Artists' Television Access
Weekly Newsletter
Coming Up This Month
Wednesday, May 21, 2025, 7:00 pm, classic-editor
DON BARRY: A QUIXOTIC EXPLORATION
DON BARRY is a 94 minute cinematic exploration (in English and Spanish, with subtitles) that seeks to place the first great modern narrative, Don Quixote, into the lives of real people in a real place.
The film introduces the experimental filmmaker Barry Gerson, now in his eighties, as Don Barry, who mixes his own thoughts into the character’s speech, much as Miguel de Cervantes’ hero mingled chivalric quotes with his own ideas. Genda Monter, a young animator, is the Don’s assistant Sanchia. The setting is the Mexican city of Guanajuato during its high season.
Don Barry’s themes are the same as those in Cervantes’ great novel: mortality, dreams versus accomplishment, and the means by which one retains sanity in a mad world. In addition, dives into the beauty of Gerson’s experimental cinema and his work at taking what he’s learned about light as an inspiration for healing. As well as the beauty of allowing one’s life work to become transformative, and to allow the landscapes we inhabit to provide catharsis for inner growth.
Music is by Karen y Los Remedios and Jiony, two contemporary existential Cumbia artists; the GTO Imp Symph and its talented composers Michael Severens and Alex Applegate; and the late folk-jazz genius John Martyn.
Saturday, May 24, 2025, 8:00 pm, classic-editor
OC: CLIMATE CHANGE BENEFIT
SNIDER + RENWICK + COLBURN + GREER +
Our penultimate Spring event is an amazing effort to mobilize the community against ever-threatening Climate Collapse, in a rich feast of film art and craft that’s as current as the recent LA wildfires! Spotlit is SF Arts Comm. grantee Greta Snider, with her hand-made masterpiece In the Maritime Frequencies, framed by her spoken-word essay. Locals Anjali Sundaram (Fifth Day). Ellie Vanderlip (Elephant’s Foot), Michelle Segura (Whisper of the Tides), and Carlos Ortega (Temperature.me) also share shorts. Portland‘s Rankin Renwick kicks in their Mighty Tacoma, rhapsodizing on Pac Coast landscape and infrastructure, as do Vanderlip and Segura in regards to the waters of our own SF Bay. Lydia Greer offers a healthy chunk from her magnum opus Endless End, and Pasadena-based Martha Colburn demonstrates her present-tense creative intelligence with the West Coast debut of Eaton Fire, on the SoCal firestorm. PLUS: Frank Stauffacher‘s classic kino-poem Notes on the Port of St. Francis (1951), Robert Louis Stevenson‘s legendary lyric here intoned by Vincent Price. Now, Greenpeace has just lost a $660 million suit filed by Big Oil Energy Transfer, for its alleged “defamation” of the corporation during the Standing Rock protests(!!), so we’re sending the door monies to that noble non-profit. $12-120.
Tuesday, May 27, 2025, 6:00 pm, classic-editor
Sex Work: Care, Intimacy, & Relationships’ Film Screening
This selection of films showcases the breadth and nuance of the relationships formed by those who perform erotic labor. In this selection we see how sex workers navigate relationships with clients, romantic partners, friends, and other sex workers beyond commonly held stereotypes. Films include:
Red Onion (2024) Director: Iris Almaraz
As you peel back the layers of RED ONION, a day in the life of a phone sex operator becomes an exploration of intimacy, death, and human connection.
Runtime: 10:00
Closeness (Nähe) (2024) Director: Sebastian Bergfeld, Birte Rüster, Diana Staub and Aline Blum
“Closeness” is short film about two people with disabilities who seek sexual assistance. The short film shows the encounters with the sex workers. We hear thoughts of the two protagonists on the topics of sexuality and self-determination.
Runtime: 12:00
Fuck-A-Fan
Chloe Cam, the hottest porn star on social media, launches a “Fuck-a-Fan” contest. Thomas, the winner, arrives raw from a recent heartbreak. Neither is prepared for what happens next.
Runtime: 24:12
Boy (2023) Director: Nacho Sesma and Nicolas Goldschmidt
Set in the cosmopolitan Buenos Aires City and inspired by true stories of male sex workers, Boy follows Franco, an escort with an extraordinary life, for one night.
