Do-Over Music Series - Romus / O'Kane / Ewing / Robinson / Glenn
Thursday, August 7, 2025
7pm
Admission: $10 (discount for members)

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): Rent Romus & Suki O'Kane

Rent Romus - reeds
Suki O'Kane - percussion

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

Rob Ewing - trombone
Kevin Robinson - saxophones
Jordan Glenn- drums
Films, film loops and other visual interventions by the Shapeshifters Performance Group (Ellie, Kathleen & Gilbert)

Gravitational Lensing: Feminist Film Dialogues
Program 10 - Craft, Tradition & Ritual
Presented in association with San Francisco Cinematheque
Friday, August 22, 2025
7pm
Admission: $15 (discount for members)

Films that honor personal and familial legacies by focusing on the repetitive motions and gestures usually attributed to “women’s work” including sewing, gathering, crafting, weaving and decorating.

Screening: On the Inside We Are Color (16mm film shown on DV) by Elena Pardo, Water Ritual #1 (1979, 16mm film shown on DV) by Barbara McCullough, Primitiva (2023, 16mm film shown on DV) by Azucena Losana, Thread (2022, 35mm film shown on DV) by Abigail Smith, Nana (2021, DV) by Kani Kamil, Le Tarantole Dormono Sotto Le Pietre (2023, 16mm film shown on DV) by Giada Cicchetti and Seeing Her (2020, 16mm film shown on DV) by Lindsay McIntyre.

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

Film Editing Basics in Shotcut
Instructor: David Cox
Sunday, July 27, 2025
12-5pm
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $60 (Discount for Shapeshifters members)

Using freely-available content from the Internet, filmmaker David Cox will teach the basics of Shotcut, a free video editing tool that runs on Mac OS, Windows, or Linux. The workshop will cover continuity editing (standard narrative film cutting), montage editing (making montage sequences), and compositing skills, as well as match cuts, eyelines, cutting on action, and use of sound/dialog cutting to improve continuity. Students will need to bring their own laptop, and where possible external storage (2 or more gb).

Cel Jam
Instructor: Anna Firth
Sunday, August 3, 2025
12-5pm
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $75 (Discount for Shapeshifters members and students)

Try your hand at handmade animation in this all-levels workshop with Oakland-based experimental animator, Anna Firth. Part history lesson and part materials exploration, participants are invited to paint a simple scene, one transparent layer at a time, to contribute to a greater group vision. We will use a slightly DIY approach using supplies you can easily source from local craft stores so you can continue to paint cel beyond the workshop. All materials provided and any level of experience welcome! Feel free to bring any of your favorite materials (collage/drawing/photos/etc.) to customize your background art.

CCI Investing in Artists Grant: The Center for Cultural Innovation's Investing in Artists: Artistic Innovation program supports diverse, Bay Area working artists who are developing new work in the performing or media arts that pushes the envelope of their creative process, explores new artistic collaborations, and/or supports artistic growth and experimentation that extends the boundaries of their art-making. Artists living and working in San Mateo, Santa Clara, or Santa Cruz County are elligible for this round of funding. Deadline for applications is July 25, 2025. Find out more.

Images Festival Call for Submissions: Images Festival (Toronto, Canada) showcases the intersection of emerging and established practices and invites open critical dialogue in the film and media arts community around the political herstories of moving image production, distribution, exhibition, and representation. The next Images Festival is scheduled to take place April 1-9, 2026. Deadline to submit is July 31, 2025. Find out more.

Ann Arbor Film Festival Early Bird Submissions: The submission window is now open for experimental, animation, documentary, fiction, and performance-based works for the 64th annual Ann Arbor Film Festival, the oldest avant-garde and experimental film festival in North America. Early Bird deadline is July 31, 2025. Find out more.

Kinesthetic Cinema Call for Submissions: Artists are invited to submit works of “kinesthetic” or, interactive media that invites audiences to kinesthetically engage and/or participate beyond a single-channel theater-viewing experience. This open call welcomes film, video, and/or performance works that prompt or engage the viewer kinesthetically–through spoken word, sound, song, gesture, or full-body movement for a program that will be curated by Kym McDaniel that will be exhibited at the Wexner Center for the Arts in September 2025. Deadline to submit is September 1, 2025. Find out more.