Opening night of the 28th annual San Francisco Independent Film Festival, known affectionately as IndieFest, began with a sea of red santa hat-wearing, candy cane bearing festival-goers chatting enthusiastically as they piled into the Roxie theater on Thursday evening. It was quite a strange sight to see on a warm and sunny day on Feb. 5. Santas yell and wave at other santas across the theater as they enter, and many hug and exclaim in excited celebration – an emotional and joyous event that seems to perfectly encapsulate the festival’s spirit.
Jeff Ross created IndieFest 28 years ago, with the foundational and continual goal to “support as many local filmmakers (as) we can each year and help them find the audience their film deserves.” IndieFest has been hosted at San Francisco’s historic and iconic Roxie theater since 1999. Lex Sloan, Roxie theater’s executive director, said that Roxie values the longstanding partnership with IndieFest because it platforms the work of “artists who are really pushing boundaries” and are “focused on building community, through bold, uncompromising films.” Sloan said that IndieFest is a key piece of San Francisco’s independent film scene; the festival brings a unique audience to Roxie and creates a space for the community to build memories and connection through film.
“The other thing that I really love about IndieFest is that it’s joyful. It’s a really joyful festival,” Sloan said. IndieFest provides a space for festivalgoers to experience a plethora of film genres with unpredictable themes, allowing for discovery and the element of surprise to captivate audiences and create an irreplicable experience.
This is overwhelmingly evident as director Seth Porges introduces his documentary, “Santacon” (2025), to kick off IndieFest 2026. The theater of passionate santas erupts in boisterous cheers of support for Porges. The film and its subjects receive overwhelming support by the family, friends and community members that fill the audience.
Santacon is at times incredibly funny, and at times incredibly moving. It weaves together modern interviews and archival footage from the 1990s to tell the story of a San Francisco-based movement — tracing the origins of the bar-hopping event that we know today.
Porges said that Santacon is intrinsically “a San Francisco story, and such a story of the independent and creative spirit of San Francisco.” The documentary follows the Cacophony society, an anarchist and urban exploration group born out of San Francisco’s reputation-defining counterculture movement, through the 1990s. The original “Santacon” event depicted several-dozen radical pranksters dressed as Santa Clauses, invading San Francisco’s prestigious high-society venues. This energy is reflected through camcorder and film footage taken by friends and members of the group — giving the film a gritty and intimate feeling.
The film’s web of community member connections from its San Francisco roots introduced some attendees to IndieFest, and the Roxie, for the first time. Tonya Rodante, who loves independent films and was attending the festival for the first time, said, “I’ve lived in San Francisco for a long time, like 20 years. And I’ve never had a chance to come inside.” Showcasing local Bay Area stories gives IndieFest the ability to create a deeper connection to, and appreciation of, independent film in a way that is unpretentious and invites community members that may not otherwise attend a film festival.
IndieFest participates in the Roxie theater’s Movies for All program, which offers five dollar movie tickets to EBT and SNAP cardholders. The program strives to make the movies accessible, so that cost is not an inhibitor to community members enjoying the movies, according to Sloan.
IndieFest continues to harness the unique spirit of San Francisco with its colorful and diverse range of works, embracing a plethora of genres, and allowing space for unique and subversive ideas to be expressed through art. The audience in San Francisco that appreciates small independent films has made it possible to continue IndieFest for the past 28 years, according to Ross. “The individuals who attend may not still be the same folks from 1999 but [there] are always people in SF who are curious to experience art and culture,” Ross said.
