Our ongoing series of free films for members.
Read full descriptionTold through Alvin Ailey’s own words and featuring evocative archival footage and interviews with those who intimately knew him, Ailey weaves together a resonant biography of an elusive visionary.
BAMPFA Collection
Winner of the Prix du Regard at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, Whisky is a deadpan comedy that looks at loneliness, family, friendship, and keeping up appearances. “Global cinema at its best. A truly great film!” (Film Threat).
An aspiring New Orleans rapper turns a video camera on herself and her community—and captures Hurricane Katrina and its after-effects—in this remarkable look at everyday heroism. Winner, 2008 Documentary Grand Prize at Sundance.
This hymn to the ordinary typewriter, centered on Berkeley's own California Typewriter, is also a portrait of the countless artists, writers, and collectors who remain steadfast in their love and loyalty. “Pure typewriter heaven” (Don DeLillo).
This effortlessly beautiful film follows a Mayan father and his young son as they spend a summer working (and playing) along the Mexican Caribbean coast.
An inspiring, heartbreaking profile of the artist Eva Hesse, one of the most significant American artists of the last century. “An indispensable aid to understanding and appreciating a fascinating artist” (New York Times).
Mikhail Kalatozov’s stunning visualized drama of young love and ambition destroyed by war. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival.
Set in the Malian capital of its title, Abderrahmane Sissako’s passionate polemic centers on a show trial in which the plaintiff, “African society,” argues against exploitation by the defendant, the World Bank.
Armed with her inimitable insight and ability to find beauty where one least expects it, Varda travels to various far-flung locales in this five-part miniseries made for French television.
Free streaming presentation for BAMPFA members only! Password required.
Filmed on Venezuela’s otherworldly salt flats, this rediscovered masterpiece of poetic nonfiction by one of Latin America’s key female filmmakers was an influence on Brazil’s Cinema Novo and a spectacular forerunner to I Am Cuba.
Free streaming presentation for BAMPFA members only! Password required.
In a remote Scottish island community facing extinction through isolation, two young men embark on a foolish challenge. Michael Powell’s stunningly photographed film is a hybrid of documentary-like realism and poetic fatalism.
Free streaming presentation for BAMPFA members only! Password required.
One of the world’s first animated feature films, Lotte Reiniger’s enchanting work uses intricate silhouettes to enact a tale from The Arabian Nights.
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A simple electrician finds himself in a difficult position when an ambitious politician embraces his dream of generating wind energy for his impoverished town. This affecting allegory dramatizes the complex challenges facing the developing economies of post-Soviet Central Asia.