On April 26 at the Castro Theatre, the 50th will open with Golden Door (Nuovomondo), a stunning cinematic achievement by Italian director Emanuele Crialese (Respiro, SFIFF 2003). This thoroughly contemporary epic follows a colorful family from a remote Sicilian village as they prepare for and finally embark upon a journey to America in 1913. As Film Society Executive Director Graham Leggat says, Crialese's novel imagining of the journey between the old world and the new, from a past left behind to a family transformed, makes for a brilliant reinvention of the emigrant saga, with its heartbreaking themes of hope, sacrifice and forgetting. Starring a ravishing Charlotte Gainsbourg, it's beautifully shot, smartly acted and brilliantly done. This year's lavish afterparty will be at City Hall starting at 9:30 pm. For information: www.sffs.org.