Kamran Shirdel (Iran, 1965–80). Kamran Shirdel in conversation with Hamid Naficy. We are honored to host Shirdel during his first visit to the U.S., and to present four of his remarkable short films known as “The Four Blacks,” which influenced a generation of contemporary Iranian filmmakers. (83 mins)

Billy Wilder (U.S., 1960). Jack Lemmon, Fred MacMurray, and Shirley MacLaine in a riotously acidic tale of sex and corporate success. Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Art Direction. “An American classic”(NY Times).

Orson Welles (U.S., 1938) West Coast Premiere! Judith Rosenberg on piano. Paolo Cherchi Usai in person. Recently discovered in Italy and superbly restored by George Eastman House, the Mercury Theatre's Too Much Johnson reveals Orson Welles, pre-Citizen Kane. “A major rediscovery . . . that deeply traces the roots of Welles's art, both stylistically and thematically” (Richard Brody, The New Yorker). With short, Myron Falk Home Movie. (69 mins)

Yasujiro Ozu (Japan, 1951). Lecture by Emily Carpenter. "I was interested in getting much deeper than just the story itself; I wanted to depict the cycles of life, the transience of life" (Ozu). An exquisite, faintly melancholic portrait of a family, with the radiant Setsuko Hara as the daughter on whose marriage everything depends. (135 mins)

Clive Donner (U.S., 1965). Return to the swingin' sixties! Woody Allen's first feature script tracks a neurotic playboy (Peter O'Toole) as he tries to conquer Paris's countless sex kittens (including Ursula Andress and Paula Prentiss) and his equally demented therapist (Peter Sellers). (108 mins)

Satyajit Ray (India, 1962). Ray's first film in color is a tale of manners and mores played out amid a Himalayan landscape as dramatic as the conflicts on display. “Ray's most creative and detailed look at contemporary India's cross-cultures” (Albert Johnson). (102 mins)

Mel Brooks (U.S., 1967). In Brooks's first film, a has-been Broadway producer (Zero Mostel) hopes to bilk his investors by producing a surefire failure: Springtime for Hitler, the musical. With Gene Wilder and Dick Shawn. Academy Award for Best Screenplay. (88 mins)

Woody Allen (U.S., 1969). Rare Studio Print! A blundering boychik from the borscht belt turns to robbery in Woody Allen's perfect parody of a fifties noir, shot in the Bay Area. A film this funny should be illegal. (85 mins)

Satyajit Ray (India, 1964). Restored Print! Introduced by Dilip Basu. Based on a Rabindranath Tagore novella, Charulata follows one woman's romantic and intellectual yearning in late nineteenth-century India. Ray's personal favorite of his works. (122 mins)

Jean-Luc Godard (France, 1966). Jean-Pierre Léaud is one of “the children of Marx and Coca-Cola”-the young people of Paris circa 1965. (110 mins)

Satyajit Ray (India, 1965). Restored Print! A sharp-witted, serious young journalist finds herself stuck on a train with a movie star in Ray's surprising examination of “intellectual” and “popular” cultures. (122 mins)

Jean-Luc Godard (France, 1965). Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina in Godard's audacious take on the lovers-on-the-run genre, lensed in ravishing color by Raoul Coutard. (110 mins)

An insider's view into how we shape our film and video collection, followed by a reception with the curators.

Ellen Spiro, Phil Donahue (U.S., 2007). Ellen Spiro in person. This intimate observational film follows a paralyzed Iraq War veteran's struggle and evolution into an articulate, outspoken critic of the war. “Superb documentary . . . almost unbearably moving” (Richard Corliss, Time Magazine). (87 mins)

Vittorio De Sica (Italy, 1952). Lecture by Emily Carpenter. De Sica's “simple, almost Chaplinesque story of a man fighting to preserve his dignity is even more moving for its firm grasp of everyday activities. . . . A truly great film” (Chicago Reader). (89 mins)

Melvin Van Peebles (U.S., 1970). Few blaxploitation films are as direct-or as hilarious-as this satire of a white businessman who wakes up black. The great comic Godfrey Cambridge stars. (97 mins)

