Special Screenings

Ongoing

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

Read full description
  • Seven Samurai

  • Sátántangó

  • Close Your Eyes

  • The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Upcoming Films

  • Close Your Eyes

    Víctor Erice
    Spain, Argentina, 2023
    Friday, December 6 7:00 PM

    Revered Spanish auteur Víctor Erice (The Spirit of the BeehiveEl Sur, and The Quince Tree Sun) returns with his fourth feature, a meditation on memory, absence, and the magic of cinema—a “poignant cinematic swan song” (Hollywood Reporter). 

    View Details
  • The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane

    Maureen Gosling
    United States, 2023
    Saturday, December 7 3:00 PM
    Maureen Gosling, Jed Riffe, and Nina Menéndez in Person

    For decades Barbara Dane lent her stellar singing voice to social-justice movements in the Bay Area and beyond, garnering an impressive FBI file along the way. “A true unsung hero of American music” (Boston Globe).

    View Details
  • In the Bones

    Kelly Duane de la Vega, Jessica Anthony, Zandashé Brown
    United States, 2022
    Sunday, December 8 4:00 PM
    Kelly Duane de la Vega, Jessica Anthony, Clare Major, and Mario Furloni in Person

    A searing look at the culture that overturned Roe v. Wade, In the Bones is a cinematic journey through Mississippi that provides a poetic and sometimes painful portrait of American culture through the ordinary lives of women and children.

    View Details
  • The Goldman Case

    Cédric Kahn
    France, 2023
    Wednesday, December 11 7:00 PM

    New York Times Critic’s Pick: “An electrifying courtroom drama” that delves into the sensationalized 1976 trial of Pierre Goldman. The film communicates so much about the complexity of Jewish identity in recent European history.

    View Details
  • The Wages of Fear

    Henri-Georges Clouzot
    France, 1953

    4K Digital Restoration

    Friday, December 13 7:00 PM

    Four desperate men are hired by a ruthless oil company to drive trucks filled with explosives across a mountainous South American country in one of the toughest noirs ever filmed. Starring Yves Montand. 

    View Details
  • Seven Samurai

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1954
    Saturday, December 14 1:30 PM

    A ragtag group of samurai bands together to protect a village from bandits in Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, often cited as one of the ten best films ever made.

    View Details
  • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

    Jacques Demy
    France, 1964

    4K Digital Restoration

    Saturday, December 14 6:30 PM

    For those who love the 1960s, French culture, Catherine Deneuve, Jacques Demy, design, romance, musicals, or cinema itself, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg stands alone, unmatched.

    View Details
  • No Fear, No Die

    Claire Denis
    France, 1990

    4K Digital Restoration

    Wednesday, December 18 7:00 PM

    In Claire Denis’s surprising second film, Isaach de Bankolé and Alex Descas play immigrants who train birds for cockfights on the outskirts of Paris. The film “has a seedy, claustrophobic power that says as much about human as about animal exploitation” (Time Out).

    View Details
  • Close Your Eyes

    Víctor Erice
    Spain, Argentina, 2023
    Saturday, January 11 3:00 PM

    Revered Spanish auteur Víctor Erice (The Spirit of the BeehiveEl Sur, and The Quince Tree Sun) returns with his fourth feature, a meditation on memory, absence, and the magic of cinema—a “poignant cinematic swan song” (Hollywood Reporter). 

    View Details
  • No Fear, No Die

    Claire Denis
    France, 1990

    4K Digital Restoration

    Sunday, January 12 7:00 PM

    In Claire Denis’s surprising second film, Isaach de Bankolé and Alex Descas play immigrants who train birds for cockfights on the outskirts of Paris. The film “has a seedy, claustrophobic power that says as much about human as about animal exploitation” (Time Out).

    View Details
  • Fairytale

    Alexander Sokurov
    Belgium, 2022

    Bay Area Premiere

    Wednesday, January 15 7:00 PM

    Fairytale resurrects from the dead, via animated archival imagery, the twentieth-century leaders Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin. A cinematic phantasmagoria that was banned by the Russian censors.

    View Details
  • The Goldman Case

    Cédric Kahn
    France, 2023
    Friday, January 24 3:00 PM

    New York Times Critic’s Pick: “An electrifying courtroom drama” that delves into the sensationalized 1976 trial of Pierre Goldman. The film communicates so much about the complexity of Jewish identity in recent European history.

    View Details
  • The Wages of Fear

    Henri-Georges Clouzot
    France, 1953

    4K Digital Restoration

    Sunday, January 26 6:00 PM

    Four desperate men are hired by a ruthless oil company to drive trucks filled with explosives across a mountainous South American country in one of the toughest noirs ever filmed. Starring Yves Montand. 

