The Cinema Department is pleased to announce that after Student Jury Prescreening and Industry Jury review our final program is locked! Thank you to everyone who has taken part in the process: faculty, staff and students who support our production classes, students making and submitting films and Visual Media Design’s Emerge Studios students who pitched poster designs for this event. Boxed In by Eleftherios Mastrotheodoros The 48 by Nolan Gray sewn piece by Laura Cohen Ping Pong Anxiety by Becky Cornwell The Deal by Natalia Guecheva The Challenge Zone by Derek Magsany Fragments of a Dissonant Mind by Gretchen Telzrow Roshambo by Siyang Chen MINDPLAY by Meri Chobanyan The Apartment of Dr. Caligari by Ben Duran Unfeeling by Claire Mann Cherry Yogurt by Joey Nelson Left by anonymous Ameliorate by AJ Brown

Ada Karmi Melamede is one of the most accomplished female architects in the world, but very little is known about her outside her home country of Israel. ADA - MY MOTHER THE ARCHITECT is a deeply moving portrait of an extraordinary woman directed by her daughter, filmmaker, and former architect, Yael Melamede. Ada is a true pioneer who, like many successful working mothers of her time, was forced to make impossible choices. Despite personal sacrifices, Ada's work gave physical form to some of Israel's highest democratic ideals, most notably in the acclaimed Supreme Court building in Jerusalem, the Open University, Ben Gurion airport, and numerous civic institutions around the country. ADA - MY MOTHER THE ARCHITECT profiles a woman and artist deeply tested by the realities of career and motherhood, and a unique mother-daughter bond.

This quintessential Noir was filmed exclusively in Northern California and features scenes in Nob Hill, Larkspur, and throughout the Bay Area. Will be followed by a booksigning. For a tour of noir cinema, No Daylight in this Face is the perfect companion, and Barry Gifford is an ideal guide. His choice selection of films exposes the menacing, moody, and oftentimes violent underbelly of this dark movie genre that occupies a favorite niche in American popular culture.

Björk: Cornucopia, the highly anticipated concert film recorded live in Lisbon, captures the celebrated artist’s groundbreaking tour that mesmerised audiences worldwide for five years. This unique cinematic experience immerses viewers in Björk’s spectacular stage production, featuring a setlist spanning her iconic early works to the visionary Utopia (2017) and Fossora (2023). The production showcases bespoke instruments, including a magnetic harp, a circular flute, an aluphone, and a reverb chamber, and Björk is furthermore joined on stage by musical director and multi-instrumentalist Bergur Þórisson, percussionist Manu Delago, flute septet Viibra, harpist Katie Buckley and the Hamrahlid choir. Digitally animated moving curtains create a modern lanterna magica for live music, transforming 21st-century VR visuals into the grandeur of a 19th-century theatre — and now into an immersive cinema experience, enhanced by meticulously crafted Dolby Atmos spatial audio. Directed by Ísold Uggadóttir, the film features sound and visual creative direction, music arrangements, production, and performance by Björk. It showcases the work of James Merry as co-creative director of visuals, and original animation by Tobias Gremmler – with additional contributions from Andrew Thomas Huang, Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, Pierre-Alain Giraud, Nick Knight, and Warren Du Preez & Nick Thornton-Jones. Cornucopia sees Björk pushing the boundaries of live performance, offering a visually and sonically immersive experience unlike anything seen before.

Within the confines of a massage parlor in Flushing, Queens, Amy and Didi navigate romance, happiness, and the obligations of family thousands of miles from home. Despite the physical and emotional toll their work extracts, the women who live at the parlor have fortified an impenetrable sisterhood. When tragedy strikes on Lunar New Year, Amy is forced to consider her own destiny for the first time ever. Despite finding solace in the company of Cheung, Amy must leave the city and prioritize her own spirit in order to survive. In an unseen part of New York, Blue Sun Palace explores the lives of transient souls trying to find a sense of permanence.

