Films

Solomon Northup’s Odyssey

Film - Feature | December 1 | 4 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Based on the 1853 memoir of a Northern black man kidnapped into slavery, Gordon Parks’s made-for-TV drama predates 12 Years a Slave by almost three decades. It has “a somber lyricism that’s hard to shake” (Bilge Ebiri).

Blow-Up

Film - Feature | December 1 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

“Set in a vividly mod Swinging London, Antonioni’s first English-language film [is] a cryptic murder mystery . . . a landmark of the decade’s observational outrage and Pop disposability” (Time Out).

Antonio Gaudí

Film - Documentary | December 2 | 6:30 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Hiroshi Teshigahara’s study of the visionary Catalan architect’s work, scored by the great Toru Takemitsu. “A masterpiece of visual poetry and aesthetic rumination” (Time Out New York).

Green Snake

Film - Feature | December 2 | 8:15 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Hong Kong action maestro Tsui Hark delivers a wildly over-the-top wuxia fantasy about two snake sisters (Maggie Cheung and Joey Wang) so fascinated (or disgusted) with mankind that they take human form.

Experimental Latin American Women Filmmakers

Film - Feature | December 3 | 4:30 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

This program showcases female filmmakers who sought to carve out a place within the male-dominated world of Latin American independent audiovisual production. 
In person: Ángela López Ruiz

Saving Capitalism Film Screening and Q&A: with Professor Robert Reich

Film - Documentary | December 4 | 5:30 p.m. | International House, Chevron Auditorium

Speaker/Performer:  Robert Reich, Goldman School of Public Policy

Sponsor:  Goldman School of Public Policy

General admission tickets will be available at http://tinyurl.com/savingcapitalism on Monday, November 13 at noon.

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Join Robert Reich, the Directors and Producers of the film, and the Goldman School of Public Policy for a special Q&A and screening of Saving Capitalism.

A pivotal moment in American history:

In Saving Capitalism, Robert Reich steps out of the liberal bubble, and goes...   More >

Tickets required:Free

Ticket info:   Tickets go on sale November 13. Buy tickets online

I Am Cuba

Film - Feature | December 6 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

This portrait of revolutionary Cuba, written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko and brimming with bravura camerawork, is an extraordinary example of “pure” cinema in the service of politics.

American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs: December's Movie at Moffitt

Film - Documentary | December 6 | 7-9 p.m. | 405 Moffitt Undergraduate Library

Sponsor:  Library

What does it mean to be an American revolutionary today? Grace Lee Boggs is a 98-year-old Chinese American writer, activist, and philosopher in Detroit. Rooted for more than 70 years in the African American movement, she has devoted her life to an evolving revolution that encompasses the contradictions of America's past and its potentially radical future. This documentary presents Boggs's...   More >

Attendance restrictions:  Must have a UCB student ID for entrance.

Kabala

Film - Feature | December 7 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Magic spells lend a helping hand in this poetic feature about a young man’s troubled relationship with his native village in Mali.

The First Teacher

Film - Feature | December 8 | 4 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Andrei Konchalovsky’s first feature, set in a Kirghiz village shortly after the Revolution. “The beauty of tradition and the need for change . . . expressed with a deft simplicity of style and a rare quality of emotion” (Michel Ciment).

Faces Places

Film - Documentary | December 8 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Forever young-at-heart filmmaker (and French New Wave legend) Agnès Varda teams up with hipster artist JR on a road trip across rural France. A first-rate achievement in Varda’s brilliant career.

Antonio Gaudí

Film - Documentary | December 9 | 4 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Hiroshi Teshigahara’s study of the visionary Catalan architect’s work, scored by the great Toru Takemitsu. “A masterpiece of visual poetry and aesthetic rumination” (Time Out New York).

Cléo from 5 to 7

Film - Feature | December 9 | 6 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Shot entirely on location in the streets of Paris, Cléo chronicles two hours in the life of a pop singer. A classic work of the French New Wave, “almost unique in the history of movies” (Pauline Kael).

Center Stage

Film - Feature | December 9 | 8 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Maggie Cheung stars in Stanley Kwan’s modernist biopic on the life and tragic early death of Chinese film star Ruan Lingyu. “A masterpiece . . . the greatest Hong Kong film I've seen” (Jonathan Rosenbaum).

The Passion of Joan of Arc

Film - Feature | December 10 | 2 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Carl Dreyer’s 1928 film focuses on the face as a landscape of the soul. Pauline Kael called it “one of the greatest of all movies.”

The Passion of Joan of Arc

Film - Feature | December 10 | 2-3:40 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Carl Dreyer’s 1928 film focuses on the face as a landscape of the soul. Pauline Kael called it “one of the greatest of all movies.”

Pour la suite du monde

Film - Feature | December 10 | 4 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Michel Brault and Pierre Perrault beautifully evoke the rhythms of rural life and language in this enchanting documentary about traditional customs on an isolated island in Quebec.

In the Battlefields

Film - Feature | December 10 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

A young girl tries to befriend her aunt’s teenage maid in this keenly observed coming-of-age tale from Lebanon, set in war-torn 1980s Beirut.

Faces Places

Film - Documentary | December 13 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Forever young-at-heart filmmaker (and French New Wave legend) Agnès Varda teams up with hipster artist JR on a road trip across rural France. A first-rate achievement in Varda’s brilliant career.

