Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive

Have you voted yet?

Powerful works by Lena Wolff and Hope Meng, Kathryn Andrews, and Michele Pred—on view on our outdoor screen—remind us all to make our voices heard at the ballot box.

‼️Polls close Tuesday, November 5 at 8 PM.

😎 The winter film program is here—starting off in December with tributes to Austrian director G. W. Pabst and beloved Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni.

Special guests this season include Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa and guest curator Jenni Olson—who is back with a second installment of her wildly popular Masc series.

And for an extra special (7.5-hour) cinematic treat, the 35mm print of Béla Tarr’s SÁTÁNTANGÓ—struck from the original camera negative—is coming out of the vault.

➡️ bampfa.org/film

Member-exclusive presale begins Wednesday, November 6 at 11 AM. Tickets for the general public go on sale Friday, November 8 at 11 AM. Not yet a member? Join today at bampfa.org/member.

This November, we're paying tribute to the legendary filmmaker Sergei Parajanov, who created an extraordinary body of work despite his constant struggle against Soviet authorities.

His films, like the visually stunning THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES, are full of symbolic imagery and mythical allusions that celebrate the history and culture of Armenia, Georgia, and Ukraine.

📽️Upcoming Screenings:
Nov 1 @ 7 PM – The Color of Pomegranates
Nov 3 @ 4:30 PM – Sergei Parajanov: The Rebel
Nov 10 @ 12 PM – The Color of Pomegranates
Nov 15 @ 7 PM – Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors
Nov 17 @ 2 PM – The Legend of Suram Fortress
Nov 22 @ 7 PM – Ashik Kerib

🎟️ https://bampfa.org/program/sergei-parajanov-centennial-celebration

Pro tip: special screenings at BAMPFA are the best way to see newly-restored classics and exciting new releases on the big screen 💖

Coming up next month 👇
Oct 31 @ 7 PM; Nov 17 @ 4 PM; Nov 29 @ 5:30 PM – Le samouraï
Nov 15 @ 4:30 PM & Nov 29 @ 3 PM – Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus
Nov 23 @ 3:30 PM – The Stranger and the Fog
Nov 24 @ 2 PM – Seven Samurai

🎟️ https://bampfa.org/program/special-screenings

A quick sneak peek before the big day 👀

"Making Their Mark," the acclaimed exhibition of pathbreaking women artists, opens tomorrow with a FREE community day celebration.

BAMPFA members and UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff, stop by 1–7 PM today for an exclusive preview! Not yet a member? Join today at bampfa.org/member

➡️ bampfa.org/making-their-mark

BAMPFA is the place to be this weekend!

"Making Their Mark," the acclaimed exhibition of pathbreaking women artists, opens to the public this Sunday with a FREE community day celebration. Art collector Komal Shah and co-curators Cecilia Alemani and Margot Norton will give a special talk at 4 PM—offering an inside look into the genesis of this important exhibition.

Previews for BAMPFA members and UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff begin at 1 PM on Saturday.

➡️ https://bampfa.org/making-their-mark

The BAMPFA Film Library holds nearly 8,000 movie posters, from the early 1900s to the present.

A set of rare French posters from this collection, which once decorated the Gund Theater in BAMPFA's former building, is now on view in our Reading Room. ❤️

Starting tomorrow: a rare look at contemporary Cuban cinema and the Cuban filmmakers sustaining a national cinema while living in exile.

Our latest film series, curated by filmmaker and UC Berkeley PhD candidate Lázaro González, brings together award-winning contemporary films—from narratives, to documentaries, to avant-garde works—that explore themes of dislocation, melancholy and nostalgia.

📽️Upcoming Screenings:
Oct 23 @ 7 PM – Landrián
Oct 24 @ 7 PM – Landrián Restored
Oct 26 @ 7 PM – Cuban Contemporary Short Films I: Dreaming of a Nation
Oct 27 @ 7 PM – Wild Woman
Nov 2 @ 7 PM – Cuban Contemporary Short Films II: Voices of Displacement
Nov 3 @ 2 PM – Calls from Moscow
Nov 16 @ 7 PM – Mafifa

➡️ https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/10/22/cuban-film-festival-opens-at-bampfa

Experience the star-studded hits of '90s Hong Kong cinema in the BAMPFA theater: action films, romantic comedies, glorious tearjerkers, and screwball comedies.

Your guide will be Paul Fonoroff, a film critic who played cameo roles in all the films we're playing! He will introduce each screening and share behind-the-scenes stories of the making of the films and of the era itself.

