Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive

In ACASA, MY HOME, "Ciorniciuc patiently observes his subjects without interference, which allows for tender human moments to shine through" (INDIEWIRE). A family living freely in marshlands outside Bucharest is forcibly relocated to the city in this intimate documentary on the cost of social integration. Rent ACASA, MY HOME, closing March 31: https://buff.ly/2WD4DnB

"It’s become a commonplace that the personal is political, but LOST COURSE serves as a reminder that the political is also personal" (SLANT). Join us for a FREE live conversation on Tuesday, March 30, 6 PM PST with Jill Li, director of LOST COURSE, and Rachel Stern, professor of law and political science at UC Berkeley. Rent LOST COURSE: https://buff.ly/3bQ1tUr

MAYOR is an at times absurdist, always eye-opening documentary about the mayor of Ramallah, a Palestinian city surrounded by Israeli settlements. "Deft editing and unexpectedly affecting music choices make for an engaging portrait of the kind of impassioned and dedicated politician who seems in short supply right now" (THE GUARDIAN). Rent MAYOR: https://buff.ly/2K68B59

ATLANTIS "is a strong piece of poetically pure art-house cinema that finally offers a ray of hope for humanity’s future not just the Ukraine’s, as this largely depoliticized statement is one of universal relevance" (VARIETY). Rent ATLANTIS, closing March 31: https://buff.ly/38F4TJo

Alexander Nanau’s sobering film, COLLECTIVE, is only the second Romanian film ever nominated for an Oscar in the Best Documentary Feature category, and made history as the first Romanian film ever nominated for Best International Feature Film. Don't miss out, stream it through BAMPFA! COLLECTIVE: https://buff.ly/3nKSLLR

In THE INHERITANCE, "Asili exuberantly and innovatively reminds us of the legacies of Black thinkers, activists, and artists" (BROOKLYN RAIL). Included with the film rental is a livestream conversation with Ephraim Asili and Rizvana Bradley tomorrow, March 17, at 7 PM PST. Come join us! Rent Now: https://buff.ly/2yxfljs

So proud that BAMPFA's #RosieLeeTompkins retrospective is on the New York Times list of the Defining Art Moments of 2020! Roberta Smith calls the show "a life-changing, history-altering exhibition." Come see it for yourself when we reopen in 2021!

MANDABI is now available to rent! Sharply funny and indignant, MANDABI is a bitterly ironic depiction of a society scarred by colonialism and plagued by corruption, greed, and poverty. The film received the International Critics’ Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1968 and is the first full-length African language film from West Africa. Rent Now: https://buff.ly/3iasy7F

Our streaming series, The New Brazilian Cinema, is now available to rent! Featuring four programs, the series highlights a "new generation of Brazilian filmmakers...who have changed the landscape of Brazilian cinema. They provide a model of the importance of crediting new voices and bodiesBlack and provincial and Indigenous, female, male, and nonbinaryto create important and distinctive visions" (Film Quarterly). Rent Now: https://buff.ly/37MDaWZ

COUP 53 was named one of the best five documentaries of 2020 by Washington Post. They write that COUP 53 is "an ingeniously structured tutorial on the American-British led removal of Iran’s democratically elected leader in 1953, and the action’s disastrous ripple effects." Rent Here: https://buff.ly/2lLNxFe

With long-awaited restorations of Wong Kar Wai’s films available at last, BAMPFA presents a retrospective celebration of the Hong Kong auteur’s contribution to contemporary world cinema. Existence Is Longing: Wong Kar Wai includes seven filmsAS TEARS GO BY, CHUNGKING EXPRESS, DAYS OF BEING WILD, FALLEN ANGELS, HAPPY TOGETHER, IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, and THE HAND. The whole series is available to rent now through the BAMPFA website! Existence Is Longing: Wong Kar Wai (https://buff.ly/3pG3pF7)

CODED BIAS closes January 21. Chicago Reader writes that CODED BIAS, "takes you to the front lines of the digital revolution." And The Source calls it "Explosive." Don't miss out on this eye-opening documentary! Rent Here: https://buff.ly/3mfNf33

Read The Nob Hill Gazette on BAMPFA's "curatorial maverick" director, Julie Rodrigues Widholm, who joined the museum earlier this year and is already leading us in exciting new directions.

