Blog

  • 15 Days :: 15K

    15 Days :: 15K

    You made it happen for ATA in November 2025, and we made every single of your dollars holler for eight months:

    • Rent? Made it. We’re current.
    • Back rent? Made a huge repayment of $60K in June.
    • What’s left? $15K by August 1. This will leave ATA with a manageable last payment of $5,801.59 by October 1 that unlocks our landlord’s rent forgiveness of $27,810.00.

    Now’s the time to throw down in any amount to help us come correct with the landlord. Please donate today and ensure that

    • ATA’s programs continue to pop with new partnerships, new audiences, and beloved community. In our San Francisco Grants for the Arts application we just dropped in June we counted 123 programs since July 2025, 344 artists earning from our box office, and a wildlly conservative, yet fair estimate of 9,302 of you good people reached through the screening room and storefront galleries of 992 Valencia. Thanks to you ATA’s mission to be the place for the cultivation and promotion of culturally-aware, underground media and experimental art rings true.
    • ATA’s radical collective, with no paid staff and operating with a stalwart principle of consensus, continues to connect with the expertise to turn 992 Valencia into a permanent cultural asset held by the people. We’re on it! Want to be part of it? Holler.

    Curious why we’re coming back at you? We get it! Short answer: nothing is easy.

    Long answer: ATA absorbed responsibility for rent and operating expenses during pandemic losses of artist studio sharing income and a forced, protracted closure to accommodate a still-uncompleted seismic retrofit project. Accompanied by significant downturns in institutional support starting in 2023, a reduction in programming, and escalating operating costs, ATA continued to program for the community at its peril. While the San Francisco arts eco-system continues to build back and new, ATA, like many arts organizations we love and respect, trails the growth and prosperity of other sectors. Despite the challenge, and at the request of community, ATA is committed to being itself, sustainably.

    This is the moment! Please give!

    image from Susan Wolf’s December 2025 Almost-Public / Semi-Exposed installation. photo by AP/SE co-curator and ATA Boardmember Ariel Zaccheo

  • Final Girls Berlin Film Festival

     

    Final Girls Berlin Film Festival showcases horror cinema that’s directed, written, or produced by women, trans, and non-binary filmmakers. We are committed to creating space for female and gender non-conforming voices and visions — whether monstrous, heroic, or some messy combination of the two — in the horror genre.

    Program:

    Drosera (23:23)

    Directed by Maud Carpentier & Boris Tilquin, Belgium, 2025

    Alice, a sixteen-year-old motocross champion, is mysteriously brought back to life by a carnivorous plant after a violent trauma. But as she struggles to find her footing again, she discovers she now has extraordinary powers.

    Take Care (11:26)

    Directed by Brittany Ashley, United States, 2025

    A woman deliberately injures herself just to be in the care of a particular ER nurse. But when she’s discharged from the hospital earlier than expected, she needs to find a new way to extend her stay.

    Jeff (24:34)

    Written and directed by Julia Hebner, USA, 2025

    On a quiet night, phone sex operator Marcia receives a call from Jeff, a man seeking refuge in the anonymity of the hotline in order to relieve himself of confessions. Marcia is used to the sometimes unsettling proclivities of her callers, but Jeff’s increasingly disturbing admissions unmoor Marcia’s sense of truth and memory and test her limits of empathy and forgiveness.

    Content warning: child abuse

    Wall Udder (8:34)

    Written and directed by Alexandra Hayden, USA, 2025

    A woman confronts her repressed feelings of malaise after her partner comes home smelling of milk.

    Mango (11:14)

    Written and directed by Joan Iyiola, UK/France, 2025

    Zadie has fibroids which are morphing inside of her. When a dream job arrives, she is forced to act before the unwanted growths take over.

    The Dysphoria (12:56)

    Written and directed by Kylie Aoibheann, Australia, 2025

    A trans woman performs a Satanic ritual to get a vagina, but unwittingly invites a demonic presence into her home which demands a terrible sacrifice.

    Confession (14:29)

    Directed by Mai Nakanishi, Japan, 2025

    A woman seeks confession from a priest, but as her story unfolds, the priest discovers she harbors terrifying secrets.

    Plus

    Navel Gazer (17:42)

    Written and directed by Shirin Mori, USA, 2024

    Birth-fearing Kora (they/them) is puzzled when they receive a check for $8,000, accompanied by a note thanking them for their egg donation. When they investigate the mysterious fertility clinic behind it, Kora needs to escape a motherhood-obsessed cult that only sees them for their body.

    Love You Forever (20:49)

    Directed by Sepi Mashiahof, Sepehr Mashiahof & Hana Harada, USA, 2020

    In a time-warped house on the spectral plain of grief, two sisters try to survive the immensity of each other’s love.

    A Brighter Summer Day for the Lady Avengers (12:00)

    Directed by Birdy Wei-Ting Hung, Taiwan, 2024

    Taiwan, 1980s. A hot summer day, watermelon juice, and a teenage girl’s sexual awakening with her celluloid fantasies. Shot on 16mm.

    Discussion with filmmakers after the program.

     

     

  • Studio 26: Fantom Classroom of the Art Institute

    A free seminar, investigating the 16mm experimental films in the collection of the SFAI Legacy Foundation and Archives.