Jean-Luc Godard (France, 1966). In glowing color and 'Scope, Godard's last film with Anna Karina is “beautiful, goofy, and explosive . . . Godard's ultimate statement about his love/hatred for the aesthetics/politics of American movies/life ” (Jonathan Rosenbaum). (90 mins)

Meera Menon (U.S., 2013). Farah Mahtab's sex life is a litany of awkward encounters, and this twentysomething is eager to shake the unwanted moniker of “virgin.” Will a cross-country roadtrip with her best friends to stump for presidential nominee John Kerry provide the sweet release she craves? A raunchy, feminist reexamination of the road trip genre. (93 mins)

Banjong Pisanthanakun (Thailand, 2013). Ace physical comedy and bone-chilling scares collide in Shutter co-director Banjong Pisanthanakun's hilarious send-up of one of Thailand's most enduring and widely filmed ghost stories, the story of Mae Nak Phra Khanong. Pee Mak decimated Thailand's domestic box office in 2013 to become the country's biggest draw ever. (115 mins)

Rea Tajiri (U.S., 2013). Asking what it means to own land, the acclaimed director of History and Memory (SFIAAFF '91) harnesses unusual stories buried within the everyday-powerful floods, ancestral secrets, and colonial violence-to expose traces of a town's history. Her cinematic probing compels us to ponder our relationship to place. (65 mins)

Anthony Chen (Singapore, 2013). Winner of the Camera d'Or at Cannes, this riveting quasi-autobiographical first feature is against the backdrop of the 1990s Asian financial crisis. The film slowly reveals a family on the brink, watching desperately as self-control slips from their grip.(99 mins)

D. J. Holloway, Sun Kim (U.S., 2013). In this taut and impeccably filmed thriller set against the backdrop of L.A.'s Koreatown, James Park (Jun-seong Kim) navigates the city's dark and gritty underbelly to find his abducted son A bold morality play where deception, control, and revenge reign supreme. (100 mins)

Yuya Ishii (Japan, 2013). Majime can barely muster the confidence to speak, but when he's recruited to work on an ambitious new dictionary, his life finally begins to bloom. In Japan's quirky 2013 Oscar submission, the dictionary forms the backbone not only of human communication, but for any number of life's most powerful transitions. (133)

Ritu Sarin, Tenzing Sonam (India/U.K., 2009). Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam in person. 2008 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the takeover of Tibet, prompting uprisings and the biggest upheaval in decades in Lhasa and other cities. This documentary chronicles the Tibetan struggle for freedom. (79 mins)

Ritu Sarin, Tenzing Sonam (India/U.K., 2009). Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam in person. 2008 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the takeover of Tibet, prompting uprisings and the biggest upheaval in decades in Lhasa and other cities. This documentary chronicles the Tibetan struggle for freedom. Screening in our Committed Cinema series. (79 mins)

Adam Wong (Hong Kong, 2013). When a tofu shop worker joins her college's hip-hop dance team, she becomes a rising star. But her star is in danger of falling when her fellow team members, a rival dance team, and romance all get in the way. (110 mins)

Luis Buñuel (Mexico, 1950). New 35mm Print! Lecture by Emily Carpenter. Luis Buñuel's unsentimental portrait of slum kids in Mexico City. “Its matter-of-fact brilliance continues to astonish” (BBC). (88 mins)

Tenzin Tsetan Choklay (U.S./Nepal/India/South Korea, 2013). Artist Tenzing Rigdol navigates various international borders to bring more than twenty tons of Tibetan soil to Dharamshala, India, to satisfy his father's dying wish to set foot in Tibet one last time before he passed away. An insightful and extremely touching film about the contemporary Tibetan psyche. (82 mins)

Visra Vichit-Vadakan (Thailand, 2012). A compassionate look at the life of a karaoke girl in Bangkok, where poverty, gender, and desires tangle to create intractable situations that leave the heroine suffering, yet sometimes hopeful. Part documentary, part fictionalized narrative, this film is sure to touch your heart. (77 mins)

