Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival

What Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival does

Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival (SDFF) is a non-profit documentary film festival founded in 2007 and based in Sebastopol, California. The organization operates as a small cultural institution with 1-10 employees, providing an open-call submission platform through which independent documentary filmmakers can enter their work for consideration. Its core function is event curation and screening — assembling a programming slate of submitted documentaries and presenting them to local and regional audiences.

The festival's business model follows the standard non-profit cultural-arts structure: revenue is generated through filmmaker entry fees, ticket sales, donations, and likely local sponsorships, though no detailed financial disclosures are available in the input. Go-to-market is community-rooted and geographically constrained to Sebastopol, with outreach driven through its website (sebastopolfilmfestival.org) and grassroots filmmaker networks. No information is available on technology infrastructure, programming partners, sponsorship arrangements, audience scale, or operational tooling.

The organization has sustained continuous operations for 18 years at a small scale, suggesting a stable but niche position within the documentary film festival ecosystem. No management team, partnerships, funding rounds, or product/technology details are documented in the available source material, which limits deeper analysis of strategic positioning, competitive dynamics, or growth ambitions.

Name

Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival

Website

https://sebastopolfilmfestival.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2007

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival is a non-profit documentary film festival founded in 2007 in Sebastopol, California, providing open-call submission opportunities for independent documentary filmmakers and screening selected works for local audiences.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Film Festival / Cultural Events

NAICS

Motion Picture and Video Exhibition (51213)

SIC

Services-Motion Picture Theaters (7830)

akta.pro primary industry

Film Festivals & Festival Organizers (MPADAKAD)

Keywords

• Documentary film festival
• Independent film screenings
• Filmmaker open submissions
• Community film events
• Nonprofit film festival

Headquarters

HQ city

Sebastopol

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others

Core offering

Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival is a non-profit documentary film festival that organizes and hosts screenings of documentary films, with all filmmaker entries submitted through open calls rather than curated invitations. It curates an annual program of documentary films for public audiences and provides a platform for independent and emerging filmmakers to present their work.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival (Annual Documentary Film Festival) An annual documentary film festival in Sebastopol, California that screens documentary films submitted through open calls for entry, providing equal opportunity for filmmakers to showcase their work to public audiences. Targeted at independent and emerging documentary filmmakers and local film audiences.

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Recent moves1 record

Direct peers

• Camden International Film Festival (Points North Institute): A small, independent documentary and non-fiction film festival in Maine. Closely comparable to SDFF in scale, format, and community-driven documentary programming.
• Sheffield DocFest: One of the world's leading documentary and digital storytelling festivals, held annually in the UK. Comparable to SDFF as a documentary-focused festival with industry programming, though operating at a much larger international scale.
• DOC NYC: One of the largest documentary festivals in the U.S., showcasing feature and short documentaries. Comparable to SDFF as a documentary-focused festival with audience programming and industry events, but at a larger, urban scale.
• Full Frame Documentary Film Festival: A long-running, U.S.-based documentary film festival curating nonfiction work for live audiences. Directly comparable to SDFF in mission, format, and audience profile, though larger in scale and national reach.
• True/False Film Festival: An acclaimed U.S. documentary and hybrid film festival. Directly comparable to SDFF in curatorial focus on nonfiction cinema, with shared programming model and audience experience.

Emerging players

• Mountainfilm: A documentary festival in Telluride focused on nonfiction films about adventure, culture, and the environment. Comparable to SDFF as a small documentary festival with a thematic-curatorial niche.

Broad incumbents

• Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival: North America's largest documentary festival, with a year-round cinema and industry programs. Comparable to SDFF in documentary curation but with significantly larger scale and infrastructure.
• Sundance Film Festival: A major U.S. film festival with a substantial documentary programming strand. Comparable to SDFF at the category level (film festival with documentary programming), though Sundance operates at a vastly larger scale and broader narrative scope.
• IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam): The world's largest documentary film festival, featuring competition, industry, and audience programs. Comparable to SDFF in documentary focus but several orders of magnitude larger and globally established.

Regional players

• Mill Valley Film Festival (California Film Institute): A Northern California film festival showcasing independent and documentary features. Comparable to SDFF as a regional California documentary-adjacent festival serving a similar Bay Area audience base.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat2 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights4 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/SebastopolDocs
• Facebookfacebook.com/SebastopolDocumentaryFilmFestival
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/sebastopol-documentary-film-festival

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival