Shapeshifters Cinema

About Us

SHAPESHIFTERS CINEMA provides a venue and support for contemporary artists working with experimental and artist-made film, video, sound, music and other types of mediated performance. We host screenings and performances by local and visiting artists in our intimate 40-seat theatre and offer workshops on a variety of experimental and DIY moving image and sound production. Our storefront shop specializes in print publications, DVDs, sound recordings and other kinds of media made by artists who have screened or performed in our venue.

SHAPESHIFTERS BREWERY makes a variety of small-batch, seasonal, hand-crafted beers, brewed on-site in a space right behind the cinema. These are served (to 21+) at all our events as well as some off-site events. Find out more at shapeshiftersbrewery.com

SHAPESHIFTERS CAFÉ, is right next door to our cinema! We offer freshly-made salads, sandwiches, coffee, tea, pastries and more. Open Monday-Friday 6am-2pm and every Saturday 10am-2pm. Find out more at shapeshifterscafe.com

Staff

Gilbert Guerrero - Operations Director & A/V Tech
Kathleen Quillian - Programming Director
Ellie Vanderlip - Education & Outreach Director

The Shapeshifters Membership program provides crucial, sustaining support for our small, DIY, volunteer-run organization. By joining the membership program, you become part of an engaged, diverse, creative community working in and around experimental moving image, sound and time-based art. Each level offers a range of access to members-only resources and events, discounts, comps and more. Find out more and join now!

Cinema

Gravitational Lensing: Feminist Film Dialogues is a series curated by Amy Reid and Kathleen Quillian that is dedicated to exploring the visions, voices, concerns and lineage of women, non-binary, genderqueer and trans filmmakers through public film screenings, workshops, conversations and presentations. New programs are presented monthly at Shapeshifters. Find out more.

Upcoming Programs & Events

Breathing Life of the Snake - Thingamajigs Performance Group
Saturday, April 26, 2025
7pm
Admission: $10 (discount for members)

Offering an evening of improvisational acoustic landscapes and paracinematic interventions, Thingamajigs Performance Group (Kevin Corcoran, Suki O'Kane, Keith Evans, Rae Diamond & Edward Shocker) will perform from visual scores that follow the uncertainties and unexpected revelations of a life that only vaguely understands where it is going next.

Thingamajigs Performance Group (TPG) is a sound-based ensemble working co-creatively in a variety of mediums and with a wide array of local and international artists. Formed in 2008 from longtime Thingamajigs contributors, TPG continues to break new ground in performance fields such as durational performance, alternate tuning, group and open compositional formats, interdisciplinary and intercultural collaboration, and site work.

Trivia for Good II
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
7:30pm
Suggested donation: $20

Join us for another night of frivolous fun in support of serious matters, hosted by Winner of Ben Stein's Money Jon Korn (1999) and Competitive Theater All-Star Sarah Wheeler (2001). All proceeds will go to the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area, which provides vital legal services and education. Teams of up to seven are welcome. $20 minimum requested donation per person, give more if you can! Beer, wine and snacks available for purchase.

Do-Over Music Series - Lenny Gonzalez, Erik Ellestad, Kanoko Nishi-Smith, Ava Lynch & Jordan Glenn
Thursday, May 1, 2025
7-9pm
Admission: $10

The Do-Over Music Series at Shapeshifters Cinema, organized by Lisa Mezzacappa and Jordan Glenn, is a monthly series of sound performances presented by a rotating cast of local luminaries and special guests. The first set features performances of creative - improvised - composed - electronic - acoustic - music. The second set opens up to a live improvised collaboration of sound and visuals made using images culled from the Shapeshifters 16mm film collection.

Set 1: 7pm

Lenny Gonzalez - guitar and electronics
Erik Ellestad - sax and electronics
Drawing on the deep vocabulary of improvised music—free jazz, noise, extended technique, Musique concrète, etc.—they play with the intention of being present and making a space to sonically describe who they are and what they are feeling in the moment. This show celebrates the release of their record, With a K, With a Z.

Set 2: 8pm

Improvised music and film with:
The above plus
Kanoko Nishi-Smith - koto
Ava Lynch - drums/percussion
Jordan Glenn - drums/percussion
+ experimental films and loops projected by our Shapeshifters hosts.

Who's Your True Love? Films by Karen Yasinsky
Co-presented by San Francisco Cinematheque (Karen Yasinsky in person)
Saturday, May 10, 2025
7pm
Admission: $15 (discount for members)

In over twenty-five years of filmmaking, filmmaker Karen Yasinsky has developed a complex body of short form works collaging puppetry; animation; appropriated footage and cinematic citation (including references to Tarkovsky, Vigo, Bresson and more), elements which associatively cohere in liminal dreamlike spaces of drama and ritualized encounter. Alternately cloyingly cute and confrontational, each a hauntingly provocative miniature, Yasinsky's works open spaces in which themes of empathy and care resonate discomfitingly with explorations of voyeurism and violence. For this evening's screening, Yasinsky appears in person to present a nine-film, twenty-seven year mini-retrospective including her first animation, 1998's Drop That Baby Again. (Steve Polta)

