60th San Francisco International Film Festival at BAMPFA

April 6–16, 2017

BAMPFA is proud to be the East Bay venue for this global showcase of cinematic discovery.

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  • The Wedding Ring

  • Duet

  • Mister Universo

  • Ma' Rosa

  • The Future Perfect

  • Serenade for Haiti

  • Maliglutit (Searchers)

  • The Death of Louis XIV

  • The Ornithologist

  • Donkeyote

  • The Force

  • Leaning into the Wind—Andy Goldsworthy

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Maliglutit (Searchers)

    • Sunday, April 16 1:30 PM
    Zacharias Kunuk, Natar Ungalaaq
    Canada, 2016

    Canadian-Inuk filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk’s film continues in the breathtaking vein of his unforgettable Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner with a story of cruelty and cold revenge based loosely on John Ford’s The Searchers.

  • Duet

    • Sunday, April 16 3:45 PM
    Navid Danesh
    Iran, 2016

    After a Tehran musician instigates an encounter with his college girlfriend, their lives are thrown into existential crisis. This resonant and moving depiction of the impact the past has on the present is both culturally specific and universal in its reach.

  • Donkeyote

    • Sunday, April 16 6 PM
    Chico Pereira
    Spain, Germany, Scotland, 2017

    A Spanish man’s quest to defy barriers and borders by embarking on the Trail of Tears with his donkey by his side is its own quixotic trail of laughter and tears in this winning tale.

    Filmmaker in person

  • El mar la mar

    • Sunday, April 16 8:15 PM
    Joshua Bonnetta, J. P. Sniadecki
    United States, 2017

    Weaving breathtaking footage of the Sonoran Desert with eerie off-camera interviews, this film captures the desperation and haunting beauty that the land between Mexico and the United States has come to represent.

  • The Force

    • Saturday, April 15 4 PM
    Peter Nicks
    United States, 2017

    In this powerful, immersive look at a turbulent time in the Oakland Police Department, filmmaker Peter Nicks (The Waiting Room) avoids easy generalizations and upends expectations.

    Filmmakers in person

  • The Winter

    • Saturday, April 15 6:30 PM
    Emiliano Torres
    Argentina, France, 2016

    In this observant, measured feature debut, the onset of winter affects both the aging foreman of a hardscrabble Patagonian sheep ranch and the younger man who comes to work for the season.

  • The Ornithologist

    • Saturday, April 15 8:30 PM
    João Pedro Rodrigues
    Portugal, France, Brazil, 2016

    Following a strapping young ornithologist stranded in the wilderness, this metaphysical (but also very physical) adventure by Portugal’s most idiosyncratic auteur twists St. Anthony of Padua’s legend into a playfully modern shape.

  • The Future Perfect

    • Friday, April 14 8:45 PM
    Nele Wohlatz
    Argentina, 2016

    An eighteen-year-old travels from China to Buenos Aires to join her conservative family and rebels against them by taking a Spanish class, where lessons learned become ways to imagine a “future perfect.”

    Filmmaker in person

  • Life After Life

    • Friday, April 14 4 PM
    Zhang Hanyi
    China, 2016

    Produced by Jia Zhangke, this evocative and poetic ghost story depicts a rapidly disappearing way of life in rural China with a gorgeous visual sensibility and subtly wry humor.

    Filmmakers in person

  • Mister Universo

    • Friday, April 14 6:30 PM
    Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel
    Austria, Italy, 2016

    When a cherished childhood lucky charm is stolen, a young lion tamer must leave his circus behind and travel the back roads of Italy in this captivating docudrama that evokes the spirits of Fellini and De Sica.

  • The Wedding Ring

    • Thursday, April 13 6:30 PM
    Rahmatou Keïta
    Niger, Burkina Faso, France, 2016

    The Wedding Ring is a rare achievement, a wondrously complex dramatic feature directed by an African woman that explores female desires and empowerment in a traditional Muslim society.

    Filmmakers in person

  • Hermia & Helena

    • Thursday, April 13 8:45 PM
    Matías Piñeiro
    United States, Argentina, 2016

    This quasi-adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which a young theater director comes to New York from Buenos Aires to translate Shakespeare’s play, casts a lasting spell with its ephemeral beauty and unpretentious vitality.

  • Muhi—Generally Temporary

    • Wednesday, April 12 6:30 PM
    Rina Castelnuovo-Hollander, Tamir Elterman
    Israel, Germany, 2017

    Muhi, a cherubic Palestinian toddler with a life-threatening illness, was transported to an Israeli hospital as a baby and has lived there ever since. This documentary locates his family’s story within the crucible of the relentless Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    Filmmakers in person

  • Family Life

    • Wednesday, April 12 8:45 PM
    Alicia Scherson, Cristián Jiménez
    Chile, 2017

    While housesitting for an estranged relative, Martín takes the phrase “make yourself at home” to uncomfortable extremes in this wry exploration of fortysomething malaise.

