Limited Engagements & Special Screenings
Ongoing
Recent releases, restored classics, and special guests grace the Barbro Osher Theater.
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CineSpin
- Upcoming
Films - Past
Films - Past
Events
Past Films
Chinese Animation: The Screen and the Scroll
Sunday, January 15 4:30 PMIntroduced by Julia Irwin and Linda C. ZhangView DetailsThis program features animated shorts created by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio that feature painting and folk art that link screen with scroll. The screen becomes a site for the painterly projection of dreams, nightmares, and fantasies.
Women Talking
Sarah Polley
United States, 2022Monday, January 30 6:30 PMFrances McDormand, Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, and Naima Karczmar in ConversationView DetailsGraced with an extraordinary cast, Polley’s thoughtfully executed adaptation of Miriam Toews’s best-selling novel chronicles a radical “act of female imagination” to consider the healing power of language and what is required to escape systematic criminal abuse in an isolated religious community.
Black Life: An Evening with Paige Taul
Saturday, February 18 5 PMPaige Taul and ruth gebreyesus in ConversationView DetailsBlack Life is thrilled to welcome Oakland-born filmmaker Paige Taul back to the East Bay for a screening and conversation about her films. Primarily shot on 16 and super 8mm film, her works “engage with and challenge assumptions of Black cultural expression and notions of belonging.”
Neutra: Survival Through Design
PJ Letofsky
United States, 2019Saturday, February 25 12 PMLisa Heschong, Richard Jackson, Lindsay Baker, and Raymond Richard Neutra in Conversation; Introduced by PJ LetofskyView DetailsAustrian American architect Richard Neutra (1892–1970) designed 350 buildings around the world and was noted for his vision of environment, ecology, and livability. This information-rich documentary will be of interest to generalists and specialists alike in the areas of twentieth-century architecture and restoration, psychology, and aesthetics.
Tukdam: Between Worlds
Donagh Coleman
Finland, Ireland, Estonia, 2022Copresented with the Center for Buddhist Studies and the UC Berkeley Anthropology Department, cosponsored by the Institute for South Asia Studies and the Himalayan Studies Initiative
Thursday, March 2 7 PMDonagh Coleman, David Perlman, and Jacob Dalton in ConversationView DetailsIn what Tibetans call tukdam, deceased meditators have shown no signs of death for days or weeks. Juxtaposing ground-breaking scientific research and Tibetan perspectives, this creative documentary challenges our notion of life and death—and where we draw the line between them.
BAMPFA Student Committee Film Festival 2023
Free Admission
Friday, April 7 7 PMStudent Filmmakers in PersonView DetailsA selection of outstanding student films from around the Bay Area.
Black Life: Circling the Archive with Filmmaker Dwayne LeBlanc
Saturday, April 29 4 PMDwayne Leblanc and ruth gebreyesus in ConversationView DetailsFilmmaker LeBlanc joins Black Life cocurator ruth gebreyesus in person to share his film and discuss influences on his approach to filmmaking. The program also features a 35mm restored print of Charles Burnett’s first film, Several Friends.
Drylongso
Cauleen Smith
United States, 1998Sunday, May 7 5 PMCauleen Smith and Leila Weefur in ConversationView Details“An enduringly rich work of DIY filmmaking, Drylongso remains a resonant and visionary examination of violence (and its reverberations), friendship, and gender” (Film at Lincoln Center).
Film & Video Makers at Cal: Works from the Eisner Competition 2023
Free Admission
Sunday, May 14 2 PMUC Berkeley Student Filmmakers in PersonView DetailsStudent filmmakers join us for a screening 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.
Town Destroyer
Deborah Kaufman, Alan Snitow
United States, 2022East Bay Premiere!
Saturday, June 10 4:30 PMDeborah Kaufman, Alan Snitow, and Gregory Scharpen in PersonView DetailsThis is the East Bay premiere of Town Destroyer, which explores the ways we look at art and history at a time of racial reckoning. “Snitow and Kaufman’s documentary offers a fascinating overview of a case that encapsulates many of the bitterest divisions of our era” (Dennis Harvey, 48 Hills).
Black Life: Saint Omer
Alice Diop
France, 2022Sunday, June 25 4:30 PMIntroduced by ruth gebreyesusView DetailsAlice Diop’s first venture into narrative after more than a decade of documentary filmmaking, Saint Omer follows a young novelist, Rama, who is observing the trial of Laurence Coly, a woman accused of murdering her fifteen-month-old child in northern France.
The March
James Blue
United States, 1964Free Admission
Thursday, August 24 7 PMView DetailsTo commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which demanded equal rights for African Americans, we present two powerful documentaries, James Blue’s The March and Haskell Wexler’s The Bus.
CineSpin: Chess Fever, Un chien Andalou, and The Cage
Free Admission
Friday, November 3 8:30 PMView DetailsJoin us for CineSpin, the BAMPFA Student Committee’s annual event featuring terrific UC Berkeley student musicians providing original live accompaniment for Chess Fever (1925), Un chien Andalou (1929), and The Cage (1947).
