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Events
'Berlin Alexanderplatz'
Oct 28, 2011PFA plays Rainer Werner Fassbinder's magnum opus 'Berlin Alexanderplatz' in four recently restored 199-minute segments in a rare screening. Although this Friday's screening finds the series already in its second movement, film buffs are advised to enjoy at least a piece of this expansive exploration of Berlin's underworld on film before catching up with the Criterion DVD set. More info bampfa.berkeley.edu
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Events
Paul Sharits: An Open Cinema
Oct 12, 2011PFA finishes a short program of experimental films by teacher, multi-genre artist and Fluxus collaborator Paul Sharits this Thursday with a screening of his later work on Thursday. The Berkeley institution also screens a selection of Sharits' midcareer work this Wednesday. More info bampfa.edu.
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October 11, 2011
Paul Sharits: An Open Cinema
Oct 12, 2011PFA finishes a short program of experimental films by teacher, multi-genre artist and Fluxus collaborator Paul Sharits this Thursday with a screening of his later work on Thursday. The Berkeley institution also screens a selection of Sharits' midcareer work this Wednesday. More info bampfa.edu.
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Events
'Killer of Sheep'
Oct 7, 2011Charles Burnett's criminally underseen meditation on urban life in future race flashpoint Watts, CA, 'Killer of Sheep,' screens this Friday as part of Pacific Film Archive's The Outsiders: New Hollywood Cinema in the Seventies. More info at bampfa.edu.
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October 4 2011
'Killer of Sheep'
Oct 7, 2011Charles Burnett's criminally underseen meditation on urban life in future race flashpoint Watts, CA, 'Killer of Sheep,' screens this Friday as part of Pacific Film Archive's The Outsiders: New Hollywood Cinema in the Seventies. More info at bampfa.edu.
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Events
'The Hungry Wolves'
Sep 29, 2011PFA series Anatolian Outlaw: Yilmaz Güney, showcasing the work of the Turkish actor-director cum revolutionary dubbed the "Ugly King" for his unique combination of charisma and rough-hewn looks, continues with the realist western riff 'The Hungry Wolves.' Series runs through October 9. More info at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
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September 27 2011
'The Hungry Wolves'
Sep 29, 2011PFA series Anatolian Outlaw: Yilmaz Güney, showcasing the work of the Turkish actor-director cum revolutionary dubbed the "Ugly King" for his unique combination of charisma and rough-hewn looks, continues with the realist western riff 'The Hungry Wolves.' Series runs through October 9. More info at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
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Events
'A Sixth Part of the World'
Sep 21, 2011Dziga Vertov completed the epic documentary 'A Sixth Part of the World' after his ejection from the Cold War-era Soviet documentary film unit Sovkino. The breathtaking and broad-reaching doc, praised by revered experimentalist Chris Marker, screens Wednesday as part of PFA's annual avant-garde film program Alternative Visions. More info at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
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September 20, 2011
'A Sixth Part of the World'
Sep 21, 2011Dziga Vertov completed the epic documentary 'A Sixth Part of the World' after his ejection from the Cold War-era Soviet documentary film unit Sovkino. The breathtaking and broad-reaching doc, praised by revered experimentalist Chris Marker, screens Wednesday as part of PFA's annual avant-garde film program Alternative Visions. More info at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
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Home
Radical Light: ‘Movie Factory’
George Kuchar
Sep 7, 2011As 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.'
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In Depth
Radical Light: ‘Movie Factory’
George Kuchar
Sep 7, 2011As 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.'
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September 8 2011
Radical Light: ‘Movie Factory’
George Kuchar
Sep 7, 2011As 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.'
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August 25, 2011
PFA Animates with Bay Area Works
Jonathan Kiefer
Aug 24, 2011SF State professor Karl Cohen’s animation collection investigates the nature of pictorial movement itself.
