presented in collaboration with SFMOMA and in association with Canyon Cinema, Exploratorium’s Cinema Arts Program, Pacific Film Archive and USF Film Studies Program
Bruce Baillie, Lawrence Jordan and Robert Nelson in person
Tickets: members: $7 / non-members: $10
Order Advanced Tickets: here
In anticipation of its 50th Anniversary in 2011, and in conjunction with the RADICAL LIGHT series, Cinematheque presents the two-part RETURN TO CANYON series highlighting figures, films and events crucial to the organization’s role as the Bay Area’s longest-running showcase for avant-garde, experimental and artist-made film and video.
On a summer day in 1961, in the East Bay community of Canyon, California, filmmaker Bruce Baillie shone a light on a bed sheet screen and Canyon Cinema was born. Over the years, Baillie’s brainchild evolved into the independent distributor Canyon Cinema and the venerable exhibitor San Francisco Cinematheque. In commencement of Cinematheque’s golden anniversary, Cinematheque celebrates with a gathering of founding figures and luminaries from the early days of the org, featuring brand new works and newly preserved masterpieces from Bruce Baillie, Lawrence Jordan, Robert Nelson and Chick Strand. (Steve Polta)
Lawrence Jordan: Cosmic Alchemy (2010) 24 min. / Bruce Baillie: Castro Street (1966) 10 min. & Here I Am (1962) 11 min. / Robert Nelson: Confessions of a Black Mother Succuba (1965) 16min. & Penny Bright and Jimmy Witherspoon (1967) 4 min. / Chick Strand: Fever Dream (1979) 7 min. & Waterfall (1967) 3 min.
RADICAL LIGHT is a massive work of historical research and curatorial creativity, executed over the course of the past decade by Kathy Geritz and Steve Seid (of Pacific Film Archive) and former Cinematheque director Steve Anker. It is a monolithic survey of a half-century of Bay Area alternative media culture. Published by University of California Press, Radical Light includes articles, artist pages, and profiles of over fifty artists, curators and historians, and comprises a truly comprehensive and kaleidoscopic compendium documenting the legacies of this vibrant community.