Shapeshifters Cinema

About Us

SHAPESHIFTERS CINEMA is an experimental microcinema located in Oakland, CA. We 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, DVDs, sound recordings and other artist-made media.

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

SF Beer Week: Karaoke Mashup Throwdown + Beer Release
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
6-8pm
FREE ADMISSION

We can't get enough of karaoke at Shapeshifters! And the weirder the experience, the better. This time we will be mashing up your favorite songs with totally random images so that you can be the star in your own ridiculous music video—made on the fly, as you sing! All voices welcome. Participants (and spectators) will also be the first to try the newest beer made in our on-site micro-brewery—a hoppy number, very light on the tongue and extremely refreshing to drink while singing the night away.

Ruins & Resilience — Films by Karel Doing
Co-presented with San Francisco Cinematheque
Friday, March 14, 2025
7pm
Admission: $12 (discount for members)

Filmmaker Karel Doing joins us from Oxford, England to share a program of his films made over the past three decades exploring the relationship between culture and nature through analog and organic processes, experiment and co-creation.

Screening: Whirlwind (1998, 16mm), Energy Energy, (1999, 16mm), The Mulch Spider's Dream (2018, 16mm), A Perfect Storm (2022, 16mm), Babbler, Fairy and Thrush, (2022, 16mm), Oxygen (2023, 16mm), Agapanthus, (2024, 16mm), Liquidator (2010, 35mm shown on DV), Wilderness Series (2016, 2K cinemascope)

RELATED WORKSHOP: Karel will also be leading a workshop on phytography—the alternative, plant-based film process he invented—on Sunday, March 16th. (See details below).

Trivia for Good
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
7:30pm
$20 suggested donation

Join us for a night of frivolous fun in support of serious matters, hosted by 2009 Jeopardy Champion Jon Korn and 1991 Presidential Fitness Test Participant Sarah Wheeler. All proceeds will go to the Trans Youth Equality Foundation Emergency Fund. Teams of up to six are welcome. $20 minimum requested donation per person (give more if you can!). Beer and snacks available for purchase.

Workshops

Databending 101
Instructor: Kirk Pearson
Sunday, March 9, 2025
12-3PM
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $30 (Discount for Shapeshifters members)

Databending is the not-so-precise art of creatively manipulating a computer file by treating it as if it were something it isn't. In this afternoon workshop, participants will learn how to use graphics editors to alter audio files, how to distort images in word processors, and how to use hex editors to alter digital files at the binary level. You will hear how a JPG sounds different than a PNG (really!), and how an MP3 looks different from a WAV. Databending is often quite unpredictable, but tends to produce art that's idiosyncratic, glitchy, and oddly beautiful. No experience or technical know how is required! You will learn several different "recipes" for generating striking images, and leave with several examples of digital art you made yourself.

Phytography: Eco-friendly Filmmaking with Plants
Instructor: Karel Doing
Sunday, March 16, 2025
12-5PM
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $60 (Discount for Shapeshifters members)

Hot on the heels of his Ruins and Resilience film program (presented at Shapeshifters on Friday, March 14th) Karel Doing—the inventor of phytography— will join us to lead a workshop on this eco-friendly, experimental film process that makes it possible to create detailed chemical traces of plants directly on photographic emulsion. This simple, beginner-friendly process takes place in full daylight and makes use of biodegradable chemistry. During the workshop the artist will explain his technique, placing it in a historical lineage of experimental photography and film while also connecting it to ecological mindfulness. After this introduction, a hands-on demonstration will be provided. Participants will then create their own images and see the results projected.

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.