Noah Cowan was the Executive Director of from March 2014 to May 2019. He oversaw the organization's exhibition, education and filmmaker services. Before joining SFFILM, Cowan was the Artistic Director of TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Cowan developed Cowboy Booking International, a consolidating global sub-distributor for film sales agents such as Celluloid Dreams, Fortissimo Film Sales, Films Transit, Flach Pyramide and Christa Saredi Films, and producers such as Good Machine and Telling Pictures. Cowboy pioneered the application of a consistent fee structure for the growing number of film festivals worldwide to access international art films and documentaries. In 1995, Cowan and John Vanco launched and served as Co-Presidents of Cowboy Pictures, an art house cinema distributor. Cowboy-released films were acclaimed by a number of organizations including The New York Film Critics Circle and The Academy Awards. Cowboy partnered with Antidote Films in 1999 to create Code Red Films, a vehicle to cross-collateralize several art film releases over three years. Titles distributed by Cowboy and Code Red included: The Life And Times Of Hank Greenberg, Fat Girl, George Washington, La Cienaga, Promises and. Cowboy also acted as a releasing sub-distributor for Miramax Films, bringing to market their Rolling Thunder titles acquired in collaboration with Quentin Tarantino. Titles included Hard Core Logo, The Beyond, Mighty Peking Man.
In 2002, Cowan founded and served as Executive Director of The Global Film Initiative in New York City, a not-for-profit organization that seeks to create global understanding though film, with philanthropist Susan Weeks Coulter. In partnership with The Museum of Modern Art, the foundation funded, acquired, distributed and created educational material for socially meaningful cinema from the developing world. Global Lens, the Initiative’s touring program, reached more than 50 communities per year, with a focus on screenings at museum-based youth programs. The Initiative wound down its activities in 2014.
In 2008, Cowan became Artistic Director of TIFF Bell Lightbox, a multi-purpose film institution and the home of the Toronto International Film Festival. Cowan oversaw the film exhibition and film education functions of the project, which created film retrospectives on Raj Kapoor and Gregg Araki. On the TIFF Bell Lightbox stage, he interviewed Guillermo del Toro, Christopher Doyle, Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, among others. His writing appeared in 180°, TIFF Bell Lightbox’s seasonal programming guide. He also served as the primary curator of Lightbox’s museum space, beginning with Essential Cinema, a gallery show detailing the inspiration behind 100 key films in cinema history. Cowan was the Toronto curator for several exhibitions including Tim Burton and Fellini: Spectacular Obsessions. Before his departure, Cowan completed two large-scale projects: A Century Of Chinese Cinema, a 100-film retrospective of Chinese cinema history that also included a new visual arts commission, New Women, from Yang Fudong, debuted in June 2013. Cowan co-curated the David Cronenberg: Evolution exhibition in October 2013 and David Cronenberg Transformation, the accompanying museum show at the Museum Of Contemporary Canadian Art of visual artists responding to Cronenberg’s work. He contributed to catalogues for both shows, oversaw an Alternative Reality Game and the David Cronenberg Virtual Exhibition.
SFFILM
In March 2014, Cowan became Executive Director of the .
