Abaton (2017) by Nathaniel Dorsky

Saturday, August 29, 2026, 3:00 pm

Nathaniel Dorsky & Jerome Hiler: Film Offerings Program 4

Arboretum Cycle

BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE

2155 Center Street

Berkeley, CA 94720

Nathaniel Dorsky In Person
Presented in association with Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
Admission: $18 General / $12 Cinematheque Members
Event tickets here

Nathaniel Dorsky & Jerome Hiler: Film Offerings
August 14–29, 2026

Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler have lived in the Bay Area since 1971, relocating here from New York City and its environs. Their lives are intertwined as filmmakers, life partners and lovers of art, poetry and the natural world. One of their favorite haunts is BAMPFA, where they have attended countless programs as devoted members of our audience.

Both Dorsky and Hiler are articulate about their approach to filmmaking, sharing what motivates each project and, in turn, how their view of life and the world have grown. Dorsky’s Hours for Jerome, Parts 1 & 2, filmed between 1966 and 1970, is a beautiful portrait of their lives together on the East Coast. The second program, a selection of five lyrical films by Dorsky, includes Alaya, a meditation on landscape with an uncanny sense of scale, from the particulate to infinite space. Hiler will share four works distinguished by his interest in color and philosophical musings, including his pivotal Words of Mercury and his most recent film, Careless Passage. The series concludes with Dorsky’s monumental Arboretum Cycle, seven exquisite works filmed in Golden Gate Park and edited within the course of one year.

BAMPFA is proud to represent both Dorsky and Hiler as their archive of record; each filmmaker has entrusted our institution with the long-term care and preservation of their films. This series offers a wonderful occasion to share some of the gems from the BAMPFA collection.

—Susan Oxtoby, Director of Film and Senior Film Curator

Nathaniel Dorsky & Jerome Hiler: Film Offerings
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Nathaniel Dorsky & Jerome Hiler: Film Offerings — Program 4
Arboretum Cycle
Saturday, August 29, 3 PM
Nathaniel Dorsky In Person

Nathaniel Dorsky wrote, “In walking distance from my apartment is San Francisco’s Arboretum located in Golden Gate Park. I decided that I would make a film on a single subject and that subject would be the light—not the objects, but the sacredness of the light itself in this splendid garden. What I did not know is that the great beauty of this magnificent spring would bring forth not one, but seven films, each one immediately following the previous. I began to photograph on the second week of February and finished the editing of the seventh film during the last days of December. These seven films spontaneously manifested as the stages of life: early childhood, youth, maturity, old age, and death.”

SCREENING:
Elohim (2017) by Nathaniel Dorsky (US); 16mm, color, silent, 31 minutes.
Abaton (2017) by Nathaniel Dorsky (US); 16mm, color, silent, 19 minutes.
Coda (2017) by Nathaniel Dorsky (US); 16mm, color, silent, 16 minutes.
Ode (2017) by Nathaniel Dorsky (US); 16mm, color, silent, 20 minutes.
September (2017) by Nathaniel Dorsky (US); 16mm, color, silent, 20 minutes.
Monody (2017) by Nathaniel Dorsky (US); 16mm, color, silent, 16 minutes.
Epilogue (2017) by Nathaniel Dorsky (US); 16mm, color, silent, 15 minutes.
TRT: 137 minutes