Gravitational Lensing: Feminist Film Dialogues
Program 12 - Myths, Tales & the Feminist Unconscious
Presented in association with San Francisco Cinematheque
Friday, October 24, 2025
7pm
Admission: $15 (discount for members)

Myths, legends, folktales and fairytales are all communally-shared stories handed down through generations that attempt to explain the world, answer timeless questions and serve as a moral compass. The films in this program re-cast and re-direct some of these narratives through a contemporary, feminist lens to illuminate new understandings of these otherwise universal tales.

Screening: The Story of Lillith (1997, 16mm film) by Lynne Sachs; Calypso (2021, DV) by Mariangela Ciccarello; Panyen Banbou (2023, DV) by Laïssa Christelle Alexis; Pythoness (1979, 16mm film) by Amy Halpern and elfmädchen (2009, 16mm shown on DV) by Mirka Morales.

Punk Rock Docs - Crime 1978 & Outsider Artists
Presented in partnership with Nixed
Sunday, October 26, 2025
5pm
Admission: $10 (discount for members)

Join us for the first of a series of punk rock documentary films highlighting the origins and legacy of DIY/punk music and culture in the Bay Area and beyond.

We start with San Francisco's First and Only Rock'n'Roll Movie: CRIME 1978 directed by Jon Bastion, a short film built primarily around one, well-documented performance of the San Francisco punk band Crime in June 1978 at Mabuhay Gardens.

Following that we will screen the new feature film Outsider Artists made by Dave and Greg Clifford which looks at the 40-year history of the Irish punk band Paranoid Visions as well as the political and cultural climate from which they emerged and the legacy of the subcultures which surrounded and sustained them.

Read the article by Cat Beckstrand about this program in SF Screen Slate.

Larry Gottheim: Knots & Entanglements
Presented in partnership with San Francisco Cinematheque
Larry Gottheim in person
Friday, November 7, 2025
7pm
Admission: $12 (discount for Shapeshifters & SF Cinematheque members)

Working in film since the late 1960s, the cinema of avant-garde filmmaker Larry Gottheim is an observational cinema, rewarding contemplation, stillness and active intellectual engagement and offering uncannily commonplace imagery rife with elusive metaphor and/or accumulating into densely immersive conceptual conundra. In Gottheim's films, time slows, hesitates and seems to move in novel and non-linear directions, the circularity of experience a recurring aspect of the master filmmaker's rich body of work. Gottheim's recent book, The Red Thread: Larry Gottheim and His Films (published 2024 by Eyewash Books and the Film-Makers' Cooperative) is a ruminative and musing career-spanning culmination, teasing out longitudinal threads and uncanny occurrences in the oeuvre, presenting the artist's body of work as a multi-faceted whole, a throughline of thought and material-based philosophy.

In celebration of this publication, San Francisco Cinematheque is honored to present a three-program residency (in partnership with the Roxie Theater, Gray Area and Shapeshifters Cinema) presenting selections from the artist's vast body of work, from early single-shot films, still lifes and nature studies to the complex sound/image constructions of later work to the very recent films completed 2019–2024.

Cinematheque's whirlwind survey of Gottheim's works wraps at Shapeshifters Cinema with later period films and recent digital videos, each a dense and sensorially confrontational collage of off-the-cuff cinematography and/or collaborative encounter, from "Sorry/Hear Us" (1984), an open-ended group project exploring temporal and linguistic reversal to recent digital works Entanglement (2022) and A Private Room (2024), each a confounding rebus-like audio/visual puzzlement. (Steve Polta)

SCREENING: Thought (1970), "Sorry/Hear Us" (1986). Entanglement (2022). A Private Room (2024).

Composing with Found Sounds
Instructor: Kirk Pearson
Sunday, November 16, 2025
12-4pm
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $55 (Discount for Shapeshifters members)

How can the textures of a city become the basis for composition? This collaborative workshop between Dogbotic Labs and Shapeshifters Cinema invites participants to explore the acoustic life of Oakland through the lens of sound as material. Rather than beginning with instruments, we’ll begin with the act of listening: tracing how the built environment, weather, and human activity form a constantly shifting score around us, and then learn practically how to structure larger musical ideas out of found sounds in ways that are novel and poetic.

Participants will make short field recordings in the neighborhood, guided by prompts that emphasize attention, timing, and perspective. Back at Shapeshifters, we’ll share these recordings and explore simple ways to work with them--cutting, arranging, layering, and using structure to draw out the music already present in the noise.