Bluegrass and Old-time Documentary Film Festival Presented by The California Bluegrass Association, in celebration of the 50th Anniversary Fathers Day Bluegrass Festival In the Groove: Short documentaries featuring artists who will be performing at the 50th Anniversary Father's Day Bluegrass Festival In the Groove: featuring Kathy Kallick, Scott Gates and AJ Lee. Why do we play music? Write songs? Juggle a career in music and real life? In each of these three mini-documentaries, we step behind the scenes with three beloved California bluegrass musicians, going beyond the groove of their music and into the groove of life. 30 minutes. Bria Light, San Francisco, CA.. 2025 Don’t Get Trouble in Your Mind: The Carolina Chocolate Drops’ Story is a portrait of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a string band of young African-American musicians from the hip-hop generation hailing from Raleigh, North Carolina, and their mentor, fiddler Joe Thompson (1919—2012). The film captures how the group embraced a 19th-century genre and took it to new heights, winning a Grammy in 2010. The band’s meteoric rise, from busking on the street to playing major festivals, is intermingled with the history of the banjo’s origins in Africa and the untold story of how blacks and whites collaborated to create the earliest forms of American popular music. 80 Minutes. John Whitehead, St Paul, MN. 2025

CANAL ZONE is about the people who live and work in the Panama Canal Zone and shows both the operation of the Canal and the various governmental agencies — business, military, and civilian — related to the functioning of the Canal and the lives of the Americans in the zone. The film includes sequences of ships in transit, the work of special canal pilots, aspects of the civil government, work of the military, and the social, religious and recreational life of the Zonians.

A Chinese woman lives to herself in silence, celebrating the prosperous Belle Epoque with songs and dance.

A landmark of independent cinema, Compensation is Zeinabu irene Davis’s moving, ambitious portrait of the struggles of Deaf African Americans and the complexities of loving relationships at the bookends of the twentieth century. In extraordinary dual performances, Michelle A. Banks and John Earl Jelks play Malindy and Arthur, a couple in 1910 Chicago, as well as Malaika and Nico, a couple living in the same city almost eighty years later. Their stories are deftly interwoven through the creative use of archival photography, an original score featuring ragtime and African percussion, and an editing style both lyrical and tender. Malindy, an industrious, intelligent dressmaker, falls for Arthur, an illiterate migrant from Mississippi, along the shore of Lake Michigan. On the same beach in the present, Malaika, an inspired and resilient graphic artist, softens before a brash yet endearing children’s librarian, Nico. Each pair faces the obstacles of their time as Black Americans, including structural racism and emerging pandemics. Compensation remains a groundbreaking story of inclusion and visibility that bears witness to the social forces and prejudices that stand in the way of love.

The School for the Deaf at the Alabama Institute is organized around a theory of total communication i.e. the use of signs and finger spelling in conjunction with speech, hearing aids, lip reading, gestures and the written word. The film shows sequences dealing with various aspects of this comprehensive training such as teaching students and parents to sign; speech therapy; psychological counseling; regular academic courses; vocational training; disciplinary problems; parents visits; sports and recreational activity; training in living and working independently; and developing skills in home and money management.

Among the strangest and most perturbing films of his overlooked Mexican period, Él is Luis Buñuel’s incisive portrait of paranoia, jealousy, and sexual obsession—a nightmarish tale of love gone wrong that prefigures the major themes of his 1960s and ’70s work. Incorporating his personal demons into an adaptation of Mercedes Pinto’s autobiographical novel, Buñuel tells the story of Francisco Galván de Montemayor (Arturo de Córdova), a devout middle-aged bachelor who falls into amour fou with Gloria (Delia Garcés). After breaking her engagement with another man, Gloria realizes something is terribly off about Francisco, whose sophisticated facade masks deep insecurities and an explosive, violent temper. Descending into madness, Francisco drives Gloria to fear for her life—with no refuge offered by either her family or the church. One of Buñuel’s rawest, angriest indictments of religious and social hypocrisy, Él stands as the surrealist master’s great excursion into dark melodrama, where civilization can find no answer to the raging urges of the irrational id.

Set in 1987 Oakland, Freaky Tales is a multi-track mixtape of colorful characters — an NBA star, a corrupt cop, a female rap duo, teen punks, neo-Nazis, and a debt collector — on a collision course in a fever dream of showdowns and battles. Executive produced by hip-hop pioneer Too $hort, and featuring an all-star ensemble including Pedro Pascal, Ben Mendelsohn, Jay Ellis, Normani, Dominique Thorne, Jack Champion, Ji-young Yoo, Angus Cloud, and Tom Hanks, this pulpy blend of explosive action, edgy humor, gory kills, and sly twists and turns makes for one wild ride.

