Alternative Visions

Alternative Visions

September 9–November 18, 2026

This fall BAMPFA’s long-running annual series of historical and contemporary experimental film includes the work of dozens of artists across ten programs, with filmmakers, scholars, and curators in person.

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  • Sky Hopinka: Dislocation Blues, 2017

  • TT Takemoto: Swish Sway Swish, 2026

  • Naeem Mohaiemen: A Missing Can of Film, 2025

  • Brydie O’Connor: Barbara Forever, 2026

  • Gibbs Chapman: Push Button: A History of Idleness and Ignorance, 2004

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

Upcoming Films

  • Barbara Forever

    Brydie O’Connor
    United States, 2026
    Wednesday, September 16, 7 PM
    Brydie O’Connor and Luis Madrigal in Conversation

    Pioneering lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer takes center stage in Brydie O’Connor’s Teddy Award–winning documentary. The lyrical portrait illuminates how Hammer’s legacy continues to inspire artists while never losing sight of the ambitious, funny, bold, and joyful woman at its center.

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  • It Will Be Better Before and Temo Re

    Wednesday, September 23, 7 PM
    Keto Kipiani, Anka Gujabidze, Salomé Asatiani, and Anna Dziapshipa in Conversation

    Keto Kipiani’s It Will Be Better Before revisits images filmed five years earlier and begins a new correspondence with her then-codirector, Nicolas Kunisz. Temo Re, Anka Gujabidze’s poignant photo adventure shot in Tbilisi, reveals the rough edges of urban life and moments of beauty.

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  • Self-Portrait Along the Borderline

    Anna Dziapshipa
    Georgia, 2023
    Wednesday, September 30, 7 PM
    Anna Dziapshipa, Salomé Asatiani, Anka Gujabidze, and Susan Oxtoby in Conversation

    Anna Dziapshipa was born of the union between an Abkhazian man and a Georgian woman. In Self-Portrait Along the Borderline, she skillfully weaves together unique archives and fragments to offer a personal and political biography of Georgia–Abkhazia relations. With Dziapshipa’s shorts Contemplation and Dear Dirty Tbilisi.

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  • Films by the COUSIN Collective and Christophe Katrib

    Wednesday, October 7, 7 PM
    Introduced by Mark Minch-de Leon

    A selection of works made by COUSIN collective artists, including Sky Hopinka’s 2017 consideration of the Dakota Access Pipeline protest and Lindsay McIntyre’s film about caribou and lichen—made using those materials in the photographic process—screen with Lebanese artist Christophe Katrib’s This Dissonance.

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  • Remembering Harun Farocki

    Wednesday, October 14, 7 PM
    Introduced by Stefanie Schulte Strathaus

    This is a new restoration of Claudia von Alemann and Reinold E. Thiel’s documentary on the legendary experimental film festival of Knokke, Belgium, featuring political filmmaker Harun Farocki in action. Shown with three short films by Farocki, including Inextinguishable Fire.

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  • Marjorie Keller Films

    Wednesday, October 21, 7 PM
    Introduced by Steve Anker

    The late Marjorie Keller’s films ranged from social and political critiques to intimate portraits of people who populated her world. Her intricate visual and sound editing is pointed while also being poetically suggestive. On the occasion of a new book about Keller’s films, contributor Steve Anker presents five of her films.

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  • Celluloid Frontiers: A Missing Can of Film and Stop Genocide

    Co-sponsored by the Institute for South Asia Studies, UC Berkeley and the Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies, UC Berkeley, and the South Asia Art Initiative at UC Berkeley.

    Thursday, October 29, 7 PM
    Naeem Mohaiemen and Tausif Noor in Conversation

    In conjunction with the exhibition Private Frontiers, BAMPFA presents Naeem Mohaiemen’s A Missing Can of Film (2025) and Zahir Raihan’s Stop Genocide (1971)—a film edited in the style of Soviet Realism and Third Cinema during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

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  • Harun Farocki’s War at a Distance and Videos by Mahmoud Alhaj

    Wednesday, November 4, 7 PM
    Introduced by Mark Minch-de Leon

    Harun Farocki’s influential 2003 essay film and Mahmoud Alhaj’s recent videos examine how perception is controlled as a result, or a tool, of war and conflict.

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  • Black Hole Collective Film Lab

    Wednesday, November 18, 7 PM
    Members of Black Hole Collective Film Lab in Person

    This screening brings together films made by Black Hole Collective Film Lab members past and present, footage from group workshops taught by members and visiting artists, and documentation of the lab’s evolution through multiple moves over more than a decade.

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Past Films

  • Push Buttons and AI

    Wednesday, September 9 7 PM
    Gibbs Chapman, Antonio Somaini, Hannes Bajohr, and Sonja Thiel in Conversation

    In conjunction with the exhibition Hidden Layers: AI Infrastructures and Hallucinations at UC Berkeley’s Worth Ryder Gallery, Antonio Somaini, Hannes Bajohr, and Sonja Thiel present a program of works about automation, AI, and AI’s social and technical infrastructures. With filmmaker Gibbs Chapman in person.

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