"The proposal for the 82,000-square-foot facility made public Wednesday evening comes 15 months after the university-owned institution restarted the effort to build itself a new home on the downtown edge of the UC Berkeley campus at Center and Oxford streets," reports John King. Read more at sfgate.com.
As an appreciation of George Kuchar's inspired presence, we offer up the filmmaker in his own words, excerpted from 'Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000.'
As an appreciation of George Kuchar's inspired presence, we offer up the filmmaker in his own words, excerpted from 'Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000.'
As an appreciation of George Kuchar's inspired presence, we offer up the filmmaker in his own words, excerpted from 'Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000.'
SF State professor Karl Cohen’s animation collection investigates the nature of pictorial movement itself.
SF State professor Karl Cohen’s animation collection investigates the nature of pictorial movement itself.
SF State professor Karl Cohen’s animation collection investigates the nature of pictorial movement itself.
SF State professor Karl Cohen’s animation collection investigates the nature of pictorial movement itself.
SF State professor Karl Cohen’s animation collection investigates the nature of pictorial movement itself.
SF State professor Karl Cohen’s animation collection investigates the nature of pictorial movement itself.
Pacific Film Archive screens 'The Makioka Sisters,' Kon Ichikawa's gorgeous and understated women's drama based on Tanizaki's novel of the same name. Lush color sequences of beautiful kimonos and cherry blossoms falling make this subtle masterpiece a joy to view on the large screen. New 35mm print shows Wednesday and Friday only. More info at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
Pacific Film Archive serves a full course of films by Marcel Pagnol.
Pacific Film Archive serves a full course of films by Marcel Pagnol.
Pacific Film Archive serves a full course of films by Marcel Pagnol.
Pacific Film Archive’s ‘Hands Up! Essential Skolimowski’ surveys the Polish director’s confounding oeuvre.
Pacific Film Archive’s ‘Hands Up! Essential Skolimowski’ surveys the Polish director’s confounding oeuvre.
Pacific Film Archive’s ‘Hands Up! Essential Skolimowski’ surveys the Polish director’s confounding oeuvre.
New series spotlights the fascination with Mexico in American noir.
New series spotlights the fascination with Mexico in American noir.
New series spotlights the fascination with Mexico in American noir.
Pacific Film Archive's series of female-centered classic Japanese cinema continues with screenings of 'The Life of Oharu,' 'Rashomon' and 'Sancho the Bailiff'. Series runs through late August. More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
New series spotlights the fascination with Mexico in American noir.
New series spotlights the fascination with Mexico in American noir.
New series spotlights the fascination with Mexico in American noir.
Throughout the month of June, Pacific Film Archive features a half century of alternately feverish, dark, confessional, parodic work from filmmaker brothers George and Mike Kuchar, starting with their 1965 feature, ‘Sins of the Fleshapoids,’ at which Mike Kuchar appears in person. More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
Arthur Penn is the focus of a monthlong series at Pacific Film Archive, beginning with 1958’s Gore Vidal-written revisionist Western, ‘The Left Handed Gun,’ which features Paul Newman. More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
‘The Salesman,’ a feature that follows an aging car salesman in a struggling Quebec town, plays at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas on May 1 and Pacific Film Archive on May 3. Director Sebastian Pilote attends the screenings. More at fest11.sffs.org.
Bay Area director Yoav Potash attends screenings of his documentary ‘Crime After Crime,’ which showcases the story of a female prisoner and the two pro bono lawyers who fight for her release over five and a half years. The film plays at Pacific Film Archive on April 27 and Sundance Kubaki Cinemas on May 2. More at fest11.sffs.org.
Bay Area directors are high profile in the 54th San Francisco International Film Festival; catch them in person this week. Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega appear Tuesday with Bradley Crowder, a principal of ‘Better This World,’ a documentary that traces the paths of activists deemed the "Texas Two." The film plays at Pacific Film Archive on April 26 and Sundance Kubaki Cinemas on April 29. More at fest11.sffs.org.
Lynn Hershman Leeson's decades-in-the-making documentary about women artists taking on the establishment debuts at the festival Saturday, April 23, with a San Francisco Museum of Modern Art screening, and plays again Monday, April 25, at the Pacific Film Archive. More at fest11.sffs.org.
