Shapeshifters
Cinema

About Us

Shapeshifters Cinema is an experimental microcinema located in Oakland, CA. Our mission is to provide 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 regular, live events, offer workshops on experimental moving image and sound production and operate a storefront shop specializing in print publications, sound recordings and other artist-made media.

We also serve our own hand-crafted beer, brewed on-site, at our events. Visit the brewery at ShapeshiftersBrewery.com

Staff

Gilbert Guerrero - Co-director
Kathleen Quillian - Co-director
Ellie Vanderlip - Workshop Coordinator/Administration Assistant

Cinema

Upcoming Programs & Events

Street Poems: The Films of Mark Street
Friday, February 17, 2023
8pm
Admission: $10 (discount for members)

For this program NY-based filmmaker Mark Street will present five films rooted in the tradition of street photography, as well as one short made from 35mm educational film strips. The films wander from city to city and corner to corner pondering ephemeral visual moments, revealing diaristic musings on the pandemic and surveying human connection in a time of cultural and political change. As a group they are a testament to the ethos of always carrying a camera even when you don’t know exactly why.

Dominic Angerame: A Complete Retrospective (Program 2, The City Symphony Series)
Saturday, February 25, 2023
8pm
Admission: $10 (discount for members)

This is the second in a series of monthly screenings comprising a complete retrospective of the work of Dominic Angerame. Since 1968 Angerame has produced more than 30 films on 16mm and several newer works in digital format. Some of these films have never had a public screening. Many of Angerame’s films show San Francisco, the city he has lived and worked in since 1979, and its varying cityscape as it looks and changes over time. He has also created short comedies, short-form documentaries and many diary films. Angerame has taught film in many schools and universities in the Bay Area as well as at the University of Nevada, Reno. He was Executive Director of Canyon Cinema from 1980-2012. For this second program we will present the five original films of the highly-acclaimed City Symphony series, made between 1984-1997, projected in their original 16mm film format, including: Continuum (1987) with live guitar accompaniment by Kevin Barnard, Deconstruction Sight (1990), Premonition (1995), In the Course of Human Events (1995) and Line of Fire (1996). TRT: 75 mins.

Bodies for Strength and Power: experimental films and projector performances by Kristin Reeves
Sunday, March 12, 2023
8pm
Mosswood Chapel, 3630 Telegraph Ave., Oakland
Admission: $10 (discount for members)

Still and moving media have doubled for the human body since its invention. By following through on the logic that media is body/human/person/material: outdated found footage becomes media cadaver to exhume, examine, and reanimate; video synthesizers model brain signal overload; 9X16mm grid performs a real-time exercise in crafting a personal narrative within the limitations of our physical selves. With both found and original media, visiting filmmaker Kristin Reeves pursues material of resiliency, loss, and control. This program will include: What Is Nothing (After What Is Nothing) (2017, 9X16mm projector performance), CSP Closings & Delays (2017, 16mm Film to HD video & HD video), &Human (2011, SD video), Threadbare (2010/14, 16mm film to HD video), Body Contours (2015, 16mm film to analog video synthesis), The White Coat Phenomenon (2012, VHS to HD video), The White Coat Phenomenon (2012, VHS to HD video), Music of Desire (2017, 16mm film to video using analog video synthesizers), Je Ne Sais Plus [What Is This Feeling] (2012-present, 9X16mm projector performance). PLEASE NOTE: This program will be happening at the Mosswood Chapel in North Oakland not at Shapeshifters.

Workshops

Upcoming Workshops

The Devil is in the Details: Microcosmic Street Photography.
Instructor: Mark Street
Friday, February 17, 2023
1-5PM
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $40 (Discount for Shapeshifters members)

Visiting experimental documentary filmmaker Mark Street (Brooklyn, NY) will discuss looking at urban locations IN CLOSE UP and how to represent a place IN DETAIL using video in this hands-on workshop. With a glancing nod to the tradition of street photography (Dziga Vertov, Rudy Burkhardt, Helen Levitt, etc.) participants will prowl the streets around Shapeshifters looking to find beauty, truth and poetic resonance in taking the short view: a tree shadow on a bodega wall, a piece of trash floating across lanes of traffic, a wisp of an anecdote from a longtime resident. Eschewing the panoramic, we will attempt to uncover an exalted way of seeing through active and engaged observation of forgotten moments culled from the minutia of daily life. Participants are asked to bring a device capable of recording video (cell phone or DSLR) + small image (photographic still or a few minutes of video) and/or a short (2-3 minute) snippet of audio that they feel represents some aspect of their urban surroundings. We will use this material as a jumping off spot to gather more images and sounds in the neighborhood.

16mm Film Tic Tac Toe: Performance, Collaboration, Play
Instructor: Kristin Reeves
Sunday, March 12, 2023
1-4pm
In-person at Mosswood Chapel, 3630 Telegraph Ave., Oakland
Admission: $40 (Discount for Shapeshifters members)

This workshop, led by visiting filmmaker Kristin Reeves, will give participants access to 16mm film projectors and skills to start staging expanded cinema performances of various duration and approach. It will begin with practical and inventive application of light, film loops, film cores, and the projectors themselves through hands-on activities. At the end of the workshop the group will stage a short collaborative film composition in the spirit of improvisation and play. Materials will be available for students to use found footage and simple direct film animation techniques. The workshop will support all student participants regardless of skill level. PLEASE NOTE: This program will be happening at the Mosswood Chapel in North Oakland not at Shapeshifters.