When performance artist Bethesda Manolo moves into a queer artist commune in San Francisco, she begins work on her new show. But when she discovers an unexpected clue to her biological mother’s whereabouts, her show takes a creative turn and her stay in San Francisco turns into a musical journey of self-discovery, family and the startling realization that she just might be a fruit fly.

HOSPITAL shows the daily activities of a large urban hospital with the emphasis on the emergency ward and outpatient clinics. The cases depicted illustrate how medical expertise, availability of resources, organizational considerations, and the nature of communication among the staff and patients affect the delivery of appropriate health care.

Stan, a slaughterhouse worker whose long hours on the job and care to stay on the right side of the law have failed to deliver the American dream. Poverty and desperation pervade his downtrodden community, where kids pass their days throwing rocks in abandoned factory yards and sleazy acquaintances try to persuade Stan to join them on ill-fated criminal schemes. Stan and his wife try to make their house an oasis in the midst of this—he repairs their linoleum floor, she keeps tabs on their two kids—but at the end of the day he still finds himself sitting at their rickety kitchen table, staring into space, wondering if this is all there is.

A work of emotional chiaroscuro that ranges from heroic tragedy to slamming-door farce, set in the late Roman Republic under the rule of the fearsome dictator Sulla (here called Silla). Young Flora and Pompeo are impassioned lovers. But Silla and Pompeo’s dad have other plans: Pompeo is to marry Silla’s daughter, Emilia. The only problem is that Emilia is already married to somebody else. And Pompeo (the future Pompey the Great), though a hero on the battlefield, turns out to be a spineless wuss when it comes to standing up to Dad and defending his girlfriend. Flora exerts her seductive superpowers to get her man. But will she succeed?

The gripping new feature documentary Left Behind tells the story of five tenacious mothers determined to establish the first public school in New York City for children with dyslexia.

Fake it ‘til you make it. The latest gem from Amalia Ulman (El Planeta), MAGIC FARM takes us on a kaleidoscopic journey packed with twists and turns, cross-cultural encounters and true personalities. When a misguided American documentary crew in search of their next viral segment ends up in the wrong town in rural Argentina, chaos ensues. As they collaborate with locals to fake a new music trend, unexpected relationships form and an unfolding health crisis becomes apparent. Colorful and unfiltered, MAGIC FARM is led by a stellar ensemble including Chloë Sevigny, Alex Wolff and Simon Rex. Shot through with a vivid sense of place, this Berlinale and Sundance selection combines a surreal send-up of the media with a heartfelt exploration of humanity.

Mandy is set in the primal wilderness of 1983 where Red Miller, a broken and haunted man hunts an unhinged religious sect who slaughtered the love of his life.

MEANWHILE is a docu-poem in six verses about artists breathing through chaos. In dynamic collaboration, Jacqueline Woodson (text), Meshell Ndegeocello (soundscape), Erika Dilday (support), M. Trevino (structure), and Catherine Gund (direction), combine artists’ expressions with historical and observational footage to unveil a rare cinematic mediation about identity, race, racism and resistance as they shape our shared breath. Centering breath as a symbol of resilience, MEANWHILE captures raw, unfinished moments—dancers in rehearsal, artists midway through their work—focusing on the act of creation. Rooted in the upheavals of 2020, the film uses breath as its through-line to symbolize collective survival. It invites viewers to witness the process of liberation and be present in the “meanwhile”—a moment of creation, struggle, and hope that transcends fixed identities.

The teasingly entwined ambiguities of love and death continue to fascinate Alain Guiraudie (Stranger by the Lake), who returns with a sharp, sinister, yet slyly funny thriller. Set in an autumnal, woodsy village in his native region of Occitanie, his latest follows the meandering exploits of Jérémie (Félix Kysyl), an out-of-work baker who has drifted back to his hometown after the death of his beloved former boss, a bakery owner. Staying long after the funeral, the seemingly benign Jérémie begins to casually insinuate himself into his mentor’s family, including his kind-hearted widow (Catherine Frot) and venomously angry son (Jean-Baptiste Durand), while making an increasingly surprising—and ultimately beneficial—friendship with an oddly cheerful local priest (Jacques Develay). In Guiraudie’s quietly carnal world, violence and eroticism explode with little anticipation, and criminal behavior can seem like a natural extension of physical desire. The French director is at the top of his game in Misericordia, again upending all genre expectations.

