Rotating Signals: The Contemporary Korean Avant-Garde
Friday, September 12, 2025
7pm
Admission: $14 (discount for members)

A program of 10 short films, curated and organized by Joshua Kim, highlighting the current landscape of experimental film in Korea, as well as from those in the Korean diaspora around the world.

SCREENING: A Dark Room (2025, b/w, silent, 10 mins) by Heehyun Choi, Spoken Word (2023, b/w, silent, 4 mins) by Hyoin Kwak, Rotating Signals (2025, color, sound, 10 mins) by Chae Yu, Shadow-Forest (2025, color, sound, 28 mins) by Go-Eun Im, Long Sand and Water (2023, color, silent, 5 mins) by Hyeisoo Kim & Luuk Schröder, Bye, Snark, Boo-Jum! (2024, b/w, silent, 8 mins) by Jiyong In, Geomeunyeo (2025, b/w, sound, 3 mins) by Kyujae Park, Pyohaerok (2025, color, silent, 14 mins) by Il-hwan, Buseok (2024, b/w + color, silent, 18 mins) by Kyujae Park, Lord (2024, color, silent, 14 mins) by Chul-woong Jang

Intermodal – Madison Brookshire & Robert Blatt
Sunday, September 14, 2025
7pm
Admission: $10-20 sliding scale (discount for members)

Working between experimental music and expanded cinema, in their first collaborative performance SF-based artist/composer/writer Robert Blatt and LA-based filmmaker/painter/performer Madison Brookshire explore dynamic relationships of color and harmony, movement and stillness, and audio and visual forms of field recording.

Program will include No. 4 by Madison Brookshire (2022, 16mm film), Untitled (Resonance) by Robert Blatt (2025, Five tuned pipes, field recordings, and electronics), Pandemonium by Madison Brookshire (2025, audio-visual field recording + digital video), Untitled (Close Position) by Robert Blatt (2024, audio casette decks, audio cassettes + electric guitar)

STUDIO 8 Film Festival – Opening Night Shorts Program
Organized by the SF Artists Alumni
Friday, September 19, 2025
7pm
Admission: $10-50, sliding scale

The second edition of the STUDIO 8 Film Festival celebrates experimental film and animation by alumni of the San Francisco Art Institute. Kicking off the festival weekend is a dynamic program of nonfiction and experimental works, curated by SFAI alumni artists April September and Rye Purvis, exploring themes of performance, queer identity, and artistic legacy. The selected films illustrate how experimental filmmaking continues to serve as an essential tool for engaging with personal, cultural and societal issues by challenging dominant narratives, setting the stage for a weekend rooted in risk-taking and radical imagination.

SCREENING: The World is Not Our Home by Juan Luis Matos, estos paisajes nos están encendiendo by Daniel Melo Morales, Fogline by Julie McNiel, Shi Arl by Arlene Bowman, Set You Free by Nykelle Devivo, Sasquatch, so confusing by Rye Purvis, La Nueva Ola de Añil by Karla Claudio, TABLEAU by Nao Bustamante.

For more information about the festival, visit:www.sfartistsalumni.org

Donald Beaman, Sean Forth & Hollyfrancis
Saturday, September 20, 2025
7pm
Admission: $10 (discount for members)

"Donald Beaman...conjures up a twilit landscape with shimmering guitars, clever-but-not-fussy arrangements and vocals that recall the enigmatic lilts of Cass McCombs and Will Oldham…in the classic folk/rock/country vein, while still feeling absolutely fresh...quietly gorgeous…filled with empathy and warmth. — Aquarium Drunkard

"Hollyfrancis is performing as a 2 piece, featuring pedal steel and harmonica. Based out of Oakland, CA, their sound draws from their Appalachian roots, country twang, and rock n roll. Somewhere in the mix of Neil Young, Pavement, and Wilco, they focus on combining melody and softness with grit and cathartic release." — some guy

"Sean Forth is a singer songwriter currently living in the santa cruz mountains. Sean brings a catalog of songs based off his own experiences which he blankets on top of his freak folk country blues style guitar picking" — not Sean

Uncanny Cabaret II - Variety Show & Fundraiser
Saturday, September 27, 2025
5-7pm
Admission: $25-50, sliding scale (All proceeds go to benefit Driveway Follies)

As summer turns to fall and the days grow shorter, we can only think of one thing - Halloween! Join us to kick off the season with Uncanny Cabaret II — a special 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 performances by Driveway Follies, Risa Lenore (of Possibly Puppets), and David Wallace & Leonora Taylor-Wallace, along with expanded film performances by Lydia Greer and Kathleen Quillian + Two turn-of-the century stop-motion haunted house films with live music performed by Renée Delores & Owen Caraway as well as short films by Mary Ellen Bute, David Sherman and Lawrence Jordan.

Gravitational Lensing: Feminist Film Dialogues
Program 11 - Relative Positions | Unmapping Lineages
Presented in association with San Francisco Cinematheque
Sunday, September 28, 2025
7pm
Admission: $15 (discount for members)

By deconstructing ties to family, culture and geographical origins, the films in this program create new navigational charts—triangulating between points known and points unknown—to find paths that lead toward the discovery of the self.

