Santa Fe film festival changes name to embrace international work

Teya Vitu, The Santa Fe New Mexican
·1 min read

Jul. 26—The Santa Fe Independent Film Festival has changed its name to the Santa Fe International Film Festival.

The same SFiFF acronym stays in place.

The name change has been a long time coming for the festival launched in 2009.

"We started to have a lot of international films in 2012," said Liesette Bailey, the festival's executive director. "International films became a major focus of the festival in 2017."

Bailey expects more than half of the more than 100 films expected for the 14th SFiFF from Oct. 19 to Oct. 23 to be international. There were already talks of a name change in 2019, but the pandemic put that on hold.

The new name took effect July 11.

"There is the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta and the International Folk Art Market," Bailey said. "Santa Fe is known as an international place. We wanted to embrace that."