The New Yorker writes "In MANDABI, from 1968, the Senegalese director Ousmane Sembène ranged widely through private and public settings in the capital city of Dakar to satirize corruption born of misrule...Unredressed inequality is reflected in cultural conflict between the Francophone élite, in Euro-style suits, and the Wolof-speaking masses. Sembène looks ruefully yet tenderly at the ruses and wiles of the poor, whose desperate struggleswith the authorities and with one anotherdistract them from political revolt." Available Jan 22, Pre-Order Here: https://buff.ly/3iasy7F

Based on a novel by Stanislaw Lem, this austere, sublime space odyssey profoundly influenced the genre and showed that science-fiction movies weren’t only about special effects; they were also high art (The Guardian). IKARIE XB-1: https://buff.ly/2KmCjmv

ACASA, MY HOME is a NYT Critic's Pick! "It's both intimate and analytical, a sensitive portrait of real people undergoing enormous change and a meditation on what that change might mean. It taps into something primal in the human condition, a basic conflict between the desire for freedom and the tendency toward organization an argument, finally, about the meaning of home" (The New York Times). Rent Now: https://buff.ly/2WD4DnB

Peter Nicks' sprawling behind the scenes look at Oakland's police force which premiered in 2017 at the San Francisco Film Festival and BAMPFA, remains timely and troubling. You can see the film and participate in a livestream Q&A with the director as part of the UC Davis Human Rights Film Festival. THE FORCE: https://buff.ly/32spH3t

"The sheer joy of these quilts cannot be overstated." The New York Times absolutely loves our Rosie Lee Tompkins retrospective, which opened at BAMPFA in mid-February. The exhibition will return when the museum reopens this fall; in the meantime, you can read this essay by the Times' Chief Art Critic Roberta Smith, who took a deep dive into the life and legacy of Rosie Lee Tompkins and her miraculous quilts. https://www.nytimes.com//de/rosie-lee-tompkins-quilts.html

MAYOR opens tomorrow! This at times absurdist, always eye-opening documentary about the mayor of Ramallah, a Palestinian city surrounded by Israeli settlements, is the best new film about the Israeli- Palestinian conflict (IndieWire). MAYOR: https://buff.ly/2K68B59

Peru has selected Melina León’s debut feature SONG WITHOUT A NAME as its Oscar candidate in the International Feature Film competition. Americas Quarterly writes that the film "captures the human and the political with distinctive formal style, and reveals León as an inspired writer-director. Her film is a chant made of alluring images, giving voice to a tragically unsung lullaby." Rent Now: https://buff.ly/2HNhCii

Happy #ElectionDay! Here at BAMPFA, we're encouraging you to get out and #Vote like your democracy depends on itbecause it does. Visit iwillvote.com for more information on how to cast your ballot.

Happy Monday! Here's a lovely interview in The Daily Californian with BAMPFA's new Associate Curator Elaine Yau, who oversees the massive bequest of African American quilts that recently entered BAMPFA's collection. Dr. Yau co-curated BAMPFA's acclaimed Rosie Lee Tompkins retrospective earlier this year, and she's already hard at work on a new quilt exhibition slated for 2023.

CITY HALL closes tomorrow! Don't miss your last chance to stream Frederick Wiseman's magisterial ode to the city of Boston and its vibrantly diverse communities. Watch it now on BAMPFA's #WatchFromHome page. https://bampfa.org/event/city-hall

SONG WITHOUT A NAME and SUSPENSION will both close on December 20. These two South American films offer extraordinary and complex cinematography. Let your eyes delight in these highly visual and interesting films! SONG WITHOUT A NAME: https://buff.ly/2HNhCii SUSPENSION: https://buff.ly/3j025ZQ

Join the BAMPFA Student Committee for their annual CineSpin! DJ Ryan Shah has played music over BRUSSELS LOOPS, a collection of twenty short films, made for the American Pavilion at the1958 Brussels World's Fair. BRUSSELS LOOPS will be available to stream for FREE for one week only, Nov 1320. There will be a live Q+A with Ryan and members of the BAMPFA SC at 8pm this Friday, Nov 13 - don't miss it! Watch Here: https://buff.ly/2UbFE9C

ICYMI: the New York Times recently sat down with the amazing Barbara Kruger, , one of our favorite artists, and an alum of BAMPFA's MATRIX program. Kruger tells the Times that one of her formative experiences as a young artist was seeing Chantal Akerman's JEANNE DIELMAN at the Pacific Film Archive in 1976.

