HOME


CALENDAR

ABOUT OC

OCD STORE

OTHERZINE

FILMOGRAPHY

LINKS

CONTACT

OLD SITE
Welcome to our ongoing series of experimental cinema in San Francisco.
We show films every Saturday at ATA Gallery, 992 Valencia (@ 21st).
SHOWTIME 8:00pm. ALWAYS FREE BOOKS, VINYL, VHS, AND WINE.
TAKE BACK THE PEOPLE's MUSIC!
FEB. 10: JESSE AND GLENDA DREW: OPEN COUNTRY + MUSICAL SAW +

Open Country is a journey into the roots of American Country music, reclaiming it as the creative musical expression of working people of all colors. Through archival clips, graphic artistry, contemporary interviews and performances, it re-positions Country into its rightful place as a people’s music. Featured artists include Pete Seeger, Billy Bragg, Hazel Dickens, Utah Phillips, Mat Callahan, and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. OC fave Cindy Sawprano opens with Country tunes on her musical saw, and both directors are here in person for an energized Q&A! Moonshine and Mountain Dew at the bar. Come early for 16mm musical gems from Tex Ritter, Jim Reeves, and The Ranch Party Gang! $11


SEX WORKER HISTORY
FEB. 17: KAYTLIN BAILEY: WHORE's EYE's VIEW + ANNIE SPRINKLE & BETH STEPHENS

In an exclusive SF appearance, one of the world's most outspoken agents for the understanding and de-criminalization of prostitution presents her Whore’s Eye View--a mad dash through 10,000 years of history from a sex worker’s perspective. Equal parts history lecture, stand-up comedy, and personal storytelling, Kaytlin Bailey masterfully unpacks the age-old stigma surrounding the oldest profession. OC heroines Annie Sprinkle & Beth Stephens will join Kaytlin for a post-show Q&A. Tickets are tax- deductible, and benefit the non-profit media organization, Old Pros, whose mission is to change the status of sex workers in society. $15

SIDESHOW THRILLS!
FEB. 24: CORY WEES: CIRCUS OF THE SCARS + ZAMORA THE TORTURE KING

Come one, come all, and step into the tent for the wild history of Jim Rose and his Circus Sideshow—sword-swallowing! lizard men! death-defying stunts!—from their early days performing in Seattle dive bars to high-profile international tours and their eventful fallout. A sensational circus sideshow act explodes out of the Pacific Northwest and revives a lost art form for the 90s grunge rock scene. They recount the faintings, bannings, conflicts, and inner struggles of non-stop touring around the world. Seattle in the '90s!..a scrappy street performer named Jim Rose started performing at small clubs with an act designed to shock and appall. He quickly attracted fellow freaks who developed skills that would inspire fainting and worse; people like the Amazing Mister Lifto, Matt "The Tube" Crowley, Zamora the Torture King, and Slug, who would swallow slugs and bugs and swords and later tattooed his entire body and became known as the Enigma. Tonight Zamora the Torture King opens with a live performance! Director Cory Wees also here to introduce. $11

OPTRONICA
MAR. 2: DRONE POET + ERIC THEISE/SEAN OCEAN + SUE-C/CARL DIEHL +

For our semi-annual celebration of Live A/V, we're unpacking not only the robust tradition of SF light shows, but also a rough and ready lineup of visual-music performers that the Bay Area continues to foster! Headlining is Drone Poet, the visionary twosome of Alan Korn and Daniel Konhauser that summon up a synthesis of projections and guitar noise that promises to transport all aboard!! ALSO Eric Theise is back on our gallery floor with collaborator Techno DJ Sean Ocean, and a version of thee Theise animation that is now circling the top of the Salesforce Tower! ATA vet Carl Diehl enriches this discourse on sound/gesture/image hybridity with his ingenious video collab with Negativland visualiste Sue-C. PLUS Craig Baldwin's double-system media-massage on Secret Squirrel, MildRocket Jefferson's dream machine trance-trip Effluxive Mirror, Auroratones, the cosmic-electronic contraption, light show snippets, optical-printed psychedelia, and hippies high on Alpha! AND Russ Forster live theremin-busking on our sidewalk! $12