📽️Upcoming Screenings:
Oct 17 @ 7 PM – The Sea Is Calling
Oct 19 @ 7 PM – Once Upon a Time in China II
Oct 20 @ 7 PM – Alan and Eric: Between Hello and Goodbye
Oct 25 @ 7 PM – Now You See Love, Now You Don’t
Oct 27 @1 PM – Lawyer Lawyer

🎟️ https://bampfa.org/program/hong-kong-cinema-paul-fonoroff

🏗️"Making Their Mark" is coming soon!

Featuring over 70 works by pathbreaking women artists, the acclaimed exhibition opens at BAMPFA on Sunday, October 27 with a FREE Community Day!

➡️ https://bampfa.org/making-their-mark

🎸🎶🎞️ CineSpin is back! This Friday, the BAMPFA Student Committee is hosting their annual night of FREE music and film!

The chilling 1920s classic, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI—a tale of mind control and murder—will be brought to life with a live original score performed by experimental musician and free improvisation enthusiast Aidan Latham!

Free tickets will be available at the BAMPFA admissions desk starting at 6 PM—an hour before the event.

➡️ https://bampfa.org/event/cinespin

Did you know? Rose D'Amato's Art Wall—which currently graces our Crane Forum—is inspired by a 1930s hand-painted Chevy billboard that was recently uncovered in San Francisco.

Fittingly, she enlisted a group of Bay Area sign painters to help make her contemporary tribute to the classic sign a reality.

[BTS 📸: Rose D'Amato]

Are you ready for another week of the Mill Valley Film Festival at BAMPFA?

Through Sunday, watch the best new releases from around the world in our theater and meet the filmmakers behind these incredible works!

Oct 10 @ 7 PM – Milonga (Laura González in Person)
Oct 11 @ 4:30 PM - Brief History of a Family
Oct 11 @ 7 PM – Armand
Oct 12 @ 1:30 PM – Democracy Noir (Connie Field in Person)
Oct 12 @ 4:30 PM – Dahomey
Oct 12 @ 7 PM – All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia in Person)
Oct 13 @ 1 PM – Homegrown (Michael Premo and Rachel Falcone in Person)
Oct 13 @ 4 PM – Queens (Klaudia Reynicke-Candeloro in Person)
Oct 13 @ 7 PM – Blitz

🎟️ https://bampfa.org/program/mill-valley-film-festival

Don't forget: our members receive a discount on all Mill Valley Film Festival screenings. Check recent BAMPFA emails for your promo code!

‼️Now open: "Abounaddara: The Ruins We Carry"

The exhibition highlights the work of Abounaddara—an anonymous collective of artists documenting life amid the Syrian civil war—and features the world premiere of "The Imagemaker" a video installation exploring the necessity of art at a time of catastrophe.

To mark the opening, tonight @ 7 PM we are screening Aboundarra's short films in our main theater, followed by a conversation with Aboundarra representative Charif Kiwan and the exhibition curators.

You can also catch some of the films in our small theater during the run of the exhibition. On Saturdays and Sundays, a program of Aboundarra's work will play on loop throughout the day.

➡️ https://bampfa.org/program/abounaddara-ruins-we-carry

What do Eva Hesse's latex sculptures have to say about aging? How does Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's video work reflect on the loss of her mother tongue?

Join one of our regularly scheduled tours of "To Exalt the Ephemeral: The (Im)permanent Collection" for a deep dive into the ways artists explore and celebrate impermanence in their work.

🔎 Upcoming Tours:
Sun, Oct 6 @ 2 PM
Wed, Oct 9 @ 12:15 PM
Sun, Oct 13 @ 2 PM
Wed, Oct 16 @ 12:15 PM
Sun, Oct 20 @ 2 PM
Wed, Oct 23 @ 12:15 PM
Wed, Oct 30 @ 12:15 PM

➡️ https://bampfa.org/program/exalt-ephemeral-impermanent-collection

📍BODY FREEDOM FOR EVERY(BODY) has made a stop at BAMPFA!

The 27-box truck is a FREE touring exhibition featuring the work of over 100 artists addressing reproductive justice, q***r liberation, and trans joy.

Stop by the truck on Oxford St (between Center and Addison) until 7 PM today to check it out!

