Big Screen: Highlights from a Year of Virtual Cinema

December 2, 2021–February 16, 2022

Now that we are back in the Barbro Osher Theater, we want to share some highlights from the past year of virtual cinema as an affirmation of the importance of seeing films on the big screen and with an audience. 

Read full description
  • Chungking Express

  • Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint

  • The Story of a Three Day Pass

  • Tell Them We Were Here

  • Edo Avant Garde

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Black Life: The Story of a Three Day Pass

    Melvin Van Peebles
    France, 1968

    Digital Restoration 

    The Thursday, December 2 screening features an introduction with Ryanaustin Dennis. The Sunday, December 5 screening will be presented without an introduction.

    Thursday, December 2 7 PM
    Introduced by Ryanaustin Dennis

    In this exuberant, inventive, and poignant film about an American soldier’s sojourn in Paris, Melvin Van Peebles brilliantly balanced French New Wave style with profound social critique and psychological substance.

    View Details

  • Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint

    Halina Dyrschka
    Germany, 2019
    Saturday, December 4 4:30 PM

    This documentary, which “bristles with the excitement of discovery and also with the impatience that recognition has taken so long,” illuminates the story of Swedish painter Hilma af Klint, the unsung modernist of the early twentieth century (New York Times).

    View Details

  • Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

    Ric Burns
    United States, 2019
    Sunday, December 5 1:30 PM

    “At once tender and thrilling,” this moving and insightful portrait of neurologist and author Oliver Sacks centers on intimate interviews from his final months, facing death and looking back on his extraordinary life (Variety).

    View Details

  • Black Life: The Story of a Three Day Pass

    Melvin Van Peebles
    France, 1968

    Digital Restoration 

    The Thursday, December 2 screening features an introduction with Ryanaustin Dennis. The Sunday, December 5 screening will be presented without an introduction.

    Sunday, December 5 4 PM
    Introduced by Ryanaustin Dennis

    In this exuberant, inventive, and poignant film about an American soldier’s sojourn in Paris, Melvin Van Peebles brilliantly balanced French New Wave style with profound social critique and psychological substance.

    View Details

  • Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

    Ric Burns
    United States, 2019
    Thursday, December 9 7 PM

    “At once tender and thrilling,” this moving and insightful portrait of neurologist and author Oliver Sacks centers on intimate interviews from his final months, facing death and looking back on his extraordinary life (Variety).

    View Details

  • Chungking Express

    Wong Kar Wai
    Hong Kong, 1994

    Digital Restoration

    Friday, December 10 7 PM

    Wong Kar Wai’s love letter to Hong Kong combines separate tales of two cops (Takeshi Kaneshiro, Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and their tenuous romantic connections (Brigitte Lin, Faye Wong) in “a film with style to burn” (Los Angeles Times).

    View Details

  • Flowers of Shanghai

    Hou Hsiao-hsien
    Taiwan, 1998

    Digital Restoration

    Saturday, December 11 7 PM

    Tony Leung Chiu-wai stars in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s period-piece reverie set in a Shanghai brothel circa 1890. “‘Surrender’ is the key to this visually ravishing masterpiece” (Phillip Lopate).

    View Details

  • Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint

    Halina Dyrschka
    Germany, 2019
    Sunday, December 12 2 PM

    This documentary, which “bristles with the excitement of discovery and also with the impatience that recognition has taken so long,” illuminates the story of Swedish painter Hilma af Klint, the unsung modernist of the early twentieth century (New York Times).

    View Details

  • Flowers of Shanghai

    Hou Hsiao-hsien
    Taiwan, 1998

    Digital Restoration

    Thursday, December 16 7 PM

    Tony Leung Chiu-wai stars in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s period-piece reverie set in a Shanghai brothel circa 1890. “‘Surrender’ is the key to this visually ravishing masterpiece” (Phillip Lopate).

