Hello, master directorsSofia CoppolaandTodd Haynes. And welcomeJack HustonandEmerald Fennell, actors who are now directors. The Mill Valley Film Festival needs you.

On Thursday, Sept. 7, the California Film Institute is set to release the full schedule for the Oct. 5-15 festival, which traditionally has beenthe biggest star-driven eventon the Bay Area festival calendar, given its positioning during the Oscar campaign season. The Chronicle was given a preview of the schedule, and the lineup for the 46th edition is superb: 76 feature-length films, many of them award contenders, and several programs of shorts.

But with theSAG-AFTRA strikedragging into its third month after joining the writers in July, this year’s MVFF has been forced to pivot — or, as Founder/Director Mark Fishkin and director of programming Zoe Elton put it, it was time for it to go back to its roots.

“We considered ourselves a directors’ festival for many years,” Fishkin told the Chronicle. “I remember one article in your paper, the Pink (Sunday section), and it listed all the directors that were coming and I went, ‘Wow, that’s pretty impressive when I see it all together.’ I feel it’s back to that.”

Perhaps the biggest event will be the first appearance at the festival by Coppola, who grew up practically in its backyard. Raised in Napa Valley, where she attended St. Helena High School before going to Mills College in Oakland, she is scheduled to present “Priscilla,” a biopic about the first years ofPriscilla Presley’slife with Elvis, on Oct. 11. Coppola is also slated to receive the MVFF Award for filmmaking.

The opening night film is “Day of the Fight,” Huston’s gritty black-and-white film starring Michael Pitt as a boxer preparing for his first fight since his release from prison. Co-stars include Ron Perlman and Joe Pesci. Huston, who acted with Pitt in the HBO series“Boardwalk Empire,”is scheduled to attend opening night.

“重要的是我们作为人类的存在in the same room with people who are boldly creative and who are creating works that will inspire us and challenge us and make us fall in love with cinema all over again,” Elton said. “At its heart, Mill Valley has always really been about filmmakers and about creative storytelling. And while the big stars are a part of that, they’re not the only part of that. My hope this year is that people will gravitate towards really the core sensibility of why we make films and why we tell stories.”

The closing night film is “Maestro,” directed by and starring Bradley Cooper as composer and conducter Leonard Bernstein.

Other spotlights include Fennell, the veteran British actress who is set to present her second feature film as director, “Saltburn”; George C. Wolfe (“Rustin,” withColman Domingoas Bayard Rustin, adviser to Martin Luther King Jr.); Jeff Nichols (“The Bikeriders,” about a fictional 1960s motorcycle club starringJodie Comer,Austin Butler, Tom Hardy and Michael Shannon); and Cord Jefferson (“American Fiction,” starringJeffrey Wrightas a novelist, based on Percival Everett’s buzzy 2001 novel).

There also are career tributes to San Francisco multimedia artistLynn Hershman Leeson, who is to present “Cyborgian Rhapsody,” the final installment of her “Cyborg” films; and to the director/producer team ofHaynesandChristine Vachon, who are set to screen their latest collaboration, “May December,” about an actress (Natalie Portman) who meets the woman (Julianne Moore) she is to play in a film.

There are two directors nights:Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyiwill present “Nyad,” which she co-directed with Jimmy Chin, a biopic of competitive swimmer Diana Nyad starringAnnette BeningandJodie Foster; and Erica Tremblay is to present “Fancy Dance,” a Native American mystery drama starringLily Gladstone.

There also will be a special screening of Jonathan Glazer’s chilling, much-lauded Holocaust drama “Zone of Interest,” with lead actor Christian Friedel scheduled to attend.

“Regardless if the stars are going to be here, it’s going to be a star-studded event,” Fishkin said. “You never know who’s going to come out the darling of the festival. It could be the 22-, 25-year-old kid who made his first documentary and there are 20 people following him across the street after the screening because they can’t get enough. Those experiences, and the combination of seeing all these films together, take on kind of a life of its own, so I hope people have the chance to experience it.”

Tickets go on sale for members beginning Friday, Sept. 8, and for the general public on Tuesday, Sept. 12, atmvff.com.

Reach G. Allen Johnson:ajohnson@sfchronicle.com