Runtime: 15:11
The Lovers (Selected Episode) (2025) Director: Daviel Shy
Dafnah, a “Professional Lover,” has organized her life for minimal technological interaction and maximal sexual interaction. She fucks for sport, for love, for work, for meaning. Having grown up in a strict religious home, the daughter of a Rabbi, she is no stranger to living with rules. Her own life has two: no internet in her home and no cis men in her bed– even for work. At 36, working for Veronica, a former Madame, and picking up gigs as an extra for Pool Boi Productions, a radical erotic cinema company, she has finally built a life that fully reflects her values. Then, the pandemic hits. Suddenly, touch can be lethal and sociality demands technology. This inter-related network of sexual and spiritual workers find their ways through rapidly changing unknowns.
Runtime: 23:00
Pro () Director: Charlie
Runtime: 7:10
Let Them Eat Cake | Stupid Hawt Cooking Show (2025) Director: Riv Grl
Reagan finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her. Riv comes over to consoles her. They end up going shopping and getting revenge but nothing makes Reagan feel better…. cooking does! Stupid Hawt is a shamelessly sexy and outrageously unconventional cooking show that will leave you asking, “What did I just watch? Was that corn… without the corn?” It’s not just about hawt biiiiitches in the kitchen; it’s a chaotic blend of improv, satire, hilariously bad cooking, and a generous dash of feminine rage, all served up in a slop bowl for you to consume like the indulgent piggy you are.
Runtime: 23:27
~ Intermission ~
F*ckToys (2025) Director: Annapurna Sriram
This 16mm fever dream reimagines the Major Arcana of the Tarot through the story of AP: a struggling pollyanna seeking salvation from a curse. AP is promised by not one but multiple psychics that for a cool $1000 -and the sacrifice of a baby lamb- it can be lifted. So she makes money the only way she knows how: scootering her way deeper into the night, and into the uncouth underbelly of Trashtown.
Runtime: 1:42 min
Tickets: $15 eventbrite
Saturday, May 31, 2025, 8:00 pm, classic-editor
OC: AVANT TO LIVE
BECKER + NERBURN + SCOTT + NEW EXPERIMENTAL WORKS
A sensational season-ender that honors radical expression and innovative film form, tonight’s program promises a veritable bouquet of cinema initiatives! Portland prodigy Rankin Renwick premieres their Translation Please, while Ontario‘s Jake Scott weighs in with the West Coast premiere of his Scenes from Cycling. Minneapolis‘ Nik Nerburn sends in his dollhouse delicacy The Milkman, Seattle‘s Salise Hughes kicks down Two Dreams, and Virginia‘s Sasha Waters lobs in her astonishing Ashes of Roses. And as for the local portion of our baker’s dozen: Tommy Becker mounts his Live A/V performance Shape of Things to Come, Ellie Vanderlip intros her Blue Bayou, TT Takemoto standsby their After Bed (bareback), and Max Oginz sets us up for his Idiosyncratic Failure. PLUS beloved homegirls Greta Snider (with her new film On Fire) and Kathleen Quillian with homemade loops. Free pencils! $14
About Artists' Television Access
Artists' Television Access is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) artist-run
screening venue and gallery located in the heart of San Francisco's Mission
District. ATA is supported in part by Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel
Tax Fund, The Christensen Fund, individuals members, donors and volunteers.
CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF EXPERIMENTAL MEDIA: Join ATA as a member and receive exciting gifts, including the 2008 DVD compilation, T-shirts, and free admission to screenings and more! Artists on the 2008 DVD compilation include: Yin-Ju Chen, Mike Rollo, Marthaxiv, Sam Manera, Wago Kreider, Federico Campanale, Paul Clipson and Carl Diehl. http://www.atasite.org/membership/
How to Reach Us:
Artists' Television Access
992 Valencia Street (at 21st)
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 824-3890
ata@atasite.org
Gallery is open before and after screenings for viewing.
Screenings start at 8pm unless otherwise noted.
Directions: Take Bart to 24th Street Mission. Walk 1 block east to Valencia and 3 blocks north. ATA is located between 21st and 20th Streets.