    View Details

  • The Cloud-Capped Star

    Ritwik Ghatak
    India, 1960

    Digital Restoration

    Friday, December 17 7 PM

    Directed by the visionary Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak, The Cloud-Capped Star tells the story of a family that has been uprooted by the partition of India and comes to depend on their eldest daughter, the self-sacrificing Neeta (Supriya Choudhury).

    View Details

  • Chungking Express

    Wong Kar Wai
    Hong Kong, 1994

    Digital Restoration

    Saturday, December 18 7 PM

    Wong Kar Wai’s love letter to Hong Kong combines separate tales of two cops (Takeshi Kaneshiro, Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and their tenuous romantic connections (Brigitte Lin, Faye Wong) in “a film with style to burn” (Los Angeles Times).

    View Details

  • Edo Avant Garde

    Linda Hoaglund
    Japan, United States, 2019
    Sunday, December 19 2 PM
    Linda Hoaglund in Person

    This beautiful examination of the tradition of Japanese folding screen and scroll painting explores the sensuous style and innovative methods of Edo-period painting and reveals its influence on Western art.

    View Details

  • The Edge of the World

    Michael Powell
    United Kingdom, 1937

    Restored 35mm Print

    Sunday, December 19 4:30 PM

    In a remote Scottish island community facing extinction through isolation, two young men embark on a foolish challenge. Michael Powell’s stunningly photographed film is a hybrid of documentary-like realism and poetic fatalism.

    View Details

  • The Cloud-Capped Star

    Ritwik Ghatak
    India, 1960

    Digital Restoration

    Sunday, January 9 2 PM

    Directed by the visionary Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak, The Cloud-Capped Star tells the story of a family that has been uprooted by the partition of India and comes to depend on their eldest daughter, the self-sacrificing Neeta (Supriya Choudhury).

    View Details

  • The Edge of the World

    Michael Powell
    United Kingdom, 1937

    Restored 35mm Print

    Sunday, January 9 5 PM

    In a remote Scottish island community facing extinction through isolation, two young men embark on a foolish challenge. Michael Powell’s stunningly photographed film is a hybrid of documentary-like realism and poetic fatalism.

    View Details

  • Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint

    Halina Dyrschka
    Germany, 2019
    Saturday, January 15 4 PM

    This documentary, which “bristles with the excitement of discovery and also with the impatience that recognition has taken so long,” illuminates the story of Swedish painter Hilma af Klint, the unsung modernist of the early twentieth century (New York Times).

    View Details

  • Irmi

    Veronica Selver, Susan Fanshel
    United States, 2020

    BAMPFA Collection

    Sunday, January 23 2 PM
    Veronica Selver and Susan Fanshel in Person

    This beautiful documentary portrait of German Jewish émigrée Irmi Selver (1906–2004), based on her memoirs (read by Hanna Schygulla), takes us on a unique journey through a life marked by love, unimaginable loss, and strength of spirit.

    View Details

  • Tell Them We Were Here

    Griff Williams, Keelan Williams
    United States, 2021
    Sunday, January 30 2 PM
    Griff and Keelan Williams, Lawrence Rinder, and Bay Area Artists in Conversation

    Featuring eight groundbreaking local artists, this documentary reflects on a Bay Area art scene less concerned with money and power than with imagination, innovation, community, and care.

    View Details

  • Song Without a Name

    Melina León
    Peru, Spain, United States, 2019
    Sunday, February 6 2 PM

    An Indigenous Andean woman searches for her stolen newborn amidst the institutional corruption of 1980s Peru in this surreal blend of Latin American political history and Kafkaesque alienation, “shot, scored, and styled like the most beautiful of bad dreams” (Variety).

    View Details

  • The Two Sights

    Joshua Bonnetta
    Canada, United Kingdom, 2020
    Wednesday, February 16 7 PM

    In an “eerie and hypnotic” experimental evocation of the gift of second sight, Joshua Bonnetta infused the landscape of Scotland’s Outer Hebrides with otherworldly tales and meanings (Justine Smith, POV).

    View Details