65th San Francisco International Film Festival at BAMPFA

April 22–May 1, 2022

BAMPFA is proud to partner with the SFFILM Festival, an extraordinary showcase of cinematic discovery and a major cultural event in the Bay Area.

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  • Mars One

  • Neptune Frost

  • Fire of Love

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Midwives

    • Sunday, May 1 2:30 PM
    Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing
    Myanmar, Canada, Germany, 2022

    Amidst Myanmar’s escalating civil war, a Buddhist midwife and her Muslim apprentice overcome personal and professional differences to care for their patients at a village clinic in this nuanced documentary.

  • Riotsville, USA

    • Sunday, May 1 4:30 PM
    Sierra Pettengill
    United States, 2022

    This stunning essay film employs a treasure trove of archival US military recordings and 1960s broadcast TV as the foundation for a piercing interrogation into the origins of the militarization of American police.

    Nels Bangerter in Person

  • Klondike

    • Sunday, May 1 7 PM
    Maryna Er Gorbach
    Ukraine, Turkey, 2022

    Armed conflict hits home in the most vivid way imaginable when mortar fire decimates one wall of the farmhouse belonging to married Ukrainian couple Irka and Tolik in this striking drama based on real events.

    Oksana Cherkashyna in Person

  • Întregalde

    • Saturday, April 30 7:45 PM
    Radu Muntean
    Romania, 2021

    Wryly funny and suspenseful, this Cannes hit portrays a trio of Romanian aid workers whose SUV gets stuck on a logging road in remote Transylvania.

  • I Didn’t See You There

    • Saturday, April 30 3 PM
    Reid Davenport
    United States, 2022

    Oakland resident and filmmaker Reid Davenport reflects on matters of visibility, family, and the freak show in his latest personal documentary, winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s Directing Award for US Documentary.

    Reid Davenport and Keith Wilson in Person

  • Costa Brava, Lebanon

    • Saturday, April 30 5:30 PM
    Mounia Akl
    Lebanon, France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Qatar, 2021

    Set in the near future but reflecting on current crises in present-day Lebanon, this tense debut portrays three generations of the Badri family, who retreat from the chaos of Beirut to a rural homestead. 

  • Benediction

    • Friday, April 29 4 PM
    Terence Davies
    United Kingdom, 2021

    US Premiere

    Davies separates man from myth in his masterly portrait of acclaimed antiwar poet Siegfried Sassoon, employing archival footage, gleefully catty dialog, and an artful crosscutting between the different eras of his subject’s fraught and complex life. 

  • Trinh T. Minh-ha: Persistence of Vision Award + What About China?

    • Friday, April 29 7 PM
    Trinh T. Minh-ha
    United States, China, 2021

    Filmmaker, writer, and composer Trinh is this year’s recipient of the Persistence of Vision Award. Trinh will present her latest film, What About China?

    Trinh T. Minh-ha and Rizvana Bradley in Conversation

  • Utama

    • Thursday, April 28 6 PM
    Alejandro Loayza Grisi
    Bolivia, Uruguay, France, 2022

    A long drought parching their Bolivian highlands homeland endangers an elderly Quechua llama herder and his wife’s way of life in this intricate examination of the relationship between land and humanity.

  • Fire on the Plain

    • Thursday, April 28 8 PM
    Zhang Ji
    China, 2021

    The son of a local gangster and daughter of a factory worker conspire to flee their desperate lives as a serial killer runs rampant in this Chinese social realist neo-noir.

  • Neptune Frost

    • Wednesday, April 27 7 PM
    Anisia Uzeyman, Saul Williams
    Rwanda, United States, 2021

    Replete with mind-altering visual and sonic imagery, this Afrofuturist mélange of music, poetry, and resistance is hypnotic and visionary in its depiction of a genderqueer community of hackers and techno poets.

  • La guerra civil

    • Sunday, April 24 7:45 PM
    Eva Longoria Bastón
    United Kingdom, United States, Mexico, 2022

    The legendary boxing rivalry between Mexican Julio César Chávez and Mexican American Oscar De La Hoya sets the stage for an examination of identity, tradition, and nationality in Longoria Bastón’s gripping documentary.

  • The Exiles

    • Sunday, April 24 2 PM
    Ben Klein, Violet Columbus
    United States, Taiwan, France, China, 2021

    Never-before-seen footage of Chinese dissidents enmeshed in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and their bittersweet reflections thirty years later anchor this hybrid of cine-memoir and archival excavation focused on Who Killed Vincent Chin? documentary firebrand Christine Choy.

    Violet Columbus, Ben Klein, and Wu’er Kaixi in Person

  • Fire of Love

    • Sunday, April 24 5 PM
    Sara Dosa
    United States, Canada, 2021

    A couple’s passion for one another is inextricably bound with the explosive geology that is their life’s work in this stunning documentary portrait of volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, narrated by Miranda July.

    Sara Dosa in Person

  • Children of the Mist

    • Saturday, April 23 3 PM
    Diễm Hà Lệ
    Vietnam, 2021

    Living in isolation from the modern world in the mountains of Vietnam, feisty Hmong teenager Di must decide if she will succumb to tradition or bravely choose a different fate.

  • Hit the Road

    • Saturday, April 23 5:30 PM
    Panah Panahi
    Iran, 2021

    In Panahi’s auspicious feature debut, an eccentric family takes a road trip through sun-drenched Iranian landscapes as they accompany their eldest son to a mysterious destination.

  • Mars One

    • Saturday, April 23 7:45 PM
    Gabriel Martins
    Brazil, 2022

    Featuring four vibrant characters from working-class Brazil, this tender film is a delightful portrait of a mutually nurturing family who dares to dream.

    Gabriel Martins and Thiago Macêdo Correia in Person

  • Happening

    • Friday, April 22 7 PM
    Audrey Diwan
    France, 2021

    A bright literature student in 1960s France refuses to let an unwanted pregnancy shatter her life and seeks an illegal abortion in this powerful drama adapted from Annie Ernaux’s memoir.

    Audrey Diwan and Anamaria Vartolomei in Person