CROSSROADS 2026 - Program 1: coming and going / breath by breath
Friday, September 4, 2026 • 7pm
Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, 2665 Mission St. San Francisco
Tickets and more information

Shapeshifters is excited to be the community partner for Program 1 of SF Cinematheque's annual CROSSROADS film festival.

Program 1: No future. Only Now. The pendulum swings. CROSSROADS begins. Eco-punk phytophonics explore a fecund space of life after decay while alchemical excursions through the everyday hauntings of dead media give way to ruminations on pyrophytic transmutations, bio-mystical fables and considerations of the daily and generational rhythms of the textile arts. Deep breaths, heart beats and the incessant tides. This program is dedicated to the memory of filmmaker Sheri Wills (1963–2025).

SCREENING: Phytophonics (2026) by Karel Doing (UK); 16mm screened as digital video, color, sound, 4 minutes. Dialogue of Energies (2026) by J.M. Martínez (US); 16mm screened as digital video, color, silent, 3 minutes. SEAM (2021) by Sheri Wills (US); digital video, color, sound, 4 minutes. The Gloaming (2025) by Charlotte Pryce (US/UK); digital video, color, sound, 14 minutes. Bay Area Sampler Quilt (2026) by Amy Reid (US); digital video, b&w, sound, 10 minutes. Only Now (2025) by Cauleen Smith; digital video, color, sound, 11 minutes. Detritus (2026) by Zuzanna Marczak (Poland) & Deborah S. Phillips (Germany); 16mm, color, sound, 6 minutes. Print from Light Cone. Hiding Places (2025) by Magdalena Bermudez (US); digital video, color, sound, 12 minutes. Aftertide (2025) by Kaiwen Ren (China); digital video, color, sound, 4 minutes. TRT: 68 minutes

Find out more about CROSSROADS 2026

Removal of the Eye by Artemis Shaw & Prashanth Kamalakanthan
Sunday, September 6, 2026 • 2pm
Admission: $15 (discount for members)
The café will be open before the screening for brunch 11am-2pm

Kallia and Ram are at their wits' end with their sleepless baby when they realize Kallia’s Greek mother is on a secret mission to exorcise the family from the evil eye. Trapped between the pressures of new age parenting, old world superstitions, and meddling in-laws, they fight to hold onto their dreams. Filmmakers Shaw and Kamalakanthan turn the lens on themselves and their loved ones—including their actual baby and parents—in this fearless, intimate comedy.

View the trailer here

Cast: Artemis Shaw, Prashanth Kamalakanthan, Katerina Shaw, and Niko Kamalakanthan.
Directed by Artemis Shaw and Prashanth Kamalakanthan.
Running time: 92 minutes

Do-Over Music Series - Trio Z / Brown / Glenn
Thursday, September 10, 2026 (Note special date!) • 7pm
Admission: $10 (discount for members)
The café will be open before the screening, 4-7pm, for Happy Hour!

The Do-Over Music Series at Shapeshifters Cinema, organized by Lisa Mezzacappa and Jordan Glenn, is a monthly series of sound performances presented by a rotating cast of local luminaries and special guests. The first set features performances of creative - improvised - composed - electronic - acoustic - music. The second set opens up to a live improvised collaboration of sound and visuals made using images culled from the Shapeshifters 16mm film collection.

Set 1: 7pm sound performance by: Trio Z

Gianna Caudillo - acoustic bass
Julius Zimmerman - cello
Ali Ziyad - cello

Set 2 (8pm): expanded cinema + improvised music with:

the above artists +
Ari Brown - trumpet
Jordan Glenn - drums
Plus, films, film loops and other visual interventions by the Shapeshifters Performance Group (Ellie, Kathleen & Gilbert)

Gravitational Lensing: Feminist Film Dialogues
Program 17: Family Portraits/Relational Exercises
Presented in association with San Francisco Cinematheque
Friday, September 11, 2026 • 7pm
Admission: $15 (discount for members)
The café will be open before the screening, 4-7pm, for Happy Hour!

Program 17: Family Portraits/Relational Exercises includes a spectrum of diaristic films—from uncanny documentary to autobiographical re-enactments—that manifest different ways filmmakers choose to represent their relationships to family and, more broadly, to home (both literal and conceptual) through cinematic language.

Screening: Objection (1974, 16mm film) by Marjorie Keller, 10:28,30 (2019, 16mm film shown on DV) by Paige Taul, Natural Disasters (2023, DV) by Tiffany Jiang, Les Châssis de Lourdes (2016, super-8 & 16mm film shown on DV) by Rhayne Vermette, Colorin, Colorado (2021, 16mm film shown on DV) by Paula Lovo, Canada (2007, 16mm shown on DV) by Anjali Sundaram, I've known I was a barren woman since the day I was born (2020, DV) by Dillon Chapman, and ML05 and by Susmita Talukdar (2023, DV)

Take note! There are only 7 programs left (including the program listed above) in the Gravitational Lensing: Feminist Film Dialogues series!

Program 18: Navigating/Rejecting Family & Societal Expectations
Program 19: Interior Landscapes & Mental Health
Program 20: Grief, Trauma & Resilience
Program 21: The Limits of Perception
Program 22: Eco-Feminism
Program 23: Matrilineal Lines of Support
(Dates TBA)

Find out more about the Gravitational Lensing series

Uncanny Cabaret III - Variety Show & Fundraiser for Driveway Follies
Saturday, September 26, 2025
5-7pm
Admission: $25-50, sliding scale (All proceeds go to benefit Driveway Follies)
★ The café will be open before the event from 2-5pm ★

Join us to kick off the Halloween season with Uncanny Cabaret III — the third annual multi-media variety show and fundraiser for our friends at Driveway Follies, the long-running and beloved Oakland Halloween puppet show tradition.