Festival Favorite Animated Films

Film - Animated | December 14 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Award-winning films by Polish animation artists who explore human relationships in varied and innovative ways, from uninhibited humor to surrealism.

Mildred Pierce

Film - Feature | December 15 | 4 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Joan Crawford won an Oscar for her driven performance in this noir melodrama that exposed the nightmare side of upward mobility and domestic virtue.

Dam Street

Film - Feature | December 15 | 4 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

An unexpected pregnancy transforms the life of a teenage girl in a small riverside town, who still struggles to live down her past ten years later, in Li Yu’s elegantly composed Chinese drama.

The Passion of Joan of Arc

Film - Feature | December 16 | 6:15 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Carl Dreyer’s 1928 film focuses on the face as a landscape of the soul. Pauline Kael called it “one of the greatest of all movies.”

Hero

Film - Feature | December 16 | 8:15 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, and Tony Leung Chiu-wai propel Zhang Yimou’s gorgeously colorful wuxia tribute, set in ancient China. “Not so much a historical epic as a kind of highly determined ballet” (New Yorker).

Members and Friends Polar Express Movie Showing

Film - Animated | December 17 | 3:30-5:10 p.m. |  Lawrence Hall of Science

Sponsor:  Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS)

Enjoy a special showing of Polar Express on December 17 at 3:30 p.m. for Members and their guests that includes complimentary popcorn. Tickets to this special showing of ​Polar Express, as well as our general public showings, can be purchased by Hall Members in advance online. Tickets can be picked up at the Visitor Services Desk on the day of the movie...   More >

Attendance restrictions:  Hall Members Only

Tickets required:$4

Ticket info:   Buy tickets online

Faces Places

Film - Documentary | December 17 | 4 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Forever young-at-heart filmmaker (and French New Wave legend) Agnès Varda teams up with hipster artist JR on a road trip across rural France. A first-rate achievement in Varda’s brilliant career.

Emerging Artists

Film - Animated | December 17 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

A stunning variety of styles and techniques is on display in works by the new generation of Polish animated filmmakers, including Ewa Borysewicz, Anita Kwiatowska-Naqvi, Tomasz Siwinski, Piotr Szczepanowicz, and more.

More Animated Film Festival Favorites

Film - Animated | December 20 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

From puppets to epics, this program of recent animation from Poland features Academy Award winners and festival hits by Suzie Templeton, Kamil Polak, and others.

What's a Human Anyway?

Film - Feature | December 21 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Reha Erdem’s innovative group portrait of the inhabitants of an apartment building in Istanbul serves as a comic exploration of what it means to be human.

Unforgiven

Film - Feature | December 22 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Clint Eastwood’s Western opus chronicles a retired, reformed gunman roped back into action by a much younger (and dumber) man. “A tense, hard-edged, superbly dramatic yarn” (Todd McCarthy, Variety).

Throne of Blood

Film - Feature | December 23 | 6 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Akira Kurosawa’s Noh-influenced version of Macbeth is “the most brilliant and original attempt ever made to put Shakespeare on screen” (Time). The towering Toshiro Mifune stars.

Mildred Pierce

Film - Feature | December 23 | 8:15 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Joan Crawford won an Oscar for her driven performance in this noir melodrama that exposed the nightmare side of upward mobility and domestic virtue.

Mildred Pierce

Film - Feature | December 27 | 2 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Joan Crawford won an Oscar for her driven performance in this noir melodrama that exposed the nightmare side of upward mobility and domestic virtue.

Cléo from 5 to 7

Film - Feature | December 27 | 4:30 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Shot entirely on location in the streets of Paris, Cléo chronicles two hours in the life of a pop singer. A classic work of the French New Wave, “almost unique in the history of movies” (Pauline Kael).

Ran

Film - Feature | December 27 | 6:30 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

King Lear in feudal Japan, with Tatsuya Nakadai as the lord who divides his kingdom among his three sons, with disastrous results. “A majestic piece of filmmaking” (Village Voice).

Faces Places

Film - Documentary | December 28 | 4:30 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Forever young-at-heart filmmaker (and French New Wave legend) Agnès Varda teams up with hipster artist JR on a road trip across rural France. A first-rate achievement in Varda’s brilliant career.

Le cercle rogue

Film - Feature | December 28 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Alain Delon, Gian-Maria Volonté, and Yves Montand star as thief, convict, and lawman in Jean-Pierre Melville’s “dazzling epic of love, guns, gangsters, and cigarettes” (Los Angeles Times).

My Neighbor Totoro: English Language Version

Film - Animated | December 29 | 2 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Two sisters encounter wood sprites, magical trees, and flying “cat buses” in this enchanting tale that has become one of the most beloved of all family films.
RECOMMENDED FOR AGES 4 & UP

Unforgiven

Film - Feature | December 29 | 4 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Clint Eastwood’s Western opus chronicles a retired, reformed gunman roped back into action by a much younger (and dumber) man. “A tense, hard-edged, superbly dramatic yarn” (Todd McCarthy, Variety).

Last Year at Marienbad

Film - Feature | December 29 | 7 p.m. |  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sponsor:  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

It’s déjà vu all over the place in Alain Resnais’s elegant, labyrinthine puzzle, written by Alain Robbe-Grillet and starring Delphine Seyrig.