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Home
PFA Animates with Bay Area Works
Jonathan Kiefer
Aug 24, 2011SF State professor Karl Cohen’s animation collection investigates the nature of pictorial movement itself.
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Reviews
PFA Animates with Bay Area Works
Jonathan Kiefer
Aug 24, 2011SF State professor Karl Cohen’s animation collection investigates the nature of pictorial movement itself.
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August 16, 2011
'The Makioka Sisters'
Aug 18, 2011Pacific 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.
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August 2, 2011
The Animator's Art with John Musker
Aug 8, 2011Disney animation director John Musker, responsible for 'The Little Mermaid,' 'Aladdin' and a number of other contemporary favorites, appears at The Walt Disney Family Museum to give a short demonstration of the craft of animation to youth ages 8-12. Older aficionados of the director's work can head to PFA on Wednesday for a lecture and presentation by Musker. More info at sffs.org and bampfa.berkeley.edu.
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July 19, 2011
Hands Up! Essential Skolimowski
Jul 22, 2011PFA opens Hands Up! with a double-bill of Polish New Wave legend Jerzy Skolimowski's early European works, 'Deep End' and 'The Shout,' both featuring bleak comedy, dynamic camera work and soundtrack contributions by then-avant touchstones (Can and Genesis, respectively). The series runs through August 25, see Dennis Harvey's in-depth coverage here. More info bampfa.berkeley.edu.
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Home
Striking Skolimowski Films Rescued from Obscurity at PFA
Dennis Harvey
Jul 18, 2011Pacific Film Archive’s ‘Hands Up! Essential Skolimowski’ surveys the Polish director’s confounding oeuvre.
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July 21, 2011
Striking Skolimowski Films Rescued from Obscurity at PFA
Dennis Harvey
Jul 18, 2011Pacific Film Archive’s ‘Hands Up! Essential Skolimowski’ surveys the Polish director’s confounding oeuvre.
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Reviews
Striking Skolimowski Films Rescued from Obscurity at PFA
Dennis Harvey
Jul 18, 2011Pacific Film Archive’s ‘Hands Up! Essential Skolimowski’ surveys the Polish director’s confounding oeuvre.
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July 12, 2011
'Out of the Past'
Jul 13, 2011PFA program Going South: American Noir in Mexico continues with Robert Mitchum's first starring role in the classic 'Out of the Past,' also featuring Kirk Douglas and a stunning Jane Greer. Going South runs through July 29. More info bampfa.berkeley.edu.
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July 5, 2011
Bertolucci Retrospective at PFA
Jul 8, 2011From now until mid-August, PFA screens a series of films by Italian master Bernardo Bertolucci. The series begins on Friday with Bertoluci's early-career rumination on the nature of love and youthful idealism, 'Before the Revolution.' More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
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Home
Border Trouble Comes to Pacific Film Archive
Max Goldberg
Jun 30, 2011New series spotlights the fascination with Mexico in American noir.
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June 30, 2011
Border Trouble Comes to Pacific Film Archive
Max Goldberg
Jun 30, 2011New series spotlights the fascination with Mexico in American noir.
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Reviews
Border Trouble Comes to Pacific Film Archive
Max Goldberg
Jun 30, 2011New series spotlights the fascination with Mexico in American noir.
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June 28, 2011
Japanese Divas
Jun 30, 2011Pacific 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.
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June 21, 2011
Cult of the Kuchars: '8mm Films'
Jun 23, 2011PFA's retrospective of experimental touchstones George and Mike Kuchar continues with a screening of rare 8mm shorts and both brothers in conversation with pioneering media theorist Gene Youngblood at 7:00 pm. Program runs through June 26. More at bampfa.berkeley.edu.
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June 7, 2011
Cult of the Kuchars
Jun 10, 2011Throughout 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.
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June 7, 2011
Arthur Penn, a Liberal Helping
Jun 10, 2011Arthur 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.
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April 12, 2011
Afterimage: The Films of Patricio Guzmán
Apr 16, 2011Pacific 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.
