On View

exhibitions
film series
event series

  • From the Front Page to the Front Lines: The Essential Sam Fuller

    July 29–August 31, 2022

    Ten essential films from Samuel Fuller’s influential oeuvre confront prejudice and inequity head-on, chronicling the grit, resilience, and soulful struggle of misfits, foot soldiers, petty criminals, detectives, and reporters surviving in the face of moral misgivings or... View

  • Free Outdoor Screenings—Indelible Moments: May I Have This Dance

    August 4–25, 2022

    Bring a blanket or lawn chair to BAMPFA’s huge outdoor LED screen for three free screenings.

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  • Hannah Levy / MATRIX 279

    August 10, 2022–January 8, 2023

    Hannah Levy’s tactile, creaturelike sculptures infuse the stripped-down lines of Modernist design with a visceral tension that is simultaneously sterile and erotic, amusing and disturbing.

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  • Arts + Design Thursdays

    September 1–December 1, 2022

    Thinking Through Art and Design: Creativity & Practice

    BAMPFA partners with Berkeley Arts + Design to offer this lecture series about creativity and practice as a vital resource in times of change. Join us every Thursday afternoon to hear cutting-edge thinkers and makers share about their creative practice.

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  • Arts + Design Fridays

    September 2–December 2, 2022

    Landscapes of Migration, Incarceration, and Resistance

    Join us for a lively series of talks by artists, performers, scholars, and activists exploring themes of global and US migration, exclusion, and belonging. We use the historic Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay as jumping-off point for this exploration.

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  • Undoing Time: Art and Histories of Incarceration

    September 3–December 11, 2022

    Undoing Time: Art and Histories of Incarceration considers the foundational roots of confinement from philosophical, sociological, theological, and art historical perspectives to better understand the fact that today’s mass incarceration crisis has been centuries in the making.... View

  • African Film Festival

    September 7–October 29, 2022

    After two years of pandemic-related cancellations or virtual screenings, we are proud to welcome the African Film Festival back to BAMPFA. This year, open your eyes to new horizons, new heroes, and new narratives.

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  • Alternative Visions

    September 7–November 30, 2022

    This year our annual series showcases current and historical experimental films by local filmmakers, as well as works by artists from Brazil, Canada, Iran, Poland, Rwanda, and the United Kingdom.

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  • Undoing Time: Cinema and Histories of Incarceration

    September 8–November 16, 2022

    Including historical and contemporary documentaries, essay films, and works of fiction, this series reflects on the inherent racism and inhumanity of the prison industrial complex while celebrating courageous voices and acts of resistance from inside and outside of prison... View

  • Elaine May: Age of Irony

    September 9–30, 2022

    Highly regarded as a comedian, screenwriter, playwright, and actress, Elaine May had a more tempestuous ride as a film director—often at odds with the Hollywood studio executives. Her films are championed by many for their ironic humor, sense of spontaneity, authenticity, and... View

  • Rithy Panh in Person

    September 24–25, 2022

    This fall BAMPFA is honored to have Rithy Panh present two of his recent films in person, his haunting and personal investigation into the Cambodian genocide, The Missing Picture, and Irradiated, an exploration of the man made cataclysms and atrocities of the twentieth... View

  • The Black Poet’s Imagination

    September 25–November 13, 2022

    This reading series brings together a deeply talented group of Black poets and highly skilled performers to address themes of revolution, wounding, and intergenerational healing through powerful words.

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  • In Dialogue with China: Family, Memory, Resistance, and Change

    October 6–27, 2022

    Presented in conjunction with the Townsend Center’s In Dialogue with China: Art, Culture, Politics, these films show how three contemporary Chinese filmmakers—Chan Tze Woon, Li Dongmei, and Luo Li—use inventive and subtle techniques to approach themes of family, memory, change,... View

  • Mill Valley Film Festival at BAMPFA

    October 8–16, 2022

    BAMPFA is pleased to partner with the Mill Valley Film Festival to present selected screenings from MVFF45 in the Barbro Osher Theater.