INCREDIBLY STRANGE MUSIC
MAR. 9: 3RD HAND COLLECTIVE: SPIRIT INVOCATION + SUB-POP ANOMALIES

Seance! Our mediums J Lee (Farfisa organ, synth), Nick Fowler (overhead projections), and Marina Lazzara (vocals) will guide you across the threshold of the hereafter in this ambient and poetic collaboration with the spirit world! If they manage to bring us back from the Other side,  then we'll witness a procession of musical luminaries that haunt the subterranean history of Outsider music and the derrière garde. Marie Osmond/Tristan Tzara, Frank Zappa and his musique concrète, Sesame Street's The Blob, Harry Partch's 43 Tones, Mills College's prepared piano, musical trapeze acts, Mirror Men, and singing ostriches! PLUS jaw-dropping Soundies and Scopitones featuring Corinna Mura in Babalu, Joi Lansing in The Web Of Love, and Spike Jones/Mel Blanc in Clink Clink. Setting the stage for Ivy Woods' double bass deconstruction, David Cox opens this extravaganza on the Optigan, and it's closed with a trio of head and tail credits (only!): The Residents in The Theory of Obscurity, Captain Beefheart in John Peel's The Artist Formerly Known As, and The Animals in a Spanish-dubbed scratched snatch. $11.11

SISTERS' PICTURES
MAR. 16: HUGHES + GRUFFAT + SACHS/WATERS/GUEVARA-FLANAGAN +

Utterly inspiring are the creative responses by US women artists--both individually and collectively-- to last year's deplorable dismantling of Roe Vs. Wade. Now, the opening half of our annual SisPix show is proud enough to boast a diverse selection of resonant pieces from contemporary female makers on a variety of women's issues, tho we're equally honored to dedicate the evening's latter half to the initial group screening of the Abortion Clinic Film Collective's righteous howls of rage! So, in the first 40 mins. of (mostly) new work we'll be treated to Salise Hughes' Big Daddy Learns a Lesson (Essay), Sabine Gruffat's Move or Being Moved, Christina Ibarra's Dirty Laundry, Kate Novack's Hysterical Girl, and more! Then our second block sets out to amplify the angry voices and visions of of a newly developing network of fierce feminists producing protest pieces to rally our will to resist the retrograde forces raiding our hard-won rights. Among that cadre is Lynne Sachs, Sasha Freyer Waters, Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, Ray Rea, Doan Hoang Curtis, Kelly Gallagher, and Courtney Stephens! $10-100 fund-raiser for the Ntl. Network of Abortion Funds non-profit. Celebrate Women's History Month!

BEST OF FEST FEAST
MAR. 23: COSMIC RAY SIGHTINGS: SEARS + SOLONDZ + STEPHENS +

We're psyched to collaborate with our sister microcinema project on the Other side of the country, Cosmic Rays, which has established a much-need node of experimental-film exhibition in the Chapel Hill, NC area! Bill Brown, Sabine Gruffat, and John Winn not only curate their cutting-edge Festival of new regional--and international--art-films, but are now also circulating must-see tours of the very Best of their Fest! And that's what's streaking across our screen tonight: Kelly Sears' speculative animation Phase II, Joshua Solondz' tapestry of shredded celluoid NE Corridor, Courtney Stephens' mother's wail for reproductive rights Lesser Choices, Wenhua Shi's social-media weave Because the Sky Is Blue, Nicolas Gebbe's claustrophic Lockdown Dreamscape, Waime Haddad's suspended-time Hors Titres, Camila Moreiras' post-plutonium poem Sine Dies, Alina Taalman's strange dream Pre-Arranged Signal, Merette Mueller's prison experiment Blue Room, and Pere Ginard's underwater inventory Sightings. PLUS some local cine-spices sprinkled on top of this special movable feast! $10