SCREENING: Drop That Baby Again (1998, DV), La Nuit (2007, DV), Boys (2002, DV), The Man From Hong Kong (2015, DV), I Am the Grass (2019, DV), Life is an Opinion, Fire a Fact (2012, DV), The Perpetual Motion of My Love for You (2015, DV), After Hours (2013–14, DV) and The Lonely Life of Debby Adams (2013, DV)

Promotional Image from Life is an Opinion, Fire a Fact by Karen Yasinsky

Skin, Inscribed - Contemporary Brazilian Hand-Processed Films
Curated by Tetsuya Maruyama (in person)
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
7pm
Admission: $15 (discount for members)

Curated by Tetsuya Maruyama, this program features short, contemporary works produced at artist-run film labs scattered throughout the vast and diverse geopolitical territories of Brazil. Far from commercial "movies," these films, made with a variety of experimental processes, emerge from the personal interests of each artist without expecting anything in return.

Screening: Typefilm an Armory Show (2022, 16mm) by João Reynaldo, Wild Flower (2025, 16mm double-projection) by Moira Lacowicz, untitled (three moons) (2024, 16mm double-projection) by Tetsuya Maruyama, Corpse of Water/Confined Flux (2020, 16mm) by Helder Martinovsky, Walden Street (2025, 16mm double-projection) by Duo Strangloscope, Consider (2024,16mm) by Ж, I will remember Lucy (2022, 16mm) by Maria Mion, Bleach Farm (2024, 16mm) by Lígia M. Teixeira & Francisco B. Gusso

Promotional image from "I will remember Lucy" by Maria Mion.

RELATED WORKSHOP: Tetsuya will also be teaching a 16mm pinhole camera workshop (see below for details and to register).

Workshops

Storytelling Through Geography: Filmmaking with Google Earth
Instructor: Kirk Pearson
Sunday, May 25, 2025
12-4pm
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $40 (Discount for Shapeshifters members)

Join us for a hands-on, 4-hour workshop led by Kirk Pearson, who will teach you how to stitch satellite images into stunning art films using Google Earth. Whether you're an artist, filmmaker, or just curious about new creative tools, this session will show you how to harness the cinematic power of all those spy satellites your tax dollars supported. You will learn how to direct compelling flyovers and zooms, how to make photorealistic flying sequences, how to script camera movements, the best way to render your footage, and various web browser tricks that will help make sure the program doesn't crash on you. By the end, you'll have created your own short video using nothing but your imagination and the planet itself. No previous experience necessary. Participants will need to bring a laptop with a web browser and Google Earth Studio installed.

Cel Painting Animation Workshop
Instructor: Anna Firth
Sunday, May 18, 2025
12-5pm
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $50-75 (Discounts for Shapeshifters members, students and low income)

Try your hand at handmade animation in this beginner-friendly workshop with Oakland-based experimental animator, Anna Firth. Part history lesson and part materials introduction, participants are invited to paint a simple scene, one transparent layer at a time. We will use a slightly DIY approach using supplies you can easily source from local craft stores so you can continue to paint cel with your new skills. Materials provided and any level of experience welcome! Feel free to bring any of your favorite materials (collage/drawing/photos/etc.) to customize your background art.

Cutout, Collaged and Scored—Animating Our Paper Archive
Instructor: Jeremy Rourke
Sunday, June 1, 2025
10am-4pm
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $75 (Discount for Shapeshifters members)

What kinds of latent energies are held within photos, letters, drawings, mail, and other keepsakes? Animator Jeremy Rourke will lead participants in the discovery process as we cut out and collage items from our personal paper archives in a series of short, animated experiments. No originals need be destroyed, that's what photocopies are for! This a DIY, use-what-we have endeavor. Writing prompts, field recordings, and a loop station will form the basis of our sound design process. Participants will need to bring a phone/iPad/computer with Stop Motion Studio installed. No prior animating experience is necessary to participate. Everyone is welcome!

Movement Imagined: 16mm Pinhole Camera Workshop
Instructor: Tetsuya Maruyama
TWO DAY WORKSHOP
Monday, June 9 & Wednesday, June 11, 2025
6-9PM, both days
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $120 (Discount for Shapeshifters members)

In this workshop with visiting artist Tatsuya Maruyama (founder of the artist-run Megalab film lab in Rio de Janeiero) participants will learn how to create a pinhole camera to capture images on 16mm film using modified 35mm photographic film canisters and vintage Japanese matchboxes. Participants will then hand-process their film and create negative and positive copies through simple contact printing to allow the freedom to work directly with the surface of the film with light, in the same way a painter leaves their gesture on a canvas.

The Shapeshifters Summer Youth Media-Makers Camp is a week-long, hands-on, workshop-style camp for youth, ages 12-17 to learn a variety of DIY, experimental film and sound-based processes from experienced Bay Area-based artists and educators. Camp takes place at Shapeshifters Cinema from June 16-20, 2025. Find out more and register now!