This film made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective shows the destruction of the occupied West Bank's Masafer Yatta by Israeli soldiers and the alliance which develops between the Palestinian activist Basel and Israeli journalist Yuval.

An examination of the iconic 90s indie band, “Pavements” appears to be just another music documentary, until it doesn’t. A prismatic, narrative, scripted, documentary, musical, metatextual hybrid, the film intimately shows the band preparing for their sold-out 2022 reunion tour while simultaneously tracking the preparations for a musical based on their songs, a museum devoted to their history and a big-budget Hollywood biopic inspired by their saga as the most important band of a generation. Starring as themselves, Stephen Malkmus. Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannbera. Mark Ibold, Steve West, & Bob Nastanovich, plus Joe Keery, Jason Schwartzman, Nat Wolff, Fred Hechinger, Logan Miller, Griffin Newman, Tim Heidecker, Michael Esper, Zoe Lister-Jones and Kathryn Gallagher.

Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII, the groundbreaking 1972 film directed by Adrian Maben, returns to theaters, now digitally re-mastered in 4K from the original 35mm footage with enhanced audio. Set in the hauntingly beautiful ruins of the ancient Roman Amphitheater in Pompeii, Italy, the film captures Pink Floyd performing an intimate concert without an audience. Filmed in October 1971, the performance features unforgettable tracks such as “Echoes,” “A Saucerful of Secrets,” and “One of These Days.” The breathtaking visuals of the amphitheater, captured both day and night, amplify the magic of the performance, creating a unique and immersive experience. Additionally, the film includes rare behind-the-scenes glimpses of the band working on The Dark Side of the Moon at Abbey Road Studios. This meticulous restoration delivers stunning image and sound quality, featuring a theatrical and home entertainment mix from Steven Wilson in 5.1 and Dolby Atmos. These upgrades enhance the film's depth and clarity while preserving the authenticity and spirit of the original 1972 release. Inspired by the golden warmth of Pompeii’s iconic setting, the remaster transforms this timeless piece into a masterpiece of sight and sound. Experience Pink Floyd like never before through this pioneering audio-visual remaster!

An ace fighter pilot and ex-member of the Italian Air Force during WWI is mysteriously cursed with a pig's face. Disillusioned with humanity, he adopts the name Porco Rosso ("Crimson Pig") and spends his time near the Adriatic Sea, drinking at a local bar and fighting off air pirates for cash. Famous for his unsurpassable flying skills, Porco draws the envy and antagonism of an American pilot who plots to take him down with the help of the fascist Italian police. In this enthralling, endearing and mesmerizing piece of animation cinema, Miyazaki gives free reign to his well-known obsession with airplanes by creating some of the most thrilling aerial scenes ever drawn. A thrilling ride you'll never forget! A film by Hayao Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli. Japan. 1992. 94 min. DCP. In Japanese with English subtitles.

From the legendary Studio Ghibli, creators of Spirited Away, and Academy Award®-winning director Hayao Miyazaki, comes an epic masterpiece that has dazzled audiences worldwide with its breathtaking imagination, exhilarating battles, and deep humanity. Inflicted with a deadly curse, the young warrior Ashitaka heads west in search of a cure. There, he stumbles into a bitter conflict between Lady Eboshi, the proud people of Iron Town, and the enigmatic Princess Mononoke, a young girl raised by wolves, who will stop at nothing to prevent the humans from destroying her home and the forest spirits and animal gods who live there.

Part of our series Wild, Weird, Wicked: Films from Before the Code! The legendary Jean Harlow delivers a star-making performance in this provocative pre-Hayes Code comedy as a charming gold digger who sleeps her way to fortune. Secretary Lillian Andrews sets her sights on her boss, eventually luring him away from his happy marriage to his childhood sweetheart. But instead of making a big splash in society, she is rejected. After casting her attention on a coal king, Lillian realizes that she loves her French chauffeur (Charles Boyer). The film is often cited as one of the motion pictures that brought about more stringent censorship.

