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

You Don't Know Me: A selection of films from the 7th Cosmic Rays Film Festival
Friday, December 12, 2025
7pm
Admission: $12 (discount for members)

The Cosmic Rays Experimental Film Festival was founded in 2017 by filmmakers and educators Sabine Gruffat and Bill Brown to showcase non-commercial short films, live-cinema, and new media projects to audiences in the Triangle region of North Carolina and across the Southeastern U.S. You Don't Know Me is a selection of films from the 7th iteration of the festival. This program includes films that question the roles our bodies play in an age of disembodiment—the data they generate, the avatars they adopt, and the traces they leave behind. Films that ask if we're evolving into something new, or just heading for extinction.

Program: "I’m Not Your Monster" (2024) by Karen Yasinsky, "Lizzy" (2024) by Susanna Wallin, "Exo Gestus #2" (2024) by Yvette Granata, "Listening In, Resounding Out" (2023) by Eislow Johnson & Dominic Bonelli, "Night Music" (2024) by Edwin Rostron, "Species of Analogy" (2023) by J.M. Martínez, "File No. 2304" (2024) by A. S. M. Kobayashi, "An egg, the white is gone but the yellow remains" (2023) by Mohamed Thara, "ESP" (2024) by Laura Kraning, "The Big Day of Coloane" (2023) by Keng U Lao

Promotional image from "I'm Not Your Monster" by Karen Yasinsky

Jennifer Reeves: Screening + Blu-ray compilation release
Wednesday, January 14, 2025
7pm
Admission: $15 (discount for members)

Film maven Jennifer Reeves joins us from NYC to screen new digital masters of nine of her 16mm film-based works which have just been released on a new Blu-ray compilation by Re:Voir. Join us to celebrate this release and to revisit a selection of Reeves' works made over the past several decades in all-new 2K form.

Screening: Fear of Blushing (2001), We Are Going Home (1998), Landfill 16 (2011), Color Neutral (2014), Strawberries in the Summertime (2014), Pigment-Dispersion Syndrome (2022), Configuration 20 (1994), Girls Daydream About Hollywood (1992), and The Girl's Nervy (1995).

Zoe Beloff: Life Forgotten & Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse People
Friday, January 16, 2025
7pm
Admission: $10 (discount for members)

NYC-based media archeologist Zoe Beloff joins us to screen two of her latest films—both set in the artist's Lower East Side neighborhood, both looking at its history as a place of immigrants and at different ways that popular entertainment brings people together.

Set in New York's Lower East Side in the early years of the twentieth century, Life Forgotten (2025, 16mm film shown on DV) centers on a real storefront cinema—Frank Seiden's Variety Theater—where silent movies were presented with improvised dialog and Yiddish ballads by Frank and his sons to an audience that didn't hesitate to join in or argue back. It was a welcoming space for women and the film follows a group of radical young garment workers who gather here to figure out how to fight for women's rights and change their world. Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse People (2025, DV) is a work of remembrance that asks but does not answer the question how does everyday art bring people together? One by one, the community that is the Mouse People, recite the text of Franz Kafka's short story in quiet places on New York's Lower East Side. The film presents Josephine's story, as something transmitted across time, something that comes from inside the body of an oppressed people; spoken alone, summoned mysteriously, at the edge of consciousness. Why was it that Josephine's voice so captivated them?

Workshops

Upcoming Workshops

Tangible Media: Magnetic Tape & Creative Reuse
Instructor: John Davis
Saturday, December 13, 2025
12-5pm
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $60 (+ $25 materials cost) (Discount for Shapeshifters members)

For artists and consumers alike, the rapid shift from analog to digital media platforms over the past few decades presented both an economy of means and a seemingly unlimited range of possibilities. Though some artists, driven perhaps by nostalgia or curiosity, continue to work with obsolete media, inspired by the fundamentally unique materials and aesthetic properties inherent in them.

This workshop, led by musician/filmmaker John Davis, digs into the past to mine some veins of discarded media culture—more specifically, the creative use (and re-use) of magnetic audio tape technology. We'll take a brief look into its history and look at some of the ways the technology has been used creatively and unconventionally. We'll also demonstrate some accessible ways of using the media, while covering practical tips and strategies for sourcing playback and recording machines, new and used tapes, as well as some related tools and equipment. Participants will be encouraged to independently expand on the information provided, as the workshop serves as a jumping off point for those curious about working with magnetic tape for artistic exploration and experimentation.

Promotional Image: "Random Access" by Nam June Paik (artwork courtesy of the Nam June Paik Art Center, photograph by Manfred Montwé)

Build Your Own Crankie
Instructor: Risa Lenore
Sunday, January 11, 2026
12-5pm
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $75 (+ $25 materials cost) (Discount for Shapeshifters members)

Learn how to make a "crankie" with puppeteer and artist Risa Lenore, artistic director of Possibly Puppets Handmade Theatre. A crankie is a pre-cinematic device consisting of a moving panorama, or painting that scrolls through a viewing frame when turned with cranks. Participants will learn about crankies and how they work and then build one with simple materials and an illustrated scroll. This is a beginner-friendly workshop, open to everyone. Colored pencils, markers, scroll paper and prepared crankie kits will be provided. Participants will need to bring a short story, a song or a poem to illustrate, along with imagination, a playful attitude and the most basic drawing skills. If desired, Risa will help you create simple paper puppets to accompany your crankie. We will share and film our projects at the end of class and you will go home with your very own crankie!