Cinema
Call for Work
Gravitational Lensing is a new series 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. We are interested in considering all types of films, including experimental, narrative, documentary, expanded/performance-based work and even home movies! Selected work will be curated into programs that will be exhibited at Shapeshifters in 2024. Find out more and submit your work!
Upcoming Programs & Events
A Synesthete’s Atlas: Cartographic Improvisations between Eric Theise
and Santomieri-Farhadian Duo
Friday, December 1, 2023
8pm
Admission: $15 (discount for members)
Real-time cartographic improvisations using projected, manipulated digital maps by Eric Theise
in collaboration with Thea Farhadian, violin and electronics, and Dean Santomieri, electric
resonator guitars. A visual wash of street grids, land masses, water bodies, and curiosities from
built and natural environments. Chromatic timbres and iridescent micro-tonalities. Orphaned
labels and free-floating symbology. Auditory roundabouts and redirections. Saturated colors and
the subtlest of tints. Sounds symphonic and screeching. Jittery zooms, pans, and traversals.
Glitches in crowdsourced data.
This performance will last approximately 50 minutes and will occasionally introduce strobing
effects that may affect photosensitive viewers.
Fundraiser Screening for Palestine
Sunday, December 3, 2023
6pm
Admission: $10-100, sliding scale
Please join us for a fundraiser screening to support the people of Palestine. ALL proceeds brought in from this fundraiser will be donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians (UK) and the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (US)—two relief organizations suggested by the participating filmmakers.
We will be screening two films from two different decades that focus on the daily life and struggles of the citizens in Gaza.
Electrical Gaza (2015) by Rosalind Nashashibi / 16mm & animation (HD video provided by LUX),
18 mins.
Electrical Gaza combines Nashashibi's footage of Gaza, and the fixer, drivers and translator who were her constant company, with animated scenes. Nashashibi presents Gaza as under a spell; isolated, suspended in time, difficult to access and highly charged. Electrical Gaza shows us Gaza as Nashashibi experienced it in the quiet pause before the onslaught of Israeli bombardment in the summer of 2014.
Gaza Ghetto: Portrait of a Palestinian Family (1984) Joan Mandell, PeA Holmquist, Pierre Bjorklund / 16mm (print provided by Sebastian Di Trolio), 82 min
In the first documentary film made in Gaza, Gaza Ghetto (1984) highlights the historical precedents that fuel the current cycles of violence and continue at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Intimate scenes of family life (a child born, a grandmother dies) in Jabalia, the largest Palestinian refugee camp, are intercut with visits to the architects of the Israeli military occupation. Ariel Sharon, Benyamin Beneliezar and soldiers on patrol candidly discuss their responsibilities. Gaza Ghetto shows how the roots of the Palestine-Israel conflict influence today's harsh realities and dreams of peace, justice and stability.
If you are unable to attend the screening, but would like to contribute to the cause, please DONATE HERE. (Tickets to the screening can be purchased above.)
Rebecca Barten & David Sherman
Friday, December 8, 2023
8pm
Admission: $10 (discount for members)
San Francisco expats, Rebecca Barten & David Sherman (proprietors of the original microcinema Total Mobile Home) screen a night of their individual short personal 16mm and video works that span years of experimental practice. In their essayistic explorations of mediumist histories, Barten and Sherman share poetic collage aesthetics and existential/romantic sensibilities. This evening's themes include primitive cinema, eros, animals and eschatology. Featuring premieres of new works, including Barten's With My Own Eyes, I Have Seen the Appearance of Things Disappear and Sherman's DiElectric Drift.
Rebecca and David will also be presenting an expanded history of Total Mobile Home microCINEMA at Other Cinema on Saturday, November 25.
Harry Smith's Early Abstractions w/live music + Uman, Povey, Behrens & Reeves
Friday, December 15, 2023
8pm
Admission: $18 (discount for members)
As part of the centennial celebrations happening this year in honor of the famously eclectic and spirited polymath Harry Smith, we are excited to share a program of abstract, experimental and hand-made films. The program centers around Smith's own Early Abstract Animations (six short films made between 1946-1952) which will be presented on 16mm film and accompanied by live, improv jazz music by Lisa Mezzacappa, Cory Wright, Brett Carson & Kjell Nordeson. Rounding out the program will be a selection of contemporary, abstract and direct animation films (also presented on 16mm film) by Naomi Uman, Thad Povey, Jon Behrens and Jennifer Reeves.
Special Programming
Shapeshifters has been invited to take the helm of cinema programming for the month of December at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as part of Bay Area Now 9, YBCA's triennial exhibition highlighting artists working throughout the Bay Area. As part of our programming we have organized several screenings and workshops—all of which will take place at YBCA.
Special Screenings — Shapeshifters @ YBCA
Prismatic Permutations: Looping Film Program
Presented by Shapeshifters Cinema at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
December 1-31, 2023
The program will show continuously in the YBCA screening room during museum hours (11-5pm)
Prismatic Permutations is an hour-long program of documentation of select expanded cinema performances that have been presented by Shapeshifters Cinema over its 11-year history. The program represents the various ways artists have worked with time-based media by combining various forms of live, improvised and/or mediated performance that push past the traditional confines of the film screen to create ephemeral, one-of-a-kind experiences that defy category. The program features documentation of performances by Minoosh Zomorodinia; Andy Puls; Kerry Laitala & Kenneth Atchley; Tommy Becker; Keith Evans w/The Rae Diamond Long Tone Choir; Killer Banshee; Dennis Keefe, Jim Baldocchi, Agnes Szelag & Kanoko Nishi; Jeremy Rourke; and Kit Young w/Tonya Powell, Tina Combs, Roy Lobato & Joel Mulen.
Spectral Evidence: Live, Expanded Cinema
Presented by Shapeshifters Cinema at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Saturday, December 9, 2023
12-2pm
Admission: $9
Spectral Evidence is a live, expanded cinema program featuring kinetic, multi-projector and multi-media performances by Zack Parrinella & Zekarias Musele Thompson; Suki O’Kane with Andy Cowitt, Rae Diamond and paige starling sorvillo; and Greta Snider & Headboggle. This one day event will take place in YBCA's screening room.
Special Workshops — Shapeshifters @ YBCA
Material Cinema
Instructor: Ellie Vanderlip
Saturday, December 2, 2023
12-5PM
In-person at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
SOLD OUT!
Learn how to repurpose castaway mid-century 16mm film through scratching, painting, puncturing, boiling, bleaching, and more with filmmaker Ellie Vanderlip. Participants will review various “destructive” methods and examples and then jump into experimenting themselves, with each student creating their own sample reel of techniques to take home. Film and art materials will be provided. This workshop is crafted for both those who are new to these processes and those who are interested in deepening their knowledge.
Cyanotype on Film
Instructor: John Davis
Sunday, December 17, 2023
11-4PM
In-person at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Admission: $20
Led by filmmaker John Davis, this one-day workshop provides participants a comprehensive understanding of the chemistry, tools, and techniques necessary to print permanent cyanotype images on various outdated or new 16mm film stocks. Direct printing techniques will highlight the use of pre-exposed and printed film, plant materials and various objects and forms serving as "image" sources. Participants will learn about the history of cyanotype, techniques for making their own cyanotype chemistry, as well as how to source and use simple pre-made and off-the-shelf chemistry solutions. The workshop will enable participants to easily translate the process into a home lab environment, while encouraging the use of recycled or outdated film stocks, minimal photochemistry and inexpensive exposure equipment for immediate, accessible cameraless filmmaking experimentation.
