. The festival emphasizes Mission roots and platforms diverse Bay Area stories. Filmmakers frequently cite scarce resources and funding challenges, leading many to rely on community support, family and friends.
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