After a comet disrupts the rain cycle of Earth, the planet has become a desolate, barren desert by the year 2033. With resources scarce, Kesslee has taken control of the water supply. Unwilling to cower under Kesslee's tyrannical rule, a pair of outlaws known as Tank Girl and Jet Girl rise up, joining the mysterious rebel Rippers to destroy the corrupt system.

Poinsettia is a former housewife, living alone with unrequited dreams of romance that only her imagined lover, the 19th-century composer Giacomo Puccini, can fulfill. Disgusted at a world that scoffs at her love and her plans of marriage to Puccini, she moves to Los Angeles for a change of scene. Taking a room in the boarding house of feisty Mrs. Muldroone, Poinsettia meets the other new tenant: Fish, a Jamaican widower recently released from an overcrowded mental institution despite his daily physical bouts with an unseen, demonic assailant who attacks him without warning, nor any visible trace. It’s not long before these neighbors become lovers. What happens next is very special, as Poinsettia and Fish, each regarding the other as nuts, move steadily toward the light of love past all imaginary inconveniences, finally participating fully in each other’s worlds, regardless that this leads to new peaks of imaginative excess.

When a group of students at Columbia University in New York launch a movement protesting the war in Gaza, they spark a nationwide uprising in solidarity with the people of Gaza. Encampments spring up at hundreds of other campuses as students object to their own university’s investment in the US and Israeli arms industry. Featuring detained student activist Mahmoud Khalil, The Encampments takes viewers inside America’s student uprising with incredible intimacy and urgency. Professors, whistleblowers, and student activists shed light on a moment that captivated the nation’s attention and continues to make headlines today.

“The Inventor” follows famed inventor and artist Leonardo da Vinci after he leaves Italy for France. In his new country, da Vinci joins the French court where he experiments with flying contraptions, invents machines and studies the human body, all in an effort to answer the question: “What is the meaning of life?”

Karsh, an innovative businessman and grieving widower, builds a device to connect with the dead inside a burial shroud.

A Palestinian school teacher struggles to reconcile his risky commitment to political resistance with his emotional support for one of his students and the chance of a new relationship with a volunteer worker.

Directed by Rob Epstein, this groundbreaking 1984 documentary tells the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California, whose trailblazing career and tragic assassination in 1978 changed the course of LGBTQ+ history. Through archival footage and heartfelt interviews, the film captures Milk’s passionate activism, his fight for equal rights, and the profound impact he left on San Francisco and beyond. The Times of Harvey Milk won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and continues to inspire generations today. Presented as part of Harvey Milk Day: A Protest of Joy celebration, this screening follows a joyful march from the intersection of Castro & Market Streets after a free community celebration featuring performances from Opera Parallèle’s cast of Harvey Milk Reimagined, a moving tribute to one of history’s most influential leaders, playing at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts May 31-June 7, 2025.

Charles Burnett's beautiful, poetic masterpiece is novelistic in its narrative density and richness of characterization. Harry Mention, an enigmatic drifter from the South, comes to visit an old acquaintance named Gideon, who now lives in South-Central Los Angeles. Harry's charming, down-home manner hides a malicious penchant for stirring up trouble, and he exerts a strange and powerful effect on Gideon and his thoroughly assimilated black, middle-class family. The household was already rife with conflict when the devilish guest arrived, and Harry's grab-bag of folktales, lucky charms and foul magic only deepens the family rift. Sickness and insanity gradually descend upon Gideon's home, and it soon becomes evident that something will have to give.

A stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping, and police corruption in a Mexican border town.

In the underground coal mines, Nam and Viet, young miners, face danger and darkness. One prepares to leave for a new life, but they must find Nam's father's remains, a soldier lost in a faraway forest, retracing the past through memories.

We Are Guardians, a poignant portrayal of the diverse group of native people who endeavour to save what is left of the Brazilian Amazon. The film expertly dissects the economic drivers that fuel large-scale environmental destruction, while exposing the corruption and partisan politics that enable it.

WELFARE shows the nature and complexity of the welfare system in sequences illustrating the staggering diversity of problems that constitute welfare: housing, unemployment, divorce, medical and psychiatric problems, abandoned and abused children, and the elderly. These issues are presented in a context where welfare workers as well as clients struggle to cope with and interpret the laws and regulations that govern their work and life.