About us

Our Mission

The Ninth Street Independent Film Center at 145 Ninth Street provides a permanent home for independent media in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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We have transformed nearly 22,000 square feet of industrial space into a publicly accessible nonprofit film center. We see this building as a power plant that generates independent media on a local and national level—a facility created to promote and preserve public-interest media within an increasingly homogenous telecommunications landscape.

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The redesign of the three-story building’s interior was guided by and designed according to our particular needs: a public screening room on the ground floor, multiple editing rooms for filmmakers in post-production, and flexible work areas to accommodate extra staff and volunteers during festivals. Each organization retains separate offices, but several large shared spaces are used by all. Several of our organizations house print and video collections here. Other media groups make use of our meeting rooms for festival juries, grants panels, public screenings, and community forums.

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An early decision to make this a “green” building meant that only the least harmful materials were used in construction—no synthetic fibers in the rugs, no toxins in the wall paint, no PCBs anywhere. A dedication to a safe workplace has brought out a mutual sense of excitement, pride, and creative thinking among everyone who works here.

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The future will bring even more of our collaborative ideas into realities: knowledge sharing web-based technology systems, climate-controlled storage for our archival collections, shipping and fulfillment services for our distribution, and collaborative programming opportunities.

The space at 145 Ninth Street increases our potential in every possible area.