presented in collaboration with Pacific Film Archive and Prelinger Archives
[members: $7 / non-members: $10]
While the history of Bay Area cinema-as-art is actively being excavated and revived, more workaday genres remain less examined and often mysterious. As we begin to understand that the history of non-theatrical film isn’t simply composed of parallel strands, but rather woven from many threads that often intersect and interweave, we can spot lost art and artists in unexpected places, such as the vast body of advertising and educational films that struggles to survive deterioration and indifference. This program revives a basketful of ephemeral films created in the Bay Area from the 1910s through the 1950s in which artistic impulses (both schooled and self-taught) intersect with teaching and commerce. Titles to screen include When You Are a Pedestrian (1924) by Ray Bainbridge, producing as Progressive Pictures; Communication and Interaction in Three Families (reel 1) (1951) by Gregory Bateson and Weldon Kees, producing as Kinesis; So They Tell Me (1916) by Warren H. Brown; Art in San Francisco (1944–45), produced by The Californians; Penwipers and Greenpastures (c. 1926), two clay-animated works by Joseph Sunn Jue; and Tribune-American Dream Film (c. 1924), produced by the Oakland Tribune and other titles to be announced. (Rick Prelinger)