Limited Engagements & Special Screenings

Ongoing

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

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  • The Mystery of Picasso

  • The Cold Heart

  • The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice

  • Detour

  • Grand Tour Italiano, 1905–1914

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

Upcoming Films

  • Monrovia, Indiana

    Frederick Wiseman
    United States, 2018

    Film to Table dinner follows the February 16 screening

    • Saturday, February 16 4:30 PM
    • Tuesday, February 19 6:30 PM

    The eternal Frederick Wiseman trains his camera on small-town America in the age of Trump, observing the citizens of Monrovia, Indiana, after the 2016 national election.

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  • The Mystery of Picasso

    Henri-Georges Clouzot
    France, 1956

    New Digital Restoration

    Film to Table dinner follows the March 9 screening

    • Friday, March 1 7 PM
    • Saturday, March 9 5:30 PM
    • Sunday, March 24 2 PM

    Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, this colorful documentary glimpse of the seventy-five-year-old Picasso captures the fecund nature of his creative process. “One of the most exciting and joyful movies ever made” (Pauline Kael).

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  • The Cold Heart

    Karl Ulrich Schnabel
    Germany, 1933/2016

    Bay Area Premiere!

    • Saturday, March 2 4 PM
    Ann Schnabel Mottier, François Mottier, and Sarah Cahill in Conversation

    Austrian pianist Karl Ulrich Schnabel was also an experimental filmmaker, and this rediscovered film displays a surprising aesthetic affinity with the psychodramas of avant-garde filmmakers like Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, and Stan Brakhage.

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  • The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice

    Yasujiro Ozu
    Japan, 1952

    Digital Restoration

     

    • Saturday, March 23 5:30 PM
    • Thursday, March 28 7 PM

    A series of extraordinarily revealing domestic details forms a portrait of middle-class marriage, domestic tension, and reconciliation. One of Ozu’s less screened works, recently digitally restored.

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  • Detour

    Edgar G. Ulmer
    United States, 1945

    Digital Restoration

     

    • Saturday, March 30 8:15 PM
    • Saturday, April 6 6 PM

    “No matter where you turn, fate sticks out a foot to trip you”: this lean, mean little movie sums up the film noir philosophy. “Detour isn’t just a masterpiece, it’s . . . a jagged chunk of the American psyche” (Village Voice).

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  • BAMPFA Student Committee Film Festival


    • Friday, April 5 9 PM

    Join the BAMPFA Student Committee for their annual festival showcasing short films made by students in Berkeley and the wider Bay Area.

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  • Grand Tour Italiano, 1905–1914


    Presented in partnership with San Francisco Silent Film Festival

     

    • Wednesday, May 1 3 PM
    Illustrated Lecture by Gian Luca Farinelli; Stephen Horne on Piano

    The director of the Cineteca di Bologna presents an enthralling collection of silent travelogues from Italy. The early twentieth-century grand tour wends from Sicily through Amalfi, Rome, Bologna, and Milan before ending in Venice.

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  • Works from the Eisner Competition 2019


    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

     

    • Sunday, May 5 4:30 PM
    Student Filmmakers in Person

    A presentation of this year’s prizewinners and honorable mentions in the film and video category of the Eisner Prize competition, UC Berkeley’s highest award for creative media making.

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  • The Baker's Wife

    Marcel Pagnol
    France, 1938

    Film to Table dinner follows the May 11 screening

     

    • Saturday, May 11 5 PM
    • Friday, May 17 7 PM

    A warm and ribald comedy based on the idea that food is the life of a community. Orson Welles once called The Baker's Wife “a perfect movie,” and star Raimu “the greatest actor of the cinema.”

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Past Films

  • Monrovia, Indiana

    • Saturday, February 16 4:30 PM
    • Tuesday, February 19 6:30 PM
     Frederick Wiseman
    United States, 2018

    Film to Table dinner follows the February 16 screening

    The eternal Frederick Wiseman trains his camera on small-town America in the age of Trump, observing the citizens of Monrovia, Indiana, after the 2016 national election.

  • Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable

    • Sunday, February 3 1:30 PM
    • Friday, February 15 4 PM
     Sasha Waters Freyer
    United States, 2018

    This poignant documentary spotlights one of the greatest photographic chroniclers of Cold War–era America, mingling Winogrand’s images with archival materials and musings from eminent curators, photographers, and friends.

  • The Image Book

    • Friday, February 1 6:30 PM
    • Saturday, February 9 2 PM
     Jean-Luc Godard
    Switzerland/France, 2018

    The newest essay film by Jean-Luc Godard is “a kaleidoscopic bulletin on the state of our world” (Variety). Winner of the first Special Palme d’Or award in the history of the Cannes Film Festival.

  • Nasser’s Republic: The Making of Modern Egypt

    • Friday, January 25 4 PM
    • Saturday, February 2 2 PM
     Michal Goldman
    United States, 2016

    An intriguing overview of Egypt’s political history in the modern age, Nasser’s Republic examines the transformative influence of the country’s second president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, on the Arab world.

  • Not Wanted

    • Saturday, January 12 8 PM
    • Sunday, January 20 4:30 PM
     Elmer Clifton, Ida Lupino
    United States, 1949

    Digital Restoration

    A waitress finds herself pregnant and out of options in Lupino’s dissection of small-town values and women’s choices (or lack of them), made with “a startling blend of compassion and invention” (New Yorker).  

  • Workingman’s Death

    • Wednesday, January 16 7 PM
    • Sunday, January 20 6:30 PM
     Michael Glawogger
    Austria/Germany, 2005

    BAMPFA Collection

    Glawogger’s documentary starts from a global question—Is hard manual labor a thing of the past?—and finds the unflinching answer in portraits of grueling and dangerous professions in Ukraine, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and China.

  • Megacities

    • Saturday, January 19 6 PM
     Michael Glawogger
    Austria, 1998

    BAMPFA Collection

    Glawogger takes us deep into the megacities of Mexico City, Bombay, Moscow, and New York, telling stories of people struggling at the bottom of the urban food chain.

  • Bicycle Thief

    • Saturday, January 12 6 PM
    • Friday, January 18 6:30 PM
     Vittorio De Sica
    Italy, 1948

    Digital Restoration
    Film to Table dinner follows the January 12 screening

    De Sica’s tale of a father and son searching the streets of Rome for their stolen bicycle is a masterwork of Italian neorealism, “an allegory at once timeless and topical” (Village Voice).