    View Details
  • Sátántangó

    Béla Tarr
    Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, 1994

    BAMPFA Collection

    Sunday, February 16 1:00 PM

    Béla Tarr’s extraordinary seven-and-a-half-hour epic Sátántangó. “Set on an entropic collective farm during the last years of Hungarian Communism, it’s a mordant, characteristically Eastern European tale of hapless peasants and charismatic swindlers. . . . Despair has never been more voluptuously precise” (Village Voice).

    View Details

Past Films

  • Snow and the Bear

    Selcen Ergun
    Turkey, Germany, Serbia, 2022
    Thursday, December 7 7 PM

    A chilling, mysterious, and stunning debut film. “Selcen Ergun’s acute and wide-awake direction emphasizes the undertones of a rigid patriarchal society while brilliantly setting the atmosphere for this anti fairy-tale” (Toronto International Film Festival).

    View Details

  • Victims of Sin

    Emilio Fernández
    Mexico, 1951

    Digital Restoration

    Thursday, December 14 7 PM
    Introduced by Peter Conheim and Viviana Garcia-Besné

    Victims of Sin is famed Mexican director Emilio Fernández’s unique blend of film noir, melodrama, and musical. Fernández infuses the film with impassioned songs and performances by Ninón Sevilla, an icon of Mexican cinema and a purveyor of African, Caribbean, and Cuban dance styles.

    View Details

  • Werckmeister Harmonies

    Béla Tarr
    Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, 2000

    Digital Restoration

    Sunday, December 17 4 PM

    One of the major achievements of twenty-first-century cinema thus far, Béla Tarr’s mesmeric parable of societal collapse is an enigma of transcendent visual, philosophical, and mystical resonance. New German Cinema icon Hanna Schygulla appears in a welcome cinematic comeback, while Lars Rudolf contributes a fevered performance of Klaus Kinski–like proportions.  

    View Details

  • Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros

    Frederick Wiseman
    France, United States, 2023
    Sunday, January 14 2 PM

    Esteemed documentarian Frederick Wiseman’s latest is a food lover’s heaven—a long, behind-the-scenes excursion into the world of France’s venerable restaurant La Maison Troisgros, which has held three Michelin stars for more than five decades.

    View Details

  • Werckmeister Harmonies

    Béla Tarr
    Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, 2000

    Digital Restoration

    Sunday, January 21 1:30 PM

    One of the major achievements of twenty-first-century cinema thus far, Béla Tarr’s mesmeric parable of societal collapse is an enigma of transcendent visual, philosophical, and mystical resonance. New German Cinema icon Hanna Schygulla appears in a welcome cinematic comeback, while Lars Rudolf contributes a fevered performance of Klaus Kinski–like proportions.  

    View Details

  • Victims of Sin

    Emilio Fernández
    Mexico, 1951

    Digital Restoration

    Wednesday, January 24 7 PM
    Introduced by Peter Conheim and Viviana Garcia-Besné

    Victims of Sin is famed Mexican director Emilio Fernández’s unique blend of film noir, melodrama, and musical. Fernández infuses the film with impassioned songs and performances by Ninón Sevilla, an icon of Mexican cinema and a purveyor of African, Caribbean, and Cuban dance styles.

    View Details

  • Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros

    Frederick Wiseman
    France, United States, 2023
    Saturday, January 27 2 PM

    Esteemed documentarian Frederick Wiseman’s latest is a food lover’s heaven—a long, behind-the-scenes excursion into the world of France’s venerable restaurant La Maison Troisgros, which has held three Michelin stars for more than five decades.

    View Details

  • Black God, White Devil

    Glauber Rocha
    Brazil, 1964

    Digital Restoration

    Saturday, January 27 7 PM

    “Steeped in history, myth, religion, and politics, and suffused with the feverish intensity of the blistering desert, Black God, White Devil is one of the Cinema Novo movement’s most uncompromising statements on current social issues as well as the universal problem of mindless fanaticism” (Janus Films).

    View Details

  • Snow and the Bear

    Selcen Ergun
    Turkey, Germany, Serbia, 2022
    Wednesday, January 31 7 PM

    A chilling, mysterious, and stunning debut film. “Selcen Ergun’s acute and wide-awake direction emphasizes the undertones of a rigid patriarchal society while brilliantly setting the atmosphere for this anti fairy-tale” (Toronto International Film Festival).

