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| SF Cinematheque | |
|---|---|
| Name | SF Cinematheque |
| Formation | 1961 |
| Type | Nonprofit film exhibition organization |
| Location | San Francisco, California |
SF Cinematheque
SF Cinematheque is a nonprofit film exhibition organization based in San Francisco that presents experimental, avant-garde, and independent film and video. It operates year-round screening programs, curates retrospectives, and collaborates with museums, universities, and festivals to present works by both historical and contemporary filmmakers. The organization has been associated with numerous notable artists and institutions across film, visual art, and performance, supporting preservation, restoration, and scholarship.
Founded in 1961 amid a growing avant-garde network alongside institutions such as Museum of Modern Art (New York), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, New York Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, and Venice Film Festival, the organization emerged during a period shaped by figures like Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Andy Warhol, and John Cage. Early presenters included collectors and curators connected to Eastman Kodak Company, Anthology Film Archives, Film-Makers' Cooperative, British Film Institute, and Museum of the Moving Image (New York). Over decades the group intersected with movements linked to Fluxus, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Minimalism, and hosted works by filmmakers associated with Cinematheque Française, British Underground Film, German Expressionism, and Japanese New Wave. Leadership and programming involved collaborations with curators from Tate Modern, Guggenheim Museum, Centre Pompidou, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and educators from University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, San Francisco State University, and California College of the Arts.
Programming has featured retrospectives and premieres of works by artists including Stanley Kubrick, Jean-Luc Godard, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Chantal Akerman, Agnes Varda, Claire Denis, Pedro Costa, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Wim Wenders, Andrei Tarkovsky, Yasujiro Ozu, Satyajit Ray, Werner Herzog, and Orson Welles. The organization has presented festival programs in partnership with Sundance Film Festival, True/False Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, SXSW, and Berlin International Film Festival, and has included works by experimental filmmakers such as Hollis Frampton, Paul Sharits, Carolee Schneemann, Philippe Garrel, Chris Marker, Harun Farocki, Les Blank, Kelly Reichardt, and Chantal Akerman. Screening series have highlighted national cinemas and movements linked to Iranian New Wave, New German Cinema, Polish Film School, Czech New Wave, Indian Parallel Cinema, Brazilian Cinema Novo, and Mexican Nueva Cine. The organization has hosted themed programs addressing archives and restoration with partners like National Film Preservation Foundation, Library of Congress, British Film Institute National Archive, Cinémathèque Française, and UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Screenings and events have taken place in venues across San Francisco including spaces associated with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Asian Art Museum (San Francisco), De Young Museum, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco Public Library, Castro Theatre, Victoria Theatre (San Francisco), Roxie Theater, 4th Street Playhouse, and university auditoriums at University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University. Technical facilities have aligned with restoration partners such as Blackmagic Design, Dolby Laboratories, Technicolor, and archival labs connected to UCLA Film & Television Archive and Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation. Presentation formats have ranged from 16mm and 35mm projection to DCP and digital video formats used by institutions like Sundance Institute and IFC Center.
Educational initiatives have included collaborations with academic institutions and programs at San Francisco Conservatory of Music, California Institute of the Arts, University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, San Francisco State University, and California College of the Arts. Workshops and symposia have featured scholars and practitioners from Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, and New York University Tisch School of the Arts. Outreach has connected with community organizations such as GLAAD, San Francisco Public Library, Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco LGBT Community Center, and Precita Eyes Muralists. Public programs have drawn speakers and panelists including critics and historians from Sight & Sound, Cahiers du Cinéma, Film Comment, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and Los Angeles Times.
The organization has worked with archival holdings and collections from institutions like Anthology Film Archives, Library of Congress, UCLA Film & Television Archive, British Film Institute, Cinémathèque Française, MoMA Department of Film, Academy Film Archive, George Eastman Museum, National Film Board of Canada, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Museum of the Moving Image (New York), and university special collections at University of California, Los Angeles, University of Southern California, and Yale University. Preservation projects have involved film restoration specialists associated with The Film Foundation, World Cinema Project, International Federation of Film Archives, and technical experts from Technicolor and DuArt Film and Video. Collections emphasized experimental reels, ephemeral films, artists’ prints, and unique 16mm and 35mm elements by makers such as Bruce Baillie, Michael Snow, Su Friedrich, George Kuchar, and Ida Lupino.
Collaborative partners have included major cultural institutions and festivals such as San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Modern Art (New York), Tate Modern, Guggenheim Museum, Centre Pompidou, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Sundance Institute, Film Society of Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, British Film Institute, Cinémathèque Française, UCLA Film & Television Archive, and Library of Congress. Projects and retrospectives have involved artists and filmmakers including Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger, Agnes Varda, Jean-Luc Godard, Akira Kurosawa, Andrei Tarkovsky, Harun Farocki, Chris Marker, and Chantal Akerman, and institutional partnerships have supported restorations, publications, and touring programs with The Film Foundation, National Film Preservation Foundation, World Cinema Project, Sundance Institute, and British Film Institute National Archive.
Category:Cinema of San Francisco