X~PERI~MENTAL ANIMATION
MAR. 30: JEREMY  ROURKE + KATHLEEN QUILLIAN + HARRY SMITH +

Our seasonal celebration of all things Animated is anchored on local hero Jeremy Rourke's sensational set of pixillated eye-poppers, featuring his new piece Raindance Redux, commissioned by the Orphan Film Fest! Jeremy gigs, jigs, and zig-zags over our gallery pedestals in his five-title, half-hour hullaballoo ending with a Toon Tune dedicated to dear departed Helen Hill. Jeremy does a podium handstand in her honor! Kathleen Quillian works those same pedestals with her Ten Dollar Bill zoetrope zinger, with a live whirly-tube track! Esoteric alchemist Harry Smith's early direct-animations are displayed in Paola Igliori's American Magus, after we are treated to an eccentric history of animation masters: Winsor McCay, Max Fleischer, Len Lye, Philip Stapp, Bruce Bickford, and Sally Cruikshank's 1978 Quasi at the Quackadero (on 16mm!). Come early for free candy, archival gems from CCA(C)'s Animation Department, and Jim Henson's 1968 Time Piece. $12


NERVOUS GENDER
APR. 6: SUSAN STRYKER ON CRONENWETT's MAGGOTS AND MEN + TRANS SHORTS

Living right here in the City, Susan Stryker is a professor and filmmaker whose work focuses on gender and human sexuality...and is in fact one of the world's leading experts on Trans history and sensibility. We are delighted to have her in the house tonight to introduce the premiere revival of Cory Cronenwett's Maggots and Men, a utopian re-visioning of the Kronstadt Uprising of 1921, featuring film history's first cast of over 100 transgender actors! The hour production--written by ATA staffer Ilona Berger and shot here in SF with many of our neighbors--paints a portrait of formerly pro-Soviet sailors at the Kronstadt garrison who rebelled against the perceived failures of the new Bolshevik state. Stryker contextualizes this breakthrough work within new gender theories and practices, answering questions and affording precious insider insights. The evening is opened by 3 (maybe more?) personal essays on the non-binary experience: Benja Thomas' (in person) new and exquisite leafmold, Shani Heckman's already-classic Wrong Bathroom, and the debut of Anto Astudillo's How to Make an Avatar and Render my Body. Free Bud Lite to support their trans stance! $10


SF PSYCHO-GEOGRAPHY1
APR. 13: DANIEL + PLOTNICK + GREEN/BRUNO +

The first of two Psycho-Geo shows sports a sterling SF roster of amazing makers, both young and old(er). In-person are Danny Plotnick, Dominic Angerame, Dana Smith, Russ Forster, and maybe Bill Daniel...all sho' nuff art-gods walking among us! The opening half is mostly about turn-of-the-(new)-century action with a massive Mission School presence, from prodigal son Daniel's Quake Scam, to Margaret Kilgallen and Twist taggin' train cars, to Rigo throwing up SOMA billboards, and to Angerame's SFAI (RIP)--where many of us on this program met. Russ Forster's banjo-busking and William Wiley's billboard-art (Void—now at SFO) open the evening, and the first half is closed by Sam Green/Christian Bruno's Pie Fight '69 reconstruction, just 11 days before its subject, the SF Int. Film Fest, initiates its next iteration! The second half is hand-picked from a parade of Frisco decades, from the '76 Market Street memento mori Stolen Movie (Baldwin), to the '85 49ers Super Bowl, to the 90s Meet the Realtors (Kai Leshne), to the aughts' Lombard Luchadores (Gorrell), to the 20-teens' Mission Miracle Mile (Smith), to the 2023 Elevator to Stardom (Plotnick), to the current 2024 W-i-P Cold Coast (Sanchez/Leshne, also here in the flesh). Come early for gay riots clips, free postcards, and Gilbert's Shapeshifters beer.