    View Details

  • Bushman

    David Schickele
    United States, 1971

    Bay Area Premiere of the Digital Restoration

    Open Captions

    Saturday, February 3 3 PM
    Gail Schickele, Nighttrain Schickele, Rob Nilsson, Ross Lipman, among others in Conversation

    BAMPFA presents the Bay Area premiere of the recently completed restoration of Bushman, directed by Bay Area independent filmmaker David Schickele. We will be joined by special guests, including Schickele’s family, who have been instrumental to the preservation of Bushman, as well as original members of the cast and crew and the preservation team. Paired with Schickele’s earlier film Give Me a Riddle.

    View Details

  • Vishniac

    Laura Bialis
    United States, 2023

    Copresented with The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life

    Sunday, February 4 2 PM
    Laura Bialis and Veronica Selver in Conversation

    BAMPFA partners with The Magnes to host the East Bay Premiere of Vishniac, Laura Bialis’s new portrait of famed photographer Roman Vishniac’s life and work. Bialis joins the February 4 screening to discuss her film with Bay Area documentary filmmaker Veronica Selver (Irmi, KPFA on the Air).

    View Details

  • Sorry to Bother You

    Boots Riley
    United States, 2018

    Copresented with UC Berkeley’s Center for Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry and the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs, in conjunction with Imagining Beyond Authoritarianism: Race and Gender in Our Times

    Closed Captions

    Saturday, February 10 7 PM
    Boots Riley and Darieck Scott in Conversation

    Surrealism meets satire in Oakland. Boots Riley’s black comedy chronicles a hapless telemarketer whose sudden burgeoning success in the workplace is directly proportional to his alienation from his coworkers, his girlfriend, and himself.

    View Details

  • Black God, White Devil

    Glauber Rocha
    Brazil, 1964

    Digital Restoration

    Thursday, February 15 7 PM

    “Steeped in history, myth, religion, and politics, and suffused with the feverish intensity of the blistering desert, Black God, White Devil is one of the Cinema Novo movement’s most uncompromising statements on current social issues as well as the universal problem of mindless fanaticism” (Janus Films).

    View Details

  • Vishniac

    Laura Bialis
    United States, 2023

    Copresented with The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life

    Friday, February 23 4 PM

    BAMPFA partners with The Magnes to host the East Bay Premiere of Vishniac, Laura Bialis’s new portrait of famed photographer Roman Vishniac’s life and work.

    View Details

  • Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros

    Frederick Wiseman
    France, United States, 2023
    Saturday, February 24 11:30 AM

    Esteemed documentarian Frederick Wiseman’s latest is a food lover’s heaven—a long, behind-the-scenes excursion into the world of France’s venerable restaurant La Maison Troisgros, which has held three Michelin stars for more than five decades.

    View Details

  • Bushman

    David Schickele
    United States, 1971
    Saturday, February 24 7 PM

    BAMPFA presents the recently completed restoration of Bushman, directed by Bay Area independent filmmaker David Schickele. Paired with Schickele’s earlier film Give Me a Riddle.

    View Details

  • Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros

    Frederick Wiseman
    France, United States, 2023
    Saturday, March 2 11:30 AM

    Esteemed documentarian Frederick Wiseman’s latest is a food lover’s heaven—a long, behind-the-scenes excursion into the world of France’s venerable restaurant La Maison Troisgros, which has held three Michelin stars for more than five decades.

    View Details

  • BAMPFA Student Committee Film Festival 2024

    Free Admission

    Friday, April 5 7:30 PM
    Student Filmmakers in Person

    A selection of outstanding student films from around the Bay Area.

    View Details

  • Film & Video Makers at Cal: Works from the Eisner Competition 2024

    Free Admission

    Sunday, May 12 2 PM
    UC Berkeley Student Filmmakers in Person

    Student 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.

    View Details

  • Nostalghia

    Andrei Tarkovsky
    USSR, Italy, 1983

    Digital Restoration

    Sunday, June 9 7:00 PM

    Andrei Tarkovsky’s breathtaking journey through the ruined but magical spaces of Tuscany follows a Russian man who feels the longing for home, closure, and the absolute that the film’s title describes. “Not so much a movie as a place to inhabit for two hours” (J. Hoberman).

    View Details

  • The Zone of Interest

    Jonathan Glazer
    United Kingdom, Poland, United States, 2023

    Winner of the Grand Prix at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and Academy Awards for Best International Feature and Best Sound

    Audio Description
    Closed Captioned 

    Wednesday, June 12 7:00 PM

    Loosely inspired by the 2014 novel of the same name by Martin Amis, Jonathan Glazer has created a singular, unsettlingly timeless representation of inhumanity and our capacity for indifference in the face of atrocity.