  • Sieranevada

    • Tuesday, April 11 6:30 PM
    Cristi Puiu
    Romania, 2016

    A movie about big themes set in a small space, the latest from Romanian master Cristi Puiu (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) takes place in a flat where relatives wait for a priest to deliver last rites to the family patriarch.

  • Leaning into the Wind—Andy Goldsworthy

    • Sunday, April 9 1:30 PM
    Thomas Reidelsheimer
    United Kingdom, 2017

    This collaborative sequel to the landmark Rivers and Tides finds artist Andy Goldsworthy still appealingly engaged in his philosophical and tactical exploration of the natural world.

    Filmmakers in person

  • Godless

    • Sunday, April 9 3:45 PM
    Ralitza Petrova
    Bulgaria, Denmark, 2016

    In post-Communist Bulgaria, justice is rare and making the right choice comes at a cost. A home care nurse faces her own difficult choices in this bold observation of a woman trapped in a fatalistic culture.

  • A Date for Mad Mary

    • Sunday, April 9 6 PM
    Darren Thornton
    Ireland, 2016

    Fresh from serving a jail sentence for brawling, Mary embarks on a time-crunched hunt for an acceptable wedding date, a search that takes her to uncharted places in this unconventional, energetic romantic comedy.

  • The Transfiguration

    • Sunday, April 9 8:15 PM
    Michael O'Shea
    United States, 2016

    Combining gritty urban realism with vampire-movie name-checks galore, this debut film tells the story of a teenage loner with a problem—he has a thirst for blood—and the slightly older girl who befriends him.

  • The Paris Opera

    • Saturday, April 8 1:30 PM
    Jean-Stéphane Bron
    France, Switzerland, 2016

    In the wake of the November 2015 terrorist attacks, the legendary Paris Opera has several shows to mount and numerous difficulties to face. This expertly crafted and brilliantly entertaining documentary demonstrates how the show manages to still go on.

  • Serenade for Haiti

    • Saturday, April 8 4 PM
    Owsley Brown
    United States, 2016

    This vibrant documentary tribute to the students and teachers of Sainte Trinité Music School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, testifies to the role that art can play in creating community and sustaining hope under the most difficult of circumstances.

    Filmmakers in person

  • Ma' Rosa

    • Saturday, April 8 6 PM
    Brillante Ma Mendoza
    Philippines, 2016

    Unfolding in what feels like real time with a gritty social realist style, Brillante Mendoza’s latest is the harrowing and timely story of a couple arrested for selling drugs and their children’s race to find the money to bribe corrupt police.

  • Who Cares. Who Sees: Experimental Shorts

    • Saturday, April 8 8:30 PM

    Cosponsored by San Francisco Cinematheque
    Curated by Vanessa O’Neill and Kathy Geritz

    How we see others and understand them is explored through six poetic films by Janie Geiser, Christoph Girardet and Matthias Müller, Adam Levine and Sara Smith, Brigid McCaffrey, Jesse McLean, and Madi Piller.

    Filmmakers in person

  • I Called Him Morgan

    • Friday, April 7 6:30 PM
    Kasper Collin
    Sweden, United States, 2016

    This riveting documentary draws a you-are-there portrait of New York’s 1960s jazz scene and one of its key players, Lee Morgan, whose career was cut short in 1972 when his common-law wife shot him to death.

    Filmmaker in person

  • The Unknown Girl

    • Friday, April 7 8:45 PM
    Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
    Belgium, France, 2016

    The Dardenne brothers have won the Cannes Palme d’Or twice for their incomparable portraits of underrepresented lives. Here, their protagonist is a doctor who sets out to uncover the identity of a woman who died near her office.

  • World Without End (No Reported Incidents)

    • Thursday, April 6 6:30 PM
    Jem Cohen
    United States, 2016

    This portrait of Southend-on-Sea, a working-class resort town, gently leads us into a forgotten Britain where the unspoken specter of Brexit looms. With Cohen’s shorts Birth of a Nation and Bury Me Not.

  • The Death of Louis XIV

    • Thursday, April 6 8:30 PM
    Albert Serra
    France, Portugal, Spain, 2016

    Set in the bedchamber of the dying Louis XIV (Jean-Pierre Léaud), this masterful film presents a painstaking observation of royalty that hovers between the somber reality of death and the humor that lies in the details.