Ritu Sarin, Tenzing Sonam (India/U.K., 2005). Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam in conversation with Gaetano Kazuo Maida. A young Tibetan American journeys to Dharamsala, India, and discovers dub reggae and CIA agents among the Tibetan exiles there. "The first film to capture the majesty of Tibetan Buddhist culture and the complexity of its ties to the outside world” (TIFF). (90 mins)

Baby Ruth Villarama (Philippines, 2013). Jazz and his German fiancé Theo struggle against culture, family, and tradition as well as the thousands of miles that lie between them. The film follows Theo's visit to the Philippines to ask for Jazz's hand in marriage from reluctant in-laws-but can their relationship survive their differences? (75 mins)

Amit Gupta (U.K., 2013). In this lighthearted family story, Shalini returns home to Leicester to announce her engagement. She wants the perfect Indian wedding, and for her uncle and father-both chefs-to create the menu for it. But it has been two decades since they have spoken to one another. Will Shalini's wedding bring the family together again? (84 mins)

Milos Forman (U.S., 1975). BAM/PFA Collection Print. Introduced by Pat Jackson. Jack Nicholson is more mad than crazy in Milos Forman's loony look at ‘70s psychiatry. Winner of Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay. (134 mins)

Jia Zhangke (China, 2013). East Bay Premiere! Masterful director Jia Zhangke (24 City, Still Life) takes on the collateral damage of China's maniacal growth. Four violent deeds are explosively restaged to illustrate everyday citizens pushed to the edge . . . of the economy. Best Screenplay, 2013 Cannes Film Festival. (133 mins)

Satyajit Ray (India, 1965). Restored Prints! These two films were intended to screen as a double bill and show a side of Ray unknown to most: populist, funny, willing to try anything. The light-hearted The Coward focuses on a bizarre love triangle, while The Holy Man is a comic exposé of the folly of the superstitiously devout. (140 mins)

Jia Zhangke (China, 2013). Masterful director Jia Zhangke (24 City, Still Life) takes on the collateral damage of China's maniacal growth. Four violent deeds are explosively restaged to illustrate everyday citizens pushed to the edge . . . of the economy. Best Screenplay, 2013 Cannes Film Festival. (133 mins)

Woody Allen (U.S., 1972). Seven segments of sensual satire cover such age-old sexual mysteries as "Do Aphrodisiacs Work?" told in Elizabethan English, and “What Are Sex Perverts?” staged as a 1950s game show. Woody at his wackiest. (88 mins)

Mel Brooks (U.S., 1974). Mel Brooks was never zanier as he does Transylvania with a twist, aided by some of the greatest comics ever assembled onscreen: co-scribbler Gene Wilder, Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn, and Marty Feldman. (107 mins)

Satyajit Ray (India, 1970). Imported Print! Ray's most overtly Renoir-ish film, and probably his masterpiece. Four young men from Calcutta spend a few days in the country, and their youthful arrogance gets them into a series of disastrous and often hilarious adventures. "A major film by one of the great film artists, starring Soumitra Chatterjee and the incomparably graceful Sharmila Tagore" (Pauline Kael). (115 mins)

Jean-Luc Godard (France, 1966). An incisive view of prostitution and Paris, with breathtaking color photography by Raoul Coutard. “Perhaps Godard's greatest feature" (Susan Sontag). (90 mins)

(U.S., 1982–2012). Ross McElwee, Robb Moss, and Scott MacDonald in conversation. Ross McElwee's Backyard fashioned a new kind of documentary voice-wry, witty, subtle, often poignant. Presented with Alfred Guzzetti's Time Exposure and Robb Moss's rarely screened film about a Grand Canyon rafting trip, Riverdogs. (82 mins)

Satyajit Ray (India, 1970). Imported Print! Created amid the growing social unrest and political violence of India (and the world) post-1969, The Adversary is Ray at his most openly political, yet also at his most compassionate. "Ray's funniest, most piercing film" (Pauline Kael). (110 mins)