Screening: Incantation (2021, DV) by Kalpana Subramanian; Hair (2023, Super-8 film shown on DV) by Sara Alghesheyan, Mudra (Yearning to be Loved) (2023, DV) by Meghana Bisineer; Kolmas Punkt (The Third Point) (2019, 16mm shown on DV) by Alina Taalman; Everything in our house did not seem to fit (2023, Super-8 film shown on DV) by Alicia Abieyuwa Bergamelli; Can You Carry Me? (2023, 16mm film shown on DV) by Tess Meersman; Dandelions (1995, 16mm film shown on DV) by Dawn Wilkinson; Range (2005, 16mm film) by Bill Basquin, and Navajo Talking Picture (1986, 16mm film shown on DV) by Arlene Bowman

Find out more about the Gravitational Lensing: Feminist Film Dialogues series.

The Tactile Diary - A Personal Filmmaking Workshop
Instructor: Ellie Vanderlip
Sunday, October 5, 2025
12-6pm
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $70 + $10 for materials (Discount for Shapeshifters members)

Filmmaker (and Shapeshifters Director of Education & Outreach) Ellie Vanderlip hosts The Tactile Diary, a filmmaking workshop dovetailing on two recent programs of the Gravitational Lensing: Feminist Film Dialogues series—Program 10: Craft, Ritual, and Tradition and Program 11: Relative Positions | Unmapping Lineage—featuring a guest presentation by filmmaker (and Gravitational Lensing Co-Curator) Amy Reid on her latest film projects documenting quilters and quilting.

Explore personal filmmaking from the direct to the abstract in this afternoon of screenings, reflection, and analog filmmaking to help you jumpstart a personal film project, or simply brainstorm about possibilities. We will discuss the feminist history and relevance of the diary film and how artists have used film to explore a range of topics with all the dimensions inherent to the medium, including the film's surface, chemistry and ability to capture both narrative and abstract images and concepts. We will explore animating the personal paper and/or film archive as well as chemigrams, photograms and a range of material cinema techniques from painting and scratching the film surface to altering found and photographed images in order to tell intimate/personal/human-scale stories.

Materials will be provided, though it is recommended that attendees arrive with a few personal concepts to explore, as well as any personal paper, photographic, or moving image material they may want to engage with.

San Francisco International Film Festival Call for Submissions: Submissions are now being accepted for the 69th San Francisco International Film Festival scheduled for April 23–May 3, 2026. Works in all genres, forms, and lengths are considered. Early submission deadline is September 26, 2025. Find out more.

San Francisco Underground Short Film Festival Call for Submissions: Media Meltdown are resurrecting the San Francisco Underground Short Film Festival at the 4 Star Theater this November! SFUSF is a punk rock phantasmagoria, lifting up local, no budget, no-holds barred films. From bizarro B-films to midnight movie trash, they want to see your silly, your subversive, your surreal, and your strange, regardless of budget or experience level. Deadline to submit is September 30, 2025. Find out more.

PRISME #8 Call for Submissions: PRISME – Argentique du futur, the annual film festival organized by Mire Artist Film Lab aims to highlight inventive and engaging contemporary analog works made with Super 8, 16 or 35mm film. PRISME #8 will take place in Nantes, France February 26-March 1, 2026. Deadline to submit is October 1, 2025. Find out more.

Wide Open Experimental Film Festival 2026 Call for Submissions: WOEFF 2026 is seeking submissions for screenings in Spring 2026 in Oklahoma City. Organized by the Film Department at Oklahoma City University, WOEFF is looking for anything that falls under the broad umbrella of “experimental film,” including unusual techniques, fringe topics, edge cases, longing outsiders and fed-up insiders, films that break machines, films that channel rage onto celluloid, films that quietly observe, films that chaotically invent. Deadline to submit is October 15, 2025. Find out more.

Experiments in Cinema Call for Submissions: Experiments in Cinema seeks submissions for the next edition of EIC (v21.5) happening in Albuquerque, NM April 16-19, 2026. Deadline to submit is November 1, 2025. Find out more.

Cosmic Rays Film Festival Call for Submissions: The Cosmic Rays Film Festival 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 made by filmmakers from North Carolina and around the world that are formally inventive; speak with a personal voice; and are inspired by the possibilities of film as art. Deadline for submissions is November 16th, 2025. Find out more.

Single Frame Call for Submissions: Single Frame has opened up its call for entries of experimental documentary shorts under 20 minutes for its 5th annual event happening on April 19, 2026 at UNEXPOSED, a microcinema facilitating the growth of experimental and avant-garde film in the Triangle, NC. Deadline to submit is January 1, 2026. Find out more.

Found Footage Magazine Call for Submissions: Authors are invited to submit essays, interviews, video-essays, film and book reviews for Found Footage Magazine, Issue #12. Deadline to submit is June 1, 2026. Find out more.