Author: Fara
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Rewards Program: primary knots
MILES LASSI is an interdisciplinary artist based out of Oakland, CA. As a musician, he has performed in over 150 cities throughout North America, Europe and Asia with many different ensembles ranging from the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall to national broadway tours like Ain’t Too Proud, Dirty Dancing, and Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. Miles is dedicated to creating new media and has done so at the New York Film Festival, Lincoln Center, Apollo Theater, deYoung Museum, Joyce Theater, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, A.C.T., SXSW and Snap Studios/KQED.SKYWAY MAN is the alias of keyboardist, songwriter, and producer James Wallace. Based in Oakland via Richmond, VA, and Nashville, TN, he has released seven albums and composed music for Film/TV, including Joe Pera Talks With You (HBO). Over the past 15 years, he has toured extensively across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, performing at festivals like Bonnaroo, Pickathon, SXSW, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and Wilco’s Solid Sound. He has collaborated with Abigail Washburn, Langhorne Slim, Erin Rae, and Maya Hawke, among others. Brittany Howard once named his band a favorite local act in Rolling Stone, and his work has been featured in NPR, The Wall Street Journal, and Stereogum. He’s produced 20 full-length albums for other artists, including Bay Area musicians Mikayla McVey, Milk for the Angry, and Pancho Morris. Over the past few years he’s developed a practice of live instrumental film scoring using keyboards and sequencers.ZEKARIAS MUSELE THOMPSON (b. 1983, they/them/their) is an artist based in Oakland, CA, and Reykjavik, IS often working in sonic composition, mark-making, photography, collaborative group practice & performance, and writing. Their practice is concerned with humanity’s conceptual and emotional organizational structures—and how we bring them into material form. Zekarias has presented solo exhibitions and projects at the Museum of the African Diaspora, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, The Lab, Gray Area, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, and the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies. Zekarias is a co-founder of Working Name Studios, a collectively owned and organized arts institution with the mission of building institutional stability and equity for underrepresented creative practices, ideas, and people. They were part of the Emerging Artist Program at the MoAD for 2024, and are currently an MFA candidate in the Department of Art Practice at UC Berkeley.ELLIE VANDERLIP is a San Francisco-based experimental filmmaker, performer, and educator. She received her MFA in Cinema from San Francisco State University in 2022. She is a co-director at Oakland’s Shapeshifters Cinema, on the board of directors at San Francisco’s Cinematheque, and maintains a studio at Artists’ Television Access. She has hosted filmmaking workshops with the Exploratorium, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the University of San Francisco, and lectures at St. Mary’s College and San Francisco State University. Her primary focuses are found footage experimental documentary, material cinema, and expanded cinema performance. Her work has screened nationally and internationally, including at San Francisco DocFest and Belgrade’s Kinoscope Festival, and has upcoming writings about alternative archives in Found Footage Magazine. -
TINAFF (This is Not a Film Festival)
This is Not a Film Festival (also know as TINAFF) is a monthly recurring film showcase, allowing local Bay Area filmmakers, artists and creatives to gather, connect, and present their work. No submission fees, no awards, no gatekeeping. Our goal is to provide a space where truly independent films can be shared and enjoyed the way they’re meant to be; with a live audience.Program 1 – February 2026
All you Have to Worry about is Everything (6:17)
A short tale following an imaginative young boy who is left to his own devices when he is dropped off at his grandma’s home in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury. Directed by Alex Guerin
Senility (4:49)
A visual poem about loss, grief, and the haze of dementia. Directed by Sabrina Ghidossi
The Hazy Pink Door (13:56)
Gaze into the otherworldly mind of college student Sekani Jacobs as he struggles to assimilate into his family’s expectations. A chance encounter with a drunken stranger sets Sekani off onto a surreal journey exploring the depths of his identity and purpose in a cold and confusing world. Directed by Jean-Pierre Pitre
City Cine (7:31)
A golden era of City College of San Francisco’s cinema department, featuring interviews with the late John Carlson and Lisa Swenson. Featuring lots of students who went off to make great careers in filmmaking. Made for Dan Brown’s documentary class circa 2012. Directed by Annalise Rosa “chuli 1312” Velazquez
Insectual Neuroses (4:06)
This bug’s not having a great day. It’s been looking for food. Looking for meaning. Looking in all the wrong places. Directed by Fabrice Ducouret
The Divorce (15:00)
Ringo, a rookie hitman obsessed with external validation, is forced to choose between the lives of his two partners, John and Paul (code names chosen after The Beatles) as they both secretly plan on betraying and killing each other. Directed by Joaco Arauco
Swear to Tell the Truth (proof of concept) (1:01)
A group of former friends are called back to their hometown when a body is discovered and they become the prime suspects. (director speaks on it after.) Directed by Kayla Marriot
El Regreso Del Miedo (10:00)
Awakening in his childhood home, Chicano teen Luis Aguilar is forced to relive discriminations his Mexican immigrant parents have lived through, all while being pursued by a mysterious figure. Directed by Berenice Manzano Castro
-INTERMISSION- 15 min.
Non Binary (5:39)
“Non-Binary” is a sultry, genre-blending love story that reimagines R&B tropes through a queer, jazz-age lens. Set in a dreamy speakeasy, it follows a cat-and-mouse romance between The Crooner and the elusive Lola Love. Directed by Lena-Camille Otalora
Eternidad (14:08)
Plans go awry for a married couple that has recently reunited in the afterlife. Directed by Iggy Figueroa
Troubled Connexxions (5:41)
A disabled Black phone sex operator has a zany session with a white client. Directed by E’Niyah Wilson
Stuck (7:56)
People say they’re “perfectly fine”, but Vic can’t seem to shake off this sticky, ooey, gooey, feeling. Directed by Nicole Won
Me Porto Bonita (19:41)
Following a heartbreak two best friends embark on a day of refuge. What first started as a day of joyriding through the city quickly escalates into an adventure of revenge and exposed secrets. Directed by Cecilia Romo
Door 7 PM- Screening @ 7:30 PM
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OC: EPIC PROTEST
WTO/99 + WHISPERED MEDIA +
This immersive archival documentary takes viewers to the streets of Seattle in 1999 for massive protests that have heavily influenced the current political and protest climate. WTO/99 brings four days in late 1999 back to life and provides insights into the world we live in today. The film shows the results of tens of thousands of people occupying the streets of downtown Seattle to vocalize their concerns about the existence of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its impact on the environment, economy, human rights, and labor. Hoping to dissuade world leadership from continued support of the WTO, the protesters were met with extreme violence by a militarized police force. The protests strived to focus the public’s attention on the kind of future the WTO would bring forth—the future we live in today. Created from more than 400 hours of never-before-seen footage, WTO/99 is an immersive visual artifact that reanimates a week that still reverberates over two decades later. PLUS: Introduction by members of that rad media collective Whispered Media, also sharing some of their own WTO clips!
