If someone mentioned to you that a bunch of brand new experimental movies were screening in the Mission this weekend, some of you may find yourself immediately interested, yet simultaneously overwhelmed as to where you should even start. San Francisco Cinematheque’s 15th Annual CROSSROADS Festival (Fri/30-Sun/1 at Gray Area, SF) is upon us—aficionados travel hundreds (even thousands) of miles to experience this in-person, three-day cinematic extravaganza—and we’ve got your handy guide right here.
After watching all 75 different works of film and video, I have compiled a spoiler-free list of my favorite picks from this jam-packed spectacle showcasing many legendary filmmakers such as Dianna Barrie, Mary Helena Clark, Simon Liu, Ross Meckfessel, Parinda Mai, Morgan Quaintance, Deborah Stratman, TT Takemoto, and Richard Tuohy, as well as a slew of fresh faces.
Founded by filmmaker Bruce Baillie in 1961, San Francisco Cinematheque has been encouraging an appreciation of artist-made “outsider” cinema for more than 60 years now. This year’s festival has brought together 68 artists (many of whom will be present) and who represent 19 different countries/territories. I have made special notes of which specific programs include each of my Ficks’ Picks screen. With 10 different curated presentations, you’re bound to see something to write home about.
Dominic Angerame’s The San Francisco Art Institute (A Ghost Story) 1984 (US, 2024)
A truly bittersweet portrait of the late San Francisco Art Institute and a perfect kick-off to this year’s festival. It’s directed by long-time San Francisco filmmaker Dominic Angerame, who was the director of Canyon Cinema as well a teacher at SFAI (along with such avant garde legends as George Kuchar, Lawrence Jordan, Ernie Gehr, Steve Anker, Gunvor Nelson, Barbara Hammer, James Broughton, and Stan Brakhage who received an honorary Doctor’s Degree in 1981).
This gorgeous nine-minute amalgamation combines two rolls of B&W reversal (filmed on the last day the school was open in 2022) with footage Angerame shot with his students. Musician Kevin Barnard adds a thrilling soundscape that heightens the footage beautifully as it tip-toes through the heartbreakingly nostalgic spaces. The San Francisco Art Institute was founded in 1871 and was the oldest Art School west of the Mississippi before its closure in 2022. The director is anticipated to be in-person and some choice words are sure to be delivered. (Plays in Program 1 “utopia springs from fertile soil”—Fri/30 at 7pm.)
Sarah Ballard’s Heat Spells (US, 2023)
Every single second of this thoughtful, nine-minute masterpiece resonated with me (inspiring me to watch and rewatch it more times than I can count). As it existentially explores the search for eternal youth by way of tourism in Florida, it softly channels Jack Arnold’s Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) and Lucas Cranach’s incredible 1546 painting The Fountain of Youth and drenches it all within one of the best Eurobeat dance classics of Y2K. Ballard is a recipient of the 2023 Princess Grace Award in Film and is currently a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The director is anticipated to be in-person, and I genuinely want to know what they are working on next… because I will be first in line! (Plays in Program 2 “we spoke of dust”— Fri/30, 9:30pm)
Margaret Rorison’s emergence (US, 2024)
This short and sweet two-minute summation of summer situations stood out for me simply because of its striking 16mm, B&W reversal footage (which was hand-processed by the director). Rorison is a filmmaker, projectionist, educator and curator from Baltimore MD and currently works as an audiovisual specialist for the Film Programs at The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The director is anticipated to be in-person. (Plays in Program 2 “we spoke of dust”—Fri/30th, 9:30pm)
Pedro Maia’s March of Time (Portugal/Germany, 2023)
Born in Vila do Conde, Portugal and based in Berlin, director Pedro Maia’s haunting 11-minute elegy feels like an old-fashioned concoction of decaying and hand-crafted manipulation on actual celluloid, as opposed to the director’s statement of transitioning to “using machine learning algorithms to create a ‘third analogue,’ i.e. a replica of the past.” It achieves a psychedelic, cosmos-like imagery in common with Jordan Belson. I was especially hypnotized by Pedro Vian’s synthesizer-smothered soundtrack of “violins, abstracted voices, drones, melodies, and extreme glitches that push systems to the limit and question the boundary between the digital and the analogue.” (Plays in Program 2 “we spoke of dust”—Fri/30, 9:30pm)
Sky Hopinka’s Sunflower Siege Engine (Ho-Chunk/Pechanga, 2023)
One of the era’s most exciting contemporary filmmakers, Sky Hopinka has created yet another fascinating meditation on events ranging from the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz, led by indigenous activists Richard Oakes and John Trudell, to the reclamation of the Cahokia Mounds near St Louis and the Mississippi River. Hopinka’s continued focus on a physical existence while carrying an immense history that came before (by way of a laptop computer, no less) has left me pondering these mesmerizing 13-minutes for days after. Hopinka is a Ho-Chunk Nation member and descendant of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, and received his BA from Portland State University in Liberal Arts and his MFA in Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. (Plays in Program 2 “we spoke of dust”—Fri/30, 9:30pm)