Pacific Film Archive's Patricio Guzmán series continues with ‘The Pinochet Case’ and ‘Chile, Obstinate Memory.’ Later this month, Guzman's latest, a poignant and provocative reflection called 'Nostalgia for the Light,' closes the collection and screens as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival, April 26 and 28. More at bampfa.berkeley.edu and fest11.sffs.org.
‘Salvador Allende,’ the first feature in the month-long series ‘Afterimage: The Films of Patricio Guzman,’ which showcases a variety of Guzman’s work, plays at Pacific Film Archive. More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
Behind the Scenes: Art director Patricia Woodbridge introduces ‘I Am Legend’ at Pacific Film Archive with a formal discussion of her work on that film and others on March 31. SFFS hosts Woodbridge at Ninth Street Independent Film Center for a Master Class on April 2, and then she returns to PFA to informally present ‘Shutter Island,’ on April 3. More at bampfa.berkeley.edu and sffs.org.
Lisandro Alonso’s 2001 ‘La Libertad’ is the first film in Pacific Film Archive’s First Person Rural: The New Nonfiction series, which presents works that utilize documentary filmmaking techniques in fictional storytelling. More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
Pacific Film Archive hosts ‘Film and Video Makers at Cal,’ which offers an array of short narratives, documentaries and music videos by UC Berkeley student filmmakers. More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
Pacific Film Archive offers the latest in their Alternative Visions series with Images of Nature, or The Nature of the Image: Canadian Artists at Work, which explores the techniques and strategies utilized by four decades of Canadian short films as they showcase images of nature and Canadian landscapes. More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
Pacific Film Archive presents The Lunch Love Community Documentary Project, featuring in-person presentations and webisodes that examine the impact of nutritional habits on youth and the current Berkeley School Lunch Initiative. More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
A South Korean classic is re-envisioned.
A South Korean classic is re-envisioned.
A South Korean classic is re-envisioned.
A South Korean classic is re-envisioned.
A South Korean classic is re-envisioned.
A South Korean classic is re-envisioned.
3rd i launches its ‘Cruel Cinema: New Directions in Tamil Film’ weekend series at the Pacific Film Archive Theater. Four current new wave films from Tamil play, beginning with India’s highly successful crime thriller ‘Pudhuppettai.’ More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
Pacific Film Archive Theater hosts the African Film Festival 2011, presenting popular documentary and narrative films from eight African countries. The festival begins with Remi Vaughan-Richards’ 2010 ‘One Small Step.’
Pacific Film Archive Theater and UC Berkeley’s Department of Film and Media present Jean Cocteau’s 1946 ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ A lecture by Professor Russell Merritt follows. More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
Pacific Film Archive Theater offers the World Cinema Foundation: Safeguarding Cinematic Treasures series, highlighting WCF's preservation efforts. It opens with Edward Yang's 1991 ‘A Brighter Summer Day’. More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
Pacific Film Archive offers the second of three excerpts from its monumental work, 'Radical Light.'
Pacific Film Archive offers the second of three excerpts from its monumental work, 'Radical Light.'
Pacific Film Archive offers the second of three excerpts from its monumental work, 'Radical Light.'
The Pacific Film Archive’s series on film giant Carl Theodor Dreyer continues well into the month December and showcases the Danish director’s greatest achievements. Dreyer’s influence on cinema is colossal and ageless as proven in Lars Von Trier’s ‘Medea,’ which he directed for television decades after Dreyer penned the original screenplay. Dreyer’s ‘Michael’ precedes ‘Medea.’ ‘The Master of the House,’ and ‘Leaves from Satan’s Book’ also screen this weekend. More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
This event marks the debut of an exciting new filmmaker-in-person series presented by BAM/PFA. Regarded as one of the most significant voices in contemporary American indie cinema, director Kelly Reichardt presents and discusses her work with professor, author (and SF360.org contributor) B. Ruby Rich at the Pacific Film Archive. Feature films include ‘Ode,’ ‘Old Joy,’ ‘River of Grass’ and ‘Wendy and Lucy,’ as well as two shorts, ‘Then a Year,’ and ‘Travis.’ More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
Celebrations of photographer R.A. McBride’s and Julie Lindow's elegiac ‘Left in the Dark: Portraits of San Francisco Movie Theatres,' which features photographs cinemas of the past and present matched with scholarly essays on local industry themes, continue. Pacific Film Archive hosts a slide show presentation by McBride and readings by writers including Lindow, Katherine Petrin, Melinda Stone. More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
Photo/essay book 'Left in the Dark' offers a way in—and out of—San Francisco cinema's rich, gritty, glamorous past.
