The evening of Dec. 8 marked the 45th Annual SFFilm Awards Night: a fundraiser dedicated to honoring the diverse achievements of individuals across film and media.
Hosted in the Gateway Pavilion at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture overlooking the bay, the event drew an audience of award recipients, filmmakers and film-lovers from across the Bay Area.
While the convention center itself was not particularly ornamented, by the time the talent arrived, the entrance was transformed by a sea of blue light. The light led the way to the main room in the pavilion, accented by warmly lit orange hues, where elegantly dressed catering staff handed out champagne and meticulously prepared hors d’oeuvres. Upstairs, the red carpet was illuminated with fluorescent white lights, awaiting the night’s honorees.
Among the recipients were Kristen Stewart, who would be receiving the Nion McEvoy & Leslie Berriman Award for Storytelling for “The Chronology of Water,” her 2025 directorial debut. Stewart appeared alongside actress Imogen Poots, who plays Lidia in the film. The film is based off of Lidia Yuknavitch’s biography of the same name,and grapples with themes of abuse, loss and self-acceptance. Benicio Del Toro was honored as well, receiving the Maria Manetti Shrem Award for Acting for his performance in 2025’s “One Battle After Another.”
Nigerian-British actress Wunmi Mosaku, the recipient of the George Gund III Award for Virtuosity, was among the first to walk the carpet, dressed by Zac Posen, creative director of Gap, who also walked the carpet. Mosaku has recently gained critical acclaim for her portrayal of Annie, a Hoodoo spiritual leader and leading love interest, in director Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners.”
“Sinners” has taken theaters by storm, grossing about $368 million worldwide. The film ambitiously merges supernatural thriller and horror to deliver an action-packed picture exploring Black history, spirituality and community.
“I learned a lot from Annie: a spiritual connection, her honesty, her capacity to forgive, love and grieve. (Holding) space for other people, herself and her wisdom,” Mosaku said.
Mosaku recapped her strengths in the process of bringing Annie to life.
“I love people. I love learning about people, trying to understand them and their reasoning. I couldn’t understand how this woman could let Smoke back in without needing an apology, without needing an explanation,” she said. “She just understood him. I think ultimately she knew that he would come back. And so I think that was something, that my love of trying to understand people’s ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ is why I was able to understand her and him.”
When Scott Cooper, director of “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,” made his way onto the red carpet after Mosaku, he spotted The Daily Californian sign and approached with a smile. He would be receiving the Irving M. Levin Award for Film Direction. He began the interview by shouting out his daughter, Ava, a current senior at UC Berkeley.
Cooper’s film covers a roughly three-month period during which American musical icon, Bruce Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White), grapples with depression, fame and troubling family relationships as he records his 1982 album, Nebraska.
“Nebraska is one of my favorite records of all time, but (the film) isn’t really a movie about music, it’s a movie about confronting yourself,” Cooper said. “The truth about yourself isn’t often pretty. Always tell that truth.”
He elaborated on the moments that led him to create a film about Bruce Springsteen.
Cooper said of the inspiration for the film that “living with childhood memories is sometimes very painful, and being able to be as honest as you can in your work — it’s wrestling with all the things that have led you to this point to where you start to make a film.”
When asked about the reality of the American dream in the current state of the world, a theme heavily infused in “Springsteen,” Cooper elaborated on the difficulties of this dream in the current state of the nation. “The most important thing is community. We band together as a community to fight that injustice. Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco: That’s the epicenter of fighting for justice,” Cooper said.
Cooper brought his Berkeley dad pride to SFFilm as he exclaimed, “Go Bears!”
The SFFilm red carpet was a calm and organized affair, proving to be a shining opportunity both to celebrate the powerful feature films released this year, and to give the honorees a space to elaborate on their artistic process in bringing those films to life.