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

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

Do-Over Music Series - Eleonora / Knudsen / Davis / Glenn
Thursday, June 4, 2026
7pm
Admission: $10 (discount for members)

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 sound performance by Eleanora (harp)

Set 2 (8pm): expanded cinema + improvised music with:

Eleanora - harp
Kasey Knudsen - saxophone
Ben Davis - cello
Jordan Glenn - drums
Films, film loops and other visual interventions by the Shapeshifters Performance Group (Ellie, Kathleen & Gilbert)

Against All Odds: London
Saturday, June 6, 2026
7pm
Admission: $12 (discount for members)

Experimental film ambassador (and maker) Karel Doing was invited by us to curate this program as an addendum to the Against All Odds film series he is curating and organizing to screen at Close-Up Film Centre—a 40-seat microcinema in London, UK. This series provides a window for London audiences into some of the work coming out of DIY/independent microcinema and film lab communities around the world. In March, the series was launched with a program of work made by Bay Area-based artists. Against All Odds: London is a program featuring films made by artists associated with the Close Up Film Centre community so that we in the Bay Area can look back through that window and see what-all they are up to across the pond.

Screening: Notes for the Woodshed (2023) by Daniel Owusu, Views from Home (2005) by Guy Sherwin, Hues (2024) by Lynn Loo, Heliotrope & Citron (2025) by Jim Hobbs, Intervals (2023) by Simon Payne, Aerospace Imaging (2020), by Pierre Bouvier Patron, Afterimage (2025) by Susu Laroche, Standing Prayer (2023) by Hugo Max, Citadel (2020) by John Smith, Inflated (Double) Struggle (2018), by Jenny Baines, A Monster with its Mouth Agape (2024) by Steven McInerney and Dead as a Dodo (2025) by Leena Habiballa.

Revelations of Divine Love
with director Caroline Golum in person
Sunday, June 21, 2026
2pm
Admission: $15 (discount for members)

An irreverent biopic vividly realized through fantastic psychedelia and handmade sets with an ever-topical feminist approach, Revelations of Divine Love, by Caroline Golum is inspired by and adapted from the memoir of 14th-century mystic and philosopher Julian of Norwich—an account of religious ecstasy, plague, and revolt considered to be the first English-language book to be authored by a woman. Running time: 73 minutes. In English and Latin with English subtitles.

View trailer
Read the NY Times article
Read Guy Maddin's interview with Caroline Golum

Vital Signs is a new film series organized by Bay Area filmmaker and curator Jonathan Kiefer to showcase new and recently-released, feature-length, contemporary, independent and artist-made films that have shown around the international film festival circuit but may or may not have been picked up by distributors and are otherwise hard to find. Films may feature obscure themes, unusual perspectives or eccentric material, but they have all been sifted through the Vital Signs filter so you can be sure they are all films worth leaving your home to see in community with like-minded art film/film art appreciators. Screenings will take place at Shapeshifters every first Sunday at 2pm unless otherwise noted.

Workshops

Upcoming Workshops

Printing Imperfect Movies At Home
Instructor: Alex Mejía
Sunday, June 28, 2026
1-5pm
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $60 + $15 materials fee (Discount for Shapeshifters members)

DIY printing using copy machines and home printers is a living tradition across movements and subcultures as an accessible and cost-effective way to create things like personal zines, poetry chapbooks, scene reports, and insurgent manifestos. In this workshop led by Alex Mejía, participants will experiment with this wonderfully imperfect, lo-fi, high-contrast, black & white aesthetic using text, found footage and animations as source material that will be printed directly onto 16mm film leader to create homemade movies without cameras or photochemical processes. Building on the lo-fi zine aesthetic/practice, participants will engage in simple writing exercises that respond to the images – turning mistakes, glitches, and distortions into language-based material. Participants will leave the workshop with handmade, printed 16mm film loops, as well as video capture of the footage, to carry into future moving image projects.