The 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival (April 22-May 6) today announced the FIPRESCI jury and the prize to be presented at the Festival's Golden Gate Awards on Wednesday, May 5 at Temple Nightclub - Prana Restaurant. Winners of the New Directors Prize, the Golden Gate Awards in various categories, the SFFS/Film Arts Foundation Documentary Grant and the Spring 2010 SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grant will also be announced.
 
FIPRESCI Prize
The FIPRESCI Prize is given at the San Francisco International Film Festival to a first or second feature film by a director emerging on the international scene. SFIFF is one of three festivals in the United States to host a FIPRESCI jury and award a FIPRESCI prize. FIPRESCI, the International Federation of Film Critics, has been in existence for more than 65 years, with members in over 60 countries. The prize was established to promote film art and to encourage new and emerging cinema. The purpose of FIPRESCI is to support cinema as an art and as an outstanding and autonomous means of expression.
 
The FIPRESCI Prize Jury
György Báron is a film critic, publicist, professor of film at the Hungarian University of Drama and Film and president of the Hungarian Society of Film Critics. He is a member of the board of trustees of several institutions, including the Hungarian Motion Picture Foundation, the Visegrad Documentary Library and the European Parliament Lux Prize. He has made educational documentaries for various television channels and is the author of Hollywood and Marienbad and Descent to the Underworld. 
 
Jay Carr is currently a film critic for Turner Classic Movies (tcm.com). He wrote reviews for the New York Post  and the Detroit News before joining the Boston Globe in 1983, where he was chief film critic until 2002. Carr won the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, awarded by the English department chairs of Princeton, Yale and Cornell Universities. In 1989, he was named Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French government for his writings on French film. He edited and wrote six essays for the National Society of Film Critics' best-selling anthology, The A-List: 100 Essential Films.
 
André Roy  has a PhD in French studies and is a writer and film critic. Roy is an editorial staff member of the magazine 24 images and writes regularly for the Revue de la Cinémathèque Québécoise. He is the author of five books: Marguerite Duras à Montréal (1984), Cent films à voir en vidéo  (1997), Voyage au pays du cinéma (1999), Notre-Dames-des-autres, L'œuvre vidéo de Charles Guilbert et Serge Murphy (2006) and Dictionnaire général du cinéma (2007). He has been a FIPRESCI jury member at international film festivals including Berlin, Locarno, Seattle and Valladolid. 
 
Films In Competition for FIPRESCI Prize
Animal Heart, Séverine Cornamusaz, France/Switzerland 2009
A Brand New Life, Ounie Lecomte, South Korea/France 2009
Domain, Patric Chiha, France 2009
Frontier Blues, Babak Jalali, Iran/England/Italy 2009
Littlerock, Mike Ott, USA 2010
My Queen Karo, Dorothée van den Berghe, Belgium 2009
Night Catches Us, Tanya Hamilton, USA 2009
Ordinary People, Vladimir Perisic, France/Switzerland, Serbia 2009
La Pivellina, Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel, Austria/Italy 2009
Port of Memory, Kamal Aljafari, Palestinian Territories/United Arab Emirates/Germany/France 2009
Son of Babylon, Mohamed Al-Daradji, Iraq/England/France/Palestinian Territories/Netherlands/United Arab Emirates/Egypt 2010
Susa, Rusudan Pirveli, Georgia 2010
Tehroun, Nader Takmil Homayoun, France/Iran 2009