The workshop is open to anyone interested in sound, whether or not you consider yourself a musician. By the end of the session, we’ll have assembled a collective composition shaped by the city’s own voice, and compiled an impressive sample library of downtown Oakland.

Tangible Media: Magnetic Tape & Creative Reuse
Instructor: John Davis
Sunday, December 14, 2025
12-5pm
In-person at Shapeshifters Cinema
Admission: $60 (+ $25 materials cost) (Discount for Shapeshifters members)
NOTE: Registration will close November 13th to allow us time to purchase materials!

For artists and consumers alike, the rapid shift from analog to digital media platforms over the past few decades presented both an economy of means and a seemingly unlimited range of possibilities. Though some artists, driven perhaps by nostalgia or curiosity, continue to work with obsolete media, inspired by the fundamentally unique materials and aesthetic properties inherent in them.

This workshop, led by musician/filmmaker John Davis, digs into the past to mine some veins of discarded media culture—more specifically, the creative use (and re-use) of magnetic audio tape technology. We'll take a brief look into its history and look at some of the ways the technology has been used creatively and unconventionally. We'll also demonstrate some accessible ways of using the media, while covering practical tips and strategies for sourcing playback and recording machines, new and used tapes, as well as some related tools and equipment. Participants will be encouraged to independently expand on the information provided, as the workshop serves as a jumping off point for those curious about working with magnetic tape for artistic exploration and experimentation.

We are now ¾ of the way through our month-long membership drive, but only ¼ of the way to our $10,000 target. THANK YOU to everyone who has joined or renewed memberships over the past several weeks!!!

As we’ve said many times before, the Shapeshifters Membership Program provides crucial, sustaining support for our small, DIY, volunteer-run organization. 

We strive to make every visit a memorable one in our cozy, community venue where folks can gather together to take in a range of experimental film, video, music, sound and multimedia events. Watch a short sneak peak of what a typical event feels like in our cinema.

Guests will always find snacks and beverages, both hot and cold, available for purchase at all of our events. Along with warm empanadas or freshly baked focaccia, we have a rotating selection of ice-cold beers on tap, made with locally-sourced, seasonal ingredients in our fully-licensed, on-site nano-brewery. Take a look at this short behind the scenes look at how our beers are made.

By joining the Shapeshifters Membership Program, you become part of an engaged, diverse, creative community working in and around experimental moving image, sound and time-based art. In exchange for your generous support, we offer a wellspring of fantastic benefits.

The benefits of being a Shapeshifters ember are many, including:

• 10% discount on tickets, registrations and everything purchased in both the cinema and café (Seer level, $60)

• A special, limited edition beer mug (with original image designed this year by Anna Firth!) + one free beer at every on-site event you attend (Clairvoyant level, $100)

• Shapeshifters T-shirt or tote bag (Conjurer level, $150)

• One free admission to every screening hosted in our cinema (Magus level, $300)

• Named sponsorship of one Shapeshifters Fellow (Shapeshifters level, $500)

Find out more and join now! —> Shapeshifters Membership Program

Antifa Film Screening 2 Call for Submissions. Organizers of the second Antifa Film Screening seek short films (experimental or traditional) with themes of anti-fascist dreams and hopes that show how a world that resists fascism could look like or already does look like. Selected films will screen during the Millennium Film Workshop in person on November 21, 2025. Deadline for submissions is October 26, 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.

Associate Professor of Film & Media, Grinnell College: Grinnell College is currently accepting applications for an Assistant/Associate Professor of Film & Media Studies. The ideal candidate is a scholar who can contribute to the core curriculum and develop new courses in their area of expertise. Deadline for applications is November 17, 2025. Find out more.

Cauldron Film Festival Call for Submissions: Cauldron Film Festival (Salt Lake City) seeks unorthodox film narratives, rogue documentaries, avant-garde cinema, video mashups, abstract video art, genre-bending storytelling of all kinds with an eye towards innovation, iconoclasm, personal visions, and any/all unique motion picture experiences for its next festival happening in Feb/March 2026. Deadline to submit is December 15, 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.

CROSSROADS 2026 Call for Submissions: San Francisco Cinematheque seeks submissions of recent films, videos and works of performance cinema for CROSSROADS 2026, the seventeenth iteration of our annual film festival. CROSSROADS 2026 will be held September 4–6, 2026  at Gray Area/Grand Theater in San Francisco. Early submission deadline is January 31, 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.