Photo/essay book 'Left in the Dark' offers a way in—and out of—San Francisco cinema's rich, gritty, glamorous past.
Photo/essay book 'Left in the Dark' offers a way in—and out of—San Francisco cinema's rich, gritty, glamorous past.
Pacific Film Archive celebrates the iconoclastic Portuguese filmmaker João César Monteiro with a curated collection of his films. This week's programs offers Monteiro's figurative and literal journey through Portugal with 'Trails' (September 24) and an exaltation of sensual pleasure, 'God's Comedy' (September 25).
Pacific Film Archive offers the first of three excerpts from its monumental new book, 'Radical Light.'
Pacific Film Archive offers the first of three excerpts from its monumental new book, 'Radical Light.'
Pacific Film Archive offers the first of three excerpts from its monumental new book, 'Radical Light.'
Pacific Film Archive offers the first of three excerpts from its monumental new book, 'Radical Light.'
Pacific Film Archive offers the first of three excerpts from its monumental new book, 'Radical Light.'
Pacific Film Archive offers the first of three excerpts from its monumental new book, 'Radical Light.'
The Pacific Film Archive has dusted off a collection of rarely seen shorts from its new film vault; the kaleidoscopic collection full of "grain, color and noise" displays on a summer evening, outdoors, at a free screening on Friday, August 27.
Oakland's youth video-production collective The Factory showcases more than a dozen documentary, narrative, and experimental films made by students at the Pacific Film Archive on August 24. A panel discussion with student filmmakers follows.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold screens at the Pacific Film Archive as part of the Modernist Masters series on August 12. Gabriel García Marquez' novella, which unfolds around uncertain crimes of passion, is faithfully adapted by Francesco Rosi, who focuses on his own recurring theme, motives behind violence.
The Pacific Film Archive's Criminal Minds series offers a liberating mix of asocial outlaws and sordid stories based on the ripped-from-the-headlines exploits of real-life gangsters and killers.
The Pacific Film Archive's Criminal Minds series offers a liberating mix of asocial outlaws and sordid stories based on the ripped-from-the-headlines exploits of real-life gangsters and killers.
The Pacific Film Archive's Criminal Minds series offers a liberating mix of asocial outlaws and sordid stories based on the ripped-from-the-headlines exploits of real-life gangsters and killers.
The Pacific Film Archive's Criminal Minds series offers a liberating mix of asocial outlaws and sordid stories based on the ripped-from-the-headlines exploits of real-life gangsters and killers.
In the YouTube-Facebook-viral video era, it's hard to remember the time when youth-made media was rare.
As soon as the silent era hit sound circa 1927, musicals became a leading genre worldwide. How could their appeal possibly die out?
Horror movies were once dismissed by most grownups (and nearly all critics) as juvenile, silly, even offensive. Val Lewton seriously challenged that thinking,
Riding the crest of the Tati tsunami hitting our shores is The Magnificent Tati by Michael House, who lived in S.F. for 12 years before moving to Paris.
You could make a case for Tati as the last great silent comedian even if he didn't begin making features until two decades into the sound era.
Though often made for private reasons, home movies are treasure troves of culture ephemera and social history.
Though often made for private reasons, home movies are treasure troves of culture ephemera and social history.
Tangier has created an identity as a great fount of stories and light, complete with an independent cinema that opened in 2007.
Tangier has created an identity as a great fount of stories and light, complete with an independent cinema that opened in 2007.
The movies of William Klein are suffused with the same impudence, social commentary and aesthetic surprise found in his photos.
A mini-retrospective of the work of Kim Longinotto plays during the Women Make Movies Film Festival at the Roxie.
Josef von Sternberg's The Salvation Hunters caused a small sensation within the industry when it appeared, and is visually assured time capsule of urban poverty.
The Desert of the Tartars is a story in which the grim certainty that "Nothing will ever happen" is a slow poison that drives men to madness, suicide or other inglorious ends.
The Desert of the Tartars is a story in which the grim certainty that "Nothing will ever happen" is a slow poison that drives men to madness, suicide or other inglorious ends.
