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

New Films by Dominic Angerame
Friday, January 17, 2025
7pm
Admission: $10 (discount for members)

San Francisco-based filmmaker Dominic Angerame returns to Shapeshifters to screen 17 new films, with subjects ranging from portraits of friends to political protests—all shot on film over the past few decades and finished this year.

Program includes Aeon (2024, 12 mins.), Film Diary #1—Robert Fulton III (2024, 2 mins.), Film Diary #2—No Nothing Cinema (2024, 4 mins.), Film Diary #3—In Memory of Kurt Kren (2024, 3 mins.), Film Diary #4—Cemetery (2024, 3 mins.), Film Diary #5—Last Temptation of Christ (2024, 4 mins.), Film Diary #6—1984 Democratic Convention (2024, 5 mins.), Film Diary #7—Psalm Sunday (2024, 5 mins.), Film Diary #8—Papa John Creach (2024, 3 mins.), Film Diary #9—Water Fall (2024, 3 mins.), War Zone (2024, 7 mins.), San Francisco Art Institute (A Ghost Story) (2024, 9 mins) + 5 more brand new films—hot off the presses—titles TBA!

Films for One to Eight Projectors by Roger Beebe
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
7pm
Admission: $10 (discount for members)

Ohio-based filmmaker and educator Roger Beebe returns to Shapeshifters for the first time in a decade with a program of 16mm multi-projector performances celebrating the 25th anniversary of his first touring program. The program features several newer works including un arbre (2024, 4 x 16mm + video), Lineage (for Norman McLaren) (2019, 4 x 16mm), de rerum natura (2019, 3 x 16mm + video), and Home Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry (2021, 4 x 16mm), alongside some of his best-known projector performances, including the seven-projector show-stopping Last Light of a Dying Star (2008/2011). The program will also include a sampling of recent essayistic videos, presented as live-narrated documentaries, that take on a range of topics from the forbidden pleasures of men crying in Historia Calamitatum (The Story of My Misfortunes) (2014), to the racial politics of font choices in The Comic Sans Video (2018) and the real spaces of the virtual economy in Amazonia (2019).

Experimental Karaoke with Roger Beebe & Friends
Saturday, February 1, 2025
7pm
Admission: $10 (discount for members)

Experimental film chameleon Roger Beebe joins us yet again with guest VJ Jesse Malmed for an evening of experimental karaoke. The selections run from classic karaoke jams (Hall & Oates, They Might Be Giants) to borderline un-karaoke-able experiments (Gertrude Stein, Steve Reich). The program includes a dozen recent videos made by Roger Beebe, including several premieres, as well as a roster of avant-garde all-stars including Jesse Malmed, Bill Brown & Sabine Gruffat, Michael Robinson, Jeanne Liotta, Matt McCormick, Bryan Boyce, and more. And yes, this is really karaoke, so come prepared to sing!

Duel In the Screen: Westerns Re-edited
curated by Marie-Pierre Burquier and Éric Thouvenel
Saturday, February 8, 2025
7pm
Admission: $16 (discount for members)

Made between 1957 and 2024 using footage from classic Hollywood Westerns, the nine films in this program deploy a range of critical and material strategies offered by experimental cinema to interrogate the imaginary of the genre—as an ideological vehicle, as an aesthetic resource and as a symbolic form. While exposing the foundations of the classic "Western," these films also demonstrate its extraordinary plasticity, shifting and transforming the genre into a world populated by specters and saturated with signs.

Screening: Cowboy and "Indian" Film by Raphael Montañez Ortiz (1957, 2:00, United States), Silver Rush by Cécile Fontaine (1998, 8:00, France), Alone by Gerard Freixes Ribera (2008, 3:00, Spain), L'attaque de la diligence by Noé Grenier (2024, 4:00, France), Stagecoach by Salise Hughes (2016, 5:30, United States), Aim by Björn Kämmerer & Karoline Meiberger (2005, 2:30, Germany/Austria), Alice in Arizona by Stuart Pound (2022, 5:35, England), Instructions for a Light & Sound Machine by Peter Tscherkassky (2005, 17:00, Austria), Western Sunburn by Karl Lemieux (2007, 16mm, 9:00, Canada)

Duel in the Screen is a supplemental screening to the essay "Duel in the Screen: Elegies, Eulogies and Critical Re-Readings in Western-Based Found Footage Films" written by Marie-Pierre Burquier and Éric Thouvenel and published in Found Footage Magazine, Issue #10.

Promotional image from L'attaque de la diligence by Noé Grenier

Workshops

Build Your Own Synthesizer
Instructor: Kirk Pearson
Sunday, February 9, 2025
12-3pm
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $70 (Discount for Shapeshifters members)

Ever wanted to build a synthesizer? In this beginner's workshop led by Kirk Pearson (founder and director of the Berkeley-based audio laboratory Dogbotic) participants will be led through the process step-by-step, demystifying the horrible world of electrical engineering at every turn. You'll learn how to build basic oscillators, filters, LFOs, and amplifiers, how to rig up your circuit to be light-sensitive, and oh-so-much more. Each participant will make their own working synth prototype, which we'll tune together to form a delicious sound bath. You'll then get to take your prototype home and use it to impress and irritate your friends and loved ones. All parts are included, no prior circuitry experience or musical ability needed. All ages welcome, though children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult.