• Celebration of Life: Trees
  • Growing, growing . . .
  • Bop Scotch
  • Celebration of Life: Trees
  • Growing, growing . . .


A Place to Be: The Experiential Cinema of Paul Fillinger



In Conversation

  • Paul Fillinger

    Paul Fillinger, attracted by early underground films made in the Bay Area in the 1950s and 1960s, left advertising to make experimental films, then educational films and corporate documentaries, ending up as manager of Sunset Magazine’s film and video department until it was sold to Time-Life Corporation in 1990.

  • Adrianne Finelli

    Adrianne Finelli, an artist and curator based in Berkeley, is currently project manager for the Prelinger Archives’s mass digitization project in collaboration with Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web and Internet Archive.

  • Jon Shibata

    Jon Shibata is BAMPFA’s film archivist.

Paul Fillinger left a steady career to follow the creative energy of 1960s San Francisco. He and his wife, Glenda, enrolled in a film course taught by Lawrence Jordan and found artistic community with the spiritual likes of filmmaker Jordan Belson. Fillinger’s children were collaborators in his experiential films about the curiosity that shapes us and our connection to nature. Little voices take in the sweet mystery of life and let it out through songs (arranged by local composer Elinor Armer). They remind us to get outside and immerse our senses in our surroundings—look up at the sky, look down to the ground—and deeper, to a place inside our soul.

— Adrianne Finelli

Films in this Screening

Bop Scotch

Jordan Belson, United States, 1952

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • 16mm
  • 3 mins
source
  • BAMPFA
permission
  • Estate of Jordan Belson
Additional Info
  • BAMPFA preservation print, preservation funded by National Film Preservation Foundation

Run Jane Run

Paul Fillinger, United States, 1969

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • B&W
  • 16mm
  • 7 mins
source
  • Paul Fillinger

Growing, growing . . . 

Paul Fillinger, United States, 1972

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • 16mm
  • 11 mins
source
  • BAMPFA
permission
  • Paul Fillinger

Meditation

Jordan Belson, United States, 1972

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • 16mm
  • 6 mins
source
  • BAMPFA
permission
  • Estate of Jordan Belson
Additional Info
  • Preservation print made by the Estate of Jordan Belson from Belson’s original internegative, 2023

My World . . . Earth

Paul Fillinger, United States, 1975

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • 16mm
  • 11 mins
source
  • Paul Fillinger

Cosmos

Jordan Belson, United States, 1969

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • 16mm
  • 7 mins
source
  • BAMPFA
permission
  • Estate of Jordan Belson
Additional Info
  • Preservation print made by the Estate of Jordan Belson from Belson’s original internegative, 2023

1, 2, 3, Infinity

Paul Fillinger, United States, 1968

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • 16mm
  • 6 mins
source
  • Paul Fillinger

Celebration of Life: Trees

Paul Fillinger, United States, 1973

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • 16mm
  • 11 mins
source
  • BAMPFA
permission
  • Paul Fillinger

Audio clips of Paul Fillinger in conversation with Jordan Belson

,

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • 5 mins
source
  • Estate of Jordan Belson

Event Accessibility

If you have any questions about accessibility or require accommodations to participate in this event, please contact us at bampfa@berkeley.edu or call us at (510) 642-1412 (during open hours) with as much advance notice as possible. More information on accessibility services.