➡️ https://bampfa.org/event/body-freedom-everybody-tour-stop

🥳 Happy Mill Valley Film Festival week 1️⃣

We're starting off strong with award-winning new releases from the UK, Zambia, Iran, the US, and South Korea 🌎

Oct 4 @ 7 PM – Bird
Oct 5 @ 4:30 PM - On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Oct 5 @ 7 PM – The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Oct 6 @ 3:30 PM – Oceania: Journey to the Center
Oct 6 @ 6 PM – A Traveler’s Needs

🎟️ https://bampfa.org/program/mill-valley-film-festival

Don't forget: our members receive a discount on all MVFF screenings. Check recent BAMPFA emails for your promo code!

This Free First Thursday: free gallery admission, free art programs, and a free film screening 👇

🖼️ 11 AM–7 PM: All galleries open, including Rose D’Amato's Art Wall and Young Joon Kwak's MATRIX exhibition

🎨 11 AM–7 PM: Art Lab is open for drop-in art making! Visitors of all ages welcome

🔎 1:15 PM: Exhibition tour of our latest collection show, "To Exalt The Ephemeral"

🚚 2 PM–7 PM: The BODY FREEDOM FOR EVERY(BODY) tour makes a stop at BAMPFA! The 27-foot box truck features work of 100+ artists on themes of Reproductive Justice, Q***r Liberation, and Trans Joy

📽️ 7 PM: Screening of REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES (tickets available at the admissions desk from 6 PM on a first-come, first-served basis)

➡️ bampfa.org/calendar

One month to go! "Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection" opens at BAMPFA on Sunday, October 27 with a FREE Community Day!

Features over 70 artworks by trailblazing woman across almost 8 decades—from the postwar era to the present—the exhibition celebrates artists who challenged conventions and defied the historically patriarchal boundaries of art.

➡️ https://bampfa.org/making-their-mark

Images:
1. Sarah Sze: Crisscross, 2021. Photo by Daniel Spizzirri.
2. Emma Amos: Star, 1982. Photo by Ian Reeves. © 2024 Emma Amos / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
3. Barbara Chase-Riboud: Malcom X #17, 2016. Photo by Alex Marks

✨ Family Movie Matinees are back ✨

Enjoy classic films on the big screen and rediscover the simple pleasure of a Saturday afternoon at the movies with loved ones.

📽️Upcoming Screenings:
Sep 28 @ 3:30 PM – Microcosms
Oct 19 @ 3:30 PM – Kirikou and the Sorceress
Nov 30 @ 3:30 PM – The Wizard of Oz

🎟️ bampfa.org/matinees or link in bio

Celebrate freedom at BAMPFA this election season!

Starting October 1 we're featuring work by Kathryn Andrews, Michele Pred, and Lena Wolff and Hope Meng on our giant outdoor screen.

These works address the gender disparity among US presidents and encourage viewers to make their voices heard at the ballot box in support of urgent issues: reproductive freedom, gun reform, trans rights, women's rights, environmental justice, and democracy at large.

The three works will be on a loop, showing every 30 minutes on the hour and half hour.

➡️ bampfa.org/exhibitions

This weekend: Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy presented by leading man James Duval!

Classics of the New Q***r Cinema movement, these films capture the punk rebelliousness of ‘90s youth culture in a tangle of sharply drawn stories about SoCal teenagers navigating relationships, drug trips, and good and bad s*x.

All three films will screen in newly restored versions, breathing fresh life into a triptych that for years was available only in low-res video transfers.

📽️Upcoming Screenings:
Sep 28 @ 5:30 PM – Totally F***ed Up
Sep 28 @ 8 PM – The Doom Generation
Sep 29 @ 7 PM – Nowhere

🎟️ https://bampfa.org/program/gregg-arakis-teen-apocalypse-trilogy

BAMPFA is premiering "The Imagemaker," a new film installation from Abounaddara, an anonymous collective of artists from Syria best known for documenting daily life during the Syrian civil war.

The installation centers on the last practitioner of the art of stamped cloth in Damascus and explores how creative acts can give new meaning to ruins.

"The Imagemaker" opens October 9

➡️ https://bampfa.org/program/abounaddara-ruins-we-carry

Find the healing power of your voice! ❤️‍🩹

Join vocalist, composer, and sound meditation practitioner Odeya Nini this Sunday for a vocal embodiment practice and sound meditation workshop.

Explore the deep, resonant tones in your voice and feel sounds in community, connecting to something greater that flows through all of us.

➡️ https://bampfa.org/event/healing-voice-deep-release-odeya-nini