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March 29 2011
Afterimage: The Films of Patricio Guzman
Apr 2, 2011‘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.
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March 29 2011
Patricia Woodbridge on Art Direction
Mar 31, 2011Behind 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.
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March 22, 2011
First Person Rural: The New Nonfiction
Mar 26, 2011Lisandro 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.
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March 8, 2011
Film and Video Makers at Cal
Mar 10, 2011Pacific 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.
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March 8, 2011
Images of Nature, or The Nature of the Image: Canadian Artists at Work
Mar 9, 2011Pacific 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.
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February 8, 2011
The Lunch Love Community Documentary Project
Feb 13, 2011Pacific 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.
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February 1, 2011
Cruel Cinema: New Directions in Tamil Film
Feb 2, 20113rd 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.
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January 18, 2011
Radical Light: Post-Conceptual Performance
Jan 23, 2011Jordan Biren, Tony Labat and Anne McGuire appear in person for the Radical Light program Post-Conceptual Performance: Video, 1977 to 1997, which looks at the artist's body as the medium in works by Biren, McGuire, Labat, Leslie Singer, Doug Hall and Cecilia Dougherty. More at press.bampfa.berkeley.edu/radical.
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January 18, 2011
'Beauty and the Beast' with Lecture
Jan 19, 2011Pacific 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.
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January 11, 2010
World Cinema Foundation: Safeguarding Cinematic Treasures Series
Jan 15, 2011Pacific 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.
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November 16, 2010
Carl Theodor Dreyer Series Continues
Nov 16, 2010The 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.
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November 10, 2010
Afterimage: Filmmakers and Critics in Conversation: Kelly Reichardt with B. Ruby Rich
Nov 11, 2010This 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.
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October 26, 2010
'Left in the Dark' Photographer and Essayists in Person
Oct 30, 2010Celebrations 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.
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September 14, 2010
Radical Light Opening Programs at PFA
Sep 17, 2010The celebration of Pacific Film Archive's first book, a major achievement titled 'Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000,' begins Fri/17 with a Radical L@te sound and light offering in Gallery B and continues Sun/19 with the storied Ernie Gehr and Lawrence Jordan in person for 'Landscape as Expression' in the theater. Get the full story at www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. The series continues through March.
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September 7, 2010
Swoon Series at PFA
Sep 8, 2010The PFA series Swoon brings back Hollywood's classic leading men—the vulnerable loners, steel-eyed poets and Paul Newman—looking very young through September 26. This week: 'The Hustler,' 'House of Bamboo' and 'Breathless.'
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August 24, 2010
Inside the PFA Film Vault
Aug 27, 2010The 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.
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August 10 2010
Francesco Rosi: 'Chronicle of a Death Foretold'
Aug 12, 2010Chronicle 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.
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Reviews
Pacific Film Archive's Young Filmmakers on Big Screen
Jane Riccobono
Feb 3, 2010In the YouTube-Facebook-viral video era, it's hard to remember the time when youth-made media was rare.
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Reviews
Can't Stop the Musical: PFA's Classics
Dennis Harvey
Jan 27, 2010As soon as the silent era hit sound circa 1927, musicals became a leading genre worldwide. How could their appeal possibly die out?
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Q & A
Michael House's Translation of Tati at YBCA
Michael Guillen
Jan 17, 2010Riding 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.
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Reviews
The Exiled Ingrid Bergman at PFA
Dennis Harvey
Nov 6, 2009The PFA is offering a rare overview of Bergman's European films in the series, A Woman's Face: Ingrid Bergman in Europe.
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Q & A
Pamela Jean Smith Brings Home Movies to Big Screen
Max Goldberg
Oct 12, 2009Though often made for private reasons, home movies are treasure troves of culture ephemera and social history.
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Reviews
Tangerine Dreams: Cinematheque de Tanger's Morocco Showcase
Simona Schneider
Oct 1, 2009Tangier has created an identity as a great fount of stories and light, complete with an independent cinema that opened in 2007.