    View Details

  • Daughters of the Dust

    Julie Dash
    United States, 1991
    Thursday, June 13 7:00 PM
    Introduced by Nadia Ellis

    A film experienced in sequences, from the perspective of several generations of women, including an unborn daughter, Daughters of the Dust creates a fabric of universal themes: the conflicts between personal and collective history, and between spiritual and industrial life.

    View Details

  • The Zone of Interest

    Jonathan Glazer
    United Kingdom, Poland, United States, 2023

    Winner of the Grand Prix at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and Academy Awards for Best International Feature and Best Sound

    Audio Description
    Closed Captioned 

    Sunday, June 16 7:00 PM

    Loosely inspired by the 2014 novel of the same name by Martin Amis, Jonathan Glazer has created a singular, unsettlingly timeless representation of inhumanity and our capacity for indifference in the face of atrocity.

    View Details

  • All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt

    Raven Jackson
    United States, 2023
    Wednesday, June 19 7:00 PM

    A lyrical exploration across a woman’s life in Mississippi, the feature debut from award-winning poet, photographer, and filmmaker Raven Jackson is a richly layered portrait. One of the film’s producers is Barry Jenkins.

    View Details

  • About Dry Grasses

    Nuri Bilge Ceylan
    Turkey, France, Germany, 2023
    Friday, June 21 7:00 PM

    Nestled away in the wintry East Anatolia region of Turkey, public-school art teacher Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu) yearns to leave the sleepy village for cosmopolitan Istanbul.

    View Details

  • The 9 Lives of Barbara Dane

    Maureen Gosling
    United States, 2023
    Wednesday, June 26 7:00 PM
    Maureen Gosling, Jed Riffe, and Nina Menéndez in Person

    For decades Barbara Dane lent her stellar singing voice to social-justice movements in the Bay Area and beyond, garnering an impressive FBI file along the way. “A true unsung hero of American music” (Boston Globe).

    View Details

  • Nostalghia

    Andrei Tarkovsky
    USSR, Italy, 1983

    Digital Restoration

    Saturday, June 29 7:00 PM

    Andrei Tarkovsky’s breathtaking journey through the ruined but magical spaces of Tuscany follows a Russian man who feels the longing for home, closure, and the absolute that the film’s title describes. “Not so much a movie as a place to inhabit for two hours” (J. Hoberman).

    View Details

  • About Dry Grasses

    Nuri Bilge Ceylan
    Turkey, France, Germany, 2023
    Wednesday, July 3 7:00 PM

    Nestled away in the wintry East Anatolia region of Turkey, public-school art teacher Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu) yearns to leave the sleepy village for cosmopolitan Istanbul.

    View Details

  • Seven Samurai

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1954

    4K Digital Restoration

    Seven Samurai also screens Sunday, September 22 and Sunday, November 24.

    Saturday, September 7 5:30 PM

    A ragtag group of samurai bands together to protect a village from bandits in Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, often cited as one of the ten best films ever made.

    View Details

  • Green Border

    Agnieszka Holland
    Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium, 2023
    Thursday, September 12 7:00 PM

    Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, this riveting thriller explores the European migrant crisis from multiple ground-level perspectives. “A stunning, harrowing film. . . . Reverberates with deep empathy and quiet fury” (Time Out).

    View Details

  • The Early Days of the Pacific Film Archive & Double Suicide

    Masahiro Shinoda
    Japan, 1969

    Presented in collaboration with the Berkeley Historical Society & Museum, located at 1931 Center Street, where the Berkeley and the Movies exhibition is on display until September 21.

    Sunday, September 15 1:00 PM
    Lecture by Sheldon Renan

    Founding Director of the Pacific Film Archive Sheldon Renan joins us for a special presentation on the early history of the film archive. Following his talk, we will screen a 35mm print of Masahiro Shinoda’s Double Suicide, a striking and artful adaptation of a Bunraku puppet play about doomed love.

    View Details

  • Green Border

    Agnieszka Holland
    Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium, 2023
    Thursday, September 19 7:00 PM

    Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, this riveting thriller explores the European migrant crisis from multiple ground-level perspectives. “A stunning, harrowing film. . . . Reverberates with deep empathy and quiet fury” (Time Out).

    View Details

  • Banel & Adama

    Ramata-Toulaye Sy
    Senegal, France, Mali, 2023
    Saturday, September 21 4:00 PM

    The titular Senegalese couple at the heart of this visually ravishing romantic drama faces the challenges of drought and communal responsibility. Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s poetic debut competed at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023.

