Upcoming Events​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Fri May 2, 5-8pm - MEGAN MIRRO Body Issues [art exhibition opening reception] - Body Issues marks Megan Mirro’s debut solo exhibition, featuring handbuilt ceramic wall hangings that fuse imagery drawn from avant-garde cinema, mythology, and the artist’s subconscious. Ceramic reliefs scenes from Agnès Varda’s Le Bonheur (Happiness), Věra Chytilová’s Daisies, and Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon are displayed alongside abstract busts of each filmmaker, offering renewed perspectives on characters caught in moments of profound transformation. A series of mythological interpretations centered on the figure of Venus delve into themes of desire, rebirth, creation, and collective care. Mirro weaves these allegorical figures and dreamlike visuals into a constellation that invites viewers to reflect on the essential roles of bodily autonomy and emotional openness in building collective strength.  ~  Megan Mirro is a multidisciplinary artist based in Oakland, California, whose work is deeply shaped by cultural narratives and the creative energy of her surrounding community. She first learned ceramics informally—after hours with coworkers at Creative Growth—and now creates from her home and studio at The Dome, a historic artist live/work space founded in the 1970s by ceramic pioneers Peter Voulkos and Marilyn Levine. Embracing her nontraditional background, Mirro approaches handbuilding with a playful, exploratory spirit and regularly hosts community clay workshops to share the cathartic and accessible nature of the medium. (refreshments provided)​​​

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Fri May 30 - OPEN SCREEN v.7 - Open to all local artists working in experimental, personal, animation or non-fiction filmmaking. One submission per person, 15 mins MAX (shorter is better). No industry-aspiring work, please. (submissions open in late April 2025)

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Fri June 13 - the short films of MATT WHITMAN - Matt Whitman has been making short works on motion picture film since 2010. Mainly silent and often edited in-camera, his films over the last ten years were largely generated in response to moments of grief and loss, both private and public – particularly as seen and felt through the mediation of digital interfaces and archives. ~ This program showcases his film work in chronological order. While his films have been shown at festivals and other group screenings, this program of films is his first solo screening in the western United States. In addition to filmmaking, Whitman also works with pinhole photography and experiments with eco-friendly black and while film developing techniques. (presented on 16mm film + filmmaker in attendance from NYC + post-screening Q&A)

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Fri June 27 - QUEEN OF DIAMONDS (Nina Menkes, 1991, 77 mins, Color, Sound, 35mm to Digital)  - Over the past 30 years “cinematic sorceress” Nina Menkes has produced a visually stunning and uncompromising body of work that stands alone in the landscape of American Independent cinema. Fearlessly confronting violence, female subjectivity and isolation in iconically lensed locales ranging from the American Southwest to Israel and North Africa, Menkes work only becomes more vital and relevant with the passage of time.  ~  Produced, written, directed, and shot by Menkes, Queen of Diamonds follows the alienated life of Firdaus (played by the director's sister and early muse, Tinka Menkes), as a Blackjack dealer in a Las Vegas landscape juxtaposed between glittering casino lights and the deteriorating desert oasis. Negotiating a missing husband and neighboring domestic violence, Firdaus’ world unfolds as a fragmented but hypnotic interplay between repetition and repressed anger. Shot with a beautiful compositional rigor echoing Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, Queen of Diamonds is a remarkable and demanding masterpiece of American independent filmmaking. Heralded as one of the most challenging and subversive filmmakers working today, the restoration and re-release of this film marks the start of a new critical recognition for Menkes’ groundbreaking body of work.  ~  "Queen of Diamonds is my painting of the U.S.: an over-enlarged, profit motivated core surrounded by mute and arid alienation. The protagonist, Firdaus, is both deeply estranged and psychically powerful. Her loner position is the backside of centuries of Western Heroes: she stands in the center as watcher and victim of a system which is starting to crack.” -Nina Menkes  ~  "[Menkes’] provocative and visually arresting art films hover between experimental and narrative, fearlessly exploring the alienated feminine, the subconscious and violent patriarchal outer realities…" -Sight & Sound  ~  View trailer HERE  (presented from a new 4K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative!)

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Sat July 12 - LIQUID ADJUSTMENT: soap opera experimental (guest programmed by Sean Dickerson & co-presented by PRROBLEM Press) - A program of experimental video work that appropriate or draw inspiration from the soap opera format, interspersed with segments from a new, locally produced reworking of a Joanne Kyger radio play.  ~  FULL PROGRAM: General Hospital / Olympic Women Speed Skating (Dara Birnbaum, 5:30), Vault (Bruce & Norman Yonemoto, 12:01), All Smiles and Sadness (Anne McGuire, 7:14), The Dark, Krystle (Michael Robinson, 9:34), Swamp (Abigail Child, 33:00).  (new radio play will be available to attendees on cassette, probably!)

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Fri July 25 - WANDA (Barbara Loden, 1970, 103 mins) - "With her first and only feature film - a hard-luck drama she wrote, directed, and starred in - Barbara Loden turned in a groundbreaking work of American independent cinema, bringing to life a kind of character seldom seen on-screen. Set amid a soot-choked Pennsylvania landscape, and shot in an intensely intimate vérité style, the film takes up with distant and soft-spoken Wanda (Loden), who has left her husband, lost custody of her children, and now finds herself alone, drifting between dingy bars and motels, where she falls prey to a series of callous men - including a bank robber who ropes her into his next criminal scheme. An until now difficult-to-see masterpiece that has nonetheless exerted an outsize influence on generations of artists and filmmakers, Wanda is a compassionate and wrenching portrait of a woman stranded on society’s margins." -Criterion  ~  View trailer HERE  (presented from a beautiful Kodachrome 16mm film print!)

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Fri Aug 8, 5-8pm - MAX NORDILE [art exhibition opening reception] - Painting & sculpture by Olympia Washington-based artist & musician. Live musical performance & refreshments provided.

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Fri Sept 26 - the short films of GRETA SNIDER - A mini-retrospective of works created 1989-2025  (filmmaker in attendance from San Francisco + post-screening Q&A)

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late-OCT (date tbd) - SANTET (directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra, 1988, 94 mins) - Indonesia’s beloved scream queen, Suzzanna, stars in this decidedly demented supernatural revenge thriller which boast not just over-the-top gore set-pieces, but an abundance of slimy creatures, wild plot twists, and even impromptu musical numbers! After poisoning his wife, a local gangster blames her death on the village cleric and instigates an outraged mob to burn down his hut, killing him in the process. The cleric's wife escapes into the jungle, eventually meeting Nyi Angker, a half-crocodile half-witch who gives her diabolical powers, thus allowing her to commence a bloody revenge. (presented from a new 2K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative!)