Co-presented with San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

We’re excited to present a SNEAK PREVIEW of Barbara Hammer’s new film, Resisting Paradise, a provocative experimental documentary that leads viewers on a participatory journey of discovery through very timely questions: What are our responsibilities during political crises? How does art exist during a time of war? The filmmaker’s personal voice ruminates on these themes through the frame of the historical and actual landscape of the town of Cassis, France. We uncover the actions of WWII French Resistance fighters Marie-Ange Allibert Rodriguez and Lisa Fittko; Hammer, as an artist struggling with the proximity of the war in Kosovo; the correspondence between Matisse, painting in Cassis, and his friend Bonnard; and the spectre of German Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin. This range of subjects and materials forms an archeology of human will that interweaves the questions and responsibilities of artistic production during political upheaval. (Maïa Cybelle Carpenter)