About Us
Ave Montague (1945-2009), arts impresario, fashion industry executive, publicist, founded the San Francisco Black Film Festival in 1998. Montague created the San Francisco Black Film Festival, a nonprofit, with the artistic vision to provide a platform for Black filmmakers, screenwriters, and actors to present their art. As a competitive film festival, SFBFF identifies filmmakers, screenwriters, and actors that are emerging as talents and established artists who are contributing to the cinematic legacy of African Americans. SFBFF conscientiously expands the notions of “Black film-making” to a global perspective. Partners have included the Durban International Film Festival and The Durban FilmMart on the African continent. The organization is multicultural and inclusive of all in the expression of the African Diaspora experience. The San Francisco Black Film Festival has screened more than 10,000 films from around the world. Kali O’Ray (son of Ave Montague) and his wife Katera Crossley, both formerly of Atlanta, Georgia, co-directed The San Francisco Black Film Festival until O’Ray’s untimely death August 7, 2020. Now the festival is directed with O’Ray’s daughter Cree Ray, a retail management professional, who assumed leadership at the age of 30. Amid societal stressors causing out-migration of Blacks from San Francisco leaving a population of less than five percent, the rare Black family generational tradition of light bearers continues as O’Ray’s daughter, Montague’s grandchild, Cree Ray carries the family torch for the third generation.
SFBFF Celebrating 25 Years of Resilience & Empowerment, June 15-18, 2023, the launch of a yearlong celebration
Our Mission
San Francisco Black Film Festival's mission is to celebrate African American cinema and the African cultural Diaspora and to showcase a diverse collection of films – from emerging and established filmmakers. This is accomplished by presenting Black films, which reinforce positive images and dispel negative stereotypes, and providing film artists from the bay area in particular and around the world in general, a forum for their work to be viewed and discussed. SFBFF believes film can lead to a better understanding of and communication between, peoples of diverse cultures, races, and lifestyles, while simultaneously serving as a vehicle to initiate dialogue on the important issues of our times.
In Memoriam
Ave Montague
Kali O’Ray
Kali Onaje Winston