William Greaves’s documentary, NATIONTIME, captures the energy and urgency of the 1972 National Black Political Convention, where some ten thousand Black politicians, artists, activists, and journalistsincluding Jesse Jackson, Bobby Seale, Betty Shabazz, Dick Gregory, and othersassembled to create a unified Black political agenda. Rent Now: https://buff.ly/3labr6O

CHULAS FRONTERAS & DEL MERO CORAZÓN are closing on November 1. Inducted into the National Film Registry, 1976’s CHULAS FRONTERAS showcases some of the most acclaimed Norteño musicians of the TexasMexico border, with legends such as Narciso Martínez, Flaco Jiménez, and Lydia Mendoza speaking on (and singing of) Tejano life, love, and passion. Released in 1979, DEL MERO CORAZÓN expands the map to California, capturing street murals and the burgeoning La Raza movement to underline the diversity of Chicano music and pride. Watch here: https://buff.ly/3oxHsaW

Our streaming spotlight on Romanian cinema will end on Nov 8. Check out NIKI AND FLO, STUFF AND DOUGH, THE GREAT COMMUNIST BANK ROBBERY, and THE PAPER WILL BE BLUE which are among the best Romanian films made over the last three decades. Watch here: https://buff.ly/2PGQjqs

WOMAN AND THE GLACIER and PICTURE A SCIENTIST (available for 2 days only) open today! Both a part of the Picture a STEMinist series at BAMPFA, these films chronicle the work and challenges of an exceptional array of inspiring women. WOMAN AND THE GLACIER is a magnificent portrait of Lithuanian scientist Aušra Revutaite, who has spent more than thirty-five years on the Tuyuksu glacier in Kazahkstan studying the effects of climate change. PICTURE A SCIENTIST demonstrates the ...toll that discrimination and harassment take on women in the sciences, asking what is lost to scientific progress when the contributions of half the population are discouraged. Watch here: https://buff.ly/2FN6eCf

Just in time for the election, the artist Michele Pred is encouraging us all to #VoteFeminist! Taking place in digital space, the Vote Feminist Parade combines video recordings of two parades performed in New York and Oakland as well as live music performances, participatory singing, guest speakers, and a guided radical love meditation. Join us for this BAMPFA-commissioned work on Sunday at 4 PM. https://bampfa.org/event/livestream-vote-feminist-parade

Did you know that this year marks the 150th anniversary of co-education at UC Berkeley? To celebrate, BAMPFA is hosting a series of virtual screenings of films about women who have overcome obstacles to accomplish incredible feats in science, technology, engineering, and math. #PictureASTEMinist reminds us that brilliant scientists come in all genders. Check it out now in BAMPFA's #WatchFromHome program: https://bampfa.org/watch-from-home/picture-steminist

manitowards the ocean, towards the shore is available to rent TODAY, for one day only! Honoring connections to nature and the cycles of life, Sky Hopinka’s poetic experimental documentary follows two Native Americans from the Pacific Northwest as they share their personal rituals and relationships to life, identity, language, and homeland. RENT NOW: https://buff.ly/3k2Dt2p

If you're looking for a bit of Poetry and Performance this weekend, tune in to watch poet Anne Lesley Selcer and artist Guta Galli present a new multimedia collaboration made for this strange moment. "On the occasion of the cancellation of The Mouth Is Still a Wild Door" streams on Sunday at 7 PM. #MuseumFromHome https://bampfa.org//livestream-guta-galli-and-anne-lesley-