This family-friendly event will include live puppet and expanded film performances + recent and historic Halloween-adjacent films by Lydia Greer, Kiera Griffith & Noah Gavrich, David Wallace & Leonara Taylor-Wallace, Kathleen Quillian, Driveway Follies, and more, TBA.

16mm Found Footage Phytography
Instructor: Ellie Vanderlip
Sunday, September 27, 2026 • 12-4pm
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $70 + $10 Materials fee (Discount for Shapeshifters members)

In this special found footage-focused phytography workshop, filmmaker Ellie Vanderlip will demonstrate the phytographic method, a non-toxic process of making imagery by harnessing the chemistry of plant matter. This workshop will also demonstrate how to create inverted transfers of 16mm found footage using the same non-toxic steps, as a unique and striking method for creating experimental prints of existing media. Participants will play with creating patterns with plants, generating experimental prints from found footage materials in the Shapeshifters collection, and combining both plant shape and found image to create interesting visual interplay. Film, processing materials, and found footage will all be provided.

New Member Glasses Have Landed!

Shapeshifters members at the Clairvoyant level and higher get one free beer at every event hosted at Shapeshifters Cinema (and 10% off every beer thereafter) that are served in a special member glass.

The image for this year’s glass (that we are affectionately calling a tall-girl glass) was created by Bay Area illustrator and animator Anna Firth and features a two-sided, interactive design that changes with the level and contents of the glass. Immerse yourself in the magic of this design as faces and shapes appear and disappear! Did that really happen? Have another beer and find out!

If you are currently a Shapeshifters member at the Clairvoyant level or higher, your glass will be waiting for you in the cinema to enjoy your member beer every time you come in for a screening or event. At the end of your membership year, the glass is yours to keep.

Come on by and enjoy your next member beer in this new member glass!

Take a look at all the great perks waiting for you when you join the Shapeshifters Membership Program.

The Shapeshifters shop features a variety of media (LPs, audio cassettes, books, prints, DVDs and more) all made by artists who have presented or performed in our space, and/or that represent and celebrate the spirit of our DIY, creative community.

Recent additions to the Shapeshifters shop include Agnes Martian’s The Future Light Cone audio cassette, Sadie Greyduck’s audio casette baa, Covering the Surface audio cassette by Marcia Bassett & Sergej Vutuc, Lynne Sachs and Lizzie Olezker’s Hand Book: A Manual on Performance, Process, and the Labor of Laundry, Marielle V Jakobson’s Star Core LP and Analog Cookbook, Issue #8: All Recipes.

Take a look at all available items.

ATA Monthly Open Screenings: Artists’ Television Access (ATA), the stalwart experimental microcinema holding ground in SF’s Mission District since 1984, hosts Open Screenings every first Thursday. This free community film/video show welcomes short format work (15 min or less) from all genres made by independent filmmakers, experimental artists, rogue visionaries and inspired tinkerers who work with the moving image. ATA’s Open Screenings happen the first Thursday of every month at 8:00 pm. Entries must be received by 7:00 pm on show night. Find out more.

For Us, By Us SF Filmmaker Incubator: Presented by Filmmakers Collaborative SF and Re-Present Media, the For Us, By Us San Francisco Filmmaker Incubator is a one-year fellowship program that supports a cohort of San Francisco documentary filmmakers from historically marginalized backgrounds who are telling personal stories of communities within the City. Deadline to apply is September 8, 2026. Find out more.

MacDowell Spring/Summer 2027 Residency. MacDowell provides time, space, and an inspiring residential environment to artists of exceptional talent. A MacDowell Fellowship, or residency, consists of exclusive use of a studio, accommodations, and three prepared meals a day for up to eight weeks. MacDowell encourages applications from artists of all backgrounds and all countries in the following disciplines: architecture, film/video, interdisciplinary arts, literature, music composition, theatre, and visual arts. Deadline to apply is September 10, 2026. Find out more.

Leonardo@Djerassi 2027 Open Call for Residents: Residencies at Djerassi (Woodside, CA) are awarded competitively, at no cost, to national and international artists. The Leonardo@Djerassi residency is open to collaborations between artists and scientists who are engaged in research or creative practice within biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, environmental, agricultural, or related scientific fields. Deadline to submit is October 9, 2026. Find out more.

Experiments In Cinema Call for Submissions: Experiments in Cinema (Albuquerque) seeks new and old moving image art that will engage audiences with the magic and wonder that is un-dependent cinema! Submissions might be (but are not limited to) essay films, dance films, film poems, structural films, post-structural films, post-post structural films, underground films, abstract films, experimental narratives, experimental documentaries, video installations, transgressive films, portrait films, political rant films and more. Deadline to submit is November 1, 2026. Find out more.

Cosmic Rays FF Call for Submissions: The Cosmic Rays Film Festival (Chapel Hill, NC) is an annual celebration of short films that expand our idea of what film is and what it can be. The festival presents several programs of short films that are formally inventive, speak with a personal voice, and are inspired by the possibilities of film as art. Deadline to submit is November 16, 2026. Find out more.

Call for submissions, Found Footage Magazine, Issue #13: Found Footage Magazine is an independent film journal devoted to the inventive use of existing images in film & video arts. They are currently accepting submissions for essays, interviews, video-essays, film reviews, and book reviews that explore the inventive ways in which archives and existing images can be reworked and recontextualized through moving image art for the forthcoming issue #13 (2027). Deadline to submit is June 1, 2027. Find out more.