San Francisco Cinematheque’s 16th Annual CROSSROADS Festival (Fri/29-Sun/31 at Gray Area, SF) has concocted yet another fabulously wide-ranging, in-person, three-day cinematic extravaganza—and we have our trusty guide here for your choosing pleasure. I have compiled a spoiler-free list below of my favorite “Ficks’ Picks” from this slimmed-down spectacle of eight curated programs, showcasing many legendary filmmakers such as Ken Jacobs, Kevin Jerome Everson, Janie Geiser, Jerome Hiler, Jodie Mack, Tomonari Nishikawa, Cauleen Smith, Greta Snider, Scott Stark, Dianna Barrie and Richard Tuohy, as well as a bodacious bevy of returning and fresh voices.
Scott Stark’s Tulsa (US, 2025) plays in Program 1 “temporary near thing/pulsebeat promises,” Fri/29, 7pm.
Having conceived and directed more than 85 films over the past 45 years, Scott Stark is easily one of my favorite filmmakers working in the world today. The Bay Area premiere of his latest 15-minute masterpiece employs a batch of 1950s “stereo photos” transforming suburban cocktail parties and tourist trips into a hypnotic “visual playland.” Stereo cameras emerged in the 1940s and 50s, utilizing two different lenses that took twin shots of scenes, which then were supposed to be viewed in dedicated image viewers. What makes Stark’s movies so fascinating for me is how they’re able to transcend their initially unique techniques by entrancing the viewer with a peaceful repetition into a kind of Stendhal syndrome stasis. Absolutely my highest recommendation. Program opens with Ken Jacobs’ similarly soothing 6-minute gem: Flo Rounds a Corner (1999), presented in memory of Flo Jacobs (1941–2025).
Daniel Menche and Karl Lemieux’s Celluloid Between the Wounds (Canada/US, 2025) plays in Program 2 “certain lights / nothing is stable” Fri/29, 9:30pm.
Known for their projection work with legendary post-rock collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the Portland sound artist and Montreal-based filmmaker are slotted as CROSSROADS’ World Premiere main event, with a 45-minute, multi-projector and live music-accompanied performance. Noise artist Menche will be “conjuring a seismic wall of sound—dense and physical—while filmmaker Karl Lemieux will manipulate 16mm film loops in real time across multiple projectors.” Having seen their alchemic performance at the RECOMBINANT Festival in 2017, this unseen new work is sure to blow some ears and minds.
Malena Szlam’s Archipelago of Earthen Bones—To Bunya (Chile, 2024) plays in Program 3 “the earth as if it were a dream” Sat/30, 2:30pm.
Gorgeously shot in 16mm with her Bolex camera, Montreal-based director Malena Szlam’s film superimposes a constellation of stunning in-camera multiple exposures, spanning Chile to Australia. This 20-minute monument to the haunting imagery of volcanic landscapes is heightened by Australian ambient auteur Lawrence English, whose sound textures and field recordings help make this Bay Area premiere one of my absolute favorite films of the festival.
Karen Yasinsky’s I’m Not Your Monster (US, 2025) plays in Program 4 “this isn’t what it appears” Sat/30, 5pm.
Anyone who has spent hours meticulously drawing a favorite character may find themselves instantly relating to this phenomenally rotoscoped five-minute animation. Inspired by some choice Mel Brooks movies, director Karen Yasinky (Senior Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University) perfectly captures the feelings of a privately penciled, spiral bound notebook. This is the North American premiere.
In Memory of Tomonari Nishikawa: Apollo (Japan/US, 2003), Market Street (Japan/US, 2005)and 45 7 Broadway (Japan/US, 2013): All three play in Program 5 “shadows between the frames” Sat/30, 8pm.
MFA Graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, Tomonari Nishikawa made the kind of thrilling experimental film that is so breath-taking, you may want to instantly pick up a camera and go shoot a film that very moment. I have always felt like I experienced something special after watching any his 19 films (made over the past 20+ years), which consistently focus on the visual rhythms of the everyday. This made it all-the-more devastating to hear that he had passed away in April of this year, after battling an aggressive form of cancer. CROSSROADS has put together three of his films into a single program, including Market Street (2005), a film that I screen annually for my film students at the Academy of Art University and 45 7 Broadway (2013) which was shot on black and white film while placing red, green, and blue color filters on the lens—then was optically printed onto color film using the same filters. The hand-made final result is something that only your wildest neon dreams are made of.