WHITE RIOT opens today! This exuberant account of the 1970s grassroots antifascists behind Rock Against Racism is a welcome tribute to RAR’s first, most vibrant chapteran extraordinary fusion of culture and politics that changed society for the better (GLASS MAGAZINE). Watch here: https://buff.ly/3cRXkzI

BAMPFA is proud to present a new film series, Picture a STEMinist, which starts October 28. Three recent documentariesPICTURE A SCIENTIST, CODED BIAS, and WOMAN AND THE GLACIERchronicle the achievements and challenges of exceptional women working in science and technology. Livestreamed talks with women in STEM will complement each film. Tickets are available for pre-order now! Picture a STEMinist series: https://bampfa.org/watch-from-home/picture-steminist PICTURE A S...CIENTIST: https://bampfa.org/event/picture-scientist CODED BIAS: https://bampfa.org/event/coded-bias WOMAN AND THE GLACIER: https://bampfa.org/event/woman-glacier See more

Highly cinematic and thoughtfully presented, SUSPENSION speaks eloquently to the fraught relationship between humankind and the forces of nature. Filming in southern Colombia, in the Amazon lowlands where the region’s dramatic topography creates a natural barrier to travel, Simón Uribe tells the story of the road leading to Putumayo. In a region prone to floods and landslides, the route is so dangerous that it has earned the unfortunate moniker springboard of death. The con...struction of a new highway bypass is a dream that has been decades in the making, prolonged by backbreaking work and astronomical costs. Amid the never-ending rain, SUSPENSION reveals the ironies of this venture and the human toll it takes. Brilliant cinematography, sound design, and editing enhance a powerful documentary that rewards repeat viewing. Watch here: https://bampfa.org/event/suspension

Known for visually stunning and expansive films and multimedia installations, Isaac Julien has used his art to explore historical figures from the Harlem Renaissance, the 2004 Morecambe Bay migrant-worker tragedy, and contemporary global diasporas. We can't wait to tune in for a livestream conversation with this extraordinary artist, moderated by Leila Weefur of The Black Aesthetic and presented by Berkeley Arts + Design. Check it out this Thursday at noon! https://bampfa.org//isaac-julien-and-leila-weefur-conversa

BAMPFA is taking a look back at a different political season, through the eyes of the Bay Area dissident mediamakers who covered the conventions of 1972. At a time when TV news reporters were weighed down by enormous packs of expensive equipment and gear, this band of "braless, blue-jeaned video freaks," as Newsweek called them, set out to revolutionize not only how to capture the news, but how to reframe the daily news cycle. Featuring guest appearances by everyone from Alle...n Ginsberg to Tricia Nixon to a very young John Lewis, TVTV boldly went where no reporters had gone before. The film FOUR MORE YEARS will be available to stream through BAMPFA from Oct 20-22! Join us Wednesday, Oct 21, at 8:15 PM PDT for a live conversation with TVTV cofounders Allen Rucker and Megan Williams and media curator and writer Steve Seid, plus never-before-seen TVTV outtakes recently restored by BAMPFA. Watch here: https://bampfa.org/event/four-more-years

In honor of National Hispanic and Latinx American Heritage Month, BAMPFA recently took a deep dive into our archives to rediscover some of the rare films, audio recordings, and movie ephemera that illuminate Latin American stories. Catch a glimpse of these remarkable works from our Film Library and Study Center, and check out some of the recent Latin American films in our #WatchFromHome series! https://bampfa.org//shelves-hispanic-and-latinx-collection

EDO AVANT GARDE is available to stream exclusively through BAMPFA! This beautiful examination of the tradition of Japanese folding screen and scroll painting explores the sensuous style and innovative methods of Edo period painting and reveals its influence on Western art. Join us on Sunday, October 18, at 3 PM PDT for a free live conversation and Q&A with director Linda Hoaglund and Harvard University professor Yukio Lippit, an eminent American scholar of Japanese art. ...EDO AVANT GARDE (https://bampfa.org/event/edo-avant-garde) Livestream (https://bampfa.org/event/livestream-edo-avant-garde-qna) See more