Ayanna Dozier’s Bounded Intimacy (US, 2024)
Feeling like a brilliant cross between a voyeuristic Brian De Palma peep-show and a Shirley Clarke portrait, Ayanna Dozier’s utterly addictive entry that is part of a Super-8mm trilogy entitled “It’s Just Business, Baby” casually studies the streets of New York City until focusing on a truly unique and singular individual. The director’s notes state that the film “examines the histories of various forms of body labor across the Chelsea and Tribeca districts that were renown as a site for sex work, sex clubs, and illicit sexual activity.” This world premiere is six minutes of frisky cinema that you really shouldn’t miss. Dozier is a Brooklyn-based artist-writer and is an assistant professor in Communication, emphasis in Film, at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. (Plays in Program 4 “obscured by clouds”—Sat/31, 3:30pm)
Luis Arnías’ Bisagras (Senegal/Brazil/US, 2024)
Luis Arnías’ infinitely bewitching 16-minute personal journey to the House of Slaves in Gorée Island, Senegal and the port of Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, feels akin to Harvard University’s Sensory Ethnography Lab. Filmed in stunning 16mm B&W, Arnías exquisitely captures his street footage with absolute finesse, switching and reswitching the celluloid images into negative inversion. “In these places I dare to imagine my ancestors’ history of the journey of African slaves to America and draw a line that goes through me,” Arnías says. Arnías graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and in 2020 received his Masters in Film and Video at Bard College, and was a fellow at the FSC at Harvard University and a 2023 Boston Artadia awardee. (Plays in Program 4 “obscured by clouds”—Sat/31, 3:30pm)
Barbara Sternberg’s Sunprints 1, 2, 3 (Canada, 2023)
Perhaps the most gloriously saturated film in this year’s entire CROSSROADS festival, Barbara Sternberg’s jaw-dropping silent sensation was made by applying cyanotype chemistry to blank film exposed to sun. Based loosely on the tripartite plan of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso), the results of this shimmering blue and white 13-minute manifesto is nothing short than extraordinary. One of the 10 films at the festival to be projected on actual film, do whatever it takes to experience this in-person. Sternberg has been making experimental films since the mid-1970s with many of them in the collections of Queen’s University, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the National Gallery of Canada. (Plays in Program 5 “seen and not seen, they ventured inside”—Sat/31, 6:00pm)
Alina Taalman’s Prearranged Signal (US, 2023)
An immense melancholic eeriness permeates Alina Taalman’s five-minute gem. Mixing many different style aesthetics, it travels its way through the “dream of a stranger.” The sound design is especially significant, beginning with a chilling reverberation that reminded me of The Night of the Living Dead (1968) soundtrack, and then transitioning into a hollowed-out tunnel echo while the narrator asks “What do you see?” and a title card asks, “A whole year?” And yet, even with all of these unnerving elements, I found myself unclenching my toes and exhaling peacefully at the final moments of the movie. Taalman is a filmmaker based in North Carolina and is anticipated to be in-person. (Plays in Program 9 “o’er the land”—Sun/1, 5:45pm)
Kevin Jerome Everson and Lydia Marie Hicks’ Lake Idlewild (US, 2024)
The world premiere of prolific Kevin Jerome Everson’s latest with Lydia Marie Hicks is a genuine 11-minute transcendental achievement. One can’t look away at a single moment of the striking B&W camerawork documenting Danielle Thesiger’s rowing a boat on Lake Idlewild, “the idyllic Black resort town” in Idlewind, Michigan. Everson has made 12 award-winning features, more than 200 solo and collaborative shorts, and is the Commonwealth and Ruffin Foundation Distinguished Professor of Studio Art and Director of Studio Arts at the University of Virginia. (Plays in Program 9 “o’er the land”—Sunday/1, 5:45 pm)
Yuula Benivolski’s why i never became a driver (Canada, 2023)
My other favorite film of CROSSROADS 2024 is Yuula Benivolski’s deeply compassionate, 11-minute rumination of three women who are seemingly trapped within the medical system. The unearthed found footage slowly starts to shift as their disassociation and uncontrollable “other” selves start to emerge. Benivolski hand-processed, bleached, and poignantly painted the footage as well as constructed the haunting sound collage. Upon multiple viewings, a whole different story emerged for me about being in a hospital, remembering a car crash, and seeing Princess Diana. Do whatever it takes to see this film projected in a theater. Benivolski is an artist and filmmaker based in Toronto. (Plays in Program 6 “can you tell me about the dream?”—Sat/31, 8:30pm)
15TH ANNUAL CROSSROADS EXPERIMENTAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL Fri/30-Sun/1 at Gray Area, SF. More info here.