Jerome Hiler’s Careless Passage (US, 2024) plays in Program 5 “shadows between the frames” Sat/30, 8pm.
As I have mentioned in previous write-ups, Jerome Hiler is one of the most underrated leading lights within the experimental community. Beginning his filmmaking journey over 60 years ago in 1964, his films have other-worldly layering and spaced-out saturated superimpositions that teleport me into a silent space I never want to leave. His most recent 20-minute marvel is as macro as it is micro, and is a Bay Area premiere. In fact, his program notes are as poetic and his images. “I’m often drawn to think of the earliest stages of life when swimming blindly in water. How was it possible to develop that bubble-like appendage to our brains that allowed the great miracle of sight? What a revolution in that infinite cosmos for consciousness to join with sight. Was this event some kind of mandate from the Universe so that it might know itself? Are we tools in that quest? Careless Passage will answer none of these questions.”
Dianna Barrie and Richard Tuohy’s Fear of Floating (Australia, 2024) plays in Program 6 “hold me in your arms”Sun/31, 2:30pm.
Come get blissed out by this frothy eight-minute Bay Area premiere from the Aussie dynamic duo Dianna Barrie and Richard Tuohy. They’ve summoned their cinematic sorcery yet again to create one of the most memorable films of the festival. Submerging their hauntingly inversed silhouettes beneath a cornucopia of gold and blue metallic swirls, while their swelling, swampy and shrill sound design creates a “wave of uncertainty, hope and inevitability.”
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Sam Drake’s Suspicions About the Hidden Realities of Air (US, 2025) plays in Program 7 “for all the seasons of your mind” Sun/31, 5pm.
Milwaukee-based filmmaker Sam Drake used expired 16mm film to connect fragments of the desert, the city, the nightlife, and the natural world in this much-appreciated Bay Area premiere. The gripping sound design by Tom Dixon, conjuring a devastating secret that continues to be hidden for multiple decades, left me squinching my toes as the credits culminated.
Lindsay McIntyre’s Tuktuit: Caribou (Inuit/Canada, 2025) plays in Program 8 “the mountain replies with an echo” Sun/31, 8pm.
Easily one of my favorite films of the festival, Lindsay McIntyre has delivered a fully fledged 15-minute manifesto that hypnotized me from beginning to end. Vancouver-based and Executive Director of the Inuit Art Foundation, McIntyre’s staggering 16mm cinematography layers itself into sumptuously saturated superimpositions as it “explores the close and enduring connections between Inuit, caribou, lichens and land use.” Practicing what the film preaches, the filmmaker used actual lichen-based developers to help bring the images to life, as well as a caribou hide was processed into gelatin to make the handmade emulsion. For fans of assured cinema such as Chantal Akerman and Les Blank, do not miss this what may be your one and only chance to see this Bay Area premiere on the big screen.
Cauleen Smith’s Mines to Caves (US, 2023) plays in Program 8 “the mountain replies with an echo” Sun/31, 8pm.
This Bay Area premiere of the latest incantation by celebrated alumni of SF State’s film program Cauleen Smith was shot partially on location inside Smuggler’s Mine on the north edge of Aspen, Colorado. Smith’s stunning narration pairs perfectly with her blitzed-out footage of wild animals, underground tunnels, and Day-Glo rock formations. A truly memorable movie to close out the final program of the entire festival. I’ll be there and I hope to see you as well.
CROSSROADS Festival runs Fri/29-Sun/31 at Gray Area, SF. More info here.
Jesse Hawthorne Ficks is the film history coordinator at the Academy of Art University as well as a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle. He is the film festival critic for 48hills and curates/hosts “MOViES FOR MANiACS,” a film series celebrating underrated and overlooked cinema, in a neo-sincere manner.