PYSCHO-GEOGRAPHY2
APR. 20: DAVID COX: TRAUM EUROPA + LASLEY + RHODY/SMITH +

The second half of our Neo-Geo double-header is all about the world-at-LARGE, with a dozen expansive cine-essays, ranging from the Sri Lanka civil war to Texas-toasted digital dystopias. Mission maestro David Cox anchors the evening with his exploded-tabletop live-triagrammed Traum Europa, an enacted micro/meta-history of Europe's shifting relations of Nation and Identity. Closer to home, tho still Great Plains-otherworldly, Justin Rhody and Abby Smith are here in person, back from from Santa Fe with their tableaux vivant poem Interior Frontier. Their New Mexico comrade Ben Kujawski's also here in the flesh, with his sublimely soulful Empty House, and Valencia/Clarion Alley veteran Julie Murray shares her Chicago souvenir Haversine. Coming down from HumboldtState, we welcome Sarah Lasley, whose 3-D animation clues us to our future virtual-realities, while Rajee Samarasinghe's Strangers reminds us of the utter human-scale poignancy of lived moments in the Indiansub-continent. PLUS Ann Deborah Levy's Rain Painting, sky-tram dollies into the Alps, Canadian oil-wastelands, and more.
RE-MIX SATIRIX
APR. 27: SODA JERK: HELLO DANKNESS + EARLY SHORTS

Danielle and Dominique Angeloro, the two Australian sisters--and long-time OC comrades--who make up Soda Jerk are arguably thee finest remix makers on the planet, and now they have scored a huge international cinema hit with this jaw-dropping found-footage fable taking the form of a suburban stonermusical! Through genius editing strokes, mischievous rotoscoping, and masterful VFX wizardry, they have managed to concoct a multi-award-winning (Berlinale!) ”compilation narrative” that is in fact stitched together from almost a thousand Hollywood movie samples, mostly from the miserable milieu leading up to and during the Trump presidency. Their seamless, insanely clever montage conjures up a critical--and comic!--psychotropic spectacle that follows an American neighborhood as consensus reality disintegrates into conspiracy, culture wars, and zombie revolution. Opening the evening is a set of their provocative shorts that similarly satirize US values and mythologies, including totally-sampled tour de forces on film history, stardom, technology, and Afro-futurism. $9.99

FREE PALESTINE
MAY 4: MALAS' THE DREAM + SALLOUM + SABA +

In collaboration with black hole cinematheque and from the river to the sea collective, we present an evening of films in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for liberation. Curated and introduced by our righteous East Bay ally Tooth, tonight's program is built around Mohammad Malas' 1987 film, The Dream (Al-Manam), which centers around interviews with Palestinians living in forced exile among the refugee camps of Lebanon in the early years of the civil war and just prior to the massacres of Sabra and Shatila. The film uniquely focuses on the role that dreams play in the daily existence and struggles of the inhabitants of the camps. The first half of the night's program-- featuring Jayce Salloum's 2003 film untitled part 3b: (as if) beauty never ends, and Mary Jirmanus Saba's brand new film Mahdi Amel: The Colonial Mode of Production--hopes to resonate further on Al-Manam's dialectical relationship between the multivalent concept of dreams (both as oneiric visions and ideological ambitions) and the lived realities of those subjected to the generational and ongoing trauma of displacement, war, genocide, and cultural erasure, and their steadfast resistance in the face of it all. Benefit for Palestine Children's Relief Fund, $10-100.

MAY 11:

ARCHIVE FEVER
MAY 18: BILL MORRISON: INCIDENT + CALONICO: SUDDEN BIRTH +


AVANT TO LIVE
MAY 25: JEANNE FINLEY: RED BOAT CROSSING + BARON's NEAREST NEIGHBOR + NEW EXPERIMENTAL WORKS