Today's Film Programs

Current Film Series

	Howard Hawks: The Measure of Man January 13 - April 17 “What one loves most about Hawks, finally, is the aliveness of so many of his people” (Robin Wood). Howard Hawks, one of the most-loved directors of classical Hollywood cinema, made films in almost every genre—screwball comedies, dramas, gangster films, action adventures, Westerns, science fiction, musical comedies—and left his distinctive mark on each. Our series, which continues through mid-April, surveys the full range of Hawks’s career, including his rarely screened silents.
	Film 50: History of Cinema, Film and the Other Arts January 18 - April 25 A UC Berkeley course open to the public as space permits, Film 50: History of Cinema takes as its theme this semester films that make prominent use of another art form: theater, literature, painting, dance, music, architecture, or photography. Each screening is presented with a lecture by Marilyn Fabe (Department of Film and Media). SERIES IS SOLD OUT. A limited number of rush tickets may available at the box office before each screening.
	Austere Perfectionism: The Films of Robert Bresson January 19 - February 25 This complete retrospective of French director Robert Bresson’s fourteen films—austere and controlled, yet replete with compassion—reveals the beauty and perfectionism of his singular body of work. “Bresson touched something very close to the bone of what French cinema is about; ultimately he defined it” (Olivier Assayas).
	Documentary Voices January 25 - April 18 Focusing on the past and the present of documentary filmmaking, this series is presented in conjunction with the UC Berkeley course History of Documentary Film. The January/February lineup spotlights PFA’s recent preservation of David Holzman’s legendary cinéma vérité film and an innovative array of recent documentary animations , including a program of shorts, The Green Wave, and Kongo. The series continues in March and April with additional programs that explore new directions in documentary film.
	African Film Festival 2012 January 26 - February 29 This year’s edition of our annual African Film Festival spans the globe to feature new voices from Africa and the African diaspora, spotlighting pool attendants in Chad, Beethoven lovers in Kinshasa, Tuareg immigrants in Italy, a Spanish filmmaker in Morocco, and even two African American hipsters in San Francisco.
	Dizzy Heights: Silent Cinema and Life in the Air February 23 - February 26 Copresented by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, this series explores the intersection of silent cinema and aviation. It was film that first allowed moviegoers to vicariously experience flight. The screen was alive with speculations on how life might be lived in a futuristic world of airplanes, spaceships, and dirigibles. Above all, these films savor a new way of seeing: the aerial view. All programs feature live musical accompaniment.

Upcoming Film Series

	Dark Past: Film Noir by German Emigrés March 1 - April 15 Hollywood was the great beneficiary of the exodus of filmmakers from Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s. Directors such as Otto Preminger, Max Ophuls, Douglas Sirk, Billy Wilder, and Fritz Lang skillfully transformed the low-budget B-movie into what we now call film noir. Characterized by brooding urban cityscapes distilled from German Expressionism, the eight films in this series are also permeated by the feeling that no one can shake their dark past.
	The Library Lover: The Films of Raúl Ruiz March 2 - April 15 Surreal, hilarious cerebral, surprising, entertaining—the films of Chilean director Raúl Ruiz are unlike anything else in contemporary cinema. We present eight films (plus one short) by the celebrated filmmaker, who died last year. A self-proclaimed “library lover,” Ruiz often adapted his films from literary sources; our series includes Ruiz’s artful adaptations of Proust, Klossowski, Kafka, Dante, and others.
	Afterimage: James Ivory, Three Films from Novels March 3 - April 7 Our tribute to director James Ivory focuses on Merchant-Ivory adaptations of contemporary American novels: Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, from the books by Evan. S. Connell), Le Divorce (based on local author Diane Johnson’s novel of manners), and A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries (a saga of expatriate life in Paris adapted from Kaylie Jones’s autobiographical novel). We are delighted that director James Ivory will join us in person for a conversation with renowned essayist Phillip Lopate about the art of transforming novels into films after the screening on April 7. Lopate will also introduce Chekhov for Children, a documentary recounting the impact of his projects as a writer in the New York City public schools.
	A Tribute to José Saramago (1922–2010) March 4 - March 4 Join us for a special screening of José and Pilar, a 2010 portrait film from director Miguel Gonçalves Mendes that focuses on the Nobel Prize–winning Portuguese novelist and playwright José Saramago.
	San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival March 9 - March 17 Join us for the thirtieth San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, featuring films from China, the Philippines, New Zealand, Cambodia, South Korea, the United States, and even a rarity from Burma.
	Special Event: Kevin Brownlow on Napoleon March 30 - March 30 We are pleased to welcome esteemed film historian Kevin Brownlow to the PFA Theater for an illustrated talk on the restoration of Abel Gance’s epic 1927 film Napoleon. Copresented with the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.
	Costume Designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis, Behind the Scenes: The Art and Craft of Cinema April 5 - April 6 Acclaimed costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis (Raiders of the Lost Ark; Michael Jackson’s Thriller; The Blues Brothers) takes us behind the scenes of Hollywood costume design, with an illustrated talk followed by a screening of ¡Three Amigos! (with Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Martin Short), one of the many films she has made with her husband, director John Landis. The next evening fellow costume designer Aggie Guerard Rodgers joins Landis in conversation, following a screening of American Graffiti, the quintessential teen movie set in 1962, for which Rodgers designed the costumes.
	Cine/Spin April 12 - April 12 Cal DJs spinning solo or in teams take on silent and silenced films from the PFA Collection: Jean Cocteau’s The Blood of a Poet and surprise surreal shorts. Join us for this BAM/PFA tradition. Presented with the BAM/PFA Student Committee.
	55th San Francisco International Film Festival @ BAM/PFA April 20 - May 3 In late April, BAM/PFA becomes the East Bay venue for the San Francisco International Film Festival. Check back on March 27 for the complete program of SFIFF films screening at the PFA Theater. h 30.