48 Hills editors and writers are picking their favorite Bay Area things of 2024 (and beyond). See more editors’ picks and the results of our massive Best of the Bay 2024 Readers’ Poll here!
You have literally thousands of reasons to visit the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archives, home to robust film offerings and an astonishing cinematic archive. Prominently located downtown in a repurposed printing plant on the edge of the UC Berkeley campus, the museum boasts over 25,000 pieces of visual art and 18,000 films and videos. Inside its many-windowed central building with its northernly thrusting, shiny silver appendage capped by a giant outdoor video screen are cavernous exhibition spaces, a museum shop, film library, art lab, study center, special event spaces, offices, and café.
Much like the collection it houses, the building itself is fascinating. It came to its current location in 1997, when BAMPFA’s former building on Bancroft Way, whose brutalist design was often likened by critics to an underground bunker or parking structure, was declared seismically unsafe. Vigorous fundraising ensued, ultimately resulting in the 2016 opening of the 35,000-square-foot structure designed by New York-based architectural firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro.
Hosting a dynamic yearly schedule of art exhibits, workshops, event series, and community and education programs, the BAMPFA film department is world-class. In addition to its annual film series, anyone on planet Earth can access its extensive CineFiles, an online database of scanned images of reviews, press kits, festival and showcase program notes, newspaper articles, and other documents covering world cinema, past and present. Three specialized study centers staffed by in-person trained facilitators and librarians are accessible by appointment.
Ready to explore? BAMPFA’s fall season includes an in-person appearance and weeklong residency by filmmaker Jia Zhangke and even Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy, spotlighting ultra-cool queer young people in Los Angeles in the 1990s (playing Sat/28 and Sun/29). (Late composer Ennio Morricone, who scored films made by great Italian directors including Marco Bellocchio, Liliana Cavani, Sergio Leone, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Elio Petri was honored in August.) Another series showcases Los Angeles in the cinematic universe, through October 6. There are silent films, feminist films, movie matinees for all ages, centennial and festival films, and more. Many of the events offer not only the chance to view fabulous flicks, but also get up close and personal with their makers.
All that, plus BAMPFA’s galleries are filled with avant-garde work courtesy of programs like MATRIX, artist retrospectives, and wide-ranging thematic exhibitions.
BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2155 Center, Berkeley. For more info, go here.