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Reviews
'Desert of the Tartars' Saved from Obscurity
Dennis Harvey
Aug 2, 2009The 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.
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Q & A
Shelley Diekman Reflects on Well-Spent life
Hilary Hart
Jul 27, 2009Newly-retired Pacific Film Archive publicist Shelley Diekman discusses her cinephile tastes, her past and her future.
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Reviews
Social Fury 'In the Realm of Oshima' at PFA
Matt Sussman
Jun 11, 2009Oshima'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.
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Reviews
Berkeley Hosts Karel Vachek Retrospective
Dennis Harvey
May 28, 2009Berkeley hosts Karel Vachek: Poet Provocateur, the first-ever full U.S. retrospective for this unclassifiable Czech filmmaker.
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Reviews
SFIFF52: Yun Suh's "City of Borders"
David Winks Gray
Apr 26, 2009City of Borders, the debut film by Bay Area filmmaker Yun Suh, follows several Palestinian characters seeking refuge at a gay bar. The film testifies to the intolerance that members of the LGBTQ community face in addition to all of the other walls, physical and social, separating people in the region.
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Festivals
SFIFF52: Jennifer Maytorena Taylor and a 'New Muslim Cool'
Sura Wood
Apr 6, 2009Jennifer Maytorena Taylor's documentary, New Muslim Cool, focuses on Hamza Perez, a Catholic hip hop artist, who converted to Islam; whose life is now a crucible of disparate urban influences.
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Reviews
Essay Films at the Pacific Film Archive
David Winks Gray
Jan 30, 2009The 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.
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Reviews
'Discovering Teuvo Tulio'
Dennis Harvey
Dec 4, 2008The 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.
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Q & A
Susan Oxtoby and the Pacific Film Archive
Michael Fox
Oct 24, 2008The PFA senior curator talks about her cinematic influences, curating in Canada and the U.S., and recent additions to the world of film.
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Reviews
'The Dark Cinema of David Goodis' at the PFA
Dennis Harvey
Aug 7, 2008The Pacific Film Archive screens a survey of Goodis-related works from both the big and small screen, spanning nearly five decades.
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Reviews
"Cachao: Uno Mas"
Chuy Varela
Apr 10, 2008Cachao: Uno Mas documents acclaimed bassist and cuban music innovator Israel "Cachao" Lopez's work and San Francisco concert at Bimbo's
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Reviews
"The Medieval Remake" at the PFA
Dennis Harvey
Jan 31, 2008A five-week series features an assortment of some of the less commercially-minded, artistically imaginative, philosophically thoughtful treatments the era has gotten.
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Reviews
Tomo Uchida at the PFA
Matt Sussman
Sep 19, 2007Does 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?
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Q & A
Weerasethakul Talks Hospitals, Aerobics, and a Boy From Mars
Johnny Ray Huston
Apr 9, 2007One of Apichatpong Weerasethakul Ôs goals as a filmmaker is to simply show what he likes, and what he likes to see.
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Reviews
The Critics and Antonioni
Max Goldberg
Mar 29, 2007A look at critics' responses to Antonioni through the ages shows there is, and always was, plenty to say about his work.
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Reviews
"Alternative Visions" at the PFA
Johnny Ray Huston
Feb 15, 2007The Pacific Film Archive's standing as a cinema-centric educational institution brings the avant-garde into conversation with a broad program of film history.
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Reviews
"Radical Closure" at the PFA
Robert Avila
Dec 7, 2006This series of cinematic responses to war, curated by Lebanese video artist Akram Zaatari, opens up possibilities for re-imagining the dehumanized landscape of violence.
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Reviews
Pacific Film Archive's "A Theater Near You"
Max Goldberg
Aug 31, 2006This 2006 series of recent releases and restorations that played theaters for only a day or, at most, a week is exceptionally varied.
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