Newly-retired Pacific Film Archive publicist Shelley Diekman discusses her cinephile tastes, her past and her future.
Newly-retired Pacific Film Archive publicist Shelley Diekman discusses her cinephile tastes, her past and her future.
Sjogren threads her vexations with feminist film theory into a study of sound and voice in "women's film" touchstones like Letter from an Unknown Woman.
Oshima's output grazed on familiar genres, such as the youth-gone-wild and domestic drama, while freely incorporating elements from avant-garde and documentary filmmaking.
Berkeley hosts Karel Vachek: Poet Provocateur, the first-ever full U.S. retrospective for this unclassifiable Czech filmmaker.
Berkeley hosts Karel Vachek: Poet Provocateur, the first-ever full U.S. retrospective for this unclassifiable Czech filmmaker.
The PFA's series of "essay films," a collection of diverse work, offers the viewer an opportunity to adapt to the peculiar tone of these films.
The Pacific Film Archive shows Discovering Teuvo Tulio, a four-film retrospective of works from Finland's master of over-the-top melodrama in the 1930s and '40s.
The Pacific Film Archive shows Discovering Teuvo Tulio, a four-film retrospective of works from Finland's master of over-the-top melodrama in the 1930s and '40s.
Martha Colburn's recent shorts plunge the interstices of Americana for a hidden history of fanaticism and double-faced hypocrisies.
The PFA senior curator talks about her cinematic influences, curating in Canada and the U.S., and recent additions to the world of film.
The PFA senior curator talks about her cinematic influences, curating in Canada and the U.S., and recent additions to the world of film.
I confess that for a long while I had the misperception, based on almost no exposure to his work, that French essayist Chris Marker made dense, dry films steeped in political theory and inaccessible to anyone but a narrow strata of irrelevant European intellectuals.
The Pacific Film Archive screens a survey of Goodis-related works from both the big and small screen, spanning nearly five decades.
Two top winners at the SFIAAFF focused on breakadancing, an art form taken up with vengeance by Asians, with Koran teams a particularly dominant force.
Does Tomo Uchida, whose retrospective is currently at the PFA, merit the same sort of reverent revival treatment that has been given many times over to other Japanese filmmakers of his generation?
Does Tomo Uchida, whose retrospective is currently at the PFA, merit the same sort of reverent revival treatment that has been given many times over to other Japanese filmmakers of his generation?
The Pacific Film Archive offers a three-week sampling of Russian sci-fi films stretching from the silent era to the end of Communism.
An impressive PFA series runs alongside an exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum of Kiarostami's striking photographic work.
Few people not employed as directors, producers, cinematographers, costume or production designers have had as much impact on the "look" of movies.
Is there anyone who doesn't know that the San Francisco International Film Festival is turning 50 this month?
One of Apichatpong Weerasethakul Ôs goals as a filmmaker is to simply show what he likes, and what he likes to see.
A look at critics' responses to Antonioni through the ages shows there is, and always was, plenty to say about his work.
The Pacific Film Archive's standing as a cinema-centric educational institution brings the avant-garde into conversation with a broad program of film history.
The Pacific Film Archive retrospective on Ernst Lubitsch encompasses 21 features, including many seldom-seen silent movies.
A documentary provides an in-depth description of Robert Wilson's life and art. Melville's spy story on a Resistance cell in Nazi-occupied French challenges our idea of heroism.
This series of cinematic responses to war, curated by Lebanese video artist Akram Zaatari, opens up possibilities for re-imagining the dehumanized landscape of violence.
This series of cinematic responses to war, curated by Lebanese video artist Akram Zaatari, opens up possibilities for re-imagining the dehumanized landscape of violence.
It doesn't seem like a stretch to group Janus with those American institutions which have represented a vision of what art is and can be.
This 2006 series of recent releases and restorations that played theaters for only a day or, at most, a week is exceptionally varied.
This 2006 series of recent releases and restorations that played theaters for only a day or, at most, a week is exceptionally varied.
Jeff Kreines and Joel DeMott's legendary and obscure 1982 documentary set in Muncie, Indiana, highlights the PFA series "Screenagers: Documents from the Teenage Years."
Jeff Kreines and Joel DeMott's legendary and obscure 1982 documentary set in Muncie, Indiana, highlights the PFA series "Screenagers: Documents from the Teenage Years."