Blog

  • OC: SF PSYCHO-GEO

    BILL DANIEL’s MISSION BAY + BEN WOODS’ BASTION OF MEMORY +

    Our annual iteration of local work on SF locales here foregrounds the brave interrogations of changing Bayshore communities by a prodigal photog/filmmaker who’s fortunately returned to roost on the City‘s easternmost side –Bill Daniel unspools two beauties on the Bayshore‘s, uh, beaches, in tandem with a sneak-peak at Greta Snider‘s 16mm paean to the same liminal paddlin’ zone. Fort Point stalwart Ben Wood steps up with his own 18 min. essay on that same shoreline, though at its northernmost, a downright riveting account of the Irish immigrant who manned the Lifesaving Station at the promontory, who details ship-lore in the dangerous days before the Golden Gate. A Fisherman’s Wharf overture celebrates those shallows between those two compass points. This focus on our proud extension into our beloved salt/fresh water pond is complicated by other supporting shorts – from Jim (Angels) Granato, (hopefully) a Thad Povey episode, and, yes, a knee-slapping send-up of Haight/Ashbury stereotypes by decidedly LA-based Damon Packard. Plus a passel of pre-show pieces by the home-team, all to illuminate possible understandings of what “San Francisco” might mean. $12

  • Rewards Program: primary knots

    A three-projector celluloid meditation live-scored by improvisational trio Rewards Program.
    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