Auteur, Author: Film & Literature 2016

June 1–5, 2016

Presented in collaboration with the Bay Area Book Festival, this series celebrates the dialogue between film and books and includes many literary luminaries in person.

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  • O Amor Natural

  • Welcome To This House, a film on Elizabeth Bishop

  • Fat City

  • The Age of Czeslaw Milosz

  • Nelson Algren Live

  • The Black Stallion

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

Past Films

  • The Forbidden Christ

    • Sunday, June 5 2 PM
    Curzio Malaparte
    Italy, 1951

    Introduced by Walter Murch
    Showing here for the first time, the only film by Italian author Curzio Malaparte is a visually stunning, morally trenchant entry in the neorealist genre. 

  • Austerlitz

    • Sunday, June 5 4:45 PM
    Stan Neumann
    France, 2014

    Introduced by Dana Spiotta
    Literary intrigue and narrative layers make this tour through W. G. Sebald’s last novel “a very Sebaldien film . . . a worthy homage to a modern literary giant” (Hollywood Reporter).

  • And when I die I won't stay dead

    • Sunday, June 5 7 PM
    Billy Woodberry
    United States, Portugal, 2015

    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick!

    Justin Desmangles, devorah major, & Al Young in Conversation
    From Billy Woodberry comes a lively and affecting look at the life of the black Beat poet Bob Kaufman, richly set to archival footage and “Kaufman’s jazz-inspired, enduringly quicksilver work” (Hollywood Reporter). Copresented by City Lights Bookstore.

  • Nelson Algren Live

    • Saturday, June 4 5 PM
    Oscar Bucher
    2016

    Oscar Bucher, Barry Gifford, Dan Simon, & Philip Kaufman in Person
    A fabulous introduction for a new generation to this hippest of Chicago writers from the forties and fifties. Barry Gifford, Don DeLillo, actor Willem Defoe, and others pay tribute at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater.

  • O Amor Natural

    • Saturday, June 4 7:30 PM
    Heddy Honigmann
    Netherlands, 1996

    Introduced by Katrina Dodson & Idra Novey
    David Peoples, Siciliana Trevino in Person
    On a Rio beach, seniors recite the erotic poetry of Carlos Drummond to show “we’re old—we’re not dead!” “An idiosyncratic homage to Brazil’s most beloved poet. A lovely film!” (Village Voice). With short New Mo Cut: David Peoples' Lost Film of Moe's Books.

  • The Black Stallion

    • Saturday, June 4 2 PM
    Carroll Ballard
    United States, 1979

    New Digital Restoration!
    Recommended for ages 7 & up

    Carroll Ballard in Person
    The Walter Farley story about a boy's friendship with a magnificent Arabian horse becomes a visual fantasy, from the opening shipwreck, to lyric scenes on a desert island, to the exciting racing championship.

  • Welcome To This House, a film on Elizabeth Bishop

    • Friday, June 3 6 PM
    Barbara Hammer
    US, 2015

    Introduced by Katrina Dodson
    Acclaimed filmmaker Barbara Hammer penetrates the life of the poet Elizabeth Bishop through the places she loved in this new documentary. With short Starfish Aorta Colossus, a poem by Paolo Javier. 

  • Fat City

    • Friday, June 3 8 PM
    John Huston
    United States, 1972

    New Digital Restoration

    Leonard Gardner and David Thomson in Conversation
    Leonard Gardner wrote the screenplay for this adaptation of his novel about small-time boxing in Stockton; John Huston made it a screen masterpiece, “authentic, utterly convincing, compassionate" (Michael Ondaatje).

  • Innocence of Memories: Orhan Pamuk’s Museum and Istanbul

    • Thursday, June 2 7 PM
    Grant Gee
    United Kingdom, 2015

    Introduced by Jonathan Lethem
    Turkey’s Nobel laureate wrote a (fictional) narration for this exploration of his Museum of Innocence in Istanbul. “A mesmerizing, original meditation on love and the city” (The Guardian).

  • The Age of Czeslaw Milosz

    • Wednesday, June 1 6:30 PM
    Juozas Javaitis
    Lithuania, 2012

    Introduced by Robert Hass, Mark Danner, & Anthony Milosz
    A sweeping look at the Nobel Prize–winning poet’s tumultuous century, made intimate by his own exquisitely worded memories. Milosz, who taught at Berkeley, said that true poetry is “the passionate pursuit of the Real.”