Founded by filmmaker Bruce Baillie in 1961, San Francisco Cinematheque is the Bay Area’s premier venue for avant-garde/experimental, underground and personally expressive film, video and performance cinema. CROSSROADS, now in its seventh year, is Cinematheque’s annual film festival, curated by Artistic Director Steve Polta. Running April 1–3 at the historic Victoria Theatre located in San Francisco’s Mission District, CROSSROADS 2016 will present 75 films, videos and performance works by 71 filmmakers from around the world, screened over 9 programs.
Highlights of this year’s festival include:
- An encore presentation of Khalik Allah’s Field Niggas, a luminous, ennobling, troubled and masterful meditation on night life on the streets of Harlem, screening along side the silent 1948 masterpiece, In the Street by James Agee, Helen Levitt and Janice Loeb
- World premieres of films by filmmakers Craig Baldwin, Susan DeLeo, Dana Berman Duff, Janie Geiser, Ariana Gerstein, Jason Halprin, Janis Crystal Lipzin, Jonathan Schwartz and Karly Stark.
- Local and U.S. premieres of films by filmmakers Michael Betancourt, Stephen Broomer, Peter Burr, Lana Z Caplan, Yin-Ju Chen, Olivia Ciummo, Paul Clipson, Pierre Yves Clouin, Josh Gibson, Bettina Hoffmann, Nishat Hossain, Jamie Hull, Zach Iannazzi, Karen Johannesen, William E. Jones, JeanPaul Kelly, Anna Kipervaser, Meredith Lackey, Emmanuel Lefrant, Laida Lertxundi, Péter Lichter, Simon Liu, Jesse Malmed, Julie Murray, Azadeh Navai, Zack Parinella, Kristin Reeves, Ben Rivers, Michael Robinson, Ben Russell, Daïchi Saïto, Coral Short, April Simmons, Barbara Sternberg, Mike Stoltz, Takahiro Suzuki, Mont Tesprateep Robert Todd, Heather Trawick, Blake Williams, Tzu-An Wu and Karen Yasinsky.
- Apparent Motion: A live cinema performance event featuring local artists Tommy Becker; Kris T. Force; The Freddy McGuire Show (Anne McGuire & John Liedecker—aka Wobbly) featuring Bill Thibault; and, from Chicago, kludge/glitch technophilia-phobiac Jon Satrom.