Noah Cowan trekked in a driving rain storm to his first San Francisco International Film Festival (April 24 to May 8) press conference at the Fairmont Hotel as head of the San Francisco Film Society. He recently moved to the Bay Area from his home in Toronto, where he ran The Tiff Bell Lightbox after years programming for the Toronto International Film Festival. Cowan is the third Sffs Executive Director since Graham Leggat's death in August 2011. Bingham Ray served for only ten weeks before his sudden death in January 2012, and Ray was succeeded by Ted Hope, who left after a year, and is now the CEO of Fandor.  So it was no wonder that a number of the questions in the Q & A session after the presentation of the festival lineup were directed at Cowan, in-between the usual tedious ones asking how many Chinese or Middle Eastern films are in the lineup.