Showcasing the artistic visions of female cinematographers around the world, this series asks whether there is such a thing as a “female gaze.”
Read full descriptionCinematography by Sabine Lancelin
A young photographer falls in love with a recently deceased beauty in one of Manoel de Oliveira’s final films. “Somewhere between ghost story and fairy tale . . . a beguiling meditation on the ontological and illusionist powers of cinema” (Film Comment).
Imported Print
Cinematography by Agnès Godard
After a heart transplant, a man travels the world, from the Alps to Polynesia, in search of new meaning. “Poetic and primal. . . . This mysterious object may be Denis’s most gorgeous film” (Village Voice).
Cinematography by Jeanne Lapoirie
A “simple” sex-for-hire agreement between a French bourgeois and a Ukrainian immigrant turns into something more dangerous—and more profound. “Explores interlocking themes of sexuality, immigration, and power dynamics with a cleareyed sensitivity” (New York Times).
Cinematography by Natasha Braier
The niece of novelist Mario Vargas Llosa fashioned this provocative, poetic fable of the survivors of a generation of political violence, as the daughter of an indigenous woman learns more about her mother’s life—and suffering. With Bertrand Bonello’s short Sarah Winchester, Ghost Opera.
Cinematography by Caroline Champetier
Performance, life, and cinema merge in Rivette’s metaphysical mystery. “One of the director’s most spellbinding explorations of the sometimes terrifyingly thin line between everyday life and the strangeness beneath it” (Film Society of Lincoln Center).
Cinematography by Crystel Fournier
American musician/slam poet Saul Williams stars in this dreamlike Senegalese fable of one man’s last day on earth, as prescribed by fate. “Spiritual, soulful and captivating” (Hollywood Reporter).
Imported Print
Cinematography by Akiko Ashizawa
A laid-off salaryman pretends to go to work every day in order not to disappoint his family in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s darkly comic, deeply unsettling drama, which “tells us a great deal about contemporary Japan” (New York Review of Books).
Cinematography by Kirsten Johnson
BAMPFA Student Committee Pick
Kristen Johnson’s look back at footage from her long career as a cinematographer becomes a fascinating investigation of the craft and ethics of documentary filmmaking. With Emiko Omori’s work-in-progress Vanishing Chinatown: The World of the May's Photo Studio.
Cinematography by Hélène Louvart
The lives of a beekeeping family in rural Italy are disrupted by the arrival of a sullen teenage boy and a cheesy TV production crew in this evocative look at rituals, relationships, and adolescent dreams. “A beautiful, richly imagined ride” (Washington Post).
Cinematography by Bárbara Alvarez
Three aimless teens stagger through another Montevideo day in this low-budget paean to cigarettes, wine, and rock ’n’ roll, which heralded the arrival of a new Uruguayan cinema. “Recalls the spirit of the Czech New Wave” (Michael Fox).
Acclaimed Berkeley-based filmmaker/professor/theorist Trinh T. Minh-ha filmed West African living spaces to assemble what she called a “film on the poetics of dwelling.” “Breathtaking in [its] tactile beauty” (TIFF).
Cinematography by Maryse Alberti
BAMPFA Student Committee Pick
Todd Haynes’s glitter-and-makeup-filled tribute to glam-rock excess follows a Bowie-like singer’s rise and fall; cinematographer Maryse Alberti leaves no spandex leopard print unnoticed. Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Ewan McGregor, and Christian Bale star.
Cinematography by María Secco
This powerful documentary on the victims (and victimizers) of Mexico’s drug wars features heartbreaking interviews and stylized, even surreal still portraits by DP María Secco. “Harrowing . . . mournful . . . deeply impactful” (Variety).
Cinematography by Ellen Kuras
This cornerstone of the “New Queer Cinema” of the early 1990s revisits the notorious 1924 Leopold & Loeb murders, with striking black-and-white cinematography by Ellen Kuras.
Cinematography by Rain Li and Christopher Doyle
A young Portland skateboarder finds himself over his head in Gus Van Sant’s dreamy examination of bodies in motion and teen lives in stasis. Rain Li’s Super 8 footage complements images by longtime Wong Kar-wai collaborator Christopher Doyle.
Cinematography by Iris Ng
Actress-turned-director Sarah Polley sets her gaze toward her own family history—and her remarkable, remarkably unconventional mother—in this moving, constantly surprising documentary on home life, marriage, and female independence. “Revelatory” (New York Times).
Canceled
This screening has been canceled due to the UC Berkeley campus power shutdown. Please watch this page for updates on rescheduling and ticket refund information.
Cinematography by Joan Churchill
This riveting portrait of serial killer Aileen Wuornos brings us face-to-face with a defiant, increasingly delusional woman about to be executed—and dares to find her humanity. “A haunting look at a life gone wrong” (Film Society of Lincoln Center).
Cinematography by Amber Fares
This intimate documentary follows the first female judge appointed to any Middle Eastern Shari’a court—one woman attempting to achieve justice in a system designed to favor men.
Mangolte’s meditation on the vastness of the American West moves between Arizona and New Mexico, finding awe and inspiration—and exploring the very concept of wilderness.
Jean-Pierre Gorin explores ideas of work, the male imaginary, and American culture through an essay film inspired by critic and artist Manny Farber. Babette Mangolte’s cinematography is “marvelously nuanced” (Senses of Cinema).