    View Details

  • The Stranger and the Fog

    Bahram Beyzaie
    Iran, 1974

    Digital Restoration

    Saturday, September 21 6:00 PM

    Banned in Iran after the 1979 revolution, “this visually ravishing masterwork invents its own mythology to critique the sociopolitical conditions of 1970s Iran” (Film at Lincoln Center).

    View Details

  • Seven Samurai

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1954

    4K Digital Restoration

    Seven Samurai also screens Sunday, November 24.

    Sunday, September 22 1:00 PM

    A ragtag group of samurai bands together to protect a village from bandits in Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, often cited as one of the ten best films ever made.

    View Details

  • Banel & Adama

    Ramata-Toulaye Sy
    Senegal, France, Mali, 2023
    Thursday, September 26 7:00 PM

    The titular Senegalese couple at the heart of this visually ravishing romantic drama faces the challenges of drought and communal responsibility. Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s poetic debut competed at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023.

    View Details

  • Waiting for Life

    Staffan Julén
    Sweden, 2024

    Bay Area Premiere

    This event is organized by the Consulate General of Sweden in San Francisco, the Embassy of Sweden in Washington D.C., and the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm with support from Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation and the Swedish Arts Council.

    Friday, September 27 3:00 PM
    Staffan Julén, Donald “Twin” James, Reginald “Happy” Wilson, Amir Rostami, Jerzy Sarnecki, Jan Jönson, Camila Salazar Atías, and Andrea Crider in Conversation

    A special screening of the Swedish documentary Waiting for Life, presented by Stockholm-based filmmaker Staffan Julén. The post-screening conversation includes the two main subjects of the film, Donald “Twin” James and Reginald “Happy” Wilson, as well as Swedish criminologists Amir Rostami and Jerzy Sarnecki. Moderated by Andrea Crider

    View Details

  • CineSpin: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

    Robert Wiene
    Germany, 1920

    Free Admission

    Friday, October 18 7:00 PM
    Live Music from Aidan Latham

    Join us for CineSpin, the BAMPFA Student Committee’s annual event featuring terrific UC Berkeley student musicians and/or DJs providing original live accompaniment for great movies.

    View Details

  • Green Border

    Agnieszka Holland
    Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium, 2023
    Sunday, October 20 3:30 PM

    Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, this riveting thriller explores the European migrant crisis from multiple ground-level perspectives. “A stunning, harrowing film. . . . Reverberates with deep empathy and quiet fury” (Time Out).

    View Details

  • Le samouraï

    Jean-Pierre Melville
    France, 1967

    Digital Restoration

    Thursday, October 31 7:00 PM

    Alain Delon embodies cool as a solitary, silent Parisian killer flitting between hits and flings in this essential, influential assassin film. “Achieves an atmosphere of mesmerizing, otherworldly beauty” (Slant).

    View Details

  • Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus

    Neo Sora
    Japan, 2023
    Friday, November 15 4:30 PM

    A celebration of an artist’s life in the purest sense, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus is the definitive swan song of one of the world’s greatest musicians. A concert film featuring just him and his piano.

    View Details

  • Le samouraï

    Jean-Pierre Melville
    France, 1967

    Digital Restoration

    Sunday, November 17 4:00 PM

    Alain Delon embodies cool as a solitary, silent Parisian killer flitting between hits and flings in this essential, influential assassin film. “Achieves an atmosphere of mesmerizing, otherworldly beauty” (Slant).

    View Details

  • The Stranger and the Fog

    Bahram Beyzaie
    Iran, 1974

    Digital Restoration

    Saturday, November 23 3:30 PM

    Banned in Iran after the 1979 revolution, “this visually ravishing masterwork invents its own mythology to critique the sociopolitical conditions of 1970s Iran” (Film at Lincoln Center).

    View Details

  • Seven Samurai

    Akira Kurosawa
    Japan, 1954
    Sunday, November 24 2:00 PM

    A ragtag group of samurai bands together to protect a village from bandits in Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, often cited as one of the ten best films ever made.

    View Details

  • Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus

    Neo Sora
    Japan, 2023
    Friday, November 29 3:00 PM

    A celebration of an artist’s life in the purest sense, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus is the definitive swan song of one of the world’s greatest musicians. A concert film featuring just him and his piano.

    View Details

  • Le samouraï

    Jean-Pierre Melville
    France, 1967

    Digital Restoration

    Friday, November 29 5:30 PM

    Alain Delon embodies cool as a solitary, silent Parisian killer flitting between hits and flings in this essential, influential assassin film. “Achieves an atmosphere of mesmerizing, otherworldly beauty” (Slant).

    View Details