Film Series

Past Film Series
  • Special Screenings

    Ongoing

    Recent releases, restored classics, and special guests grace the Barbro Osher Theater.

    View
  • Alternative Visions

    September 11–November 20, 2024

    Alternative Visions features new restorations of great films by Man Ray and Nicolás Guillén Landrián, classic works on film by Pat O’Neill, and artists in person, including Shu Lea Cheang, Charif Kiwan, Lewis Klahr, Jennifer Reeves, Scott Stark, and Amanda Strong.

    View
  • Cuban Cinema without Borders

    October 23–November 16, 2024

    Through captivating storytelling, this series celebrates the resilience of independent Cuban cinema and the enduring legacy of trailblazers like Nicolás Guillén Landrián. Explore themes of exile, motherhood, and nationhood in a formally stunning collection of fiction, documentary, and experimental films that reflect on Cuban lives and imaginaries in the island and its diasporas.

    View
  • Sergei Parajanov: Centennial Celebration

    November 1–22, 2024

    This is a centennial tribute to the legendary Armenian poet-filmmaker Sergei Parajanov, who worked across transnational boundaries and struggled against the Soviet authorities, who banned and censored his films. A one-day symposium on November 2 will bring scholars and experts to Berkeley to speak about Parajanov’s life and work.

    View
  • Jia Zhangke: Filmmaker in Residence

    November 7–30, 2024

    One of the world’s foremost filmmakers, Jia Zhangke, joins us for a weeklong residency during which he will engage in conversations with leading experts about his distinctive body of work, which reflects sweeping cultural and economic change in China since the late 1990s.

    View
  • Movie Matinees for All Ages

    Ongoing

    BAMPFA’s movie matinees are a wonderful way to introduce young people to the joys of the big-screen cinematic experience—and for all of us to rediscover the pleasures of Saturday afternoon at the movies.

    View
  • G. W. Pabst: Selected Films, 1925–38

    December 7, 2024–February 28, 2025

    A selection of the films G. W. Pabst is best known for, made during the Weimar Republic, plus two French productions from the 1930s. Featuring several restored films plus live piano accompaniment by Judith Rosenberg for all of the silent films.

    View
  • To Exalt the Ephemeral: Artists on Screen

    December 8–22, 2024

    Three programs offer insight into some of the artists whose work is currently on view at BAMPFA. The program includes films about or made by Bruce Conner, Imogen Cunningham, Jay DeFeo, Eva Hesse, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, and Chiura Obata. 

    View
  • Marcello Mastroianni at 100

    December 15, 2024–February 27, 2025

    Born one hundred years ago, Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni appeared in over 170 films, from comedies to Modernist masterpieces. Just how much he meant to the cinema is attested to in these films, where Mastroianni defines the screen actor’s art and our joy in it.

    View
  • Landscapes of Myth: Westerns After The Searchers

    January 10–February 28, 2025

    Bookended by John Ford’s The Searchers and Zacharias Kunuk’s Maliglutit (Searchers), the mythic, elemental, and spiritual significance of landscape provides a throughline in this diverse selection of Westerns, including films made by Robert Altman, Charles Burnett, Jane Campion, Kevin Jerome Everson, Sidney Poitier, Kelly Reichardt, Glauber Rocha, and Quentin Tarantino.

    View
  • Masc II: Mascs plus Muchachas

    Butch Dykes, Trans Men, and Gender Nonconforming Heroes in Cinema

    January 17–February 23, 2025

    Last year’s wildly popular Masc film series returns with a fresh new installment, offering an opportunity to experience several rarely seen AFAB (assigned-female-at-birth) masc movies from around the world. Filmmaker Cheryl Dunye joins us in person for a rare screening of Stranger Inside (2001).

    View
  • Sergei Loznitsa: Filmmaker in Residence

    January 30–February 8, 2025

    We welcome the celebrated Ukrainian director of Belarusian origin Sergei Loznitsa for a ten-day residency, during which time he will speak about his work in documentary, feature filmmaking, and short form.

    View
  • Climate Journalism on Screen

    February 2–February 23, 2025

    Drawing on a variety of documentary techniques, these four recent films ambitiously reckon with climate change through their multifaceted subjects. Each program includes a post-screening discussion.

    View
  • Documentary Voices

    February 5–April 18, 2025

    BAMPFA’s annual selection of compelling nonfiction films includes the award-winning Palestinian/Israeli documentary No Other Land, as well as films by Sergei Loznitsa, Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, Dana Claxton and the Ishi Collective, and Kevin Jerome Everson.

    View