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  • Digital poster that reads "Your Vote Matters"

    Lena Wolff and Hope Meng: VOTE

    October 8–November 8, 2022

    The return of Wolff’s iconic poster series encourages viewers to make their voices heard at the ballot box in support of urgent and timely issues: for reproductive freedom, gun reform, trans rights, environmental justice, and democracy at large.

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  • Pier Paolo Pasolini

    October 22–November 27, 2022

    This retrospective of the influential Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975) features 35mm restorations, many done by Cineteca di Bologna in partnership with Cinecittà.

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  • Camera Man: Buster Keaton

    December 4–21, 2022

    Keaton’s ingenious gags and stunts in his silent two-reelers and features confirm his timeless appeal as a commentator on the human condition who was drawn to the dreamlike and the all-too-real. 

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  • Elegy to Seijun Suzuki

    December 8, 2022–January 15, 2023

    To celebrate the publication of William Carroll’s recent book Suzuki Seijun and Postwar Japanese Cinema, BAMPFA is delighted to participate in a tour, organized by the author, of imported 35mm prints of films spanning several decades of Suzuki’s brilliant and varied career.

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  • The Cinema of the Absurd: Eastern European Film, 1958–89

    January 12–February 25, 2023

    A series of stark, scathing, and playful films from the former socialist republics of Eastern Europe, where absurdity was a fact of life under authoritarian rule—and a source of cinematic creativity.

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  • Georgian Cinema: Highlights from the BAMPFA Collection

    October 29–November 27, 2022

    Among the treasured special collections within our film archive are the rare and distinctive holdings of Georgian cinema produced during the Soviet era and since the country’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. This series features works by leading Georgian auteurs.

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  • Out of the Vault: Everything’s Ephemeral

    January 14–February 16, 2023

    Three programs of 16mm ephemeral films from the BAMPFA collection—one of place, one of poetry, and one of play—ask us to pause and listen for quiet rhythms, to look closer at what is in front of us, and to celebrate the moment.

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  • Limited Engagements & Special Screenings

    Ongoing

    Recent releases, restored classics, and special guests grace the Barbro Osher Theater.

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  • The Algerian War of Independence: Cinema as History

    January 18–February 26, 2023

    Over the course of the six decades since the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62), filmmakers have reacted to the history of this revolutionary period with powerful responses and insightful perspectives. This selection of films deal with the backstory and history of the Algerian... View

  • Documentary Voices

    February 1–April 12, 2023

    Our annual series features an international array of recent and historical documentaries and nonfiction films.

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  • Tales of Cinema: Hong Sangsoo

    February 3–18, 2023

     “Hong Sangsoo’s films seize the material of everyday life in the service of exploring psychology and metaphysics in elegant, subtly profound ways” (Lincoln Center) as revealed in three double-bills and a recent film.

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  • Pratibha Parmar in Person

    February 9—23, 2023

    The completion of Parmar’s new documentary, My Name Is Andrea, an essential and timely corrective to the historical record concerning the late writer and activist Andrea Dworkin, provides a welcome opportunity to invite Parmar to share her work at BAMPFA.

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  • The New Lebanese Cinema of the 1970s and 1980s

    November 10–December 10, 2022

    This small series features new restorations of works by three filmmakers from Lebanon who bear witness to its difficult history: Borhane Alaouié, Jocelyne Saab, and Heiny Srour. 

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  • Art Wall: Luis Camnitzer

    November 30, 2022–May 31, 2023

    In his West Coast solo project debut, Uruguayan artist Luis Camnitzer (b. 1937) debuts the new work below/here/above/ahead/was as part of BAMPFA’s Art Wall commissioned series.

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  • Endless Knot: Struggle and Healing in the Buddhist World

    December 14, 2022–May 7, 2023

    Endless Knot: Struggle and Healing in the Buddhist World explores how artists and practitioners across two millennia have understood and utilized one of the core tenets of Buddhism—dependent arising, which posits that cycles of existence (saṃsāra) arise from past actions and... View

  • Black Life

    Ongoing

    Experience the vitality and range of cultural production in the African diaspora through this multidisciplinary event series.

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  • Workshops

    Ongoing

    Inspire your creativity, engage your senses, and expand your ideas.

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  • Family Events

    Ongoing

    Second Saturdays: Hands-on activities and participatory readings designed for kids and their families.

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